“I just want you to know,” he said right before he departed my fleabag Shangri-la, “I’m proud of what you did in the service of your country.”

So killing a bunch of Cong who were strangers to me, squeezing off rounds and shattering and splattering their noggins like melons at target practice back home, that was fine, that made sense. Killing that prick Williams, who had needed killing, who I had a reason for killing, that was wrong.

That may have been when the gears shifted in my skull and made me view things from my own admittedly off-kilter perspective. Society sanctioned killing strangers in war, but didn’t like it when you took out some bastard you knew who richly deserved it. To me that’s hypocritical, but what the hell, that’s just my take on it.

So the Broker.

He knocked on my door. At that stage in my existence, I didn’t even bother to take a gun with me. This joint couldn’t afford peepholes, either, so I just opened the door and there he stood, an apparition of success: six two and broad-shouldered, with stark-white hair made starker by a tropical tan and a gray double-knit suit and a darker stripes of gray tie, as distinguished as a guy in a bourbon ad in Playboy.

He called me “Mister,” and used my real name, which is none of your fucking business. He had the damnedest face, too young for the white hair, long and fleshy but largely unlined, and his eyes were light blue, like arctic waters, or anyway like I figured arctic waters would look.

I do remember he said, “I have an unusual opportunity for you, Mr.. A money-making opportunity.”

And I remember my answer: “Amway’s not my thing, Mac. Try next door. There’s a hooker with some real sales experience.”

But he talked his way in, and we sat at the little scarred-up table where I had my TV dinners and the rum I was mixing with Coca-Cola, a twelve-ounce can of Coke lasting longer than a bottle of Bacardi.