Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back. I was already so far beyond the point of no return I couldn't remember what it had looked like when I had passed it.
He was trying to buy more sand for his hour glass. I wasn't selling any.
The cardinal rule in going after someone with an intention to kill was not to make it personal - which it almost always ended up being anyway. It did with me.
There was no glory in this. I hadn't asked for this crap. Trouble had come to me, in big dark swarms. The good and the just, they were like gold dust in this city. I had no illusions. I was not one of them. I was no hero. Just me and the gun, and the crook. My options had decreased to a singular course.
They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger. And then it was all over. The storm seemed to lose its frenzy. The ragged clouds gave way to the stars above.
I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings.
One thing you can count on: You push a man too far, and sooner or later he'll start pushing back.
Up on that rooftop I was a Ninja, my Kung Fu was strong. I wasn't kidding anybody. At best I was Superman on kryponite, about to fall into where it all went down.
Pissing Punchinello off was a dangerous game. But when people get mad, they make mistakes. I should know. That's where I wanted Punchinello, mad enough to trip over his own feet, preferably into a grave.
You'd find that Lady Luck was really a hooker, and you were fresh out of cash.
I had a bullet with Nicole Horne's name on it. I had ten thousand bullets with the hag's name on them. She had ultra high-tech security systems, enough mercenaries and weaponry to start World War III. There was no fear.
After Y2K, the end of the world had become a cliché. But who was I to talk, a brooding underdog avenger alone against an empire of evil, out to right a grave injustice? Everything was subjective. There were only personal apocalypses. Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you.
It wasn't about how smart or how good you were. It was chaos and luck, and anyone who thought different was a fool.
Vlad was one of those old time bad guys with honor and morals, which almost made him one of the good guys. None of us was a saint.