When the man fights back, Otis grabs an electrical cord and chokes him.
Having found an excuse to indulge his murderous impulses, Henry stabs the fence repeatedly with a soldering iron nearby. The rude man sarcastically ridicules them for having little money, and berates them for refusing to buy his black-market goods.
Back at their apartment, Henry explains his code of immorality: the world is "them or us." Otis seemingly accepts and drops the argument.Īfter Otis destroys his old TV out of frustration, Henry takes him to a fence to buy a new one. Otis worries that the police might catch them, but Henry assures him that everything will work out. Henry invites him to adopt his philosophy of murder, trying to convince him of a relativistic nature of murder. Otis is shocked and disturbed and confronts Henry about his murderous lifestyle.
That evening, Henry and Otis pick up two prostitutes whom Henry murders by breaking their necks. Becky indicates a romantic interest in Henry. Later when Otis makes an incestuous pass at Becky, Henry violently threatens Otis, who promises not to do it again. Henry discloses that he is disturbed by sexual violence against women and forms a seemingly protective bond with Becky. Becky reveals that her father raped her as a teenager. Henry tells her that he stabbed his mother because she abused and humiliated him as a child, often having sex in front of him (which contradicts his other statements, in which he claims to have shot her or have killed her with a bat). Later that night, Becky asks Henry about the murder of his mother, the crime that landed him in prison. Otis, Henry's prison friend, picks up his sister Becky at O'Hare International Airport and brings her back to the apartment that he shares with Henry. He migrates to Chicago, where he stops at a diner, eats dinner and later murders the elderly proprietors of a liquor store. Henry is a psychopathic drifter who murders scores of people – men, women, and children – as he travels throughout America.