Hogg considered. “Well,” he said—there was more leaf chatter off the road as Nigg and Dago decided to pull Jimmy another few feet—“all these bitches supposed to be in so much trouble already, they ain’t gonna go anywhere near the police. Leastwise that’s what Mr. Jonas told me, see? But, now, even if she was to say, ‘Fuck it, I’m goin’ anyway, I don’t care,’ and they was to come after us—well, if it was from her, somehow that would be okay. But if it was from that loose-assed cocksucker—bet he shit his jeans, too—” Hogg jerked his chin over where Nigg and Dago were tramping around off the highway—“that would just turn my stomach, somehow.” Hogg shook his head, put the shotgun in his other hand, and put a hand on Denny’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go back to the truck. Hey—!” he called to me. “Come on, cocksucker!”

I followed.

“Yeah, I guess so, Hogg …” Denny said. “But, well, I just—”

“Come on, Denny,” Hogg said ahead of me—the seat of Denny’s pants was awful baggy and, in the roadlight, Hogg looked like he’d been sitting in black grease—“Look.” The gun butt swung back by Hogg’s knee as they ambled on. “The fucker is up there with us, beatin’ on the bitch, and fuckin’ on the bitch, and just gettin’ into the whole thing. Then he’s gonna turn around and tell us he’s got reasons for actin’ like he’s doin’? Now you do somethin’ like that, man, ’cause you want to. ’Cause you get your fuckin’ jollies that way. ’Cause that’s the way you like it. But can you think of a goddamn reason for doin’ something like that, the way we done them women?—of somethin’ they could of possibly done to someone else to make that all right, like he’s tryin’ to tell us?”

After about four steps, where he got both hands in his pockets and then took both out again, Denny said, uncomfortably, “No … But you ain’t gonna go back there and kill that Mr. Jonas fella, the one who’s supposed to be payin’ us.”

“Now Mr. Jonas wants it done,” Hogg said. “And I can think of reasons for wantin’ to do what we been doin’. But Jimmy was up there doin’ it with us. And that’s somethin’ else. Naw, the motherfucker was crazy. He’s tellin’ us about some reasons … I know them reasons, I seen’em before. And lemme tell you, in three days, them reasons weren’t gonna be enough for him. And when he starts to feelin’ guilty, we’re the motherfuckers what gonna get in trouble. I seen it, Denny.”

“I don’t know.” Denny didn’t sound so upset now, but he sounded funny in another way. “Maybe you could’ve done somethin’ else that would have been all right, though …”