Thomas Wolfe Senior was a failure for most of his life, except for the last ten years before he was stabbed in the chest. He met his second wife twenty-eight years ago. His first wife died, though the body was never found. And somewhere in between the chaos and misreporting of her existence, he fucked a prostitute. That sin made Aenea. When we look for a murderer, the first step is to look for motivation. There’s the second family, who in all this rage and murder, could have gotten the most: the casino and whatever devils promise. It could have been Aenea too, I guess. But she doesn’t seem to want anything to do with this god awful town and her god-awful parents. I think she’d rather have another bottle than a fucking casino.

I guess it could have been the older brothers. I can’t even figure them out though. Ritcher’s a walking terminator who talks in pretty words, like if Arnold found God and Whitman half-way through the carnage and destruction.

The other, shit, I don’t know what he has in his head besides sex and drinking. Maybe that’s what scares me most, not what he shows but what he doesn’t. He doesn’t seem like the type to be entertained by debauchery for long, but that’s all he shows. Makes me wonder what he’s hiding.

He looked at the board of newspaper clipping and pictures. They say photographs are worth a thousand words. Well, he sure got a lot of words as he looked at Thomas Wolf. Sr. An old man, a bitter man, a youthful man with high-raised cheeks and a wide jaw and raven black hair receding to greyness until his death. Why, these pictures were worth a million words. Not a single one was an answer though. Not one.

“Hey, Apollo,” Dion asked.

He turned from the desk and now the official evidence chamber of their small apartment. They chose a different motel, something near the burger joint, something near for them to continue their reconnaissance on the tower.

“Yeah?” Apollo put down the morning paper, it was eerily void of any mention of a militia or explosion or any happening at the casino.

“Do you think people change?” Dion said.

“Change?” Apollo put a finger against his and rubbed the scruff. “I knew a fat guy who lost fifty pounds. He swore by eating cabbage soup,” He turned away. “Never liked cabbage.”

“I’m not talking about changing like physically. I mean, do you think people change? Their essence, or something.”

He looked back to Dion who stood flipping through television channels and its myriad of sounds; golf games, cartoons and action films with sex scenes that would make porn stars embarrassed.

“Can a person change? No.” He said. “People are like clay, flexible for a while but then they just harden and stay whatever nasty shape they are. Just don’t ask me when.”

“I think I’ve asked this before, about free will. And you talked about balls I think.”

“Billiards, sure.”

Dion turned off the television and threw the remote on the bed. The television screen flickered once. A white bar appeared center of the tv. It made a sharp static sound. Behind them, beyond the two red-rose blankets sheeted beds and the faux-leather sofa, behind a small white door, Aenea vomited. They waited for a moment just to hear her. It sounded like the Niagara Falls. Along with the screaming of twenty women screaming at the drop from the edge.

“Fuck!” She screamed. Then vomited some more. It hit the floor this time, they could see it leaking from below the door frame.

“Do you still feel that way?”

“I don’t know.”

“God,” Dion turned his head. “I really wish you’d be a smart ass with answers for once.”

“Yeah,”

“Don’t just say yeah. Come up with something smart at least. A rebuttal or something.”

“What is there to debate? I don’t know.”

Dion looked down at his hands. They shook. He gripped the chair and rocked it back and forth. The two back legs hit against the floor, an irregular beat, like a mishappen heart.

“I was scared to shoot my gun only two weeks ago like my hand was poisoned or something because it couldn’t even flinch. a few weeks ago,” Dion said. “Then I fought. And it felt natural. Then I killed someone. That felt natural too.”

“’Someone’ is a bit of a stretch. You killed a witch. One who was hell-bent on stabbing our friend over there,” He pointed to Aenea who flashed in the thin slit of the door, her blond hair dipped into the toilet and came out brown.

“I killed a witch, huh,”

“You’re a Catholic, so they might give you a medal for it.” Apollo laughed.

“You can joke around, but I took a life.”

“Then feel guilty and pray, that’s very Catholic too.”

“That’s the problem,” Dion said. “It’s how little problem I have. How little guilt.”

“First you bitch about being too afraid to fight, now you’re bitching that you’re not scared enough?”

“I just…I just thought I would have more apprehension. I just thought that my heart would be heavy and my head scattered…like the first time,” He said. “But it’s easy now. Maybe I felt sad…maybe…But it’s just so much easier to ignore it. To move on. Like I didn’t even care in the first place. And that scares me. Wouldn’t it scare you?”

“If I killed without feeling guilty? Yeah, it’d mean I’m a psychopath, probably,”

“Exactly!” Dion shouted.

“Did it feel good?” Apollo felt his neck hairs rise. He felt the ‘other’ stir in him, like a hot knot in his stomach, bustling and stretching out his stomach lining. He wondered if it was even him asking that question.

“It felt fun,” Dion said. “Fun, like a game. Like my sadness wasn’t much of anything. Or rather, like killing took away the sadness. Is that messed up?”

Apollo looked him straight in the eye, though Dion kept his gaze lowered and down.

“Completely fucked, actually, yes,” Apollo said. “But, who’s normal, right? And what is normal? Seems like a pretty arbitrary standard, impossible to be met and impossible to define.”

“Can you take this seriously! I’m freaking out,” Dion said. “I have fun killing? Doesn’t that worry you? It worries me.”

“If you’re feeling worried, it’s a good sign that you’re not completely fucked.”

“What do I do then?”

“And how would I know that? I’m not a serial killer.” Apollo said.

Dion turned his head up, frown wide and heavy across his face.

Apollo sighed, “Look, I don’t know the answers to everything. No one does.”

“Lord forgive me, but I must curse,” Dion took a deep breath. “You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?”

“It’s a lifestyle, really,” Apollo stood from his chair. In front of him, some binoculars, a short book called “The Corrux,” about half a dozen caffeine pills and a straight-shot gaze right to the center of the plaza in front of the casino, where the men looked like small black dots from this distance.

He went towards the half-open door to the restroom.

The vomiting ceased. The toilet flushed. Then it resumed. He dropped two Alka-seltzer tablets into some water and left the glass next to Aenea’s feet, somewhere on the bathroom floor.

Dion kept rocking, louder now until the beat of his chair drowned out the small beeping sound of the broken television and its static screen.

“There are no answers in this life, just changing questions.” He said. “It’s arrogant to think otherwise. Thinking you know anything is a good way to get disappointed. I learned that,”

The fan spun, the draft blew down against them, the air was cold, and breathing stung their lungs.

“I didn’t think a psychologist could run around raising a cult. I didn’t think I’d get sent to hell. I didn’t think I had it in me to save you and that kid back in Havenbrook, but life surprised me. I surprised me,” He said. “I don’t know what you’re going to do to deal with this little quirk of yours, and maybe you won’t be able to change. But the effort might be noble enough if you ask me.”

Apollo put a hand on Dion’s shoulder.

Dion’s head turned left to right. The fan, the spieling woman, the constant head throbbing sounds, small and big. It was like a screw being tightened. And when Apollo put his hand on his shoulder, that seemed like the final twist.

“That’s not good enough,” He brushed his shoulder off. “That won’t suffice. That’s not gospel, that’s not truth. That’s nothing, worst than help. I have a problem. And there is no solution? What?”

“You’re just anxious, get some rest,” Apollo said.

“Rest? Rest?” He said. “There’s no rest. Not for me. Never.”

He took his coat from the hanger and opened the door with one hand and put his clothes on with the other.

“Where are you going?” Apollo asked.

“Don’t try to stop me,”

“Trust me, I wasn’t.” Apollo fell on the bed, tired. “Last time I did, you punched me in the face.”

“I said don’t stop me!”

“Right,” Apollo sighed. “Just make sure you bring your -”

The door slammed in front of him.

“- Bring your cell phone.” He exhausted the words. To Apollo’s right, the cellphone laid. Apollo picked it up, inspected it. He rubbed his temples and threw it against the pillows.

“You couldn’t have waited a couple of days? This is the worst time to have a mental break down,”

From the corner of his eye, the door opened. Aenea stepped out her shirt a brown mess. The particles stuck in her bangs. She hiccuped, swallowed something (her eyes widened for a moment like a frog expanding her cheeks) and looked around the room with blood-shot eyes.

“I can handle another one,” She said.

“Go to bed.” Apollo sighed.

“Give me another beer you cheap bastard,” She walked over and shook his chest. “Lemme have another.”

She shook him and shook him and did not let go, nor did Apollo make an effort to break free. Though he should have, and in hindsight, wished he had. Because in half a second, that’s all it took, for her cheeks to blow up and for her to discharge across his chest and chin.

And he wished he pulled her away sooner.

And he wished too - in hindsight - that he had tossed Dion’s cellphone back at him when he had a chance.

He wished. It would have saved him the heartache later on, so much of it. So, so much.