He needs to be rested, sharp for tomorrow’s—today’s—interview. But when he clicks the backrest one notch closer to Junior in the backseat, the hoods of his eyelids invite carnage. All of last night’s gore replays even more vividly than when it’d been floodlit by the headlights. Steel into flesh. Human weight meeting gravel. Blood blacker than red. Pupils soggy with fear. Wheezes unable to flee with the dogs into the night. A hand quivering, reaching, ignored.

At least he’d paid in cash. No digital trail, let alone a receipt. Sure, the billboard lady wouldn’t have any trouble spotting him in a lineup, but Henry shakes that possibility out of his head, because it’s never going to get to that point in the first place. He’s got things to do, a promise to keep.

The fever has Junior drifting in and out of sleep. Whimpering, mumbling, now saying please to someone Henry can’t see.

It’s a full nelson. A stranglehold wringing his larynx into a stir stick. He wrangles his torso as if clamoring in a straitjacket, and humps onto his right shoulder. There it is again, the suit, headless and hovering. His jaw is sore after hours of clenching to contain whatever it is that’s broiling inside him, maybe a bellow, or a plea.

The dream starts with a rustle. A squirming beneath the polyester, a scrambling for escape. Michelle’s chin jabs up then hooks over the shirt collar. She peers straight through Henry, wearing that same drained, faraway expression she assumed after all that had happened happened. Foggy and bloodshot, blind to what’s right in front of her. Just a mask of herself, its sharp chin now thawing, bloating into jowls. Strand by strand, her hair sweeps then falls, a final breeze uncovering a scalp, hairless and the color of an undercooked pork chop. The expression remains distant, but now dims with dejection. Even after all these years, Al still can’t bring himself to look at his friend. There’s no forgiving Henry—not after what he’d done—but even still, he thrashes awake and clears his throat so he can apologize, out loud and in total earnest, to a thrift store suit, here in his truck.