Again he laughed, looking hopefully at Hook, as if he wanted him to share his amusement. And there was absolutely no raillery in his face, no slightest touch of irony. For Hook its absence was like a stair giving way underfoot. Suddenly he was in a world without balance or bottom. Till now he had thought the man was only drunk. Now he had to wonder if he was sane.

“But that wasn’t any answer either,” Parnelli kept on. “’Cause you see, Hook—no matter what you think—I ain’t much of a Sicilian. I don’t kill people. And even if I did—even if I could—I figure they’d right away know who did it, my buddies in the sheriff’s office and the local fuzz. They’d have old Bo’s ass in the slam before your body was cold. So what’s it all about, huh? What we doing here?” Again he held up his trembling hands. “You think maybe it’s these? You think I brought you here just to show you these? Does that make any sense, huh?”

Hook did not answer. They had reached the first hairpin curve in the road and Parnelli abruptly turned around and started back. Hook followed. Up ahead, the young man and the truck stood silhouetted in the glare of the car’s headlights. Against the blackness of the mountain the scene looked oddly unreal to Hook, even staged, like a movie set. On it, the star was still holding forth.

“Jesus, it’s never hit me like this before. The nerve thing, I mean. I never come all apart like this before in all my goddamn life. Why, this morning at the office I even leaned on poor old Dorothy, for Christ sake. Can you believe that? I was trying to talk the cunt into going to the police and change her story and tell them what happen to your boy was a accident and not suicide. And she wouldn’t. So I slapped her. I shook her. I just picked her up and shook her. Ferguson kept trying to make me lay off. They both kept yelling at me that it wouldn’t make any difference now—that you wouldn’t quit anyway—and I guess I knew they were right but I kept right on shaking her anyway. I wound up throwing Ferguson against the goddamn door and he gashed his head. Bled like a pig. And would you believe he cried? He did all right, like a regular goddamn baby, the little creep. And Dorothy too. Both of them. And me, I’m shaking all over by then and praying Jack would get there. But he never showed. Wasn’t home, either. He’s been gone all day.”

It was pure stream of consciousness, a mind hemorrhaging. Hook wondered if the man had any idea where he was or what he was saying or who was listening to him. As he talked he fumbled out a cigarette and lit it.

“You know, I think I even told Dorothy something about this, about me meeting you. Only not where, I don’t think. I don’t think I told her that.”