“What are you talking about?”
Zoya looked sheepish.
“Have you been listening in to my calls with Dorothy?”
“Only a little.”
Dionne shook her head and looked away. Her temporary elation faded.
“Are you really leaving?”
Dionne looked up at the sky again. “Seriously, look at these stars.”
“Dionne.” Zoya sounded annoyed.
“I’m done here,” said Dionne. “I can’t … It’s all too hard. I’ve failed.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Really?” said Dionne. “It’s a matter of time before Bunny meets a gruesome end. Bernadette and Assumpta … Well.” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. “And then, what, sixty miles thataway …” Dionne pointed in one direction and then reversed it. “Or thataway. Doesn’t matter. In Las Vegas, a nasty little scheme I came up with ages ago is ripping off suckers without me.”
“Is that the Celestial Church of New Hope?”
Dionne turned around, annoyed. “Have you been reading my emails and listening to my phone calls, too?”
“No. Not really. A little. Now, come inside.”
“I’m not coming until you tell me who you’re always texting.”
“It’s private.”
Dionne opened her mouth, but Zoya interrupted her before the words could come out.
“And yes, I know you’re going to say that I’ve been reading your emails and listening in to your chats but that’s different.”
Dionne opened her mouth again.
“And now you’re going to say it isn’t. But it is. Me texting Diller is none of your business.” Zoya’s face dropped. “Oh, crap.”
“Diller? You mean the black guy who helped Bunny with the—”
“No. No. No,” said Zoya, slapping the ground in frustration. “I would never have said that if I wasn’t outside and all dizzy and messed up.”
“Love will do that to a girl,” said Dionne.
Zoya blushed. “It’s not like that.”
“Sure. Want my advice, Sister? Make it like that. Don’t stay here – with us, I mean.”
“I like it here. Got some pretty good friends.” Zoya reached out and took Dionne’s hand.
Dionne looked down into her open face and felt her heart break. She looked away. “Seriously, kiddo, don’t follow me. I’m just another con. Following gets you nowhere. Just look at those poor saps waiting for a UFO to come down from the sky to give their lives meaning. Trust me, those things don’t happen. Life isn’t some fairy tale.”
“OK, well, I’ll take that on board,” said Zoya. “But right now, how about we get you into bed, before your hangover gets worse. Big day tomorrow.”
Dionne gave a mirthless laugh. “No, it isn’t.”
“Sure it is,” said Zoya. “It’s the day we figure this whole thing out. It’s always like this – darkest before the dawn, and then we pull it out of the fire. We’re the Sisters of the Saint. It’s what we do.”
Dionne shook her head. “Not this time. There’s more chance of a friggin’ UFO appearing from the sky and leading those poor suckers to the Promised Land. Might as well …”
“Dionne?”
Dionne sat up on the lounger.
“Dionne? You kinda stopped talking mid-sentence—”
“Shush!”
“Ehm …”
“Holy shit,” said Dionne. She ran her fingers through her hair and grabbed her head, as if she were afraid it might suddenly fly off.
“What is it?”
“I’ve got it. I mean, part of it. I’ve got a part of it.”
“Do you mean ...?”
Dionne drummed her hands on the arms of the sun lounger. “Yes. I think. Yes. We need to go get Sister Teresa. And then—”
She let out a scream. Sister Teresa was standing behind Zoya.
“So help me God, I’m going to put a bell on you! Sister, go wake up Arthur and the others.”
“You’ve been shouting for a couple of minutes,” said Zoya. “I’m guessing they’re awake.”
Dionne clapped her hands. “I’ve got it! I’ve got part of it!”
She stood up quickly. The thing about drinking hard liquor while lying down is that when you get to your feet, it has a tendency to all rush to your head. There is probably a very good scientific explanation for this phenomenon. Dionne had very little chance to consider what it might be as she pitched forward and off the side of the building.
Zoya screamed.
Forty-seven seconds later, Dionne looked up from the dumpster into which she had landed two storeys below to see the concerned faces of Sisters Teresa, Joy and Tatiana peering in at her.
“I’ve got it!” she roared. “Now, will somebody please get me out of here? It stinks!”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Arthur Faser had spent much of his life in prison. During those long lonely nights, any man’s mind would wander. Occasionally, it might have alighted on the idea of how much fun it would be to spend an evening in the company of some ladies in their sleeping attire.
The situation he now found himself in, however, was very much not the kind of slumber party he might have had in mind.
He’d been all but kicked out of bed by the near silent Sister Teresa, who he was coming to think of as a small Spanish terminator. The woman was relentless. She had turned up at his bedside wearing a nightie and her perma-scowl. He’d been relieved it had been only to call him to a meeting – other possibilities didn’t bear thinking about.
Teresa wasn’t his least favourite member of the order – that was still Sister Joy. True, she had rescued him from a biker gang, but by this point in their relationship she had also tear-gassed him, electrocuted him and shot him with a beanbag, which hurt far more than the human mind was able to imagine for something involving the word “beanbag”. She sat on the far side of the room, looking at him. She was wearing pyjamas with fluffy bunnies on them. Arthur had already pinched himself twice to verify this wasn’t a dream.
The other people in the room were the one referred to as Zoya, who was maybe twenty. She looked even younger as she sat on the couch, hugging her knees while absent-mindedly chewing on her hair. The one called Tatiana sat there in a silk dressing gown, listening quietly. Every time he had seen her, she had looked remarkably different.
