I don’t have a flashlight this time. I go down a suck hole and I’ll be gone. Little fucker up there, laying for me, thinking he’s got this wired now that we’re on his turf, he’s got me wanting to make things hard for him. But I got to know where he is first.

I wonder how crazy he is.

And I make a play to find out.

– Hey.

Nothing.

– Let me ask you something.

Still quiet.

– Why’d you go and kill the cripple?

He inhales, like a guy about to say his piece, then lets it out, says nothing.

I keep up my end of the conversation.

– Mean, just because he was a cripple, that doesn’t mean you didn’t have a reason for killing him. Just ‘cause the guy didn’t have a lower body, that doesn’t mean he didn’t do something to deserve it. I knew a guy, blind, blind as a bat blind, couldn’t see shit. Know what being blind did for his personality? Nothing. Guy was a prick. A blind prick. A drunk, blind prick. Closing time at this bar I used to work the door, someone had to always walk this blind prick home. When I drew that short straw, I’d walk the fucker to a vacant lot, let him pass out on the ground. He’d come in the next night, be a prick about the deal, tell people what I’d done. Know what they did? They patted me on the back. All of them knew he deserved it. A guy’s a cripple, that doesn’t mean he’s charming.

I hear him licking his lips, just dying to say something. But he doesn’t. I do.

– Maybe not, though. Maybe your cripple was a great guy. Could be you’re a crazy asshole who lost his shit and cut up a perfectly good cripple for no reason other than you got tired of listening to his wheels squeaking.