all my friends tell me prison’s hell. You see, this whole thing with my voice and threats and that gun was an act, man, a big fat act. So please, let’s forget it and that will be it between us, you’ll be rid of me forever.’ When he said that I thought if I turn him in I won’t be rid of him forever. I mean, I didn’t believe what he was saying now about this the first time, because earlier on he’d convinced me when he talked about killing me. He actually had said — something I must have told you—’You don’t turn up more dough than you got here,’ meaning my wallet, ‘you’re going to get killed in your fucking head with this,’ waving the gun. ‘Bullets, though,’ he said, ‘in the mouth.’ And put it right up to my mouth and then shoved the barrel through my lips and I had to pull up my teeth or he would have broken them with it shoving it in. I remember I gagged it went in so fast and far. And that was the exact moment when I thought he means it, or close to that moment — somewhere around when the gun was going in or was in — and that I’ve got to get the gun away from him or run. And run, he’ll shoot me in the back, then stand over me and shoot me in the head. That’s also when — I’m talking now about when I had the gun on him and he tried to con-talk me about being rid of him forever — that I thought his life is nothing to me, nothing. That I hate his guts and face. That I should even kill him because he’s such a horror and threat. That then I’ll be rid of him forever. That his life is worthless, useless, by anybody’s standards. More than that, he’ll kill others when he gets out and probably look for me to kill and besides that he still might be able to trick me now, so sooner I kill him the better. For these guys are full of tricks, I thought. And he’s fast and clever, and I was strong but no kid, and he’ll do something very soon to get the gun from me before I can yell for people up on the drive, if anybody who hears even answers me, to get the cops down or before I can get him up the park steps to the drive and then hold him there for the police. And then with the gun back on him he’ll kill me sure as I was standing there, nothing I’d say making a bit of difference to him. So, a little jumbled up these thoughts — then, and the way I’m now trying to convey them — but around then when I thought I had to kill him to save my life. One way or the other — I’m repeating myself a lot now, but I want to make sure I get you to understand what was going on in me then — one way or the other, now or a year or two from now, he was going to trick me and kill me, for that at that moment was what I was absolutely sure of. That the chances of him doing that there before I could get him to the cops were probably a lot better than the chances of my getting him to the cops, so I shot him. Put the gun right up to his chest where I thought his heart was — he made no move for it but looked no more frightened, as if he didn’t sense what I was going to do — and pulled the trigger twice. I was glad when I heard it go off. Relieved because it went off and had to have hit him badly and probably killed him. Pulled it twice just to make sure he wouldn’t get just slightly wounded. He flew away with the first shot but the second got him too. But you don’t want to hear the details. I didn’t want to do it into his brains where I knew I could kill him or seriously disable him because the whole head up there is just about brains so it’s not as if I would have missed them, but I didn’t want brains shooting out. I thought that then. Later I was glad where I’d shot him because the other way would have been difficult explaining to the police. Anyway, I wanted to tell you, to get it out.” Pause, she drank, he drank, she kept looking at him, then said “That it?” “That’s it. I’m sure there’s more, but that’s it.” “Whew, that’s some story,” pouring them both more wine. “I don’t mean to sound light or trifling about it, or look it, even, pouring this wine, but I don’t know what to say. Maybe what I don’t understand is why you chose to tell me it now. It’s almost as if it can’t be true. You’ve told me everything about your life, or essentially so, so something of it would have come out by now.” “No, it’s for real. Maybe none of it came out because when I want to I’m good at being a great fake. And I never told you before because, well, when I met you, first years of our marriage and so forth — I thought you’d be afraid of me if I told you. That if I had this in me, what else like that could he possibly do? That sort of thing. I mean, you’ve seen my anger before. Rages sometimes, throwing things, screaming at the kids, kicking doors — and that you’d remember the killing story and think maybe he’s capable of something much worse than rage. That the rage could lead to something not like a killing but a beating. That I could start smacking out at people — you, the kids. Anyway, some instinct in me you’d be scared of. Impulse, I mean. Then I forgot about it for years or a couple of times thought of it but it was the wrong moment to tell such a thing and then I saw this stupid movie you fell asleep to and the question thing came up and then from that to this and that I’d never told you, never told anyone, never wrote about it, never did anything with it except maybe hid it in some things and works I did, and that a long enough time had passed where I could tell you. So that’s my big secret. It’s all true. The whole thing stuck to me clearly and you can well understand why it would. Maybe talking and writing about it gets rid of it, and since I never did either, but there it is.” “I’ve nothing comparable to it,” she said. “You don’t have to. That was just a lead-in on my part, that movie question thing; or something that led to my disclosing it, anyway.” “Nothing. I slept with an old boyfriend — the architect — a few weeks after I first met you, and that’s my big secret. I’ve never told you, right?” “No.” “That’s all I’ve ever held back to you of that magnitude, small as it is. I didn’t think it’d do any good telling you so early in our relationship, since I didn’t know you that well and so didn’t know how you’d take it — jealousy, for instance. Just telling me to get lost forever, which I didn’t want you to do but thought you were capable of saying. And then I never thought it worth mentioning after a while or what would be the use of telling it? or just forgot it, mostly.” “Where was I when you were sleeping with him?” “It was once, and you mean literally? I don’t know. Home, maybe. Yours. But he called up — I forget his name…” “Bill. Bill Williams. I remember the name because of the double Bill and that there was a popular deejay by that name when I was a young man. And when I was a boy, also an actor whom I liked — curly blond hair, nice face, the sailor look at the time, and that your Bill used to call you up for the first few years I knew you. ‘Who is it?’ ‘Bill.’ ‘Who is it?’ ‘Bill.’ And of course also the poet though he, like the deejay, but not the actor, used a middle initial and kept to William.” “Anyway, this Bill was the only time and the only one once I started seeing you. In fact — OK, this just came — you and I had broken up for a few weeks and it was a number of months, I believe, after we’d first met. I thought we were completely through. And he called, wanted to go out for dinner; I thought why not? After, he wanted to come home with me for a coffee or drink; I thought why not? though most likely had some idea what would happen. Then I thought why not when he wanted to go to bed with me after we’d had some brandy, maybe too much brandy, though that wasn’t the fault. He’d always been a good lover and you weren’t part of my life any longer, but that was it; once, done. The next day or that night he left and he called again — you and I were still through for good — and I told him I was sick — I was, I think. And then you and I got together again, I forget how but we did—” “One of us called. Something about a book. You had one of mine or I had one of yours—” “Something though. And so the next time he called after that, and the next and the next and so on, as you said, I had to tell him we were together again and then deeply involved and then that I was marrying you and I couldn’t see him for dinner. For tea, perhaps, if he wanted, and I think he said he’d think about it but didn’t call back. And then even when I was pregnant the first time, while he probably thought that by then our marriage had busted up or was giving that idea a chance.” “Tell me, are you making all this up to have something — a big secret — to tell me to sort of take some of the awfulness off what I said? In other words, for me?” “No. And that was the end of him. But are you making up about killing that man the way you say you did to have something interesting to say to me?” “No, swear it.” “Or to get a big secret out of me, which if it was so I must have disappointed you with.” “No again; what a thing to say.” “Then are you sure you didn’t simply imagine it happening that way but after all these years have come to believe it? That the gun really did go off accidentally while you were tussling for it?” “No. I shot him in the heart intentionally or intentionally where I thought it was. I knew I was close to it and I happened to have been right.” “What’d the police say about shooting him twice? For once would have been enough, it seems.” “The police? Nothing. They seemed to immediately believe me. Patted my shoulder consolingly till they saw I didn’t need it, but mostly dealt with the body. Then some routine questioning at the police station — paperwork, formality, they even told me so, though maybe that was a ploy, though I don’t think so — and I was out in an hour and even offered a car escort home. And later at this inquest the city set up, it wasn’t a big deal either. They believed I squeezed the trigger twice because my finger was on it. In other words, that I did it that way instead of once for no other reason than that I did it. Impulse, instinct. That it wasn’t unfair or unusual or unjustified force or whatever the legal term is when you have a district attorney’s inquiry into it. ‘Improper defense’? A man’s scared to death, his life’s at stake, so in that state — and of course I made them convinced that was the case and said nothing about knowing where his heart was. I told them I didn’t know how many times I pulled the trigger. I think I could have emptied the clip into him, if there were more bullets in it — I didn’t check and never found out but at the time I was aware if I pulled it three times I might be in serious trouble — and they still would have bought it. In other words, they knew the guy was a killer and they wanted me to get off.” “Let me ask you this. You think the man, when he got out of prison, would have tried to kill you, if let’s say you had got him to the police and the city had been able to send him to prison for holding you up?” “At the time, yes. Now, I don’t think so. I doubt he would have remembered my face after so long. Because he would have had to be there, with his record, a couple of years, maybe a few. Though it was in the newspapers, my address and although no photos, though some were snapped of me when I left the inquest, so maybe he could have found me out that way. Sure he could have. But I doubt, judging by his speech and looks, he would have been smart enough to know how to go about it or remembered where he’d put the news articles when he went in. Then again, a relative or friend of his might have kept the articles — for some reason, such as thinking he was a celebrity because he was in the papers, cut them out and he got hold of them when he got out and there it was, my name and address. But it wouldn’t have made the papers if I hadn’t killed him. But if it had — after all, ordinary man stops killer from killing him and holds him for the police with the killer’s gun, they could have said. That doesn’t happen too often and especially in a fairly nice Manhattan neighborhood and everybody loves it when the good guy, we’ll call me for this supposition, wins. But by then, if it had made the papers and he hadn’t died and he’d got a copy of it or saved it himself, I had met you and moved into your place about two years after the incident, so he might not have been able to trace me. The post office doesn’t forward mail after a year, and to tell you the truth I wouldn’t have asked them to for even a day and also would have kept my name out of the phone book forever.” “What’s the mail got to do with it?” “He could have come looking for me and not finding me at my old address, asked the mailman where I moved to. They’re not supposed to, of course, but the killer could have conned him into giving it. ‘I owe him a hundred bucks.’ ‘He said he wants to sublet my girlfriend’s apartment.’” “So the mailman would say ‘Write him, it’ll be forwarded.’” “And he could say ‘It has to be done today. By tomorrow I’ll have blown the cash,’ or ‘The apartment will have been rented.’ Anyway, if he had come for me, then without knowing it I might have been protecting you too by killing him. He might have only been out for me but you were with me so he killed us both. Witnesses; get rid of them. And let’s face it, he was a killer, so in one more time, they could throw away the key, and what was one more life to him? Ah, maybe I shot him because I wanted to shoot someone or even kill someone most of my life and knew I could get away doing it to him. Perfect opportunity; gun, which I never had, and easiest way to kill someone, right? And ideal victim, someone just about everyone wants killed. No, that’s not it. Anybody I wanted to kill I’ve done it same way most people do, in my head.” “What’d it feel like after you shot him? I mean, were you disgusted, horrified? I’ve never asked you, and as long as we’re on it.” “I just looked at him and thought ‘Good, he’s dead, he won’t bother me anymore, the sonofabitch, but now I’ve got to start concocting a good case for myself. Also, there was some ecstasy to it. I stopped some filthy creep from threatening me and probably killing me when he had the jump on me and here I am to say it—’Unbelievable!’ I screamed. One word, and twirled around once with my hands in the air like this, like some Hasidic nut dancing, and then yelled ‘Help, police,’ but by this time some people were already looking over the park wall and said ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ And then I thought Holy shit, they saw me spinning around, I’ll have to give some excuse for that too.’ So I brought it up first to the police and said I was dizzy after I shot the man, didn’t know where I was, in some crazy mental state from what happened, and they bought that too. But that’s enough, right?” “You don’t want to go on? I could understand that.” “There’s nothing more really to say. I’ve brought you up to where you know the rest.” “Most of what you told me in the past, if I can be honest, I forget, but all right. The police came, I remember that, and then the questions there and at the precinct, which you mentioned before — all right.” “So what do you think?” “About you in all this? It was so long ago. What’s there to say? You might have been justified. Maybe there’s no justification in killing someone cold-bloodedly like that. But you might have been in such fear and panic for your life after being so menaced by him that you didn’t know what you were doing so you shot him, maybe to stop him from attacking you with what you thought might be another gun or a knife he had hidden. Did you think of that?” “Sure. I’m almost sure I said so. That he’d trick me somehow. But no, I was perfectly rational, or just rational about it, all the time. I thought I might get killed during the robbery but once I got the gun away from him—” “It’s amazing how you were able to do that. Just having done it successfully must have put you — or could have — into some strange state of mind. Power. The superhumanness of it. I mean, people are often having fantasies about it, but who actually does it? The adrenalin must have been overflowing. So much so—” “I suppose. That I don’t remember so I can’t say. Anyway, whe