The cop’s face goes a shade paler. Branko nods.

– Yes, you know. So now, you tell me, who is the fucked one in this toilet?

Branko lets go of the cop and reaches into the pocket of his Windbreaker.

The cop looks at me.

– Hey, wait now. I. Hoss, this is a mistake. Tell your friend here.

Branko’s hand comes out of his pocket holding a racquetball. He grabs the cop’s face, forces his mouth open and shoves the ball inside.

– You shut up now and take it like a man.

He pulls a roll of duct tape from his other pocket, tears off a strip and seals it over the ball. He stands up and looks at me.

– You are OK?

I finger my singed eyebrow.

– Yeah, I’m fine.

– Where is the coke?

– It’s on the table in there.

He glances over his shoulder into the room.

– Good. OK.

He points at the big man kneeling on the bathroom floor.

– His fingers.

I open my mouth. Branko shakes his head, cutting me off.

– His fingers. I will get the coke.

He steps out of the bathroom, but calls back through the open door.

– And do not forget his thumbs.

I look at the cop, his hands held out in front of him, his face red and tear-streaked as he pleads through the rubber ball. I try to grab his wrists, but he wrenches them away, so I kick him in the stomach. Air explodes out his nose and he folds.

There are reasons why people do the things they do. You have to have a reason, otherwise you couldn’t do them.

I have a reason.

A good one.

And at times like these I remind myself of what it is.

I kick him in the stomach one more time and grab his wrists and lay his fingers across the lip of the open toilet seat and slam the lid so hard the seat cracks and I have to get the blood-splotched tank lid off the floor to finish the job.