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"We split up. I never saw Blue again. I never saw Ollie or Ted, theother two. I think they went to L.A. to make it big. I think Blueprobably became a drug crazy. I'm not sure. I went on. I was totallydifferent from the instant it happened. I was never the same again.""What made you different?" I asked. "What was the source of thechange in you, I mean, what in particular? That you'd enjoyed it?""No, not at all. It was no fun. It was a success. But it wasn't fun.
I've never found it fun. It's work, killing people, it's messy. It's hardwork. It's fun for you to kill people, but then you're not human. No, itwasn't that. It was the fact that it had been possible to do it, to justwalk up to that son of a bitch and make the most unexpected gesture,to just take that gun from him like that, because it was the last thinghe ever expected could happen, and then to kill them both withouthesitation. They must have died with surprise.""They thought you were kids.""They thought we were dreamers! And I was a dreamer, and allthe way to New York I kept thinking, I do have a great destiny, I amgoing to be great, and this power, this power to simply shoot downtwo people had been the epiphany of my strength!""From God, this epiphany.""No, from fate, from destiny. I told you I never really had anyfeeling for God. You know they say in the Catholic Church that ifyou don't feel a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, well, they fearfor your soul. I never had any devotion to her. I never had anydevotion to any real personal deity or saint. I never felt it. That's whyDora's development surprised me in that particular, that Dora is soabsolutely sincere. But we'll get to that. By the time I got to NewYork, I knew my cult was to be of this world, you know, lots offollowers and power and lavish comforts and the licentiousness of thisworld.""Yes, I see.""That had been Wynken's vision. Wynken had communicatedtnis to his women followers, that there was no point in waiting untilthe next world. You had to do everything now, every kind of sin ...
this was a common conception of heretics, wasn't it?""Yes, of some. Or so their enemies said."'The next killing I did purely for money. It was a contract. I wasthe most ambitious boy in town. I was managing some other bandagain, a bunch of no-accounts, we weren't making it, though otherrock stars were making it overnight. I was into dope again, and wasbeing a hell of a lot smarter about it, and developing a personaldistaste for it. This was the real early days, when people flew thegrass across the border in little planes, and it was almost like cowboyadventures.
"And the word came down that this particular man was on the shitlist of a local power broker who'd pay anyone thirty thousand dollarsfor the killing. The guy himself was particularly vicious. Everybodywas scared of him. He knew they wanted to kill him. He was walkingaround in broad daylight and everyone was scared to make a move.
"I guess everybody else figured that somebody else would do it.
How connected these people were to what and to whom I had noidea. I just knew the guy was game, you know? I made sure.
"I figured a way to do it. I was nineteen by then-1 dressed up likea college boy in a crew-neck sweater, a blazer, flannel slacks, had myhair cut Princeton style, and carried a few books with me. I found outwhere the man lived on Long Island, and walked right up to him inhis back driveway as he got out of his car one evening, and shot himdead five feet from where his wife and kids were eating dinnerinside."He paused again, and then said with perfect gravity, "It takes aspecial kind of animal to do something so vicious. And not to feel anyremorse.""You didn't torture him the way I tortured you," I said softly.
"You know everything you've done, don't you? You really understand!
I didn't get the whole picture when I was following you. Iimagined you were more intimately perverse, wrapped up in yourown romance. An arch self-deceiver.""Was that torture, what you did to me?" he asked. "I don't rememberpain being involved in it, only fury that I was going to die.
Whatever the case, I killed this man in Long Island for money. Itmeant nothing to me. I didn't even feel relief afterwards, only a kindof strength, you know, of accomplishment, and I wanted to test itagain soon and I did.""And you were on your way.""Absolutely. And in my style too. The word was out. If the taskseems impossible, get Roger. I could get into a hospital dressed like ayoung doctor, with a name tag on my coat and a clipboard in myhand, and shoot some marked guy dead in his bed before anyone wasthe wiser. I did that, in fact.
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