The Professional fin

After I collected what was mine it was late afternoon. My car had been stolen but that was hardly surprising. It was okay by me. I felt like a million bucks when I came out of the alley and started walking down the hill. The obscene shadows were entertaining and the icy wind blowing through my open coat felt refreshing.

I was invigorated. Another Job was already calling. I paced down the streets with purpose, ready to meet my new client. I chuckled a little to think that only a few hours before I had despaired of ever feeling warm again, of ever knowing another hot meal.

The pull of the Job directed me towards the commercial side of town. The streets were busy. Everyone sped hither and yon, hurried to be elsewhere, trying to get away from work. A professional doesn’t go home before the Job is done, though.

An old woman strained her frail body, forcing it to cross the street. The lights were prepared to change and the drivers were anxious to be on their way. They didn’t want to wait for some old lady. But as I watched the scene the revolver told me what Job I needed to do.

People screamed. A lot of them jumped out of their cars. One man tried to run me over, but I was too nimble. I knew what to do. I was a professional. I did my Job.

No sooner had I tucked the revolver away than the call of the next Job started surging through me. The drivers and pedestrians were all frozen in place. The awe they must have felt at seeing a Job done by a professional was evident. I was flattered. Their inability to move afforded me time to listen for the pull of the Job.

The pull never came. The Job had to be close. The noise was almost too much; I almost couldn’t hear it when the revolver whispered the next Job to me. I listened a moment longer to be sure I heard correctly.

I never argued with a client. I was a professional.

I reached into my pocket.

The Professional cont.

I did the Job in the obscure little counter-culture collegetown cavern, took my pay and was back on the street before noon. I still had six minutes left on the parking meter when I pulled away from the curb.

A few blocks away, while I waited for a red light, I felt the call. At this rate I would be able to afford a loft in collegetown again. I flipped on my turn signal and drove up the hill, following the pull of the Job.

In other cities and towns the wealthy often live on the hills, leaving the squalor of the streets below to the degenerates, but this city was unusual. It was one of the reasons I liked living in it.

At the top of the hill all the greed, smugness, arrogance and pettiness that wafted up from the modern bourgeois on the valley floor stagnated in a concentrated haze. A world of hovels, drug dens, destitution and hookers drew sustenance from the filthy fog of disaffection that permeated the place. The more the pompous protested down below, the thicker the miasma grew at the top.

It was my kind of place.

The pull of the Job took me through a maze of streets and alleys. I drove past garbage fires and gang warfare. The closer I got to the Job the more excited I became. I could tell this was going to be one of the best ones in a long time. I was giddy.

I left my car at the opening of a cluttered alley. The smell of stale urine competed with decomposing flesh in my nostrils. Broken glass and discarded needles ground beneath my feet. I picked my way around old boards studded with rusty nails and stepped over a car door riddled with bullet holes. I could hear the sounds of large mammals ahead. The small mammals and insects glared at me, unafraid.

In the orange light of a fire burning in a steel barrel a prostitute was taking care of a customer. They were occupied by the transaction and didn’t hear me. He was a professor I often saw in collegetown, he lived not far from where my loft had been, and he was very obviously high. She was cheap and underfed, but I knew her from around. I admired her when I first got to know her because she only ever worked freelance, like me. It didn’t take long to see she had no pride in her craft, though. Not like me.

It took a scant moment for the voice to come and announce what the Job was. I had been right about it being a big one. It wasn’t often I got two Jobs at once.

The Professional cont.

I followed the pull all the way across town, to the part that was so new it tried to look old. I lived in one of the shiny new buildings back when business was good. I could afford to live anywhere, back then, but I liked this part of town because of all the college students. It was fun to watch them go on about their lives.

Everyone used to know that if you wanted a Job done right you came and saw me. It made my clients more uncomfortable to come to collegetown. They thought they were being watched; I thought they were being silly. If anyone found out, a client could ask me to do a second Job and I wouldn’t charge for it. That was my customer satisfaction policy.

No one ever found out it was me doing all the Jobs, of course. I was a professional, I had years of practice.

The pull took me to what looked like an empty storefront. Plain brown paper covered all the windows but peeks of light shone through the cracks. I wondered what kind of person I would meet here. I doubted any college students could afford my rates.

The door was unlocked, so I let myself in. The interior was bright, its walls plastered with propaganda posters. The room reeked of black coffee and rebellion. A young woman of indeterminate ethnicity was folding up steel chairs, cleaning up after some kind of meeting.

She looked up at me, confused. Her mouth opened to tell me they were closed, to give me some speech about the party line, to say hello. I never heard what she said.

The revolver whispered in my ear. It told me the Job was ready. I reached into my pocket.

I never argued with a client. They told me what Job they wanted done and I told them what the going rate was. I didn’t haggle and I didn’t accept advice or ideas. I did the Job the best way possible, every time. I had more than enough practice. I knew how to work quickly and cleanly. No fuss, no muss. I was a professional.

The Professional cont.

I made my way through the big old house, looking for anyone at all. Maybe my sense of the Job was off, but the place seemed empty. At last I looked in the kitchen.

A man sat there, sipping from one of those tiny espresso cups. The air was a fog of gin fumes. Every breath was intoxicating. The man looked up at me. As soon as our eyes met the revolver told me what the Job was. I reached into my pocket.

The man’s bleary eyes couldn’t focus. His head swayed a little, out of his control. I had no idea what the alcohol in the air would do, but it didn’t really matter. I was a professional.

I did the Job.

I tucked the revolver away gently; a craftsmen looks after his Tools. When it was secure, I took some food from the refrigerator and a glass of gin and went in search of a room that had clean air. There was a library, if I remembered correctly.

The man owned a lot of books, a lot I had never heard of. I read a few pages while I ate. Some of it was interesting, but much of it was boring. The gin was awful, cheap stuff that ran down my throat like broken glass. I left it, virtually untouched, on the desk when I went to look through the house.

The Job paid well for all that it was never commissioned. The man’s overcoat fit me nicely and his car was expensive. I could stay in the house at night and be nice and warm if nothing else came my way. But I could feel that pull again, already, and knew I had to answer the call.

I hit the streets in that fancy new car, wearing my new coat, and felt like a new man. My belly was full and I was toasty warm. I had another Job to do. Two in one day. It was exhilarating.

The Professional cont.

My line of work wasn’t all that unusual but I liked to think that my drive was unique. Most people took jobs because they had no choice. Circumstances forced them into a line of work they would never be able to escape. Other people got a kick out of doing Jobs. The guys who were in it for the thrills never lasted long, though. One way or another they all wind up with an early retirement.

Me, I had never known they were Jobs until someone offered my money. I’d been doing it since I was a kid because I could, because I was good at it. It was just a hobby, like those ships in a bottle, and this guy wanted to pay me for it? Sign me up. People always talked about living the dream, getting paid to do what you love. This was my chance. It sure beat working for a living.

After I did that first Job word got around. Soon I had all kinds of Jobs to do. I did them all with the care of a true craftsman. Before long, I could pick up a sense of when a Job was coming. It was a pulling feeling between my ears, a flood of excitement and desire in my chest. It was what I felt when I slipped that revolver into my pocket.

I left the dumpy little building I slept in the night before and set off down the cold slate sidewalk. The oldest part of town, still with real stone sidewalks and brick streets, it was quiet, perfect for me to listen to the pull of the Job. Little birds hopped in the snow, making funny little footprints. The call was getting stronger.

I wondered who want to hire me this time. It was fun to meet them, these furtive men and women, because they were never what I expected them to be. I never joined an organization; you met more interesting people working freelance. One time a husband and wife each hired me to do what amounted to the same Job for them. I took their money and did what they paid me for. I was a professional.

The Job was up a cobbled walk, in a big white house behind some ancient nut trees. A heavy wooden door stood open, leading into a dim hall. Normally my clients came to me, but I needed the money. I could make a house call.

The Professional

I found the revolver in a plain brown box. It was small and heavy and it fit my hand as though it was specially crafted for me. I checked the cylinder. Six rounds. I wondered who left it here, what a fully loaded pistol was doing in a box.

And then it spoke to me.

Gripped in the palm of the hand it was destined for, it whispered its purpose. I have own a great many Tools over my life, performed a lot of Jobs, but I never had anything like this revolver before. All the other Tools were just things in comparison. They did what I wanted them to do, but it was always just me using them to get the Job done. None of them had ever told me what they wanted, not before the revolver.

I slipped the pretty little thing into my pocket and cast the box aside. I could already feel that sublime little tug in my mind indicating that a Job would be coming soon. Good, I needed the money. I don’t remember when I ran out, but I was hungry, cold, tired.

And I wanted to do a Job.

Earnest Ben fin

Lucy rushed down the hall, bitter tears streaming into the wind of her passage. She ran so fast, got so winded, she couldn't sob.

Ben's body was riddled with punctures. His room was awash in blood. Through tears that would never abate, Lucy saw a folded square of paper on the floor. She grabbed it before any blood could get on it when the staff removed the body.

Lucy, it said, pretty girls shouldn't hurt alone.