more fiction shut up

They faced each other, seated and glaring across the table. Danburg wore the typical clothing of a private detective, a little more expensive than it should have been, the line and cut precise and made to fit. It was all clean too, thought Gribaldi. He didn't like that. "Why did you do it?" Danburg wavered, looking down at the glass. It was full. "Most people. Before they can succeed, they gotta touch bottom, yeah?" Gribaldi gritted his teeth and listened, hoping it didn't show. He carefully unclenched his jaw muscles, thankful Danburg was focusing more on the glass than him. "What's that supposed to mean?" Gribaldi's clothes were dirty, rumpled and slept-in. Which was funny, he thought, considering how long it had been since he'd last slept. "Look at you, Officer Gribaldi..." "Detective." The reaction was instinctive. Danburg's face raised in a question before continuing. "... Detective Gribaldi. Look at you. Once we're done here, you'll go home to your wife, eat some steak, maybe get a raise and just how low you sank will be a memory. You aren't actually at the bottom, but you have a taste to remind you how good your life is." Gribaldi blinked slowly and felt a bead of sweat travel down his face, hang briefly from his cheekbone then slide down the curve of his jaw. His eyes fluttered open and he searched Danburg's face for similar effects. Was he sweating more? Was he losing? "Drink up Danburg. Or have I won? These are your rules. You have to follow them as well." "Patience, Officer." Danburg swallowed. Gribaldi thought, hoped, the movement looked painful. "Right now I am as far down as anyone can go. That's what I've been doing. I've fucked and killed my way across this state to see how far down I can get. And now I'm here. When I come back everything will be mine." Gribaldi broke, his equilibrium shattered and he swayed off the chair, corrected himself and swayed back too far. Somehow the chair slipped from under him and his breath escaped. He swung his head around trying to gauge Danburg's reaction to the poison and his eyes rolled in their sockets with the momentum. He heard Danburg's chair move as his vision faded and his last thoughts were of how desperate, how much he'd lost to come this far, to enter in such a duel.