During those decades in Maine, Dave had seen just about everything, or thought he had until the Fulci brothers came into his life. Since that fateful event, Dave had been forced to reconsider his attitude to existence, and now steeled himself each morning to face the possibility of some degree of social interaction with Tony and Paulie Fulci. Such a day would potentially be open to chaos and destruction, and cause Dave to go to bed that night wondering if there really was a God and, if so, what had He been thinking when He created the Fulcis.

The Fulci brothers had once tried to agree on how many jails and prisons they’d been inside, but had lost count once the total reached double figures. Dave was surprised they could even count that high, but decided this was why God had opted to go with ten fingers, just so the Fulcis could divide aspects of their world into Things That Numbered Up To Ten, which were easily reckonable, and Things That Were More Than Ten, which were not. They’d run into similar difficulties coming up with an estimate of the number of psychiatrists who’d treated them, and the number of heads they’d busted over the years. As for the quantity of different pharmaceuticals they’d been prescribed, mostly unsuccessfully, during their long and fraught relationship with the medical profession, it easily ran into three figures, although Dave thought that might be erring on the low side, even if he chose to keep this opinion to himself.

The Fulcis were by now in middle-age, and no longer busted quite so many heads as they once had. Neither had they seen the interior of a cell for a number of years, a development due in no small part to their involvement with the private detective named Charlie Parker and his colleagues, Angel and Louis. The Fulcis looked up to all three of them: Parker with a deep respect, Angel with much affection, and Louis with an awe approaching that of the centurion Longinus upon having his blindness cured by the blood of the crucified Christ.

Dave Evans was far from an ingénue, and had no illusions about the natures of Parker, Angel, and Louis. He liked all three of them, and was close to Parker in particular, but he recognized that these were violent men, and not, therefore, ideal role models for the Fulcis, who were easily led. On the other hand, it could not be denied that Parker and the others lived by a moral code and – if even a fraction of the stories, both reported and unreported, were true – had brought a great deal of wickedness to an end. If they were not strictly good, they were whatever was required to face down evil. This, Dave accepted, sometimes necessitated methods that were not entirely legal or, in the case of Parker’s occasional utilization of the Fulcis, even strictly wise.