“My name’s Jordan Banks,” he lied, as Leilani had said he would. “Everyone calls me Jorry.”

Maddoc offered his hand. Micky almost cringed as she shook it. She had come here knowing she couldn’t mention Leilani’s failure to keep a dinner invitation. The girl’s best interests would not be served by revealing that she’d made friends next door.

Micky had hoped to see Leilani, to suggest by one indirection or another that she wouldn’t go to bed tonight until the girl could sneak out to rendezvous after Maddoc and Sinsemilla were asleep.

“I’m sorry, it’s not terribly considerate of me, keeping you here on the doorstep,” Maddoc apologized. “I’d invite you in, but my wife’s suffering a migraine, and the slightest noise in the house pierces her like a spike through the skull. During migraines, we have to whisper and pussyfoot around as if the floor’s actually a drum.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. That’s fine. I just wanted to say hello, and welcome. I hope she’s feeling better soon.”

“She can’t eat when she’s got a migraine—but she’s starved when it passes. She’ll love these cookies. Very kind. See you soon.”

Micky backed down the steps as the door closed, hesitated on the dead lawn, trying to think of another ploy to let Leilani know that she’d come here. Then she worried that Maddoc might be watching her.

Returning home, eliciting a new round of shrieks from the crows that stood sentinel on the back fence, Micky heard his mellifluous voice in her mind: My mother, God rest her soul, made more varieties of pecan cookies than you could shake a stick at.

How smoothly the words God rest her soul had flowed off his tongue, how natural and convincing they had sounded—when in fact he believed in neither God nor the existence of the soul.

Hands wrapped around a glass of iced tea, Geneva waited at the kitchen table.

Micky sat, poured tea, and told her about Maddoc. “Leilani won’t be here for dinner. But I know she’ll come to see me after they’ve gone to sleep. I’ll wait for her no matter how late it gels.”

“I wondered . . . could she stay with Clarissa?” Aunt Gen suggested.

“And the parrots?” “At least they’re not crocodiles.”

“If I find the public record of Maddoc’s marriage, I can get a reporter interested. He’s kept a low profile for four years, but the press would still be curious. The mystery ought to intrigue them. Why hide the marriage? Was the marriage why he left the public stage?” “Sinsemilla—she’s a media circus all by herself,” Geneva said. “If the press gives it some play, someone’ll come forward who knows Lukipela existed. The boy wasn’t hidden away his whole life. Even if his nutcase mother never settled in one place for long, she’s memorable. People who knew her even briefly are likely to remember her. Some will remember Luki, too. Then Maddoc will have to explain where the boy is.”

“How are you going to find a record of the marriage?” “I’m brooding on it.”

“What if a lot of reporters respect Maddoc and think you just have a grudge against him? Like that Bronson woman?”

“They probably will. He gets mostly good press. But reporters have to have some curiosity, don’t they? Isn’t that their job’?” “You sound determined to make it their job.” Micky picked up the penguin figurine, which earlier Aunt Gen had explained to her. “I won’t let him hurt Leilani. I won’t.” “I’ve never heard you like this before, little mouse.” Micky met Geneva’s eyes. “Like what?” “So determined.”

“It’s not just Leilani’s life hanging by a thread, Aunt Gen. It’s mine, too.” “I know.”

Chapter 45

CRACKERLESS, POLLY drives with an open bag of cheese-flavored popcorn in her lap and a cold can of beer in the built-in cupholder on her customized command chair.

Having an open container of any alcoholic beverage in a moving vehicle is against the law, but Curtis refrains from advising Polly about this infraction. He doesn’t want to repeat the errors that he made with Gabby, who had taken extreme offense at being reminded that the law requires seat belts to be worn at all times.

Cleaving prairie, a lonely two-lane blacktop highway runs north-northwest from Neary Ranch. According to the twins, the southbound lane, not taken, leads eventually to a cruel desert and ultimately to the even crueler games of Las Vegas.

They have no destination in mind yet, no plan to ensure justice for the Hammond family, no idea of what future Curtis might expect or with whom he might live. Until the situation clarifies and they have time to think, the twins’ only concern is keeping him free and alive.

Curtis approves of this scheme. Flexibility is any fugitive’s greatest strength, and a fugitive burdened by a rigid plan makes easy quarry of himself. Mom’s wisdom. Anyway, he will leave the sisters soon, so planning beyond the next few hours would be pointless.

Polly drives fast. The Fleetwood rushes across the prairie, like a nuclear-powered battle wagon on a medium-gravity moon.

In the lounge, Cass relaxes on a sofa that backs up to the port flank of the motor home, thirdly behind the driver’s seat. The dog lies beside her, chin resting on her thigh, blissfully assuming a right of continuous cuddling, and having that assumption rewarded.

At the sisters’ gentle insistence, Curtis occupies the co-pilot’s chair, which boasts various power features, including one that turns it away from the road, toward the driver. Having powered the seat to port, he can see both women.

Although wearing only the beach-towel sarong, he’s no longer self-conscious. He feels quite Polynesian, like Bing Crosby in The Road to Bali.

Instead of chunks of coconut or a bowl of poi, instead of the shredded flesh of a wild pig spiced with eel tongue, he has his own bag of cheese-flavored popcorn and a can of Orange Crush, though he had asked for a beer.

Better still, he’s blessed by the company of the Spelkenfelter sisters, Castoria and Polluxia. He finds the details of their lives to be unlike anything he knows from films or books.

They were born and raised in a bucolic town in Indiana, which Polly calls “a long yawn of bricks and boards.” According to Cass, the most exciting pastimes the area offers are watching cows graze, watching chickens peck, and watching hogs sleep, although Curtis can perceive no entertainment value in two of these three activities.

Their father, Sidney Spelkenfelter, is a professor of Greek and Roman history at a private college, and his wife, Imogene, teaches art history. Sidney and Imogene are kind and loving parents, but they are also, says Cass, “as naive as goldfish who think the world ends at the bowl.” Because their parents were academics, too, Sidney and Imogene have resided ever in tenured security, explaining life to others but living a pale version of it.

Co-valedictorians of their high-school class, Cass and Polly skipped college in favor of Las Vegas. Within a month, they were the centerpiece feathered-and-sequined nudes in a major hotel’s showroom extravaganza with a cast of seventy-four dancers, twelve showgirls, nine specialty acts, two elephants, four chimps, six dogs, and a python.

Because of a mutual lifelong interest in juggling and trapeze acrobatics, within a year they were elevated to Las –Vegas stardom in a ten-million-dollar stage-musical spectacular featuring a theme of extraterrestrial, contact. They played acrobatic alien queens plotting to turn all human males into love slaves.

“That was when we first got interested in UFOs,” Cass reveals.

“In the opening dance number,” Polly reminisces, “we descended these neon stairs from a giant flying saucer. It was awesome.”

“And this time we didn’t have to be na*ed the whole show,” says Cass. “We came out of the saucer nude, of course—“

“Like any alien love queens would,” adds Polly, and they reveal delicious giggles that remind Curtis of the immortal Goldie Hawn.

Curtis laughs, too, amused by their irony and self-mockery.

“After the first nine minutes,” Cass says, “we wore lots of cool costumes better suited to juggling and acrobatic trapeze work.”

“Trying to juggle honeydews while nude,” Polly explains, “you risk grabbing the wrong melons and ruining the act.”

They both giggle again, but this time the joke eludes Curtis.

“Then we were nude in the last number,” Polly says, “except for the feathered headdress, sequined G-string, and stiletto-heeled ankle boots. The producer insisted this was ‘authentic’ love-queen attire.”

Cass says, “Tell me, Curtis, how many alien love queens have you seen wearing gold-lame, stiletto-heeled ankle boots?”

“None,” he answers truthfully.

“That was our argument exactly. They look stupid. Not queenly in any corner of the universe. We didn’t mind the feathered headdresses, but how many alien love queens have you met who wear those, either?”

“None.”

“To be fair, you can’t disprove our producer’s contention,” says Polly. “After all, how many alien love queens have you really seen?”

“Only two,” Curtis admits, “but neither of them was a juggler.”

For some reason, the twins find this highly amusing.

“But I guess you could say one of them was something of an acrobat,” Curtis elaborates, “because she could bend over backward until she was able to lick the heels of her own feet.”

This statement only rings new peals of laughter and more silvery giggles from the Spelkenfelter girls.

“It isn’t an erotic thing,” he hastens to clarify. “She bends backward for the reason a rattlesnake coils. From that position, she can spring twenty feet and snap your head off with her mandibles.”

“Try to turn that into a Vegas musical number!” Cass suggests, joining her sister in yet more laughter.

“Well, I don’t know everything about Las Vegas stage shows,” Curtis says, “but you’d probably have to leave out the part where she injects her eggs into the severed head.”

Through genuinely explosive laughter, Polly says, “Not if you did it with enough glitter, sweetie.”

“You’re a pistol, Curtis Hammond,” says Cass.

“You’re a hoot,” agrees Polly.

Listening to the twins giggle, watching Polly drive with one hand and wipe tears of laughter off her face with the other, Curtis decides that he must be wittier than he has heretofore realized.

Maybe he’s getting better at socializing.

Speeding northwest over a seemingly infinite stretch of two-lane blacktop as beautiful and mysterious as any view of classic American highway in any movie, speeding also toward a setting sun that fires the prairie into molten red-and-gold glass, as the mighty engine of the Fleetwood rumbles reassuringly, in the company of the fabulous Castoria and the fabulous Polluxia and the God-connected Old Yeller, with cheese popcorn and Orange Crush, showered and fully in control of his biological identity, feeling more confident than at any time in recent memory, Curtis believes he must be the luckiest boy alive.

When Cass excuses herself to take Curtis’s clothes out of the dryer, the dog follows her, and the boy turns his chair to face the road ahead. Co-pilot in name only, he nevertheless feels empowered by Polly’s fast and expert driving.

For a while they talk about the Fleetwood. Polly knows every detail of the big vehicle’s construction and operation. This is a 44,500-pound, 45-foot-long behemoth with a Cummins diesel engine, an Allison Automatic 4000 MH transmission, a 150-gallon fuel tank, a 160-gallon water tank, and a GPS navigation system. She speaks of it as lovingly as young men in the movies speak of their hot rods.

He’s surprised to hear that this customized version cost seven hundred thousand dollars, and when he makes the assumption that the twins’ wealth resulted from their success in Vegas, Polly corrects his misapprehension. They became financially independent—but not truly wealthy—following marriage to the Flackberg brothers. “But that’s a tragic story, sweetie, and I’m in too good a mood to tell it now.”

Because of a mutual lifelong interest in the mechanical design and repair of motor vehicles, Polly and Cass are well suited to the continuous travel that marks this phase of their lives. Regardless of what breaks or wears out, they can fix it, given the necessary spare parts, a basic supply of which they carry with them.

“There’s nothing better in this world,” declares Polly, “than getting dirty, oily, greasy, and sweaty while working on your wheels— and in the end putting wrong right with your own hands.”

These women are the cleanest, most well-groomed, most sparkling, sweetest-smelling people whom Curtis has ever seen, and though he’s hugely enamored of them in their current condition, he is intrigued by the prospect of seeing them dirty, oily, greasy, sweaty, wielding wrenches and power tools, confronting a recalcitrant 44,500-pound mechanical beast and, with their skill and determination, returning it to full operation.

Indeed, a mental image of Castoria and Polluxia, in the throes of engine-repair delight, pulses so persistently through his thoughts that he wonders why it has such great appeal. Odd.

Trailed by Old Yeller, Cass returns to report that she has finished ironing Curtis’s clothes.

Retreating to the bathroom to trade sarong for proper dress, he’s saddened that his time with the Spelkenfelter twins is drawing to an end. For their safety, he must leave at the first opportunity.

By the time he returns, fully clothed, to the co-pilot’s seat, the last sullen red light of sunset constricts in a low arc along a portion of the western horizon, like the upper curve of a bloodshot eye belonging to a murderous giant watching from just beyond the edge of the earth. Curtis is settling into his seat when the arc dims from mordant red to brooding purple; soon the purple fades as if the eye has fallen shut in sleep, but still the night seems to be watching.

If farms or ranches exist out in this lonely vastness, they are set so far back from the highway that even from the elevated cockpit of the Fleetwood, their lights are screened by wild grass, by widely scattered copses of trees, and primarily by sheer distance.

Rare southbound vehicles approach, rocketing by at velocities that suggest they are fleeing from something. Even fewer northbound vehicles pass them, not because the northbound lane is less busy, but because Polly demands performance from the motor home; only the most determined speeders overtake her, including someone in a silver 1970 Corvette that elicits admiring whistles from the car-savvy sisters.

Because of mutual interests in extreme skiing, skydiving, hard-boiled detective fiction, competitive rodeo bronc-busting, ghosts and poltergeists, big-band music, wilderness-survival techniques, and the art of scrimshaw among many other things, the twins are fascinating conversationalists, as much fun to listen to as they are to look at.