7

7

NEEDLESS TO SAY, rest does not come easy to me. I spend most of the night fitfully tossing and turning. In the few moments I do manage to doze off, I’m woken by nightmares of a zombie Senator Keeley strangling me and moaning in a repeated chant, “Nick says hi . . . Nick says hi . . . ”

So by the time Zeke calls me at 6:00 in the morning (the sadistic bastard loves calling me early, because he knows I’m not a morning person), I feel like I would have been better off not even trying to sleep.

“Good morning star shine, the Earth says hello!” Zeke says. I’m so tired, it takes me a minute to figure out who he’s impersonating this time. Then it hits me, and I literally face-palm. Willy Wonka—and not the Gene Wilder Willy, but the Johnny Depp Willy. Technically not a serial killer, but definitely a sociopath, and I guess after thirty or forty years of doing this, Zeke’s probably running out of good characters to impersonate.

“Cut the crap, Zeke, I’m in no mood today,