BooksBarbecue
Back We Were Killers Once Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty–one
  25. Twenty–two
  26. Twenty–three
  27. Twenty–four
  28. Twenty–five
  29. Twenty–six
  30. Twenty–seven
  31. Twenty–eight
  32. Twenty–nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty–one
  35. Thirty–two
  36. Thirty–three
  37. Thirty–four
  38. Thirty–five
  39. Thirty–six
  40. Thirty–seven
  41. Thirty–eight
  42. Thirty–nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty–one
  45. Forty–two
  46. Forty–three
  47. Forty–four
  48. Forty–five
  49. Forty–six
  50. Forty–seven
  51. Forty–eight
  52. Forty–nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty–one
  55. Fifty–two
  56. Fifty–three
  57. Fifty–four
  58. Fifty–five
  59. Fifty–six
  60. Fifty–seven
  61. Author’s Note
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. Also by Becky Masterman
  64. About the Author
  65. Newsletter Sign-up

Perry said sure, I can, Dick. Some things you just can sense. I got a strong feeling about this.

The way Perry kept saying my name, Dick this and Dick that, all the time keeping his voice easy, it did not take a mind-reader to see he was digging in his heels on this. I felt myself fidgeting in my seat and he just sat there cool as a cucumber. Perry Smith was the real killer, I thought. Cold blooded and all. And I could tell he knew it. If I turned Perry loose with this boy, what would I do then? And what if the two of them decided to leave me in the dust (or dump me somewhere the way he dumped his own grandfather!) and go get the Clutter money themselves. I tried once more.

How do we know we can trust him to keep a secret, I said.

Perry shoved his thumb out to the field where the old man sat. That’s the proof right there, Perry said. If he can trust us knowing that, we can trust him with a simple robbery.

If you ever read what that writer writes about us, you’ll probably be led to believe that Perry Smith is some poor soul who had a rough childhood with a mother who ran away, and who got badly wounded in the military so he was half crippled and in pain all the time. I heard it all myself on our drives across the country. I can practically hear the two of them, him and Capote, sobbing on each other’s shoulder and it makes me want to “puke.” I bet Perry will say I was the really bad one, someone who was raised in a happy family and just has one of those evil, criminal minds. That is what he will say. I am saying that is a goddamn lie, please forgive my language.

So the boy climbed into the back seat of the car as if nothing had happened and said okay, let’s go, and Perry said, kind of jokey, what, no bottles?

They’s all broken, the boy said. He started to hum this tune, slowly. At the end of some lines he would make a popping sound with his lips. Perry said he recognized the tune but did not know the name. The kid said his mother always used to hum it to him when she was alive.