“Maybe so,” Clinton said. He got up and put the gun away, in the bottom drawer of the bureau. For a moment his eyes came in contact with Berry-berry’s reflection in the mirror.

“You going?” Berry-berry asked.

“Yeah, I got to. I got to get home.”

“You don’t want to have a cup of coffee or anything?”

“I better not. Ralph’s probably worried already.”

“You know,” Berry-berry said, “it could’ve been just an accident. I mean, there are such things as accidents. Did that ever occur to anybody?”

“I guess we’ll just never know,” Clinton said, and he walked over to the door.

Berry-berry stepped out of the wrinkled trousers he had slept in, and took a fresh pair from the closet. “Stay. Stay just long enough for coffee, will you?”

“No, I really got to go.”

“Okay, go ahead then. Go on. Only, I’d rather you’d just put all those bullets in me than—think what you think.”

“You know what I’m really thinking about?”

“What?”

“About being late for work.”

“Yeah? Then what were you doin’ up here with my gun in your lap?”

Clinton stood at the door for a moment. Then he turned to look at Berry-berry: “You want me to just—say it?”

“Yeah, say it.”

” ‘Cause I was out of my goddam head, that’s why, and I wanted to kill you.”

“Why me?” Berry-berry wanted to hear the truth, not for its own sake, but for the pain it would cause him. Suddenly he had become like one of his own whores, begging to be wounded, punished. Clinton sensed this desire in him, but he did not want to take any part in it.

“I don’t know.” Clinton left the room and started down the stairs. Berry-berry’s voice stopped him.

“Clint! Why’d you want to kill me?”

“I said I don’t know. Maybe I thought you had some disease. And you couldn’t face it.”

He continued down the stairs, carefully picking his way through the mess of broken glass and bottles. At the bottom of the flight, he was stopped once again by his brother’s voice:

“Clint!”

“What do you want?”

“The other night, Saturday night—were you listening?”

Clinton looked at Berry-berry’s figure at the top of the stairs. He saw him only in silhouette. Berry-berry stood there perfectly still and in shadow. Clinton felt he had already revealed too much, and that if he did not give some definite answer, Berry-berry would remain there forever, a silhouette at the top of a dark staircase. This was his reasoning, and he did not consider right or wrong; he felt only that he had to lie, as much for himself as for Berry-berry.

“Listening to what?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“See you later.”