"I'll try to pay you back; make it up to you some way...."
"That's all right. Where are you going? What are you going to buy?"
Perhaps it was the desire to shock her, to destroy her faith in him, perhaps and more probably, it was the need to confess (and hope for absolution) that he said: "I want to buy a gun."
"Why do you want a gun?"
Herb, still standing, tried to memorize her face. He was acutely aware of his isolation. He wanted to go to her side, to talk rapidly, to reveal the cruel and horrible compulsion that was driving him—and most of all, to enlist her aid and her understanding. He needed to know that one single individual in the whole Universe could appreciate his attempt to meet his own standard of truth and morality.
"Tell me. Maybe Bud will be able to help you out of your trouble.... He's my brother...."
The complexity of emotions that burst upon him was almost impossible to understand. He had thought of her—if he had actually thought of the connection at all—as an employee of Bud's, perhaps, but no more than that. He asked incredulously: "Frank was your brother?"
"You mean ... is my brother?"
"Yes ... I, yes, of course."
"What did you mean: was my brother?" Uneasiness settled deep inside her. "Has something happened to him?"