The waitress brought the drinks and banged them down onto the table with no comment. She pulled two straws from her apron pocket and slid them into the middle of the table slowly, deliberately, still signaling some sort of disapproval that Roy couldn’t fathom.

The woman tore the paper from her straw. “Why would you need to know the name of the people you shoot?”

“No! I don’t shoot people!” Roy felt like he was drowning. A thick, crawling desperation of not wanting to be inside himself rose up, filling in every bit of breathing space like a flood of syrup. All his life, sometimes this happened, for a reason or for no reason, this blinding fear. Like he had to hold in a wet scream that was turning him inside out. But he always fled when he felt it coming on, so no one could see. But she had his keys.

She tilted her head and he didn’t know if it was on purpose that she moved so that her hair slipped back over her shoulder, dragging the cover from her scar.

“I wouldn’t. Never.” His throat clicked closed and he coughed.

She leaned in. “You did. You do.”

“No, it was Jonathan.”

“Oh, he made you do it?”

“I mean, he told me to. He told me to be there. But not that. I screwed up. I can’t . . . I shouldn’t have a gun. I didn’t mean to.”

The woman hands gripped hard around her glass. Roy didn’t trust himself to touch his, but he was so thirsty.

“But he paid you. He paid you to do it.”

“No.” Roy shook his head. “Not to do that. Just to be there. I was supposed to make a fuss so that everyone would leave. That’s all.” Roy risked a sip, no straw. His hands weren’t going to be able to deal with unwrapping it. The sweet, cold drink was so good in the middle of something so bad. He blinked fast to clear the tears that were starting. So stupid. He cleared his throat. “He never did.”

She’d gone silent. Each time Roy darted a look up from the tabletop, she was just staring at him with her mouth closed, drawn down a little at the corners.

“He never did pay me, I mean. I didn’t get anything for hurting you. Or those other people. I messed up. If I had done it right, maybe he would have paid me. But . . .”

Silence flowed over from across the table. He didn’t look up again to see it. “It was never going to happen the way he said, though. I know that now. I knew it as soon as I got there and saw everyone. They had guns, too. I think he wanted . . .”