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"I haven't had nightmares or done a lot of soul-searching about it," Matt said. "Nothing like that. The man I shot was a certified scumbag-"

"Interesting word," Chad said, interrupting. "Meaning, I take it, someone who has as much value as a used rubber?"

"I really don't know what it means. It's… cop talk. A very unpleasant individual. The same day I shot him, earlier that day I saw what he did to a woman he abducted. He raped her, tortured her, mutilated her, and then killed her. I suppose that's part of the equation. I knew that he was no fucking good."

"In other words, you were pleased that you had killed him?"

"When I saw him, he tried to run me over. He totaled my car. The only emotion I had was fear and anger. He was trying to kill me. I had a gun, so I killed him."

"Courage is defined as presence of mind under stress," Chad said.

"Then,ergo sum, courage was not involved in what I did," Matt said. "He had a woman in the van, another one he had abducted. It was just blind fucking luck that I didn't hit her when I was shooting at him. If I had had'presence of mind,' I wouldn't have shot at him at all."

"The newspapers made quite a hero of you," Chad said thoughtfully. "The Old Man sent them all to me."

"That was all bullshit," Matt said.

"Fuck you.I'm impressed."

"You never were very smart."

"So tell me, Sherlock, who popped Penny Detweiler?"

"We're still looking," Matt said.

"Let me give you a clue," Chad said. "Daffy said Penny knew that Eye-talian."

"Daffy told you that?"

"Surprised?"

"No," Matt said. "She tell you anything else?"

"No. Just that she knew Penny had been seeing him."

" 'Seeing,' as opposed to 'buying cocaine from'?"

"Penny's into cocaine?"

"A small voice just told me I shouldn't be talking to you about this."

"Just between thee, me, and this empty Bloody Mary glass?"

"To go absolutely no further than that, Chad, yeah. Penny has a problem with cocaine. But she doesn't know that we know, and I want to keep it that way."

"What she said was 'seeing,' " Chad said, "as in getting fucked by. She didn't say anything about dope. Are you sure about that?Penny Detweiler?"

"Yeah, we're sure, Chad."

" 'We're sure, 'huh? I think I liked things better when 'we' meant you and me and Daffy and Penny, and the cops were… well, the goddamn cops."

"I'm sorry we got into this," Matt said. "Do you suppose you could forget we did?"

"Consider it forgotten," Chad said. "But one more question?"

"You canask it."

"You ever take any of that shit?"