BLAKE: Um yeah…you and I have written quite a bit together, but nothing like this. And I was actually staying at your house when we wrote this, so it was a bit strange being in the same room, writing the Alex/Luther conjugal visit at the same time.
JOE: I wouldn’t call it uncomfortable, exactly. But it was a pretty hot scene, and there were certain points where I didn’t want to make eye contact with you. That said, I think we did an admirable job of not succumbing to childish giggling. Mostly.
BLAKE: Think we’ll ever release a single work containing all novels, stories, and novellas in this combined universe, which we’ve written to date? It would be something like 1,500,000 words.
JOE: That would require us getting the rights back—rights currently held by our legacy publishers. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Last question. Are we really, truly done with this story?
BLAKE: I think we’re done for the time being, but I don’t want to say that a continuance is completely out of the question. Our characters seem to have this strange habit of never really dying…
Tampa, 1978
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you about the dangers of hitchhiking?” the driver said. “You never know who’s going to pick you up.”
Donaldson wiped sweat from his brow and eyed the driver through the half-open passenger side window of the Lincoln Continental. The driver was average-looking, roughly Donaldson’s age, dressed in a dark suit that matched the car’s paint job.
“I’m roasting out here, man,” Donaldson said. And it wasn’t far from the truth. He’d been walking down this desolate highway for damn near three hours in the abusive, summer sun. “My car died. If you want to rob or kill me, that’s fine, as long as you have air conditioning.”
Donaldson forced a bright smile, hoping he looked both pathetic and non-threatening. It must have worked, because the man hit a switch on his armrest, and the door unlocked.
Must be nice being rich, Donaldson mused at the fancy automatic locks. Then he opened the door and heaved his bulk onto the leather seat.
“Thanks,” he said.
The car was cooler than outside, but not by much. Donaldson wondered if the man’s air worked. He placed his hand against the vent, felt a trickle of cold leaking out.
“Happy to help a fellow traveler. I’m Mr. K.”
“Donaldson.”
Neither made a move to shake hands. Mr. K checked his mirror, then gunned the 8-cylinder engine, spraying gravel as the luxury car fishtailed back onto the asphalt.
Donaldson adjusted his bulk, shifting the .38 he’d crammed into the front pocket of his jeans. The pants were loose enough, and Donaldson portly enough, that he doubted Mr. K noticed.
“You’re sunburned,” Mr. K said.
“Sun’ll do that to you.”
Donaldson touched his bare forearm, lobster red, and winced. Then he flipped down the visor mirror, saw how bad his face was. It looked like his old man had slapped the shit out of him, and hurt almost as much.
“Your car a Pinto?” Mr. K asked.
“My car?”
“A Pinto. Saw one about five miles back.”
Donaldson contemplated the harm in admitting it. He supposed it didn’t matter. Before he’d abandoned the car, he’d wiped it clean of fingerprints.
“Yeah. Blew a rod, I think.”
“Why didn’t you wait for the police?”
Again, Donaldson deliberated before answering. “I don’t like pigs,” he finally said.
Mr. K nodded. Donaldson doubted the man shared his sentiment. His hair was short, he was well-dressed, and he owned a fancy car. Cops wouldn’t hassle him. They were too busy hassling people with long hair and beards and ripped jeans.
People like me.
The highway stretched onward, wiggly heat waves rising off the tarmac. There wasn’t much traffic. Only about twenty cars had passed Donaldson during his long walk, and not one had so much as slowed down. Bastards. Whatever happened to human compassion?
“Did you kill the car’s owner before you stole it?” Mr. K asked.
Alarm bells sounded in Donaldson’s head. He frantically pawed at his .38, but Mr. K slammed on the brakes.
Donaldson bounced off the dashboard, smacking his sunburned nose hard. During the momentary disorientation, he was aware of Mr. K throwing the car into park, unbuckling his seatbelt, and pressing a thin-bladed knife under Donaldson’s double chin with one hand, while digging the .38 from Donaldson’s front pocket with the other.
“You should buckle up,” Mr. K said. “Seatbelts save lives.”
Mr. K stuck the knife into his breast pocket, belted himself back in, then hit the gas. The tires screamed and the Continental shot forward.
“I’m bleeding,” Donaldson said, his hands cupped around his nose. He knew it was a stupid, obvious thing to say, but he was still dazed and trying to buy some time.
“Tissues in the glove compartment.”
Donaldson dug them out, feeling more ashamed than hurt. This guy had gotten the better of him much too easily. As he mopped the blood from his face, Mr. K pressed a button to open the passenger side window.
“Throw the used ones outside, please.”
Donaldson went through ten tissues, tossing each one onto the road whizzing by. Then he ripped one more into pieces, balled them up, and shoved them into each nostril, staunching the trickle. He kept an eye on Mr. K the entire time, alternating between watching the man’s eyes, and watching the .38 pointed at him.
This is a real bad situation.
“I don’t enjoy repeating myself, but you hit that dashboard pretty hard, so I’ll ask one more time. Did you kill the driver before you stole the Pinto?”
Donaldson knew he was screwed, but he didn’t want to get himself even more screwed.
“You a cop?” he asked, not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.
The barest flash of mirth crossed Mr. K’s face. “No. But your biggest worry right now shouldn’t be getting arrested. Your biggest worry should be the hole I’m going to put in your head if you don’t answer me.”
The gears began to turn in Donaldson’s head. How the hell do I get through this? Talk my way out?
“You won’t shoot me,” Donaldson said, surprised by how calm he sounded.
“No?”
“You’d ruin your car.”
Again, a faint hint of a smile. “It’s not my car. And you still haven’t answered my question.”
Mr. K thumbed back the hammer on the pistol.
Donaldson contemplated his own death—the first time in his life he ever had—and decided dying would be a very bad thing.
“I killed him,” Donaldson said quickly.
Mr. K seemed to think about this. He nodded slowly. “Was it someone you knew?”
“No. Jumped him in a parking lot in Sarasota. Wouldn’t have wasted the bullet if I knew what a piece of crap his car was.”
Donaldson watched Mr. K’s eyes. They betrayed nothing. The two of them might as well have been talking about the weather.
“How’d it feel?” Mr. K asked.
“How did what feel?”
“Killing that man.”
What kind of freaky talk is this? Donaldson thought, but all he said was, “I dunno.”
“Sure you do. Did it feel good? Bad? Numb? Did it get you excited? Did you feel guilty afterward?”
Donaldson thought back to the day before. To holding the gun to the man’s ribs. Seeing the shock in his eyes when he squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times. Watching him flop to the ground in a way that had struck him as funny. The holes in his chest had made sucking sounds, blowing tiny blood bubbles.
“Excited,” Donaldson said.
“Did he die right away?”
“No.”
“Did you stay and watch him die?”
“Yeah.”
“How long did it take?”
It’s so strange that we’re both so calm about this.