The agents were on him at once, and it was over almost before it began: a scuffle, a shout, the flat sound of a man pressed down against the floorboards, and the click of the cuffs closing.

I did not watch the worst of it.

I had my arms around my belly and my eyes on the middle distance, the way you learn to go somewhere else when a room turns violent, and by the time I looked back he was on his feet between two agents with a split lip and a manic grin.

Chapter 21 — What He Confessed

What he said next was worse than the lunge.

Dazed, spitting, hauled upright, he laughed at me.