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hope, but neither did it offer the hopelessness of Shadows. They had no choice. At the very least, Edman was dangerously unethical, and it was probable he was mad, cunningly mad, passing his madness off as a clever form of sanity, infecting everyone and fooling even himself. It was, she thought, a little dreamlike to be doing something so extreme.

'We'll need money,' she said. 'I've got credit cards and... Why are you looking at me that way?' 'For a minute I thought I'd lost you,' he said.

The engine caught, exploded to a roar, then died as Jocundra's foot slipped off the clutch. Overanxious, she failed twice to restart it, but finally succeeded and backed the van until it was facing the drive and headed out. The headlights veered across the grounds, spotlighting a menagerie of leafy shapes, and the side mirror showed the house receding against the darkness, doll-sized, a lantern-lit confection of rose and white topped by a rhinestone bauble. Jocundra's throat was dry. She had almost lost her resolve half a dozen times before they reached the parking lot, and Donnell's plan for the gate -what little he had revealed of it - did nothing to bolster her confidence; her hands and feet, though, honored her commitment, working the gearshift and pedals seemingly without her cooperation. She pulled up close to the gate. Branches of the magnolia bush beside it scraped Donnell's door. He slumped down, pretending unconsciousness. The headlights sprayed between the bars, playing over the glistening tarpaper of the gatehouse and the guard sidled forth, sleepily scratching his ribs. 'What you want?' he called. He yawned and blinked away the glare, settling his holster around his hips: a pudding-faced, pot-bellied man wearing chinos.

'I've got an emergency!' Jocundra called back, hoping to inject an appropriate desperation into her voice. 'One of the orderlies! It's his heart!'

'I don't see no doctor with you. Can't let you by without no doctor.' He waved her back to the house.

'Get out!' hissed Donnell. 'Convince him!'

She climbed out. 'Please,' she said, pressing against the bars. 'He's had a coronary!'

The guard's eyes flicked to her breasts. 'I wish they'd get them damn phones straightened out. Awright.' He punched a button set into the masonry, and the gate whined open a foot. He slipped inside, and she stepped out of his way, standing at the front of the van while he slapped the magnolia branches aside and shone the flashlight in the window to check on Donnell. Jocundra heard a rustle from the bush behind him and saw a pair of blazing green eyes emerging from the welter of white blossoms and waxy leaves. 'This ol' boy ain't no orderly,' said the guard, and something swooshed through the air and struck his neck, then struck again. Jocundra jumped back, coming up against the gate, and the guard fell backwards out of sight behind the van. In a moment Richmond stood, stuffing the. guard's gun into his belt. Jocundra moved out onto the road, putting the bars between them.

'You better be scared, lady,' he said, and laughed. 'When you motherfuckers made me, you created a monster.'

He ducked back into the bush, then came around the front of the van, holding his guitar. Underlit by the headlights, his face was seamed and gruesome; his eyes effloresced. Donnell climbed down, limped to the gate, and pushed the button. The iron bars swung open. 'Pull it on through,' he said to Richmond.

As Richmond drove the van out, the moon sailed from behind the clouds and everything grew very sharp and bright. The gate whined shut. Pearly reflections rippled over the side of the van; the road arrowed off toward the swamp, a bone-white strip vanishing between dark walls of cypress, oak and palmetto. Fresh mosquito bites suddenly itched on Jocundra's arm, as if the moon had broken through her own cloudiness, her confusion, illuminating her least frailty. She did not want to be with Richmond. The road was a wild, unreckonable place crossed by devious slants of shadow.

The guard moaned.

'Hurry up!' yelled Richmond.

Donnell was doing something to the lock mechanism, molding voluptuous shapes in the air around it with his hands; he stopped, apparently satisfied, stared at it, then stepped over to the wall and jabbed the control button several times.

The gate remained shut.

'Man, I can handle this road at twice the speed,' said Richmond from the back of the van. 'She's drivin' like a fuckin' old lady.'

'She's got a license,' said Donnell patiently. 'You don't.'

'Listen, man!' Richmond