A Real Nice Guy by William F. Nolan

They called him “Deathmaster” — an accurate title. He never missed a target, never wasted a shot. Every city street was his personal shooting gallery.

Warm sun.

A summer afternoon.

The sniper emerged from the roof door, walking easily, carrying a custom-leather guncase.

Opened the case.

Assembled the weapon.

Loaded it.

Sighted the street below.

Adjusted the focus

Waited.

There was no hurry.

No hurry at all.

He was famous, yet no one knew his name. There were portraits of him printed in dozens of newspapers and magazines; he’d even made the cover of Time. But no one had really seen his face. The portraits were composites, drawn by frustrated police artists, based on the few misleading descriptions given by witnesses who claimed to have seen him leaving a building or jumping from a roof, or driving from the target area in a stolen automobile. But no two descriptions matched.

One witness described a chunky man of average height with a dark beard and cap. Another described a thin, extremely tall man with a bushy, head of hair and a thick moustache. A third description pegged him as balding, paunchy and wearing heavy hornrims. On Time’s cover, a large blood-soaked question mark replaced his features — above the words WHO IS HE?

Reporters had given him many names: “The Phantom Sniper”... “The Deadly Ghost”... “The Silent Slayer”... and his personal favorite, “The Master of Whispering Death.” This was often shortened to “Deathmaster,” but he liked the full title; it was fresh and poetic — and accurate.

He was a master. He never missed a target, never wasted a shot. He was cool and nerveless and smooth, and totally without conscience. And death indeed whispered from his silenced weapon: a dry snap of the trigger, a muffled pop, and the target dropped as though struck down by the fist of God.

They were always targets, never people. Men, women, children. Young, middle-aged, old. Strong ones. Weak ones. Healthy or crippled. Black or white. Rich or poor. Targets — all of them.

He considered himself a successful sharpshooter, demonstrating his unique skill in a world teeming with three billion moving targets placed there for his amusement. Day and night, city by city, state by state, they were always there, ready for his gun, for the sudden whispering death from its barrel. An endless supply just for him.

Each city street was his personal shooting gallery.

But he was careful. Very, very careful. He never killed twice in the same city. He switched weapons. He never used a car more than once. He never wore the same clothes twice on a shoot. Even the shoes would be discarded; he wore a fresh pair for each target run. And, usually, he was never seen at all.

He thought of it as a sport.

A game.

A run.

Avocation.

A skill.

But never murder.

His name was Jimmie Prescott and he was thirty-one years of age. Five foot ten. Slight build. Platform shoes could add three inches and body-pillows up to fifty pounds. He had thinning brown hair framing a bland, unmemorable face and shaved twice daily — but the case of wigs, beards and moustaches he always carried easily disguised the shape of his mouth, chin and skull. Sometimes he would wear a skin-colored fleshcap for baldness, or use heavy glasses — though his sight was perfect. Once, for a lark, he had worn a black eye patch. He would walk in a crouch, or stride with a sailor’s swagger, or assume a limp. Each disguise amused him, helped make life more challenging. Each was a small work of art, flawlessly executed.

Jimmie was a perfectionist.

And he was clean: no police record. Never arrested. No set of his prints on file, no dossier.

He had a great deal of money (inherited) with no need or inclination to earn more. He had spent his lifetime honing his considerable skills: he was an expert on weaponry, car theft, body-combat, police procedures; he made it a strict rule to memorize the street system of each city he entered before embarking on a shoot. And once his target was down he knew exactly how to leave the area. The proper escape route was essential.

Jimmie was a knowledgeable historian in his held: he had made a thorough study of snipers, and held them all in cold contempt. Not a worthwhile one in the lot. They deserved to be caught; they were fools and idiots and blunderers, often acting out of neurotic impulse or psychotic emotion. Even the hired professionals drew Jimmie’s ire — since these were men who espoused political causes or who worked for government money. Jimmie had no cause, nor would he ever allow himself to be bought like a pig on the market.

He considered himself quite sane. Lacking moral conscience, he did not suffer from a guilt complex. Nor did he operate from a basic hatred of humankind, as did so many of the warped criminals he had studied.

Basically, Jimmie liked people, got alone fine with them on a casual basis. He hated no one. (Except his parents, but they were long dead and something he did not think about any more.) He was incapable of love or friendship, but felt no need for either. Jimmie depended only on himself; he had learned to do that from childhood. He was, therefore, a loner by choice, and made it a rule (Jimmie had many rules) never to date the same female twice, no matter how sexually appealing she might be. Man-woman relationships were a weakness, a form of dangerous self-indulgence he carefully avoided.

In sum, Jimmie Prescott didn’t need-anyone. He had himself, his skills, his weapons and his targets. More than enough for a full, rich life. He did not drink or smoke. (Oh, a bit of vintage wine in a good restaurant was always welcome, but he had never been drunk in his life. You savor good wine; you don’t wallow in it.) He jogged each day, morning and evening, and worked out twice a week in the local gym in whatever city he was visiting. A trim, healthy body was an absolute necessity in his specialized career. Jimmie left nothing to chance. He was not a gambler and took no joy in risk.

A few times things had been close: a roof door which had jammed shut in Detroit after a kill, forcing him to make a perilous between-buildings leap... an engine that died during a police chase in Portland, causing him to abandon his car and win the pursuit on foot... an intense struggle with an off-duty patrolman in Kansas City who’d witnessed a shot. The fellow had been tough and dispatching him was physically difficult; Jimmie finally snapped his neck — but it had been close.

He kept a neat, handwritten record of each shoot in his tooled-leather notebook: state, city, name of street, weather, time of day, sex, age and skin color of target. Under “Comments,” he would add pertinent facts, including the make and year of the stolen car he had driven, and the type of disguise he had utilized. Each item of clothing worn was listed. And if he experienced any problem in exiting the target area this would also be noted. Thus, each shoot was critically analyzed upon completion — as a football coach might dissect a game after it had been played.

The only random factor was the target. Pre-selection spoiled the freshness, the purity of the act. Jimmie liked to surprise himself. Which shall it be: that young girl in red, laughing up at her boyfriend? The old newsman on the corner? The school kid skipping homeward with books under his arm? Or, perhaps, the beefy, bored truckdriver, sitting idly in his cab, waiting for the light to change?

Selection was always a big part of the challenge.

And this time...

A male. Strong looking. Well dressed. Businessman with a briefcase, in his late forties. Hair beginning to silver at the temples. He’d just left the drug store; probably stopped there to pick up something for his wife. Maybe she’d called to remind him at lunch.

Moving toward the corner. Walking briskly.

Yes, this one. By all means, this one.

Range: three hundred yards.

Adjust sight focus.

Rifle stock tight against right shoulder.

Finger inside guard, poised at trigger.

Cheek firm against wooden gunstock; eye to rubber scope-piece.

Line crosshairs on target.

Steady breathing.

Tighten trigger finger slowly.

Fire!

The man dropped forward to the walk like a clubbed animal, dead before he struck the pavement. Someone screamed. A child began to cry. A man shouted.

Pleasant, familiar sounds to Jimmie Prescott.

Calmly, he took apart his weapon, cased it, then carefully dusted his trousers. (Rooftops were often grimy, and although he would soon discard the trousers he liked to present a neat, well-tailored appearance — but only when the disguise called for it. What a marvelous, ill-smelling bum he had become in New Orleans; he smiled thinly, thinking about how truly offensive he was on that occasion.)

He walked through the roof exit to the elevator.

Within ten minutes he had cleared central Baltimore — and booked the next flight to the west coast.

Aboard the jet, he relaxed. In the soft, warm, humming interior of the airliner, he grew drowsy... closed his eyes.

And had The Dream again.

The Dream was the only disturbing element in Jimmie Prescott’s life. He invariably thought of it that way: The Dream. Never as a dream. Always about a large metropolitan city where chaos reigned — with buses running over babies in the street, and people falling down sewer holes and through plate glass store windows... violent and disturbing. He was never threatened in The Dream, never personally involved in the chaos around him. Merely a mute witness to it.

He would tell himself, this is only fantasy, a thing deep inside his sleeping mind; it would go away once he awakened and then he could ignore it, put it out of his conscience thoughts, bury it as he had buried the hatred for his father and mother.

Perhaps he had other dreams. Surely he did. But The Dream was the one he woke to, again and again, emerging from the chaos of the city with sweat on his cheeks and forehead, his breath tight and shallow in his chest, his heart thudding wildly.

“Are you all right?” a passenger across the aisle was asking him. “Shall I call somebody?”

“I’m fine,” said Jimmie, sitting up straight. “No problem.”

“You look kinda shaky.”

“No, I’m fine. But thank you for your concern.”

And he put The Dream away once again, as a gun is put away in its case.

In Los Angeles, having studied the city quite thoroughly, Jimmie took a cab directly into Hollywood. The fare was steep, but money was never an issue in Jimmie’s life; he paid well for services rendered, with no regrets.

He got off at Highland, on Hollywood Boulevard, and walked toward the Chinese Theater.

He wanted two things: food and sexual satisfaction.

First, he would select an attractive female, take her to dinner and then to his motel room (he’d booked one from the airport), where he would have sex. Jimmie never called it lovemaking, a silly word. It was always just sex, plain and simple and quickly over. He was capable of arousing a woman if he chose to do so, of bringing her to full passion and release, but he seldom bothered. His performance was always an act; the ritual bored him. Only the result counted.

He disliked prostitutes and seldom selected one. Too jaded. Too worldly. And never to be trusted. Given time, and his natural charm, he was usually able to pick up an out-of-town girl, impress her with an excellent and very expensive meal at a posh restaurant, and guide her firmly into bed.

This night, in Hollywood, the seduction was easily accomplished.

Jimmie spotted a supple, soft-faced girl in the forecourt of the Chinese. She was wandering from one celebrity footprint to another, leaning to examine a particular signature in the cement.

As she bent forward, her breasts flowed full, pressing against the soft linen dress she wore — and Jimmie told himself, she’s the one for tonight. A young, awe-struck out-of towner. Perfect.

He moved toward her.

“I just love European food,” said Janet.

“That’s good,” said Jimmie Prescott. “I rather fancy it myself.”

She smiled at him across the table, a glowing all-American girl from Ohio named Janet Louise Lakeley. They were sitting in a small, very chick French restaurant off La Cienega, with soft lighting and open-country decor.

“I can’t read a word of this,” Janet said when the menu was handed to her. “I thought they always had the food listed in English, too, like movie subtitles.”

“Some places don’t,” said Jimmie quietly. “I’ll order for us both. You’ll be pleased. The sole is excellent here.”

“Oh, I love fish,” she said. “I could eat a ton of fish.”

He pressed her hand. “That’s nice.”

“My head is swimming. I shouldn’t have had that Scotch on an empty stomach,” she said. “Are we having wine with dinner?”

“Of course,” said Jimmie.

“I don’t know anything about wine,” she told him, “but I love champagne. That’s wine, isn’t it?”

He smiled with a faint upcurve of his thin lips.

“Trust me,” he said. “You’ll enjoy what I select.”

“I’m sure I will.”

The food was ordered and served — and Jimmie was pleased to see that his tastes had, once again, proven sound. The meal was superb, the wine was bracing and the girl was sexually stimulating. Essentially brainless, but that really didn’t matter to Jimmie. She was what he wanted.

Then she began to talk about the sniper killings.

“Forty people in just a year and two months,” she said. “And all gunned down by the same madman. Aren’t they ever going to catch him?”

“The actual target figure is forty-one,” he corrected her. “And what makes you so sure the sniper is a male. Could be a woman.”

She shook her head. “Whoever heard of a woman sniper?”

“There have been many,” said Jimmie. “In Russia today there are several hundred trained female snipers. Some European governments have traditionally utilized females in this capacity.”

“I don’t mean women soldiers,” she said. “I mean your nutso shoot-’em-in-the-street sniper. Always guys. Every time. Like that kid in Texas that shot all the people from the tower.”

“Apparently you’ve never heard of Francine Stearn.”

“Nope. Who was she?”

“Probably the most famous female sniper. Killed a dozen schoolchildren in Pittsburg one weekend in late July, 1970. One shot each. To the head. She was a very accurate shootist.”

“Never heard of her.”

“After she was captured, Esquire did a rather probing psychological profile on her.”

“Well, I really don’t read a lot,” she admitted. “Except Gothic romances. I just can’t get enough of those.” She giggled. “Guess you could say I’m addicted.”

“I’m not familiar with the genre.”

“Anyway,” she continued. “I know this sniper is a guy.”

“How do you know?”

“Female intuition. I trust it. It never fails me. And it tells me that the Phantom Sniper is a mam”

He was amused. “What else does it tell you?”

“That he’s probably messed up in the head. Maybe beaten as a kid. Something like that. He’s got to be a nutcase.”

“You could be wrong there, too,” Jimmie told her. “Not all lawbreakers are mentally unbalanced.”

“This ‘Deathmaster’ guy is, and I’m convinced of it.”

“You’re a strongly-opinionated young woman.”

“Mom always said that.” She sipped her wine, nodded. “Yeah, I guess. I am.” She frowned, turning the glass slowly in her long-fingered hand. “Do you think they’ll ever catch him?”

“I somehow doubt it,” Jimmie declared. “No one seems to have a clear description of him. And he always seems to elude the police. Leaves no clues. Apparently selects his subjects at random. No motive to tie him to. No consistent M.O.”

“What’s that?”

“Method of operation. Most criminals tend to repeat the same basic pattern in their crimes. But not this fellow. He keeps surprising people. Never know where he’ll pop up next, or who his target will be. Tough to catch a man like that.”

“You call them ‘subjects’ and ‘targets’ — but they’re people! Innocent men arid women and children. You make them sound like... like cutouts at a shooting gallery!”

“Perhaps I do,” he admitted, smiling. “It’s simply that we have different modes of expression.”

“I say they’ll get him eventually. He can’t go on just butchering innocent people forever.”

“No one goes on forever,” said Jimmie Prescott.

She put down her wine glass, leaned toward him. “Know what bothers me most about the sniper?”

“What.”

“The fact that his kind of act attracts copycats. Other sickos with a screw loose who read about him and want to imitate him. Arson is like that. One big fire in the papers and suddenly all the other wacko firebugs start their own fires. It gets ’em going. The sniper is like that.”

“If some mentally-disturbed individual is motivated to kill stupidly and without thought or preparation by something he or she reads in a newspaper then the sniper himself cannot be blamed for such abnormal behavior.”

“You call what he does normal?”

“I... uh... didn’t say that. I was simply refuting your theory.”

She frowned. “Then who is to blame? I think that guy should be caught and—”

“And what?” Jimmie fixed his cool gray eyes on her. “What would you do if you suddenly discovered who he was... where to find him?”

“Call the police, naturally. Like anybody.”

“Wouldn’t you be curious about him, about the kind of person he is? Wouldn’t you question him first, try to understand him?”

“You don’t question an animal who kills! Which is what he is. I’d like to see him gassed or hanged... You don’t talk to a twisted creep like that!”

She had made him angry. His lips tightened. He was no longer amused with this conversation; the word game had turned sour. This girl was gross and stupid and insensitive. Take her to bed and be done with it. Use her body — but no words. No more words. He’d had quite enough of those from her.

“Check, please,” he said to the waiter.

It was at his motel, after sex, that Jimmie decided to kill her. Her insulting tirade echoed and re-echoed in his mind. She must be punished for it.

In this special case he felt justified in breaking one of his rules: never pre-select a target. She told him that she had a job in Hollywood, that she worked the afternoon shift at a clothing store on Vine. And he knew where she lived, a few blocks from work. She walked to the store each afternoon.

He would take her home and return the next day. When she left her apartment building he would dispatch her from a roof across the street. Once this plan had settled into place in the mind of Jimmie Prescott he relaxed, allowing the tension of the evening to drain away.

By tomorrow night he’d be in Tucson, and Janet Lakeley would be dead.

Warm sun.

A summer afternoon.

The sniper emerged from the roof door, walking easily, carrying a custom-leather guncase.

Opened the case.

Assembled the weapon.

Loaded it.

Sighted the street below.

Adjusted the focus.

Waited.

Target now exiting.

Walking along street toward corner.

Adjust sight focus.

Finger on trigger.

Cheek against stock.

Eye to scope.

Crosshairs direct on target.

Fire!

Jimmie felt something like a fist strike his stomach. A sudden, shocking blow. Winded, he looked down in amazement at the blood pulsing steadily from his shirtfront.

I’m hit! Someone has actually—

Another blow — but this one stopped all thought, taking his head apart. No more shock. No more amazement.

No more Jimmie.

She put away the weapon, annoyed at herself. Two shots! The Phantom Sniper, whoever he was, never fired more than once. But he was exceptional. She got goosebumps, just thinking about him.

Well, maybe next time she could drop her target in one. Anybody can mis-calculate a shot. Nobody’s perfect.

She left the roof area, walking calmly, took the elevator down to the garage, stowed her guncase in the trunk of the stolen Mustang and drove away from the motel.

Poor Jimmie, she thought. It was just his bad luck to meet me. But that’s the way it goes.

Janet Lakeley had a rule, and she never broke it: when you bed down a guy in a new town you always target him the next day. She sighed. Usually it didn’t bother her. Most of them were bastards. But not Jimmie. She’d enjoyed talking to him, playing her word games with him... bedding him. Too bad he had to die.

He seemed like a real nice guy.