Which was part of what the Broker said to me that made so much sense, that night in my dreary paint-peeling hotel room, the glow of neon from outside providing the only light and giving everything a surreal look, including the Broker and his unlined face that could have belonged to a man of thirty, and his white hair/white mustache that could have belonged to a man of sixty. But even in the surreal glow he looked like the successful businessman he was, in his conservative yet stylish suit, and he talked like a politician, slick and eloquent and even seductive, and when he suggested I do in civilian life what I had done not so long ago as a soldier-that is, kill people-it seemed reasonable.

After all, I had killed people overseas for little money, and killed somebody since coming home for no money… why not do it for real money, for a change? And Broker was talking very real money-two thousand and up for a simple hit.

All of which stands as a gross simplification of what the Broker said to me. I have tried on several occasions to record the scene, but have always failed. I have good, almost uncanny recall; I’ve proven that, I think, in the three accounts I wrote previous to this one. But that first meeting with the Broker stays a blur in my mind; the sensations of it, the gist of what was said, that much I can tell you.

And I can tell you also I was an easy sale. Not that I was bloodthirsty or anything: I wasn’t. I’m still not.

But he approached me at a time in my life when I could have gone in about any direction. I had nothing left but the contradictory notion that while life and death are meaningless, survival remains essential. It doesn’t seem to make sense, I know, but it seemed to make sense in Vietnam, which is where I learned it. And it has stayed with me till this day.

The Broker was the middleman between client and killer. He used to describe himself as “sort of an agent,” and it’s a good description of his role. A client would come to him with a problem, and the Broker would come to somebody like me to see to it a means was provided for solving that problem.