Prince of Thieves

Chuck Hogan

"Okay. Do this for me. Take a good long look around. Because those faces you see staring back - that's you."

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They say drowning men feel the water get warm before they slip under. The pull of familiarity here was like the tepid bath of sleep. That's who you are - the people you attract, who you keep around you.

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This was all he had ahead of him. You couldn't even call it a dream. It was the opposite of a dream, and the opposite of a dream is not a nightmare but nothingness. Dead sleep.

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"Know anything about whirlpools?"

"Sure."

"They don't just drown you. They swallow you. They hold you down there in that swirl, going round and round, days at a time, even weeks - the force of the water sucking away your clothes, your hair, your face."

---

"You know what you are? I just figured it out. You're decent."

"Oh. Christ, no."

"You are, and more than that - a lot of people who are decent, they were raised to be decent, you know? Like me - good parenting, good manners, blah, blah, blah - which is all fine and good until a little pressure comes into your life, and then you crumble like stale bread. But you - you've made mistakes, you've said as much. You're not a saint or anything, but you know how to be good. Your decency is earned, not learned."

"I don't know how well you know me."

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When she was drunk, she wanted to be sober; sober, she wanted to be drunk.