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Chapter 2. In one of my first phone conversations with John before we'd met, I asked him if he thought

it was possible that maybe Capram Burt hadn't killed anybody. If it was possible that the murder

he'd contacted me about was actually just a rumor, a fiction.

No, John said, there was little doubt in his mind that it was true.

And then, by way of explanation, he launched into this parable.

Let me tell you something I saw one time.

I should admit that at the time this story was completely lost on me.

Me and Roger Price, it went up with the truck

stopped together to get a little dinner. We came back by, it was passing by the South 40

trailer park. So, Roger's one of these dudes, he's a darn transmission mechanic. He's not really

talking to, he's a good dude, but he just, you know, he only has one tooth. It's really

amusing to see how he can balance a cigarette on that one tooth.

The whole time he's talking, that cigarette is just bouncing around all over that one tooth,

and he never loses that, son of a bitch.

So we're coming by this.

Welcome to South 40th, and there's this girl out there walking around and from the damn side,

holding a cell phone, and she's got on

a pink top and nothing else no fucking panties no goddamn socks barefoot and i remarked that to roger

i don't remember what i said i probably said God, look at her or something like that.

And Roger's sage advice was, usually when you see Jokers that look like that, they've done something to get like that.

That's the lesson?

...