He didn’t answer right away. He examined me with the same intensity I’d given him. With two fingers, he freed the cigarette from his mouth, tilted his chin, and exhaled gray smoke. Then he said with a shrug, “I do what I want.”

The other Dylan retrieved the wooden chair. He put it next to the bed and sat down, folding his legs with the black heel of his dress shoe balanced on his other knee. He took the cigarette and offered me a drag with a flick of his eyebrows. I shook my head.

“I’m glad to finally see you up close,” he said.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Most of the Dylan Morans out there are dull little people. Frigid, depressed, beaten down. Look at this one, letting his wife dress him up like a Ken doll. It’s hard for me to respect someone like that. But you fought back. You came after me. It makes me think you’re more like me than the others.”

“I’m nothing like you.”

He gave me a quick, cynical laugh. “Oh, come on. You want to kill me, don’t you? That’s why you’re here. That was your plan. If I let you, you’d wrap your hands around my throat and choke the life out of me. Admit it. We’re not so different.”

“I’m trying to stop you from killing anyone else. That’s the difference.”

“Yeah, you’re a hero, and I’m the devil. You have no innocent blood on your hands.” He leaned close, engulfing me in the smoke of his cigarette, and whispered in my ear. “But then why is Roscoe dead in your world? Why is Karly dead? You killed them, not me.”

I flailed against the bonds but couldn’t free myself. I stared at him with murder in my eyes. He was right. I would have strangled him then and there if I could.

He grinned, as if he’d made his point. Then he got up from the chair and went to the closet and began taking out men’s clothes, which he draped across the bed piece by piece like a fashion show. “Relax. I’m just baiting you. I don’t apologize for who I am. Unlike most of our other twins, I accept it. So should you.”

“I can’t imagine becoming someone like you. Doing the things you’ve done.”

He shrugged, as if we were talking about the ethnic foods we liked and didn’t like. As he reviewed the clothes he’d taken from the closet, he held up a Hawaiian shirt from the bed and rolled his eyes. Then he sat down in the chair again.

“Really? You’ve spent your whole life afraid of turning into your father. Why is it so strange to meet a Dylan Moran who did?”