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“My name is de Buitliér.” The voice is closer, muddied, but still distinct enough.

“Whatever. You had to go messing with my coins, didn’t you. You had to make a fool of me …”

“They’re fakes. It was my responsibility …”

“Bullshit. You were doing anything you could to make me look bad.”

“So what? That doesn’t change the facts.”

“Even if it destroyed me in the process.”

“I was only doing my job.”

There’s a silence in which von Grümh reaches down beside him and comes up with the revolver. “And I’m about to do mine, damn you.”

De Buitliér’s voice is shaky. Whose wouldn’t be? “You should know that this whole thing is being taped. I have a setup through my cell phone.”

Von Grümh laughs. “You always were a sly one. Phony as a …”

“You should talk.”

“You little …”

“Heinie … give me the gun and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

“I’ll give it to you if you’ll shoot me in the heart with it.” He lapses into a mutter. “Everyone’s been screwing me. Or my wife.”

There’s a silence. In the distance, through the front window, a dim figure can be seen walking a small dog on a leash.

“I can’t do that.”

Von Grümh laughs. “Because you think I’m not worth shooting?”

De Buitliér says, reverting to his ersatz brogue, “You’re right enough there …” He trails off.

Heinie says, “You don’t think I have the balls to shoot myself, do you?”

De Buitliér is silent for what seems a long time. Then, in an accent that is neither here nor there, he speaks. “Why would I think that? All you have to do is put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. All of your misery will be ended. Nothing could be simpler.”

A mad hope sounds in Heinie’s voice. “I don’t want it to look like a suicide.”

“Why not?”

“Because people who commit suicide are losers.”

“There’s something to that.”

“Look, if I do it … will you take the gun?”

“I should take it anyway. To keep someone else from getting it. It would be the responsible thing to do.”

Heinie snorts at that. “God, you’re a coldhearted little bastard.”

“He’s right there,” the sergeant interjected.

There’s another long silence. As though impatient, de Buitliér says, “Heinie, just give me the damn thing. You don’t have what it takes to shoot me or yourself.”

In the silence that follows, von Grümh nods slowly, the gun still pointing firmly at the curator. When his voice is heard again, it’s as though from a distance. “You may be right.” He turns to de Buitliér. “But if I kill you first, then I won’t have a choice, will I? And this whole dirty nightmare will be over. I mean, I won’t have a choice. Not if this is all being recorded … for posterity. Posterity. What the hell does that word mean?”

Von Grümh, gripping the steering wheel with his free hand, stifles a sob and keeps talking. “With my net worth, I could buy and sell this whole miserable town. Did you know there have been some very important people, I mean, A-list movers and shakers, who wanted me to run for governor. I could have done that. Then senator. And then, who knows … Because I know how things work. I know … Instead, all I did was write checks. All my life, I’ve been trying to make other people happy. God knows I’ve tried. All I’ve done is give, give, give. And at every turn I’ve been betrayed. Betrayed …”

He sounds like a man trying to bare his soul only to find that he doesn’t have one.

He says, “So you’ll take the gun after I’ve …”

“I’ve said I would.”

In a movement that takes less than seconds but replays in the mind with slow, awful clarity, von Grümh raises the gun to his head and cocks it. He holds it there for what seems an eternity. He gives a short, strangled cry. A blinding noise is heard. The body slumps forward and a trickle of blood comes out of the wound in the right temple.

De Buitliér momentarily sounds panicked. He says, “Jesus!” Then the camera pivots around, scanning the area around the car as though to check for witnesses. There are none. No lights go on anywhere. With one last “Jesus,” de Buitliér reaches over, unclutches the dead