This time the delivery was every as entertaining as I’d expected Frank’s
to be. A baby boy again and she called him James. Her second virgin
birth, she said, and she didn’t mind at all that he was as much of a
mess as she was. She said that was just proof that he, too, was favored
by God and brought into the world without a need to wallow in the
depravity of sex. I knew then that she was as mad as a hatter.” Bobby
knew he had to remain sober, and he was aware of the danger of too much
bourbon after a night of too little sleep. But he had a hunch that he
was burning it off as fast as he drank it, at least for now. He took
another sip before he said,
“You’re not telling us that beefy hulk is hermaphroditic too?”
“Oh, no,” Fogarty said.
“Worse than that.” CANDY OPENED the door.
“What do you want?”
“He’s here, in town, right now,” she said.
His eyes widened.
“You mean Frank?”
“Yes.”
“WORSE,” Bobby said numbly.
He got up from the sofa long enough to put his glass on the desk. It
was still three-quarters full, but he suddenly decided that even bourbon
would not be an effective tranquilizer in this case.
Julie seemed to reach the same conclusion, and put her glass aside too.
“James-or Candy, if you wish-was born with four testes instead of two,
but with no male organ. Now, at birth, male infants all carry their
testes safely in their abdominal cavity, and the testes descend later,
during infant maturation. But Candy’s never descended and never could,
because there was no scrotum for them to descend into. And for another
thing, there’s a strange excrescence of bone that would prevent their
descent. So they’ve remained within his abdominal cavity. But I would
guess they’ve functioned well, busily producing quite large amounts of
testosterone, which is related to development of musculature and partly
explains his formidable size.”
“So he’s incapable of having sex,” Bobby said.
“With his testicles undescended and no organ for copulation, I’d say
he’s got a shot at being the most chaste man ever lived.” Bobby had
come to loathe the old man’s laugh.
“But four gonads, he’s producing a flood of testosterone, and does more
than help build muscles-doesn’t it?” Fogarty nodded.
“To put it in the language of a med journal: excess testosterone, over
an extended period of time alters normal brain function, sometimes
radically, and it’s causative factor of socially unacceptable levels of
aggressi To put it in layman’s language: this guy is seriously stoked
sexual tension he can’t possibly release, he’s rechanneledenergy into
other outlets, mainly acts of incredible viole and he’s as dangerous as
any monster any moviemaker dreamed up.” ALTHOUGH SHE HAD released the
owl as the storm drewViolet still inhabited Darkle and Zitha, taking
their fear a from them when the lightning flared and the thunder boo
Even as she stood before Candy, at the door to his room, was listening
to Fogarty tell the Dakotas about her brother’s deformity. She knew
about it already, of course, for within family their mother had referred
to it was God’s sign that Candy was the most special of all of them.
Likewise, and in some way Violet had been aware that this deformity was
related to great wildness in Candy, the thing that made him so po fully
attractive.
Now she stood before him, wanting to touch his huge a feel the sculpted
muscles, but she restrained herself.
“He’ Fogarty’s house.” That surprised him.
“Mother said Fogarty was an instrument of God. He brought us into the
world, four virgin bi Why would he harbor Frank? Frank’s on the dark
side no
“That’s where he is,” Violet said.
“And a couple. His na BobbY. Hers is Julie.”
“Dakota,” he whispered.
”
At Fogarty’s. Make him pay for Samantha, Candy. Bring him back here
after you’ve killed him, and let us feed him the cats. He hated the
cats, and he’ll hate being part offorever.” JULIE’S TEMPER, not always
easily controlled, was dangerously near the flashpoint. As lightning
shocked the night outside and thunder again protested, she counseled