“You scared him last night. Brad Wesley, he’s not afraid of anything, right? Well, last night that son of a bitch was afraid. Have you ever seen fear in a man’s eyes, Dalton? Ever smelled fear’s musk? Ever felt the gooseflesh rise to meet your touch? You never forget it once you’ve seen it…smelled it…tasted it. It’s like a song that gets stuck in your head, demanding you return to your hi-fi to play it one more time. You played that song last night, Dalton. A familiar melody of terror, with Brad Wesley’s mortal body as its brass band. Sometimes I think it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard—the sound a man makes when he looks you in the eye and sees nothing—no pity, no contempt, no mercy, no cruelty, just the cold dead fact that you’ve come to hurt him, and nothing he can do will stop the hurting from happening. Brad Wesley, he loves to taste the fear, doesn’t he? Well, last night you took that fear, warm and throbbing and oh so insistent, and you fed it to him. And he drank every drop, didn’t he, he gorged himself on the fear you inflicted until his guts were fit to burst. Have you ever seen a man’s guts, Dalton? Ever dipped your hands in another man’s body and squeezed whatever you found inside? Felt the incredible human machine, miraculous in its evolutionary purpose, begin to break down between your fingers? Well, last night I had a vision of you, Dalton, I had a vision of you, small as a churchmouse, lethal as the cobra, plunging your arms elbow-deep into man after man, pulling out viscous tubes and bladders rendered useless by your relentless probing. I saw you reach deep inside Brad Wesley and open up his works to the world outside. I saw birds, black as soot, fly out in a great gust, like the wind, like a firestorm. As I looked up, I felt their warm white shit rain down on me, covering me like a thin alkaline film. And when I raised my hands to wipe my face clean of their excretion, those hands pulled away hundred dollar bills, Dalton. I wiped and wiped and the money kept falling into my hands, until there was more than I could hold, until the pile of it reached my knees, my thighs, my sex. I was neck deep in cash, Dalton, and still I knew Brad Wesley’s body was somewhere in this deluge, and you were somewhere in Brad Wesley’s body, tasting its fear, rolling it around on your tongue, suckling on its terrible teat. Anyway, I’m looking forward to Wagon Days.”
