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shirt, his boat-size brown wing-tip shoes. He had a lean face, lank blond hair that flopped down over his forehead like Hitler’s, and a wide space between his front teeth through which the pink tip of his tongue habitually peeked like a serpent. He didn’t approve of interracial love affairs, said his mean little blue eyes, and he didn’t feel at all sorry for Beth. If Carver had asked him, he probably would have said as much.
    Carver looked at Beth. “Do you feel well enough to talk to the police?”
    She nodded. “Might as well get it over with. It can’t take long, because I don’t have much to tell. All I know is that I walked inside the clinic, then got blown back out through the door.”
    “Wages of sin,” McGregor said with a wicked grin, pulling a small, leather-covered note pad and a pencil from his pocket. The movement made his suit coat open wider and revealed the checked butt of his shoulder-holstered nine millimeter. Also fanned the stench and failure of his deodorant across the room.
    “What sin?” Carver asked.
    “Yours and hers, dumbfuck. You knocked her up and she let you do it, or she wouldn’t have been anywhere near that explosion.”
    Beth knew how McGregor fed on other people’s misery and tried not to show she was upset. “I thought you were going to tell us you were pro-life or pro-choice, but that would mean you believed in something other than yourself.”
    McGregor looked over at Carver and grinned, poking his tongue through the space between his teeth at the same time. It made him look incredibly lewd. “Hey, she’s still feisty, even after getting her ass blown through some glass doors.”
    “Still thinking clearly, too,” Carver said. “She’s got you figured out.”
    McGregor shrugged. “Pro-life, pro-choice, who gives a flying fuck? I’m pro-me and I’m not ashamed to admit it.” He poked at his concave chest with a long forefinger. “Pro-me, just like everybody else is, when push comes to shove.”
    “You sound proud of it, though,” Beth said. Despite Carver’s warnings, she was always surprised anew by the totality of McGregor’s evil. He wished she’d be quiet; inspiring others’ loathing was McGregor’s crude way of communicating with people. It would have been pathetic if it weren’t so . . . well, loathsome.
    “Damned right I’m proud,” McGregor boasted. “Charles Darwin would be proud of me, too. He and I both understand nature, including human. I accept my nature, which is just like yours. Only you don’t accept what you are. Don’t even admit it to yourselves. Hell, I admit it and like it. Tell you, Carver, I feel good about myself, just like all the psychology assholes advise.”
    Carver tried to imagine McGregor reading psychological self-help books but couldn’t. Maybe I’m Despicable, You’re Despicable.
    “You’re as repugnant as anyone I’ve ever met,” Beth told McGregor.
    He smiled at her, happy to have roused her ire. “Thanks. And you should be a good judge, considering you’ve slept with repugnant characters. Even married one. Way it goes, you lie down with shit, and you can’t help but get up with it all over you.”
    Carver felt his anger surge and took a step toward McGregor. He wanted to grab him by his wrinkled brown lapels and knock out some of his oversize yellow teeth.
    He almost raised his cane to swing it at McGregor’s head. Then he stopped. McGregor was staring at him, still smiling. This was what he wanted. Anything he’d said that was out of line could be denied, and McGregor could lie like a corrupt choirboy. And a scuffle would bring people, leave evidence. The kind McGregor wanted in order to nail Carver with the law he sometimes wielded like a hammer.
    “Keep right on coming, dickface,” McGregor said, obviously disappointed that Carver had stopped. “This is exactly the kind of thing I’d expect from a dumb gimp like you.” He moved his hand slightly so it was resting on the butt of his holstered