“Every night, in my mind, I drive around on dark roads, looking for genius doctors—pill pushers, robotic shits—and when I see one in his shiny shit car, I aim my gun at him, leveling the gun sight midway between his temple and his ear. I squeeze the trigger. There’s a blast of light from heaven—the white light of truth and death—and half his fucking head is gone!”

The pace and loudness of the fingernail drumming increased.

The camera zoomed in on Brewster’s face. He was staring wildly across at Kim, seemingly awaiting her reaction, gnawing at his lower lip. The camera zoomed out again to include them both in the frame.

Instead of reacting directly, she took a deep breath and changed the subject. “You went to college?”

He seemed taken aback, disappointed. “Yes.”

“Where?”

“Dartmouth.”

“What was your major?”

His mouth widened in a little spasm that may have been a one-second smile. “Pre-med.”

“I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

“From what you’ve said about your feelings toward your father, I didn’t think you’d want to follow in his footsteps.”

“I didn’t.” This time his mouth spasm was more recognizably a smile, though hardly a warm one. “I quit a month before graduation.”

Kim frowned. “Just to disappoint him?”

“Just to see if he knew I existed.”

“Did he?”

“Not really. All he said was that it was stupid of me to quit. Like he might have said it was stupid of me to have left my car window open in the rain. He wasn’t even angry. He didn’t care enough to be angry. He was so fucking calm about everything. You should have seen how fucking calm he was at my mother’s funeral.”

“That was a lot of his money you wasted by not graduating. Did he care about that?”

“He spent eight hours a day in the operating room, five days a week. The son of a bitch could make enough money in two weeks to pay for my four years at Dartmouth. My room, board, and tuition was a fucking flyspeck in his life. Like my mother was. Like I was. He drove cars that meant more to him than we did.”

Kim said nothing. She raised her interlocked fingers and pressed them against her lips, closing her eyes, as though trying to stifle some unruly emotion. The silence went on for a long time. She cleared her throat before speaking again. “How do you live?”

He burst out in a harsh laugh. “How does anyone live?”

“I mean, how do you earn a living?”

“Is that some kind of ironic point you’re trying to make?”

“I don’t understand.”