Clay stumbled out of bed and opened the door. He was oddly not surprised to see the guy who said he killed people standing in his door. “How did you know where I lived?” The guy looked surprised, as if it was obvious. “I followed you home one time. Just in case I needed to know.” That wasn’t reassuring. Clay thought about slamming the door, but decided against it. The guy had the look you get when God has just knocked you on your ass. He wasn’t gonna be threatening anybody for a while. He was just trying to breathe. (And another little tingle under Clay’s skin, that sense that the road to his destiny was opening before him, same as when he had touched the gun.) “Come in,” he said. “Do you mind if I get some orange juice? I worked all night.” “Nothing makes any sense anymore,” Mr. Killer said. He sat down at one of Clay’s two dinette chairs. “Nothing is what it seems.” “What’s your name?” Clay said. He got down two glasses for orange juice. “Kerry.” “Clay, but you knew that.” He put the glasses on the table and rummaged in the fridge for some OJ from the Deli-Mart, free because it had slipped past its Best Before date. “What do you do if you’ve screwed up?” Kerry said. “I mean, if you didn’t mean to, but you did?” Clay thought a minute. “I guess you make amends.” Kerry leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at his boots. “When you k-kill a guy—“ He stopped, started again, speaking slowly and deliberately. “You can’t really make it up to him.” Clay nodded. “Sometimes you can’t make amends at all.” Kerry sighed. It was the true, heart-wrenching sigh of a man at the end of his rope. “I just want to do the right thing. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.” “That’s why you kill people?” Clay said. Surprised. Kerry looked up at him. “Yeah. Of course. Otherwise I’d be just like them.” “Well … not to be a priest about it, but it’s commonly thought that killing people isn’t right.” Kerry nodded. “I know. I used to believe that, too. But he was murdering my sisters, you know. Would you believe my mom lied and lied to keep the cops off of him? What the hell is that?” The words coming faster now, jerky. “Sometimes you gotta take responsibility. But what if I was wrong about some of the others? How do I m-make it up?” Clay sighed. “The Indians used to think that if you accidentally killed a man, you had to take care of his family. As if you were him.” Kerry looked at him for a moment. Then he started laughing. “Oh man, that’s rich,” he said. “Oh man.”
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