SHOTGUN MARY (For John)

I called her Shotgun Mary. The type of girl that owned a red dress that fit her like a sinful thought. She owned a leather bag, just the exact size to fit it, a scattering of shells, and her lipstick red celphone. She'd get calls on it; international calls. You can tell by the ring. She'd put down her Manhattan, leave a fake number to who ever had just bought it for her, and pick up that black bag. High heels and a red dress walked out of the bar.

Somewhere rich and exotic, someone would die badly.

I served nine drinks before she made her first kill that I knew of. Now, it was an average of seven before each one. That celphone would ring; her perfect lips would mouth innocuous words, and that would be the end of a Greek shipping magistrate or a French finanancier.

One night, seven drinks later, she showed up in my crappy apartment. Red dress. Shotgun. She hadn't been to the bar that night, but the phone was still ringing.

"So, is it worth it?"

It was one of those moments that required the poignant resonance. The tough guy speech that implied there was anything more than an inconveinant hit out on my life. We should have headed for Mexico, with an improbable plan for revenge. But I was the guy that served that seveneth Manhattan.

When she shot me in the chest, point blank, it didn't even leave time for the credits.

How professional is--