There's a man who works for The Professor, and everyone calls him 'Punxsutawney Phil.' His name is not really Phil, but he really is from Punxsutawney.
        
On the day previous, I had shot a woman in her home.  I didn't really think about it at the time, but I suppose she was attractive enough to be an actress or at least a woman who is paid to be photographed in her underpants.  So Punxsutawney Phil and The Professor and a few of the guys and I are sitting around the back room of a bar called "The Golden Oldie" which belongs to The Professor.  Phil has got his hands on the killie-shot of yesterday's woman.  (A killie-shot is simply the photograph The Professor gives us the day before a killing to identify a target.)  Anyway, Phil starts passing the photo around and talking a whole lot of nonsense, "You'd have to be gay to kill a red-hot piece of ass like that" and things of that nature.  "What, you a cornholer, man?" asks one of the other guys, and The Professor sits back real smugly and winks and smiles at me, like we have some kind of wonderful secret, the secret method of rubbing several out before a lady-killing.  I humor him and nod back.
        
"So yeah," says Phil, "you'd have to be a homo to kill a piece of ass like that." 
        
"No," I say.  "All you'd need is a trigger finger and a place to put it."
        
"You're evading the question," says Phil.
        
"You didn't ask one," I say.
        
"Are ya a homo or not?"
        
"That's personal," I say. 
        
I don't like the guys to know too much about my personal life.  But I'm not a homo.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just happen to like women.  Not the kind of women you see every day, not the kind of women I kill, not the kind of women who walk down the subway platform, nothing like that.  I like a cripple, for instance.  I like a woman with a limp.  A limp is sexy.  A limp is testing yourself against the world every day with every damn step.  It's pain in every step.  Every step becomes a reminder that you're still alive.  Some of the women I've killed may have limped in the midst of a shooting or a stabbing before it was over, but that's not a sexy limp.  It's a desperate limp, and there's something sad about it.  It's a pale reflection of a live limp.  I had a girlfriend once.  She had a limp.    
        
Her name was Nan, and she had a metal rod that ran along the inside of her right leg, fastened to the pieces that remained of her furmur or feemer or whatever it's called.  Most of the time she used a cane, but when she didn't, she limped wonderfully.  The distribution of her weight, the distortion of her frame, the dragging and grasping of errant limbs...  If you'd seen her limping in silhouette, you might not even be sure you were looking at a human being.  There was something glorious about it.  She was a one of a kind, my Nan. 
        
 She got that way when she was nine years old.  She was out playing with a little boyfriend of hers named Freddie Pleat.  I ought to look the guy up.  I won't say I'd like to kill him exactly, but I'd like to take a long, hard look at him.  Look him in the eye, and see if he was testing himself against the world lately, like Nan did.  Little Nan and Freddie fancied themselves quite the lovebirds, but along with that came a lot of rough-housing.  They were engaged in some kind of 'feats of strength' competition.  They'd been inspired by some Saturday morning television program, I want to say it was called He-Ra Versus She-Ra or something of that nature.  They were out in the middle of this field, I don't know if it was corn or wheat or what, but it was a few miles from their neighborhood, basically in the middle of nowhere.  There was a pile of lumber and construction materials discarded by long-departed builders, and Nan and Freddie were pretending it was the prow of a majestic Viking ship or some nonsense.  Grappling with one another, they tumbled off of the side and fell ten or fifteen feet.  Nan spun and pinned Freddie down.  She made him scream for mercy, made him say 'Uncle,' made him say she was the 'master of the universe' and all that.  She was so focused on winning that she didn't notice the metal rod impaling her right thigh until Freddie began to scream.  Freddie started shaking and bucking and kicking, and flipped Nan off of him.  He runs.  He's afraid, sure, but he runs.  Nan laid there staring up at overcast Midwestern skies, watching the clouds roll and flow into and envelop one another.  It's better than looking down, seeing bone and rust and blood interwoven across a pale, fleshy canvas.  Day turned into night.  Nan wondered where the help was.  Freddie hadn't told anybody.  Scared out of his wits.  Nan wondered if she was going to die.  Another day came, another night.  She said the pain wasn't so bad, it was the shivering that got to her.  She could look up at the clouds and forget about the pain, just will it away.  But then she began to tremble.  She couldn't stop it.  Trembles turned into shakes.  It was pure reflex.  She couldn't hypnotize herself out of it.  A hell of a thing.  Even without Freddie's help, she was discovered two days later and quickly rushed to the hospital.  Nan even lied for him, claiming she was alone when she fell.  Some nights, some twenty-five years and a thousand or so miles away from it, I'd wake up in our warm bed to find Nan shivering beside me, uncontrollably.  It was best not to wake her.                
        
I only mention this business with Nan because I want you to understand the nature of sex and the nature of killing in a world that slopes down.  I despise casual sex.  Perhaps if there was no society, I might feel differently, but it's important not to be like the others, the others on the subway platform, the others with the gravy swishing in their skulls.   I suppressed the sexual impulse when I was away from Nan.  Now I suppress it entirely.  And why not?  Self-control separates us from the animals.  Give into your urges, say the others.  We are all animals, say the others, say the men who use and discard women like napkins, we are all animals, say the women fooling around with the family dog, we are all animals says The Professor who needs a crude and boorish ritual to exert the power of his mind over his body.  Fine.  You are animals.  I am not.  What is the fate of animals in this world of ours?  They are killed and eaten, mostly. 
        
The world slopes down.  The world ends in darkness.  Murder is merciful.  Murder is surgical.  Murder is inevitable.  But sex is light.  Sex is a bond.  Sex is forever.  Sex is a connection.  Connection is difficult.  Connection wrenches you up from the abyss, if only for a moment.  
        
In the end, it is a Connection that is special, not the when and where of a murder.  Everyone dies, but not everyone Connects.  Those who would seek to toy with it, to see sex as a grand plaything, to love and leave; these people are guilty of a much greater crime- the crime of bestowing false hope.  This is the crime that Freddie Pleat committed against Nan when he ran away for help and instead ran to dinner.  It is a selfish crime.  Murder is selfless.  I derive no pleasure from it.   I bestow false hope upon no one. 


***

Across a period of approximately three years, I killed nearly one-hundred and fifty women.  The Professor ran an efficient organization, and during those years, I was never once questioned by the police.  I had no criminal record, and the women I killed didn't seem the sort who'd have rich mothers and fathers and uncles who would pay for in-depth investigations.  I was free and clean and clear; though if one day I had been plucked from the streets and whisked away to prison, I doubt it would have changed my outlook significantly.  I don't wish to get into it, but life without Nan became something of a prison as it was.
        
So one evening, I was shooting a game of pool with Punxsutawney Phil at "The Golden Oldie."  We were playing nine-ball.  I was terrible at pool and Phil was something of a hustler, but we played anyway, and sometimes for large amounts of money.  I always lost, but it didn't matter.  I had little use for money.
        
On this particular night, Phil had beaten me three times in a row, and had won himself a 'cool' six hundred.  I paid him, and began swirling the blue chalk cube around the tip of my cue.  This indicated that I was up for at least one more game. 
        
"I just loooove takin' your money," said Phil.
        
"It's not really my money," I said.  "It's The Professor's."
        
"But he paid it to you, it's yours now."
        
"If you say so."
        
"Well, by that dumbass logic, it's not even The Professor's money.  It'd be The Judge's money."
        
"Who's The Judge?" I asked.
        
"Are you serious?  You're a fuckin' idiot.  You playin' with me?"
        
"I don't know who The Judge is," I said.
        
"The Judge is The Professor's boss. The Judge is The Big Boss.  How do you not know this?"
        
"Oh," I said. 
        
"Seriously, how do you not know this?  Who do you think all those women were, ya homo?"
        
"Enemies of The Professor."
        
"Goddamn, man.  This is silly.  I almost feel bad for you.  I thought I was out of the loop around here." 
        
"Fill me in," I said.
        
"Well," Phil said, his voice softening to a whisper.  "It's a secret, but I think it's a pretty 'open' secret, like a secret among 'the guys.'"
        
"Uh-huh," I said.
        
"Well, The Judge gets himself a lot of pussy in his line of work.  Money, power, pussy; these things go together." 
        
"Uh-huh," I said.