Crescent City Connection

know if there were ten people in there or fifty, and we had no idea where they were. I could have walked right into the lions’ den.”
    “You did, actually. It’s just that the lions were a little preoccupied.”
    Skip nodded, and swallowed the last bite of her sandwich. She considered ordering another. “There weren’t that many when you realize how big the house was—they were all spread out trying to cover every entrance.”
    “Would you do it again?”
    “Not for a million dollars and a castle in Spain. Not if I got to be queen of England. No way and uh-uh.” She wondered if Lou-Lou would ask how she felt about the people who had died in the blast and the man she had killed the day before, but she didn’t and that was good, because Skip didn’t want to talk about it.
    She felt oddly separate from their deaths—“in denial,” Lou-Lou might say, but if denial would work that was fine with her. She had shot Delavon in the middle of a family reunion; these other deaths were not so real, and she wanted to keep it that way.
    “Do you know who’s the cutest thing in the world?” Lou-Lou was saying. “Hey, Skip—you with me?”
    “Oh, yeah. The new boyfriend.”
    “Not really. That was just a joke, but honestly, he’s adorable.”
    “Who?”
    “The White Monk.”
    “Oh, God, he’s perfect for you. He’s a sweetie pie, which would be a welcome change, and has delusions you could work on the rest of your life.”
    “What delusions?”
    “About killing somebody. Either that or he’s a liar, but I kind of think he really thinks it.”
    “That’s no delusion. That’s just his OCD.”
    “His what?”
    “Obsessive-compulsive disorder. He doesn’t think he killed somebody, he just thinks he might have.”
    “Oh, right. That’s what he says. What’s the difference?”
    “OCD is a very interesting thing—people who suffer from it are like philosophers, in a way. They want to know how you can really know something. Because they can’t. They’re pretty sure they didn’t kill somebody, but they just can’t be absolutely sure. They’re pretty sure their hands are clean, but they still might have to wash them twenty-seven times a day. They can remember checking the door thirty times to see if it’s locked, but they still can’t be sure it is.”
    “Oh, my God.”
    Cindy Lou nodded. “It’s not a fun thing to have. And Isaac’s kind of a case—you usually get washers or checkers or doubters. He doesn’t seem to be into checking so much, but he’s got all the other stuff in spades. And he’s got a shitload of ‘shoulds’ on the conscious level. Poor guy.”
    “What about not talking?”
    “That seems to be voluntary—the washing and stuff isn’t. See, the other philosophical question OCD brings up is free will. They
have
to do certain stuff.”
    “Why do they have to?”
    “Something just tells them they do.”
    “What causes it? Having a dad who’s the closest thing to the devil?”
    “No, it seems to be chemical. Drugs help. Isaac didn’t know what he had till I told him. He’s hugely embarrassed, of course, to be found out—but I’m going to send him to a shrink and get him some vitamin P or something. He could get a lot better.”
    * * *
    The Monk could hardly bear the thought of her leaving, though it was going to be a lot easier being on his own again. Human relations were difficult for him, and they were about to be harder now that he’d decided to give up his silence. But the time had come for that, and for other changes. It had never occurred to him that he didn’t have to clean and shower and count—he’d simply thought he did. He’d never questioned it. So he would try Prozac or whatever it was they wanted to give him, and then he’d have more time to paint.
    The time had come to paint differently, too. He would finish the pregnant Pandora, the one Dahveed hated, and he would go on to paint other things.
    Other women.
    First the beautiful psychologist, then the magnificent bald detective. When the detective’s hair grew back, he’d paint her that way, too.
    And he’d paint his mother if she’d let him. He was going to call her soon.
    Lovelace was getting her things together now. He had bought her a backpack and a duffel to go back to school. He thought she was sniffling a bit, crying perhaps, because she’d miss him. Or maybe she was getting a cold.
    He said, “You’ll come back this summer, won’t you? Anthony says you’re the best