Donaldson thought back to the day before. To holding the gun to the man's ribs. Seeing the shock in his eyes when he squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times. Watching him flop to the ground in a way that had struck him as funny. The holes in his chest had made sucking sounds, blowing tiny blood bubbles.

"Excited," Donaldson said.

"Did he die right away?"

"No."

"Did you stay and watch him die?"

"Yeah."

"How long did it take?"

It's so strange that we're both so calm about this.

Donaldson shrugged. "Few minutes, I guess."

"Did you do anything else to him?"

"Like what?"

"Did you hurt him first?" Mr. K raised an eyebrow. "Rape him?"

Donaldson scowled. "Do I look like a queer to you?"

"What does being a homosexual have to do with it? You had a human being at your mercy. That excited you. I'm asking if you capitalized on that opportunity. If you made the most of it."

Donaldson thought about it. The guy had been at his mercy. He'd begged for a while when Donaldson pulled the gun, and that was kind of a turn-on.

"I didn't rape him," Donaldson said.

"Could you have raped him?"

Donaldson licked some dried blood off of his top lip, let the salty, copper taste linger on his tongue. "Yeah. I could've."

This answer seemed to satisfy Mr. K. He was quiet for over a minute.

The road stretched out ahead of them like a giant black snake.

Empty swampland and blue skies as far as Donaldson could see.

I can't believe I'm telling him this stuff. Is it because he's threatening to kill me?

Or because he understands?

"How'd you know?" Donaldson asked.

"Know what?"

"That I stole that car?"

Mr. K offered a half-smile. "I saw the gun in your pocket when you stopped, along with your clumsy attempt to hide it. You should get an ankle holster, or stuff it in your belt at the small of your back. You obviously aren't a Florida native, or you'd have a tan already. That means you flew in or drove in. If you flew, you probably would've had a rental car, and those are usually new. That Pinto was an old model. When you first got in, I noticed the powder burns on your shirt, and under your rather oppressive body odor, you smell like gunpowder."

Donaldson was impressed, but he refused to show it. He knew a lot about being victimized. One way to stop being a victim was to stop acting like a victim.

"I asked how you knew about the car, not my gun," Donaldson said, sticking out his lower jaw.

If Mr. K noticed Donaldson's display of bravado, he didn't react. "Your loose jeans didn't jingle when you sat down in the car. When people abandon their vehicles, they take their keys with them. So I assumed it wasn't yours."

Donaldson appraised Mr. K again. This was a smart guy.

"How about you?" Donaldson ventured. "Did you kill the owner of this car?"

"Not yet."

"Not yet?"

"He's tied up in the trunk. I'm taking him someplace private."

Donald worded his next question carefully. "Do you want to kill me?"

Mr. K drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

Donaldson counted his own heartbeats, trying to keep cool until Mr. K finally replied.

"Haven't decided yet."

"Is there anything I can do to, uh, persuade you that I'm worth keeping alive?"

"Maybe. The Pinto owner you killed. He wasn't the first."

Donaldson thought back to his father, to beating the old man to death with a baseball bat. "No, he wasn't."

"But he was the first stranger."

This guy is uncanny. "Yeah."

"Who was it before that? Girlfriend? Family member?"

"My dad."

"But you didn't use a gun on him, did you? You made it more personal."

"Yeah."

"What'd you use?"

"A Louisville Slugger."

"How did it feel?"

Donaldson closed his eyes. He could still feel the sting of the bat in his palms when he cracked it against his father's head, still see the blood that spurted out of split skin like a lawn sprinkler.

"I felt like Reggie Jackson hitting one out of Yankee Stadium. Afterward, I even went out and bought a Reggie Bar. "

Mr. K gave him a sideways glance. "Why buy candy? Why didn't you eat part of your father? Just imagine the expression on his face."

Donaldson was about to protest, but he stopped himself. When he broke Dad's jaw with the bat, the old man had looked more surprised than hurt. How would he have reacted if Donaldson had cut off one of his fingers and eaten it in front of him?

That would have shown the son of bitch. Bite the hand that feeds you.

"I should have done that," Donaldson said.

"He hurt you when you were a child." Mr. K said it as a statement, not a question.

"Yeah. He used to beat the shit out of me."

"Did he sexually abuse you?"

"Naw. Nothing like that. But every time I got into trouble, he'd take his belt to me. And he hit hard enough to draw blood. What kind of asshole does that to a five-year-old kid?"

"Think hard, Donaldson. Do you believe your father beat you, and that turned you into what you are? Or did he beat you because of what you are?"

Donaldson frowned. "What do you mean what you are? What am I?"

Mr. K turned and stared deep into his soul, his eyes like gun barrels. "You're a killer, Donaldson."

Donaldson considered the label. It didn't take him long to embrace it.

"So what was the question again?"

"Are you a killer because your father beat you, or did your father beat you because you're a killer?"

Donaldson could remember that first beating when he was five. He'd taken his pet gerbil and put it in the blender. Used the pulse button, grinding it up a little at a time, so it didn't die right away.

"I think my dad knew. Tried to beat the devil out of me. Used to tell me that, when he was whipping my ass."

"You don't have the devil in you, Donaldson. You're simply unique. Exceptional. Unrestrained by morality or guilt."

Exceptional? Donaldson had never felt like he was exceptional at anything. He did badly in school. Dropped out of college. Never had any friends, or a woman he didn't pay for. Bummed around the country, job to job, occasionally ripping someone off. How is that exceptional?

But somehow, he felt that the description fit him.

Maybe that's the problem. I've been trying to be normal all of these years, but I'm not. I'm better than normal.

I'm exceptional.

"How do you know this stuff?" Donaldson asked.

"The more you understand death," Mr. K said, "the more you appreciate life."

"Sounds like fortune cookie bullshit."

"It was something I learned in the war."

" Vietnam?" Donaldson had been exempt from the draft because he didn't pass the physical.

"A villager in Ca Lu said it to me, before I removed his intestines with a bayonet."

"Was he talking about himself?" Donaldson asked. "Or you?"

"You tell me. Did you feel alive when you killed your father, Donaldson?"

Donaldson nodded.

"And when you killed the owner of the Pinto?" Mr. K continued.

"Goddamn piece of crap car. I wish I could kill that guy again."

"How about someone else in his place?"

Donaldson squinted at Mr. K. "What do you mean?"

Another half smile. "The man in my trunk. If I gave you the chance to kill him, would you?"

"What'd he do?"

"What did the Pinto owner do?" Mr. K countered.

"Nothing. But I wanted his car."

"So you killed him for his car?"

"Yeah."

"Couldn't you have just pointed the gun and told him to give you his keys?"

"He would've called the cops."

"You could've knocked him out. Or tied him up."

"I guess."

"But you didn't."

Donaldson folded his chubby arms across his chest. "No. I didn't."

"This man in the trunk. I promised him it would take a long time for him to die. Do you think you could do something like that? Draw out a man's agony for a long time?"