It was hard to hear what Greenway and Rick were saying to each other, but they couldn’t have looked more relaxed. At one point, Greenway pointed at the moon, and Rick looked up, nodded, as if to say “You’re right, it is a beautiful moon tonight, isn’t it?”

Finally, the screams not subsiding at all, Greenway nodded to Rick, who popped the trunk open and hauled Carpington out. I was surprised, frankly, to see him still alive. At the very least, I figured Quincy would already be in the process of squeezing the life out of him, which I’d have almost welcomed if it would have meant an end to the screaming. But aside from his clothes being all rumpled, and a cut on his face from bumping into something in the trunk, the councilman didn’t look too bad.

Rick said, “Now, are you ready to calm down?”

“Yes, yes, thank you, thank you for getting me out of there.”

“He’s still pretty drowsy,” Rick said. “Look at him, he’s practically sleeping like a baby.” He slapped Carpington in the face again. “I think you upset him.”

“What, why isn’t he moving more?” Carpington asked.

“He’s on Prozac for Pythons. Merle and Jimmy gave him something, it’s taking him a while to recover. But I think I can guarantee you that the next time we put you in there, if we have to put you in there, he’s going to be right back to his old self.”

“Okay,” Carpington said. “Okay. That won’t be necessary, I promise.”

Greenway approached Carpington and slipped his arm around his shoulder like they were old friends. “Now, Roger, what’s gotten you so upset tonight?”

“This man came to see me. He wanted to know about Stefanie, and he told me she was dead.”

“Who was this man?” Greenway asked.

“I’m trying to remember his name. He said he lives in Valley Forest, on the street you named after yourself.”

Rick cocked his head to one side. “Was his name Walker?”

“Yes, that was it.”

“That fucker. He’s turning up everywhere tonight. You know what he did?” He was asking Greenway.

“What did he do?”

“He fucking hit me right in the head with a robot.”

Greenway appeared to be considering whether this was something he wanted to follow up on, then decided against it. But Rick wasn’t through: “And I was really prepared to like the guy, you know? He wrote this book I got from the prison library, about these Earthlings who go to another planet, and they try to get everyone to stop believing in God, but when they do, there’s all this shit.” He paused. “I don’t read all that many books, you know.”

“Really,” said Greenway.