If you want to kill a man, you better be damn well prepared to go through with it. That’s the problem for most people; they can’t go through with it. They can come so close and never bring themselves to pull the trigger. Me? I don’t have that problem. I guess I wouldn’t be any good in my line of work if I did. I clean things up. Messes, some might call them. Whatever you want to call them, somebody thinks they have a problem and they call me to clean it up. I want people to know that I don’t fix problems; I just get rid of them. Fixing problems is a different matter entirely; it requires much more time and much more meticulous planning. Killing is simple. Despite what the politicians and the preachers would have you believe, killing is not a complicated process. A man’s mind can sometimes make it complicated, but killing has nothing to do with morals. Morality is a human construct based entirely on human perception; I don’t get paid to perceive. I guess that’s why I’m so good at what I do; I only think as much is required for me to get the job done.
When I get a call requesting my services I give a date, time, and place where I can set my price and hear the job; this call was no different. When the kid sat down with me at the back table of Josie’s I didn’t think much of it. The kid looked scared, clean cut, he’d clearly never done this kind of thing before, and he kept going on and on about his parents and his tuition and his future prospects. He said he heard of me from a friend of a friend and that I was very highly recommended. I told the kid to shut up; I told him that I don’t care about all of his problems, only one of his problems. So he told me about some whore that he needs to be rid of. Now usually I don’t like to take a job where women are involved, but the kid is offering good money, real good money, and I haven’t had a client in a while. Things had gotten risky on my last job, too many people asking too many questions, so I had to move someplace new, start over with a new name. So I told the kid, I told him to come back to this same place with the money, unmarked bills, in two weeks and then I would do whatever he wanted me to do. So in two weeks the kid came back, and he had the money, unmarked bills. He tells me about this whore he knocked up two months ago; he tells me where he picked her up, how much he paid for her, and every other little detail that a normal person would think of as insignificant. He even gave me a picture, one that I doubt his high income parents would approve of. I tell the kid to get lost and that the girl will be dead within the month.
It takes a little longer than I expected to actually find the whore. She isn’t working the first couple nights I search; the other street girls told me she’s had a few rough clients recently. I doubted any of them were as rough as I intended to be. I finally managed to find the whore and her pimp thinks that she’s good enough merchandise to protect. I put two bullets in the back of his head; gangland execution style. The bitch ran; she didn’t get far. I found her in an alley soaked through with vomit and piss; the kind of alley that hookers turn up dead in all the time.
So now I’m strangling this whore in an alley and, right when her eyes should be beginning to darken, her eyes widen and she lets out a final, hoarse scream. After I finish, I hear a soft fluttering above me. I look up and see, to my surprise, that I was not what made the whore scream. A huge dark shape descends towards me, its black wings unfurling and consuming all in my sight. I’m not an easily scared man, but this frightful visage could drive the bravest to insanity. I turn and flee into the streets, all my professionalism replaced with self-preservation. I turn after three blocks and see that the shape is on a nearby rooftop, silhouetted by the moon. I fire three shots at it and watch it crumple as the bullets find their mark. I continue to run for six more blocks. Finally I stop to catch my breath and look to see if the devilish creature is still in pursuit. Relief washes over me when I see that it is not. I killed it, I hit it with three bullets, and it can’t get me now.
I regain my poise, and walk as calmly as I can manage to my apartment complex. I proceed up the stairwell and down my hall; still shaking from my brush with darkness. I turn the key in its lock and enter the comfort of what some might call a home. I am still shaking, and find that I can barely stand. I lie down on my bed, the only piece of furniture in the apartment, and feel a slight chill. I notice then that a window is open; I never leave windows open, to do such could be compromising. It is then that I notice an oppressive shadow has fallen over me. I turn, and am greeted by the same demon which pursued me through the streets. There is but a single square of humanity on its face; a glimpse at the handsome perfection beneath the fearsome specter. The tormented, human eyes are the last thing I notice before a fist plunges me into the abyss. I awake in the county jail, lock-up, sore as hell. I make the mistake of asking what happened. A cop looks at me and tells me that I’m lucky I got off this easy, tells me that he’s in a bad mood tonight. “Who’s in a bad mood?” The cop chuckles, “You haven’t been in Gotham long, have you?”
