'Sometimes.'
'I'd say y'all were pretty tight, right?'
'That was then, not now.'
'You let people get in your face, Darl?'
'What d'you mean?'
'Dis you, push you around, act like you're a woosh?'
'No, I don't take that stuff.'
'What happened to the Mexican kid who scratched up your car with a nail?'
'I kicked his ass, that's what.'
'Because people don't get in your face and abuse your property, right? You stomp their ass?'
'Yeah, that's right.'
'You ever beat up a woman, a prostitute in San Antonio by the name of Florence LaVey?'
'No, I didn't. I protected myself from people who were rolling me.'
'What happens when people hit your friends, Darl? You kick their ass, too.'
'You goddamn right.' He looked at his friends and grinned.
'Did you see Roseanne Hazlitt slap Bunny Vogel the night she was attacked?'
He pushed at his nose with the flats of his fingers. His eyes were threaded with veins, fixed on mine.
'Yeah. At Shorty's. It wasn't a big deal. She always had her head up her hole about something,' he said.
'It made you mad to see your friend get hit, didn't it?'
'No. I bought her and Lucas a drink. I wasn't mad at anybody.'
'Is that when you put roofies—downers—in Lucas's drink?' I asked.
'Objection, your honor. He's badgering and leading his own witness,' Marvin said.
'Withdrawn,' I said. 'Darl, why'd Roseanne slap Bunny Vogel?'
'She said she was getting baptized. She wanted him to take her to this holy-roller church that's on TV.'
'Baptized?'
'I told you, she had boards in her head. She goes, "Do something decent for a change. Take me to my baptism. Maybe it'll wash off on you." So Bunny says, "Let's take a drive. I'll roll down the windows so you can air the reefer out of your head."
'She goes, "I'm going down to the Lakewood Church in Houston. I done talked to the preacher already."
'Bunny says, "Shorty's is a funny kind of church house to show folks you been saved." She goes, "I'm here to meet Lucas Smothers. At least he don't treat his old friends like yesterday's fuck." Another guy goes, "That's 'cause you're Lucas's reg'lar fuck now."
'Bunny put his hand on her arm and said he'd take her home. That's when she slapped him. She walked on inside and shot him the bone.'
Darl's eyes smiled at his friends.