Suckers - J.A. Konrath

"He’s practicing for a play audition. Something about a serial killer who paces around with a
butcher knife."
I gaped at him.
Roger grinned.
"You dork!" I said. "You made this all up?"
"No, I was absolutely serious when I said that he was practicing for a play audition."
I looked around for something to throw at him, preferably something with jagged edges and
an internal combustion engine, but there wasn’t anything. I settled for calling him a dork again.
"Don’t blame me," said Roger. "It’s your sorry excuse for a town that forced me to resort to
this kind of entertainment."
"There’s nothing wrong with Chamber."
"Where else have you lived?"
"Chamber. But there’s nothing wrong with it."
"Well, then what should we do?"
"We could watch some more TV."
* * *
Two hours of quality television later, Roger chugged the last of his can of soda and let out a
belch that freaked out his cat. "I was lying about him auditioning for a play," he said.
"No, you weren’t."
"Okay."
I finished off my own drink and emitted my own, less-effective belch. "You know what
would be funny? If somebody thought he really was a psycho killer and called the cops."
"Wanna do it?"
"No."
"Good. That would be wrong."
"What if we just called him up and said ‘I know where you buried the bodies.’? We could go
on and on and say ‘We know what you did, you sick twisted bastard’ and at the end of the call
just say ‘We hope you get the part!’ and hang up."
"He’d know it was us."
"How?"
"Because we live next door, dorkwad."
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