INTERLUDE

NOW

“Wait wait wait,” Grosky says. “So you do know how we bite it.”

“Bite it. Is that a pun? Because I bit your scarecrow friend here?” Vills looks down at her own hand and frowns. Miriam hisses, “You’re interrupting my story, and that’s very impolite. You’re rude and unpleasant. Like a soccer mom, or a dog fart.”

“We already know this part of the story,” Vills says.

“Apparently not, because Big Boy here has questions. And yes, Agent Grosky, I do know how you both die.”

“Come on. Give us a taste.”

“You die by choking on a canned ham— still in the can, actually. So impatient. She chokes, too, but on a horse dick. Awkward! They’re very big. I think her eyes were bigger than her stomach, don’t you?”

“You little twat, I’m done with—”

But Miriam turns her volume up to drown out Vills. “No, wait wait wait. I remember now. Grosky, you crush your wife during sex— she explodes like an overcooked sausage, it’s totally gross— and the guilt drives you to take your own life. And Vills, you fuck a nasty old zoo chimpanzee and get some kind of zoo-born chimp-flu that covers you in canker sores—”

Vills slams both palms down on the table. “See? This is what we get, Richie. This is what you want to stick around for. We have to go.”

Grosky levels his gaze at Miriam. “Tell me how we die.”

Miriam winks. “That’d be cheating. Don’t you like surprises?”