Release me. Now. Or I ull kill you." "Shoot me, why don't you?" "I can't do that, I can't. You're a child, but you know everything, remember everything. You should be dead." "When I'm done, who knows? Maybe I'll kill you. Or maybe you'll kill me. I don't know. What I do know is that you haven't got me for a slave, motherfucker." "No? Then what are you?" "The fuck are you gonna do, motherfucker, kill me?" I could see the wheels turn in Max's head. It was so easy. He would shoot me, and then have to explain to the cops how I had escaped from him. Kill the evidence. I was about to say something smart, some Zen koan like "A mind is a mountain, it is a river, it is this or that," and then the gun flashed. The noise came suddenly, and I was thrown back. I couldn't feel the bullet hit. I sat up. Max looked at me, puzzled. "Get up." "Where are we going?" "You'll see." He pointed the gun. It was a big gun, a Luger. He had put the barrel of it into my shoulder. "Now get up, or I'll shoot you right here." "Can I turn?" I asked. "No." So I got up. I could feel my shoulders where the heavy gun was. It was a machine gun, the barrel looked like a machine gun. The man who owned the machine gun held it by the stock, as if it weighed nothing. "Where are we going?" "It's a surprise, I promise." "A surprise, Max." "Yeah, a surprise." We got back into his car. He drove onto the narrow road. It was as if the gun did nothing to me, but he was taking no chances. After a while we saw a white Dodge van. It was a truck, not a van, but it was big. There were two guys in it. "Stop here." Max jumped out. The van stopped as well. The two guys got out. One was tall, muscular, with a black brush haircut, black sunglasses, a scar on the side of his face. The other guy was the short fat one. Max opened the door of his car. He moved the gun slowly from my shoulder, back and forth, to make sure the safety was off. Then he put it on the seat. "Okay," he said. We got in the van, Max behind the wheel. The guy in the back drove. The guy in the front with the brush haircut was smoking. Max sat in the middle. He had a heavy gun in his belt. He held it easily, as if it were not loaded. "Who do you have for us to kill, Max?" "Lars." "Lars, huh?" "Do you have any better suggestions?" "Don't you get sick of Lars?" "Don't you?" "I don't think so." Max started to get out, but the man in front of him put his hand on his leg. "Hang on. We're supposed to wait until they pick you up." "Who are you?" "The same. I'll be your backup." "Shit, so you're a professional soldier. Like me." "I like to think so." The guy seemed cool. He had a black belt in karate, too. He was a strange, but at least he had a kind of calm. But I could see the calmness made him uneasy. He worried a lot. The guys in the back didn't worry much. They smoked and laughed. "You know what," Max said, "you look too light to be a professional. There's gotta be something in your past. I'll tell you something." "What?" "I hate all you white people. I wish I was a black man. Blacker than black. All black, all the time. That's me. That's all there is." "So you're black," the fat guy said. "I hate the way you use the word black, but you're right. I am a black man. I am blacker than black." "Yeah, you're blacker than black. But no amount of blackness can make up for you being white. You can't cover that up. But your other friend, he looks like a black man, and he's black, too." I got nervous. "Don't worry," Max said. "He knows what he's doing. I told him it's up to you, but he says you gotta do it." "I said fuck you." Max turned around, and looked me in the eye. "This is important. You know how many niggers are killed by white men, everyday?" Max spoke, and he was very angry. He was talking so fast that he didn't stop to breathe. "One in every five niggers is killed by a white man. But every time you kill a white man, you kill the wrong niggers. It's impossible to get it right. You always fuck it up. But you can kill one hundred niggers with this gun. Why not. It's worth a chance. It's worth the risk." He stopped, and smiled. "It's worth the risk," he repeated, and it was the worst thing I had ever heard in my life. There was a long silence. The fat guy had looked inside Max's car and was smoking. The skinny one had put on the sunglasses. "You're a real friend, I'll say that for you," the skinny guy said. "But tell me, how much of this do I get?" Max turned around. "What's the fat one got to say?" "I got plenty to say." "The one with the hair is my soldier. This is my business, and I don't want anything to do with you white men." The guy with the hair put his sunglasses down. He reached into the back. He grabbed a gun from the guy in the middle. It was a machine gun, too. But it was shorter, and smaller. "I'm tired of this game," Max said. "I got no beef with white men, but you get the fuck out of my sight." Max put his hand on the wheel and steered the van back to the side of the road. "Wait," Max said. "Don't be so angry. We will take some more time to discuss this." Max put his hand over his head, like a cop stopping on the highway. "I've seen that kind of thing before," the skinny guy said. "Bullshit." "So you wanna kill more niggers, go to Chicago. Take my gun, and kill all the niggers you want. But leave me alone." "You can't be like that, kid," the skinny guy said. "I got to live like you. I got to live among niggers. I can't stand all the shit they give us. You know that." "So you kill them, then." "We do what we have to do." "Your friends kill niggers, too?" "They're white like you. I got white friends. They do what they have to do. Nobody feels guilty about killing niggers. It's like getting rid of a dog. It's that simple." "You like dogs? We've got a cat. It'll be nice and warm in our truck. You should go see. We'll come back for you." "Go away," Max said. "You guys are too heavy on your conscience." "You don't even think about them," the fat guy said. "You shoot, you don't look at their face. We know what you're doing, you know that." "Aren't you the one who is supposed to have balls?" Max said. "Don't fuck around." "The nigger's got balls." "What?" "He don't look at a nigger's face when he shoots. And he doesn't look at a white man's face. All he sees is the niggers. That's why he can kill them, but he can't even see them, man." Max was looking at me. "I could be black, but I don't want to be. But even if I were black, that wouldn't stop me from killing niggers. I'm different. I don't think like the rest of you. I don't feel guilty about anything." "Go away," Max said. "Wait a minute." "Don't talk to me. I said go away. I never want to see you again." "If I do, are you going to kill me?" "Yes." "Okay." "When are you going to kill