“No,” Malatesta said.

“Neither’ve I,” Proctor said. “I have no idea in the world what he is doing. I wished I could convince myself that he does. It’s bad enough, I got to be an asshole, but if the goddamned President’s an asshole we are all in trouble, including poor assholes like me that can’t stay out of trouble anyway, and then what the fuck we do, huh?

“Anyway,” Proctor said, “I was thinkin’ about gettin’ rid the damned car anyway, although what I had in mind was, I was gonna sell it, not drown it, because it was all shot. But the water was kind of cold and it sobers me up. I’m soaked and I’m walkin’ around in the mud with the water up to my balls and it’s three inna morning, but then I think, Hey, somebody could’ve got themselves killed in this thing, and it could’ve been me, even. See, the little cocksucker, him I don’t care about. I wished he was dead, him causing all the trouble, except I don’t want him dead in my car, I want him dead in somebody else’s car.

“Because,” Leo said, “you know what them cops’re gonna do with somebody that’s got a record like I got, that he ends up inna swamp at three inna mornin’ and there’s a body of a dead guy inna car with him, or maybe inna swamp and there doesn’t happen to be no other way that body could’ve gotten there, huh? They’re gonna blame me for it, and then they’re gonna charge me manslaughter.

“This,” Leo said, “I do not need. He is a little shit and the whole goddamned world will be better off for all of us if he is dead, and that includes the cops, but I was glad he was alive. Because if he is dead, I certainly cannot afford to take the credit.”