Chapter 3

“That’s why they could never beat the Brits and the Krauts,” he once told a shocked John Virgil. “Too nancy, too nelly. Always worried about which napkin ring to use, as if the world gives a damn. The Krauts were able to stuff six million Jews in the ovens, because those Froggys were more concerned about which sauce to serve with the fish. Remember it, boy: Substance always trumps style. Always.”

And here at last was a way to prove this, the great lesson of Se?or’s twisted life—by chaining Monsieur’s lovely seed, rising like a sea-foam Venus before him, to Adelia’s illegitimate spawn.

“Not to fret, my dear,” Se?or said to the goddess, with what passed for a smile. “You just come up to the porch and sit for a while, and we’ll have that tire fixed in a jiffy.”

“Miguel,” he hollered to the hapless worker who was watering the pink impatiens that lined the long walkway leading up to the house. “Miguel, fetch John Virgil immediately.”