“What changed their minds?”

“Time,” Jezebel says. “More than anything else. It’d just been so long, for one thing. And there’s all that supposed abuse he’d suffered at Claude’s hands – this was still at a time when people were buying that as an explanation for all kinds of stuff. Plus he was a juvenile when he was committed, plus he’d done so well with his studies and all. They decided his act against his father was prompted by, let’s see, uh… ‘transitory conditions’ – and that he was not likely to commit similar acts.”

“Did Byron have any friends inside? Any special friends?” I ask.

“See, I knew you’d ask that,” Jezebel says.

“And?”

“Charley Vermillion, right? You want to know if he was a special friend of Byron? And the answer is that Byron did spend time with Charley. Charley was in Byron’s Bible study class, for one thing. And this was a real close group, according to my source. Byron was also some kind of nuthouse lawyer, mostly for the folks in his Bible group. Helped them file petitions and all. Helped them contact lawyers. I didn’t think to ask who all was in the group. You want to know?”

“Yeah, I would,” I tell her, “if you can find out.”

“You’re breaking up,” Jezebel says. “Whereabouts are you, anyway?”

“Near Houma,” Pinky says.

“I can’t hear you. I’m going to my friend Felicia’s now to watch TV. Call me tomorrow or something.” She hangs up.

“Hmmmm,” Pinky says. “That young lady is dynamite.” He makes a right turn. There’s no road noise with the BMW. I find this a little strange, as if we’re gliding through space. “Between Max and his friend Sam, and Jez, we learned a lot today.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe that list of Bible study people will give us a lead.”

“Maybe.”

“Why are you so quiet? You’re not thinking of going out to that witch doctor’s tonight, are you? Don’t be foolish, pardner.”

We roll past a gas station selling superrealistic framed artwork, paintings on glass so realistic they mimic photographs – except for the fact that every detail is in hyperfocus and the colors are unnaturally bright. Woodlands and birds and bright blue streams. The flag is a feature in many of them, along with the bald eagle. Each one has its own light source, and they glow brightly, attracting a mist of bugs. A couple of women contemplate one of the works while a man in shorts and a tank top sits on a folding chair, smoking a cigarette.

We roll on in companionable silence for some time. Pinky flips on the sound system. Half a minute of Beausoleil, and he flicks it off again. “I mean it’s one thing to throw caution to the winds,” he says, “and go all out looking for your boys. But it’s another thing to head to a shack in the swamp to spend the night with some motherfucker ain’t got no lip. And the only thing you really know about him is he was the only friend old Byron had, and – I might add – the likely source of the poison killed Claude.”

I don’t say anything.

“I’m going with you then.”

“I think it’s better if you don’t. That way, if I don’t come back, you can-”

“Call the po-lice? Jesus, Alex.”

“I just have a feeling Diment might have some idea where Byron is.”

“And he’s gonna tell you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But I got the feeling he might help me.”

“I didn’t get that feeling at all. Those folk coughin’ away in that other room? All those things tied up with string. That spooked me out good. And you’re supposed to go there at midnight? Put yourself in his trust. Whoa! Not this puppy. Explain to me why you would trust him? What about the man seems trustworthy, pardner? Huh?”

“I know what you’re saying.”

Pinky lets out a jet of air. “How you plannin’ to get out there? You even remember how to go?”

“I was thinking… a cab. And maybe you could draw me a map.”

“I’ll draw you a map. But forget the cab. I’ll give you my car.”

“I can’t take your car. What about you?”

“I’ll be asleep. I’ll have me some breakfast right at the Holiday Inn. Read the paper. You don’t call or show up by noon or so, I’ll sound the alarm. Anyway, call it an insurance policy.”

“What do you mean?”

“First of all, it’s easy to track the car. OnStar has this GPS system. Second thing is that the po-lice around here might not jump into action if some guy from Washington, D.C., gets hisself lost in the swamp.” He glances over at me. “Some of our officers might not have the utmost respect for human life. But a sixty-thousand-dollar vehicle? Something like that goes missing, you see some action then, all right.”

The car’s xenon lights tunnel into the night, illuminating unmarked roads that seem indistinguishable to me. I get lost a couple of times, despite Pinky’s painstakingly drawn map. I left plenty of spare time, though, and even with the wrong turns I arrive at Diment’s place fifteen minutes before midnight.

I step out of the car into the warm night. A sibilant insect hum rises up around me, followed by some kind of animal or bird, some jungly cry of distress that makes the hair on my neck stand up. The BMW’s lights stay on for a few moments, as if to light my way from my driveway to the door of my suburban manse. In reality, they illuminate with brutal clarity the concrete-block structure before me.

It looks like a great place to get killed. Only a dim, flickering light is visible through the one small window. A candle? I wonder for a moment if the structure has electricity, but then I remember the string of Christmas lights on the altar. I think about the weird collection of objects displayed. It is impossible to assign significance to them. What could the comb mean? A baby bottle?

On the scuffed ground in front of the door, a single tennis shoe rests on its side. It reminds me of Kevin’s Nike, the one I spotted by the gate outside the jousting arena. That creepy resonance jumpstarts an intense wave of paranoia, and it’s all I can do not to bolt.

The car gives a little click and the lights fade. I step forward a few steps and rap on the siding next to the door. No sooner have I touched the house than the beads are pulled open with a clatter. It’s as if the two men were standing just inside, waiting. They smile at me.

“Welcome, welcome,” one of them says. He’s a skinny man, with a fuzz of graying hair. He’s so thin he looks skeletal. He speaks in a high squeaky voice. “Come in.”

“I’m here to see-”

“The houngan not here,” the second man says. He’s a big man and so dark skinned the light glints off the broad planes of his face. He’s at least six-five, two-fifty, and while the skinny man scared me, I find this big man reassuring. “But first you have to get dressed,” he says in his booming baritone.

“I am dressed,” I tell them.

But, no. They tell me they have something special for me to wear. I follow the two of them, tiptoeing past the patients lying in a row against the wall. Someone moans. Another, off to the left, coughs – a terrible sound that concludes in a kind of gasping wheeze.

“In here,” the big man says, opening a door. He pulls the string and I see what I’m being shown into: a john. “You change,” he says. “We’ll wait outside.”

My new outfit is hanging on the back of the bathroom door: a white tuxedo with a red carnation in the lapel. Now I understand the reason for the question about my size. Still, it’s not reassuring. A white tuxedo…?

I’m drenched in sweat; it’s coming off me in sheets. And suddenly, I have all kinds of questions:

Why do I have to change clothes?

Why the white tuxedo? Something Karl Kavanaugh said pops into my mind, something about white doves and blood.

Just what is “an initiation ceremony”? Skip the details, just give me the general idea.

And can you really just join a bizango, or was Diment putting me on?