Callie’s Last Dance

57.

I DON’T JUDGE people. When I accept a contract for hire, I take the attitude my victim has already been tried, found guilty, and sentenced by the person paying my fee. It’s easier that way, and prevents me from getting too wrapped up in “he-said-she-said” types of issues.

Likewise, I didn’t kill Tom and Connie because they had an affair. Half the people you pass on the street every day are having affairs. What sort of person would I be if I went around killing all of them? And although I never cheated on my wife, I certainly cheated on some of my girlfriends.

Most of them.

Well, okay, all of them.

So I’m not entirely without empathy.

But I didn’t kill Tom and Connie because they were cheating. I killed them because their affair set off a chain reaction that nearly cost Callie her life and the use of her legs. You can argue it wasn’t Connie and Tom’s fault, and I’d agree with you, to a point. I mean, had Connie fucked Tom at his house, the results would have been different. Ridley would have killed them both, or killed one of them, or Tom might have killed Ridley. In any case, the argument would have remained between those who were involved.

It’s a matter of respect.

Rose says my great-great grandfather Emmett Love was a sheriff and saloon keeper in Dodge City, Kansas, in the eighteen-sixties. I’ll bet if two cowboys got into an argument in his establishment he’d tell them to take it outside. Why? Because that keeps the argument between those who have a vested interest in the outcome. If they started shooting up the saloon, innocent people might get hurt. And I’ll bet Sheriff Love wouldn’t allow something like that to go unpunished.

I didn’t punish Tom and Connie for fucking outside their marriage, but for failing to take their outside-of-the marriage-fucking outside.

You know, figuratively.

But they didn’t. They took their affair to the Winston Parke Hotel, in downtown Cincinnati, and drew me and Callie into it. And right or wrong, you don’t put my loved ones in harm’s way without being severely rebuked. And you certainly don’t expose my loved ones to possible death and live to tell about it.