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me a quick glance.
    ‘I’ll go and dig out my savings account. Make yourself at home. Have a drink. Watch a video. Listen to a tape.’
    He disappeared into the darkness at the back of the trailer. There were various noises, then a blinding flash.
    ‘Smile, you’re on Candid Camera !’
    I raised the gun, and was answered by another flash.
    ‘I like to take a few snapshots when folks visit,’ Allen remarked. ‘Kind of a souvenir. Doesn’t happen that often.’
    He put down the camera and a battered candy tin on the table. Then he opened the tin, counted out eight twenties from the bundle inside and spread them on the table like a hand of cards.
    ‘You see, the fact of the matter is I never got over Luce kicking me out. I mean, okay, maybe I wasn’t the perfect husband and father, but who the hell is? She’d married me for better or worse, and I assumed we’d stick at it one way or another and hang in there, the way most people do. But she had other ideas. You got a ten?’
    I looked at him through the dim yellow light and raised the gun.
    ‘I’m going to shoot you now.’
    ‘No, you’re not, Tone. I know it and you know it. It’s like sex. Eye contact. The smell in the air. There are certain rules in life, like you can’t stop pissing once you’ve started. And you’re not going to shoot me. We both know that.’
    He sighed wearily.
    ‘Strange, that plane coming over. I’m not one of those UN black helicopter wackos you read about, although there’s more than a few of them around here. But I don’t recall anything quite like that happening before.’
    While still speaking, he reached up in one smooth movement and took the gun from my hand. He pushed the spread of twenties across the table, then lifted one and put it in his pocket.
    ‘Okay, if you can’t make change, I have a new deal for you. Let’s say one-forty, and I’ll throw in one of my compilation tapes as a sweetener. Give you something to listen to on the drive back.’
    He pushed the cassette across the table to join the seven banknotes.
    ‘There’s some good stuff on this one. I seriously recommend side two. It’s a real killer. Don’t worry, this is just a copy. I’ve got the original around somewhere.’
    He picked up the revolver.
    ‘Taurus, eh? I’ve heard of them. Supposed to be good. I’ve been meaning to get a gun for some time. In this state it’s practically mandatory to have one. Plus you never know when you might want to end it all, right? I’ve been tempted more than once. It’s the how that always stops me. Knives and razors are out for me. I have this thing about blood. I know it makes me sound like a wuss, but there it is.’
    He smiled reminiscently.
    ‘Fact is, about the only problem Luce and I used to have in bed was that she liked to fuck right through her periods. Pills? I don’t even have a doctor, let alone the feelgood variety. Carbon monoxide sounds good in theory, but in practice it always feels like too much like work. Getting a tube the right size to fit the exhaust pipe and long enough to reach in the side window, all the rest of it. It’s like you want to kill yourself, that’s fine, but first you have to remodel the basement. You end up thinking, the hell with it, I’ll do it tomorrow.’
    He gave me one of his trademark beaming smiles.
    ‘But now I’ve got a gun, I can do it tonight.’
    ‘Do what?’
    There was a long silence.
    ‘You came here to kill me, but you didn’t,’ Allen said at last. ‘So now I’m going to have to kill you. I don’t want to, you understand. I have nothing against you, Tone. On the contrary, you took Luce off my hands and gave her another interest in life. Without you, she might have spent more time wondering how I managed to make ends meet, maybe even hired a lawyer to check my assets. But thanks to you she was all wrapped up in love’s young dream. Well, love’s middle-aged dream, anyway.’
    He waved the gun in the air.
    ‘Anton Chekhov – one of my