“You fucking know … . Me and … Mattie and …”

“The team?” Dunne asked.

“Yeah, the whole team,” the man muttered. “Except for the black one. Said something about not wanting to make his momma cry …”

The man coughed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“And it was Mattie who shot President Hanover?” Dunne asked.

The man grabbed the bottle from Dunne and took a long gulp. He positioned the hanging pieces of the T-shirt over the tattoo. Dunne repeated the question.

“I didn’t know nothing about that,” the man said. “Not a god-damned thing. He didn’t tell me nothing. Just came to town. Found me’cause when I was all blasted up and they were trying to get me a doctor, I thought I wasn’t gonna make it, so I gave him my dad’s phone number. Wasn’t supposed to do that. Violation of the rules, you know. The fucking rules. But I wasn’t checking out like that without someone telling my dad what went down. I don’t care what they said. You got a right to know what happens to your son, right? So they split us up and all this time goes by—and a few weeks back, he calls my dad and gets my number up here. I got this room over in Arlington. Off Wilson. Too close to the damn highway. Thought I had me a job, too, with this company that goes overseas and tells American companies how to protect their dumb-fuck executives. But it didn’t come through. Man, I can’t tell them what I did for two years, you know.”

“Doesn’t make it easy,” Dunne said.

“Fucking-A.”

“So Mattie shows up …”

“Yeah. He comes to town. Calls me up. Asks to stay at my place. Sure, I say. What the fuck do I know? Tells me he was in Africa. Doing ops for this South African company. I’m thinking weapons shit. But he don’t say. He says he just got back. He ain’t acting alright. But he doesn’t say nothing about it. Not that he’s nuts. But I think he’s leaning too far into the well. Talking to himself. I see him do this twitchy thing. And it really pisses him off when it happens. Had a thick bushy beard. Guess he shaved it off right before he—”

He tapped the side of the chair with his right hand.

“Says his dad just died. And he goes on about how he hates all the fuckers that did this to us. And all the fuckers who did something to his dad. And, man, he sees the President on the television, and he starts cussing. Like he was the one that fucked us, man. But he don’t say nothing about doing anything about it. Swear to God, man.”