What a great position for Will. He could make a deal with the prosecution using any information he got from Joey as a bargaining chip. Or he could supply them nothing but misinformation to mess up their upcoming case. Will could pass on anything he chose to either side, the prosecution or the defense, or only to Karloff.

Will’s presence, Joey realizes, was just the latest version of not trusting Joey. Just the latest version of making him take photos of his hits. Just the latest version of We don’t really get you, Joey. You’re too odd, too different, so we have to keep an eye on you, and it’s a hassle and a burden keeping an eye on you. Joey had never squealed, had been stand-up his whole life, and still this was how they saw him.

Was that what Will was doing there? Joey isn’t sure. He realizes he’ll never know. A new gloom descends on him like a blanket he can’t throw off. There’s so much he doesn’t understand. So much going on around him, above him, beside him—teasing him, dangling just out of his mental reach. Connections he doesn’t follow. That he’ll never follow.

Is this part of being on the spectrum? Or due to those childhood concussions? Or some of both? Shit, if you can’t think straight, if you can’t sort things out, then what’s the point? And if you’re nothing but a problem and have to be treated like a child, then what’s the point? If you have no connection to anyone, then what’s the point? And he realizes grimly: that question—what’s the point?—is the clearest thought he’s had.

40.

40.

It haunts Joey. He can’t stop replaying it in his head. If only he had listened to that kid Zack. If only he had taken Zack’s deal.

That moment when they’d both destroyed their phones in the matching Grandes. If only he had accepted that ending, the fairness, the mutual evenness of that arrangement, instead of coming after Zack and Emily, he wouldn’t be in this fix today.

He wouldn’t have been in jail. He wouldn’t be awaiting his permanent return to prison. He wouldn’t have been released for Karloff’s next project and be waiting for the suicide mission Karloff is about to send him on.

If only he’d accepted Zack’s deal, he would have gotten away with having been a paid assassin.

Even though it turned out Zack had transferred Joey’s data to the Cloud, Zack might have just left it there. Like an insurance policy, to make sure Joey didn’t come after him. That’s probably why Zack put it there in the first place.