He starts moaning now and he wants to speak and so I rip off the tape slowly and then at once. He gasps for air for what feels like forever. You cross your arms. I wait.
“Please,” he begs once he’s gotten his fill of oxygen.
“Please,” I exhale, throwing up my hands. I meet the eye he has left. “Now that’s an interesting word, please.”
“I’ll do—” he starts, but he reeks of alcohol and desperation and so I cut him off. If he’d had even an ounce of that kind of self-control before, we wouldn’t be here now.
“I bet the man—the one whose wife and baby you killed—I bet he knows that word well. Please.”
He’s not sure where I’m going, and I find it’s always the best way.
“Just put a bullet in him and be done with it,” you order, and it comes out as it should. It’s a warning. Your patience is
