“Hello, neighbor,” he said as Alan came up the walkway. “Good evening?”
Alan stopped and put his hands on his hips, straightened his head out on his neck so that he was standing tall. “I understand what he gets out of you,” Alan said. “I understand that perfectly well. Who couldn’t use a little servant and errand boy?
“But what I don’t understand, what I can’t understand, what I’d like to understand is: What can you get out of the arrangement?”
Krishna shrugged elaborately. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“We had gold, in the old days. Is that what’s bought you? Maybe you should ask me for a counteroffer. I’m not poor.”
“I’d never take a penny that you offered—voluntarily.” Krishna lit a nonchalant cig and flicked the match toward his dry, xeroscaped lawn. There were little burnt patches among the wild grasses there, from other thrown matches, and that was one mystery-let solved, then, wasn’t it?
“You think I’m a monster,” Alan said.
Krishna nodded. “Yup. Not a scary monster, but a monster still.”
Alan nodded. “Probably,” he said. “Probably I am. Not a human, maybe not a person. Not a real person. But if I’m bad, he’s a thousand times worse, you know. He’s a scary monster.”
Krishna dragged at his cigarette.