Island of the Sequined Love Nun

you. You're the one who got me into this business."
    "Exactly. You're thirty years old, man. You have to start thinking for yourself. And with your head, not your dick."
    Tucker looked at the bandages in his lap. "I'm sorry. It all got out of hand. It was like flying on autopilot. I didn't mean to…"
    "Time to take the controls, buddy."
    "Jake, something weird happened during the crash. I'm not sure if it was a hallucination or what. There was someone else in the cockpit."
    "You mean besides the whore?"
    "Yeah, just for a second, there was a guy in the copilot seat. He talked to me. Then he disappeared."
    Jake sighed. "There's no insanity plea for crashing a plane, Tuck. You lost a lot of blood."
    "This was before I got hurt. While the plane was still skidding.
    "Here." Jake tucked a silver flask under Tuck's pillow and punched him in the shoulder. "I'll call you, man." He turned and walked away.
    Tuck called after him, "What if it was an angel or something?"
    "Then you're in the Enquirer next week too," Jake said from the door. "Get some sleep."

4 – Pinnacle of the Pink Pyramid
    A low buzz of anticipation ran through the halls of the hospital. Reporters checked the batteries in their microrecorders and cell phones. Orderlies and nurses lingered in the hallways in hope of getting a glimpse of the celebrity. The FAA men straightened their ties and shot their cuffs. One receptionist in administration, who was only two distributorships away from earning her own pink Oldsmobile ducked into an examining room and sucked lungfuls of oxygen to chase the dizziness that comes from meeting one's Messiah. Mary Jean was coming.
    Mary Jean Dobbins did not travel with an entourage, bodyguards, or any other of the decorative leeches commonly attached to the power-wielding rich.
    "God is my bodyguard," Mary Jean would say.
    She carried a.38-caliber gold-plated Lady Smith automatic in her bag: the Clara Barton Commemorative Model, presented to her by the Daughters of the Confederacy at their annual "Let's Lynch Leroy" pecan pie bakeoff, held every Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (She didn't agree with their politics, but the belles could sure sell some makeup. If the South did not rise again, it wouldn't be for lack of foundation.)
    Today, as Mary Jean came through the doors of the main lobby, she was flanked by a tall predatory woman in a black business suit-a severe contrast to Mary Jean's soft pastel blue ensemble with matching bag and pumps. "Strength and femininity are not exclusive, ladies." She was sixty-five; matronly but elegant. Her makeup was perfect, but not overdone. She wore a sapphire-and-diamond pin whose value approximated the gross national product of Zaire.
    She greeted every orderly and nurse with a smile, asked after their families, thanked them for their compassionate work, flirted when appropriate, and tossed compliments over her shoulder as she passed, without ever missing a step. She left a wake of acutely charmed fans, even among the cynical and stubborn.
    Outside Tucker's room the predatory woman-a lawyer-broke formation and confronted the maggotry of reporters, allowing Mary Jean to slip past.
    She poked her head inside. "You awake, slugger?"
    Tuck was startled by her voice, yanked out of his redundant reverie of unemployment, imprisonment, and impotence. He wanted to pull the sheets over his head and quietly die.
    "Mary Jean."
    The makeup magnate moved to his bedside and took his hand, all compassion and caring. "How are you feeling?"
    Tucker looked away from her. "I'm okay."
    "Do you need anything? I'll have it here in a Texas jiffy."
    "I'm fine," Tucker said. She always made him feel like he'd just struck out in his first Little League game and she was consoling him with milk and cookies. The fact that he'd once tried to seduce her doubled the humiliation. "Jake told me that you're having me moved to Houston. Thank you."
    "I have to keep an eye on you, don't I?" She patted his hand. "You sure you're feeling well enough for a talk?"
    Tucker nodded. He wasn't buying the outpouring of warm fuzzies she was selling. He'd seen her doing business on the plane.
    "That's good, honey," Mary Jean said, rising and looking around the room for the first time. "I'll have some flowers sent up. A touch of color will brighten things up, won't it? Something fragrant too. The constant smell of disinfectant must be disturbing."
    "A little," Tuck said.
    She wheeled on her heel and looked at him. Her smile went hard. Tuck saw