I said, 'I didn't think you could do it.'
'What? Callander?'
I nodded.
'I didn't think I could either. I never killed anybody. I've been angry enough to kill, one time or another, but anger passes.'
'Yes.'
'He was like nothing, you know? A completely insignificant man.
And I thought, how am I going to kill this worm? But I knew I had to do it. So I figured out what I had to do.'
'What was that?'
'I got him talking,' he said. 'I asked him a few questions, and he gave little two-word replies, but I kept at it and I got him talking. He told me what they did to Yuri's kid.'
'Oh.'
'What they did to her and how scared she was and all. Once he got into it he really wanted to talk. Like it was a way for him to have the experience again. See, it's not like hunting, where after you shoot the deer you get to stuff the head and hang it up on the wall. Once he was done with a woman he was left with nothing but memories, so he welcomed the chance to take them out and dust them off and look at how pretty they are.'
'Did he talk about your wife?'
'Yeah, he did. He liked that he was telling it to me, too. Same as he liked giving her back to me in pieces, rubbing my nose in it. I wanted to shut him up, I didn't want to hear that, but fuck it, you know? I mean, she's gone, I fed her to the fucking flames, man. It can't hurt her no more. So I let him talk all he fucking wanted, and then I could do what I had to do.'
'And then you killed him.'
'No.'
I looked at him.
'I never killed nobody. I'm not a killer. I looked at him and I thought, no, you son of a bitch, I am not gonna kill you.'
'And?'
'How could I be a killer? I was supposed to be a doctor. I told you about that, right?'
'Your father's idea.'
'I was supposed to be a doctor. Petey'd be an architect because he was a dreamer, but I was the practical one, so I'd be a doctor. 'Best thing in the world to be,' he told me. 'You do some good in the world and you make a decent living.' He even decided what kind of doctor I should be.
'Be a surgeon,'
he told me. 'That's where the money is. That's the elite, top of the heap. Be a surgeon.' ' He was silent for a long moment. 'So all right,' he said. 'I was a surgeon tonight. I operated.'
It had started to rain, but it wasn't coming down hard. I didn't switch on the windshield wipers.
'I took him downstairs,' Kenan said. 'In the basement, where his friend was, and TJ was right, it stank something awful down there. I guess the bowels let go when you die like that. I thought I was gonna gag, but I didn't, and I guess I got used to it.
'I didn't have any anesthetic, but that was okay because he passed out right away. I had his knife, big jackknife with a blade about six inches long, and there were all sorts of tools on the workbench, anything you could possibly need.'
'You don't have to tell me, Kenan.'
'No,' he said, 'you're wrong, that's exactly what I have to do is tell you. If you don't want to listen that's something else, but I gotta tell you.'
'All right.'
'I cut his eyes out,' he said, 'so he'd never look at another woman.
And I cut his hands off so he'll never touch one. I used tourniquets so he wouldn't bleed out. I made 'em out of wire. I took his hands off with a cleaver, wicked fucking thing. I suppose it's what they used to, uh—'
He breathed deeply, in and out, in and out.
'To dismember the bodies,' he went on. 'I opened his pants. I didn't want to touch him but I forced myself, and I cut off his works
'cause he wasn't gonna have any further use for 'em. And then his feet, I chopped his fucking feet off, because where's he got to go? And his ears, because what does he have to listen to? And his tongue, part of his tongue, I couldn't get it all, but I gripped it with a pliers and pulled it out of his mouth and cut off what I could, because who wants to hear him talk? Who wants to listen to that shit? Stop the car.'
I braked and pulled over, and he opened the car door and vomited in the gutter. I gave him a handkerchief and he wiped his mouth and dropped it in the street. 'Sorry,' he said, pulling the door shut.
'I thought I was done doing that. Thought the tank was empty.'
'Are you all right, Kenan?'
