That’s How I Roll

remembers to say he was acting like he was about to kill her. Self-defense. Around here, that means she only gets to fire once. A shotgun works a lot better than a pistol for that.

Now that I’m taking stock, I have to face up to things like that. Admit that it might have been something as small and petty as my own possessiveness that brought all this down.

“Might have,” that’s speculation. But this, this is absolute truth: I was never going to let anyone or anything take my little brother from me. That was never going to happen, no matter what the cost, or who had to pay it.

’d seen these same bears plenty of times—I’d been seeing them one way or another ever since I started earning money. The bears were all after the same thing. They all worked the same way. I’d seen them tear hives apart often enough. But this was the first time I’d ever been that hive-protected honey.

The kind of men I did work for, some of them would talk about how terrible the bears could make it for you if you stopped them from getting their paws on the honey. How much strength it took to hold them off. How that tested a man, deep inside.

Bragging? I don’t know. Maybe the men who never said a word about such things were the only ones who had really passed that test.

But I didn’t have to believe any of those stories to know how to behave when those bears came for me. All I had to do was act the way the storytellers claimed they had.

The whole thing was kind of stupid, because the one thing the bears did know was that I wasn’t going to talk. They never even hoped I would; it was as if something forced them to go through the motions anyway. Kind of like a dance, only with no music.

t was also a race with no winners.

The bears were racing to defuse one bomb, but all that time, I was busy building another. I even had a punch list, like the construction bosses always carried with them. I didn’t have a yellow pad, or an aluminum box to keep it in, but I had a better place to store things.

Step One came naturally. The locals always get the first chance—not only do they know the territory best, they’re already inside it before word reaches beyond their borders.

But this time, they knew they had to work fast, and that knowledge drove them something fierce. When you feel the Devil’s own breath on the back of your neck, you can’t even waste the energy it takes to turn around and see how close that hellhound is.

Even so, they couldn’t just crash through the brush without worrying about how much noise they made. Knowing the territory best also meant everyone in that territory knew them, too.

They would have liked to have the hive completely surrounded before they made their move, but they didn’t have that luxury. They had always been the top dogs here, but they knew that was due for a change.

And quick, too.

Bigger and more deadly bears were on their way; you could already feel the ground trembling under their weight. The locals knew they would never be able to drain the hive dry—the best they could hope for was to pull out anything that could hurt them before they were shoved out of the way.

hose bigger bears had no need to poke and probe and look for openings. They didn’t have to pussyfoot around—no matter what popped out when they squeezed, nothing in that hive posed a danger to any of them.

Why be subtle when you don’t care what kind of tracks you leave? When the bigger bears were all done squeezing, there’d be nothing left but a tiny little lump.

Just big enough to stick that goodbye needle in.

hen you’re arrested for murder, you don’t have much to trade. The rule is, you have to trade up, like when a drug addict gives up his dealer. But if you’ve done considerable killing, talking about who paid you for those services might make the Law so happy that they’ll spare your life in exchange. Or even turn you loose.

But once you get down to murder for money, the Law’s not the only player at the table. No matter how high up those you talk to may stand, no matter what they promise, you know that even the rumor of you talking can end it all.

Once the Law has you like they had me, you are going to die. There isn’t but one actual option left to you, only one thing you can still control. You get to decide who does the job.

If you make the Law do it, all they can kill is your body. Your spirit lives, and your reputation carries on.

When you die the right way, there’s no reason for anyone to seek vengeance on your loved ones.

Just the opposite, in fact.

he crime that finally brought me down made national news. But that was just because of the body count. National news doesn’t always bring in national Law.

All the killings had been in one state, so there was no way the Feds could just ram their way in and take over. That’s what the local Law kept telling themselves, anyway. They ran around saying “jurisdiction” to each other like it was a holy word … the way people in the movies hold up a cross to banish vampires.

That only works in the movies.

eeping the Feds out of our business, that’s like a religion around here. But if a federal agent gets killed—they are coming. Get in their way and, no matter how big you are, lawman or not, you’re nothing but a pile of hot asphalt waiting on the steamroller.

ll I could do was be patient. Deep inside, alone, watching the layers of protection I’d taken so many years to build up slowly come off.

I knew this would happen someday. I thought I was ready for it, because I’d had so much practice. When I knew pain was coming, I could go someplace in my mind. Someplace else. From there, I could watch it happening, happening to me, but I didn’t feel it. I’d learned to do that as a child. Maybe not “learned,” because I hadn’t studied on it—one day, I realized it had just happened. After that, it always did.

And now it was happening again. I was watching what the big bears were watching. Only, this time, what they were watching was an illusion. They weren’t getting any closer to what they really wanted. But the closer they thought they were getting, the easier it was for me to keep checking steps off my list.

t seemed like everyone in the world wanted to talk to me. But even if they weren’t undercovers, they damn sure weren’t showing up because they cared about me.

And I surely didn’t need any “spokesman.” There was no shortage of volunteers for that job.

I didn’t worship “the media” the way most folks did. Longing for attention is for killers who haven’t been caught. Like that Zodiac sex fiend in California who kept sending letters to the papers. Or that Unabomber psycho who wanted to see his stupid “manifesto” in print. Now he has the rest of his life to read it.

I’m nothing like them. I’m not crazy. I never wrote taunting notes to the police; I never got a thrill out of what I did. I was just an assassin, good at my trade. Like any skilled workman, I charged a fair wage for my work, and I never expected payment in full until I finished each job to the customer’s satisfaction. Contract killers aren’t all the same. The only thing we have in common is that we all commit murder for money. Speaking for myself, it was only for the money.

But there’s more to this work than making people dead. The contracts always have other terms and conditions to them, and those hold forever. It didn’t matter if I was caught—as long as I didn’t cross those lines, I was free to strike any deal for myself that I could.

Only I didn’t want a deal.