“Yes Rex I do. I feel like they really understand more than we know I mean Doc—now Doc tells me that pigs are real smart and they form emotional attachments and so on—but you know Doc is more of a dog person. She has Tycho and they have a special bond and I do not really do those. I mean I do them with people you know this. I feel for you guys you are my guys but I do not understand how anyone would vest that level of affection in a dog. It is a dog. But these pigs…I come out here Rex and I see something in their eyes. Not like a human something but a pig something that is still very real and meaningful.”

“Huh.”

“Does that seem strange to you Rex?”

“Kinda I guess.”

“O it does?”

“Yes sir. Weird as shit but that is life I guess. Other people’s lives are weird. I mean your relationship for example with the Doctor that is weird to me also. Like she is this terrifying evil doctor, and you are you, and you scare one another and you drive her crazy and then you do weird sex things and that makes you happy. In my life that would not be a sound basis for a relationship but I tell myself: other people’s lives. So that I get but talking to pigs is a little beyond me.”

“Huh I really—you do not talk to the pigs at all?”

“No sir I just come out here and I watch old war movies on my telephone.”

“…Uh.”

“I am very much a fan of Cross of Iron sir directed by Sam Peckinpah.”

“I did not see that coming.”

“He was a man who understood the truth of armed conflict in a way which cannot be equaled by generations thereafter. Few of the modern school for example were in Vietnam or Iraq they are tourists.”

“I guess that is true.”

“But after then when it’s real quiet out here and dark and I—well I talk to Billy sometimes.”

“Uh-uh.”

“I figure I have some stuff to make up for on his account sir. Atonement I guess.”

Billy is Rex’s brother who was shot by Fred the Head. Fred was trying to make a point to me and indeed at the time Fred and Doc were still working together. What happened to Billy is one hundred percent on Fred but Rex and I avoid discussing it in general lest we encounter areas of personal friction and compromise our smooth working relationship. This kind of polite reserve is the heart and soul of shared criminal enterprises in an environment in which people have a professional history which will not always be aligned. It is just best practice.