Island of the Sequined Love Nun

wrinkles around her mouth for the first time. "Probably reminds you of what a total fuckup you are, doesn't it?"
    Tucker gulped. She'd faked him out of his shoes. "I'm sorry, Mary Jean. I'm…"
    She raised a hand and he shut up. "You know I don't like to use profanity or firearms, so please don't push me, Tucker. A lady controls her anger."
    "Firearms?"
    Mary Jean pulled the Lady Smith automatic out of her purse and leveled it at Tucker's bandaged crotch. Strangely, he noticed that Mary Jean had chipped a nail drawing the gun and for that, he realized, she really might kill him.
    "You didn't listen to me when I told you to stop drinking. You didn't listen when I told you to stay away from my representatives. You didn't listen when I told you that if you were going to amount to anything, you had to give your life to God. You'd better damn well listen now." She racked the slide on the automatic. "Are you listening?"
    Tuck nodded. He didn't breathe, but he nodded.
    "Good. I have run this company for forty years without a hint of scandal until now. I woke up yesterday to see my face next to yours on all the morning news shows. Today it's on the cover of every newspaper and tabloid in the country. A bad picture, Tucker. My suit was out of season. And every article uses the words 'penis' and 'prostitute' over and over. T can't have that. I've worked too hard for that."
    She reached out and tugged on his catheter. Pain shot through his body and he reached for the ringer for the nurse.
    "Don't even think about it, pretty boy. I just wanted to make sure I had your attention."
    "The gun pretty much did it, Mary Jean," Tucker groaned. Fuck it, he was a dead man anyway.
    "Don't you speak to me. Just listen. This is going to disappear. You are going to disappear. You're getting out of here tomorrow and then you're going to a cabin I have up in the Rockies. You won't go home, you won't speak to any reporters, you won't say doodly squat. My lawyers will handle the legal aspects and keep you out of jail, but you will never surface again. When this blows over, you can go on with your pathetic life. But with a new name. And if you ever set foot in the state of Texas or come within a hundred yards of anyone involved in my company, I will personally shoot you dead. Do you understand?"
    "Can I still fly?"
    Mary Jean laughed and lowered the gun. "Sweetie, to a Texas way a thinkin' the only way you coulda screwed up worse is if you'd thronged a kid down a well after fessing up to being on the grassy knoll stompin' yellow roses in between shootin' the President. You ain't gonna fly, drive, walk, crawl, or spit if I have anything to say about it." She put the gun in her purse and went into the tiny bathroom to check her makeup. A quick primping and she headed for the door. "I'll send up some flowers. Y'all heal up now, honey."
    She wasn't going to kill him after all. Maybe he could win her back. "Mary Jean, I think I had a spiritual experience."
    "I don't want to hear about any of your degenerate activities."
    "No, a real spiritual experience. Like a-what do you call it?-an epiphany?"
    "Son, you don't know it, but you're as close to seeing the Lord as you've ever been in your life. Now you hush before I send you to perdition."
    She put on her best beatific smile and left the room radiating the power of positive thinking.
    Tucker pulled the covers over his head and reached for the flask Jake had left. Perdition, huh? She made it sound bad. Must be in Oklahoma.

5 – Our Lady of the Fishnet
    Stockings
    The High Priestess of the Shark People ate Chee-tos and watched afternoon talk shows over the satellite feed. She sat in a wicker emperor's chair. A red patent leather pump dangled from one toe. Red lipstick, red nails, a big red bow in her hair. But for a pair of silk seamed stockings, she was naked.
    On the screen: Meadow Malackovitch, in a neck brace, sobbed on her lawyer's shoulder-a snapshot of the pilot who had traumatized her was inset in the upper-right-hand corner. The host, a failed weatherman who now made seven figures mining trailer parks for atrocities, was reading the dubious resume of Tucker Case. Shots of the pink jet, before and after. Stock footage of Mary Jean on an airfield tarmac, followed by Case in a leather jacket.
    The High Priestess touched herself lightly, leaving a faint orange stripe of Chee-to spoor on her pubes (she was a natural blonde), then keyed the intercom that connected her to the Sorcerer.
    "What?" came