Deborah slammed the palm of her hand on the steering wheel.

“Goddamn it, Dexter, the clever-ass shit doesn't work for me any more.”

Have you ever noticed that every now and then you'll overhear an amazingly clear declarative sentence when you're out in public, spoken with such force and purpose that you absolutely yearn to know what it means, because it is just so forceful and crystalline? And you want to follow along behind whoever just spoke, even though you don't know them, just to find out what that sentence means and how it would affect the lives of the people involved?

I felt like that now: I had no idea at all what she was talking about, but I really wanted to know.

Happily for me, she didn't keep me waiting.

“I don't know if I can do this any more,” she said.

“Do what?”

I am riding around in a car with a guy who has killed what, ten, fifteen, people?”

It's never pleasant to be so grossly underestimated, but it didn't seem like the right time to correct her. “All right” I said.

“And I am supposed to catch people like you, and put them away for good, except you're my brotherY she said, hitting the wheel with her hand to emphasize each syllable —which she didn't really need to do, since I heard her very clearly. I finally understood what all her recent churlishness had been about, although I still had no idea why it had taken until now for her to blow up on the subject.

There was a great deal to what she said, of course, and if I had really been as smart as I think I am I would have known that at some point we were going to have this conversation, and I would have been ready for it. But I had foolishly assumed that there is nothing in the world as powerful as the status quo, and she had caught me by surprise. Besides, as far as I could see, there had been nothing in the recent past that would trigger this kind of confrontation; where do these things come from?

“I'm sorry, Debs” I said. “But, uh, what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to stop it” she said. I want you to be somebody else.” She looked at me, and her lips twitched, and then she looked away again, out the side window and away beyond US 1 and over the elevated People Mover rails. I want you ... to be the guy I always thought you were.”

I like to think I am more resourceful than most. But at the moment, I might as well have been bound and gagged and tied to the railroad tracks. “Debs” I said. Not much, but apparently the only shot I had in the chamber.

“Goddamn it, Dex,” she said, slapping the steering wheel so hard the whole car trembled. I can't even talk about it, not even to Kyle.