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I held out my arms, bugging my eyes.

—What? Am I wrong? I mean, this is unfuckingreal. This is. Water in the mouth? Water in the mouth gets you this? Myfuckinggod.

The deputy looked at Gabe.

—Where'd you find him?

Gabe picked at something imbedded in the wall, his fingernails rimmed with dry yellow paint.

—Po Sin knows him.

—You tell him about the pipe bomb?

Gabe took a Leatherman from the nylon case on his belt and unfolded it into pliers.

—Be my guest.

The deputy put his hands on his hips.

—Guy was ex-military

He looked at Gabe.

—Right?

Gabe closed the tips of the pliers over whatever was in the wall.

—I think so, yeah.

The deputy looked back at me.

—OK, ex-military guy wanted to off himself. So he made a pipe bomb.

I put my hand to my forehead.

—No.

—Yeah. And to do it, what he did was, he sat on it. And I don't mean sat on it, I mean he sat on it. Full insertion.

I put my other hand on my forehead.

—Oh no.

He nodded.

—Yeah. Pipe bomb in the ass. And, here we go, he does this while seated on his water bed.

—Oh shit.

—You'd think. But here's what happened. The, what, the internal dynamics of a bomb in the rectal passage were such that the force of the explosion went straight up. Not only did the bed not burst, but by giving slightly while still offering resistance, it helped to focus the blast upward. Thing went off, it scoured his viscera, guts, lungs, everything, shot them up through his head and out the top of his skull. Like a fountain. The whole room got sprayed, but other than looking a little bloated, and, you know, his head being gone from the eyebrows up, he was intact. And the bed was peachy.

He made pistol fingers and pointed at me.

—That was a fucking mess.

Gabe twisted the pliers and pulled something free of the wall and inspected it.

—Yeah. It was a big job.

He dropped the object in his palm and walked to the deputy, folding the Leatherman away.

—You need this for anything?

I walked over and looked at the large silver-filled molar he was showing the deputy.

The deputy shook his head.

—No. We finished in here. No way to fake a scene like this. Don't need teeth in the wall to tell us what happened. He made it easy. Note. All that.

I walked to the door and looked down the hall. I could see Po Sin on the couch next to the girl who'd let us in. The two of them going over papers on a clipboard, the girl signing her name. Po Sin taking a travel pack of Kleenex from his breast pocket and handing it to her as she set the clipboard aside and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

I looked back in the room.

—So why'd he do it?

The deputy looked at me.

—Brain tumor.

He pointed at what had been a head, now gored all over the wall.

—Guess he showed it who was boss.

In the driveway Gabe and I put on our Tyveks and I watched Po Sin palm the deputy a fifty.

—Thanks for the referral, Mercer. Hope we can do some more business over here.

Mercer pocketed the cash.

—No problem.

He opened the door of his patrol car.

—Far as I'm concerned, Aftershock's off the referral list. Last job I put them onto, a teenager did her wrists in the bathtub, right. Found out she was pregnant or something. Anyway, door closed. Hardly any splatter at all. Plastic shower curtain. Couple towels. Easy as hell. A month after they were in there, the girl's brother uses the tub for the first time, to wash the family dog, right. Has Fido in there, running the water to get it warm how his best little friend likes it. What happens is, the water starts backing up, starts filling the tub, and it's fucking red. Drain was choked with dry blood and feces from the girl. Those Aftershock rocket scientists, they poured some Drano in there and called it a day. Little boy is already traumatized from his sister having to take a real long nap, and now bloody water's gushing up from the drain and his dog is spazzing out. Family calls Aftershock, pretty justifiably upset, and Morton tells them it's not his problem. Tells them he did his job and they signed off on the work. He'll be happy to send someone over, but he'll