I’m heading down a dull gray elevator. It’s one am, Tuesday morning. The day I’m supposed to meet the Boss. Turns out Lily, the broad who started me on this case, can’t afford much better and is living in a run down apartment in the red light district. In fact, a block down from The Cat’s Dance, the creep joint the rival mobster runs. I’d been talking to Lily for about four hours now. Well, I guess we didn’t do much talking after all. It was hard to tell her I hadn’t found her beau, and she got all emotional, couldn’t keep back the waterworks. I let her cry on my shoulder. Next thing I know she’s asleep, and I don’t dare move to wake her. I tell ya, boys, there was a looker if you ever saw one. Her beautiful closed eyes looking up at me; her skin so soft, dark hair running down my chest. Whooo’ I’m starting to feel right sorry for her, in fact I think I’m getting a little too attached. That’s a mistake. Never get to close to a client, no matter how fine a jane she is. But anways, she finally woke up and I said my farewells, and now, well.

The elevator door slides open and I head out into the rain. I grab a deck of Luckies, light one and take a long drag. I need a drink. I head down through the puddles to The Cat’s Dance, hope this guy’s still around.

My prayers are answered when I get to the door. I can hear raucous jazz blasting out of there like Miles Davis was playing a farewell show. I kill my cig, flip up my collar, and pull the brim of my fedora down over my face. This was going to have to work without a catch.

I step in.

Filth is all around me. Broads who have shed most of their clothes, not to mention the last shreds of their virtue, dance on a little stage with a fireman’s pole. Some are sitting on their ‘customers;’ their bodies twist and their hair whips. Lechers curl forsaken lips into gold toothed smiles. Gold bands still on fingers. Bright neon circles rumba over their iniquitous faces. I want to tell all of them to eat a blazing bullet. Paint these walls red. Over towards a hallway a pig is pinching with his wicked hands, accepted violation. Like most of the others, he has gold on his left. They stumble away, lusty grins for paid lips.

I want to kill myself.

Some roundheel approaches me. I hide my face deeper.

“Hey there, bird,” she says. “Are you just a watcher or” The twist raises her eyebrows as she speaks. A big inviting smile. She wraps her arms around me, pushes herself close, rubs on my chest, incendiary. “do you need more?” Close. Whispered seduction. She licks my ear.

I can’t draw attention. I whisper. “From a pro skirt like you? I don’t think so, clappy. Now get off me, ho.” She backs away insulted. Doesn’t take long to wear of the sting. She moves to a guy having a drink at the bar, draws the sex filled slick voice, he is snagged. What a slut.

Other than that bim, no one has noticed me. All preoccupied with their sex. I don’t think she saw my face well anyway. I make my way to a door in the back, says ‘Private.’ I peek around. A short hallway. Dark, dimly lit. There are only two doors. Of course, I know exactly which one to pick. It’s my innate sixth sense that’s gotten me’ oh jumpin’ crawdaddies! The kitchen! I dust, hoping no one saw me or this will turn into a trip for biscuits. This is getting gashouse. The next door has to open for me. I can’t queer this racket. I grab the knob, close my eyes as I turn, hoping.

A small room. There he is. Two tomatoes, dressed like all the others, only less, on either side of his alderman,. There is the biggest mound of snow on his desk that I have ever seen, and the three of them are snowed past freezing. The fatty shoves his hands in the pile, brings ’em out drug covered. The girls each lick his stubby fingers, smile. They don’t notice me.

I shrug. This will be easier than I thought. I rack my brain on how to best to make him take the big sleep, decide to quiet Mr. Deadeye. As I screw on the silencer, I realize I want a burrito. I’ve hardly eaten since this job started. Like a dog that hasn’t drank in months, the mobster wags out his tongue, dives into the coke, twitching his head as he sucks it up.

There is no sound.

I pull the trigger.

My roscoe throws lead.

It hits the mafia man on the top of his mirror-like head.

A cloud of snow erupts, smoke from an addict’s volcano.

Head whiplashes back, face white.

Blood trails as he flies back in his chair.

I get the shivers.

Pieces of his skull hit the wall.

Hands are birds.

When this rocket finally touches down, the silence is cracked. The shell of his brain splits as it hits the hardwood.

It is snowing.

They say there’s no two exactly alike.

Like innocents, the skirts open their mouths. The flakes flutter to their tongues. Spinning. One collapses.

I get the shivers.