Some people thinka life of crime is the easy way out.
Yeah. It’s the easy way out if you don’t do it right.
Done right, it’s hard. It requires constant awareness, quick-thinking, strategic movement, tough leadership and a fucking fast aim.
The perks are, well,alright. Not amazing. Money, power, pussy—not always the right kind though. And when the right kind comes along there’s rarely enough time to stick a dick in it.
I’ve never met a half-decent criminal who’s in it for the perks.
For the most part, they’re in for the rush. The adrenaline. The God complex.
Me? I’m in it because I have an anger management problem and a short fuse. Not much call in the nine-to-five for someone who doesn’t have the patience to settle a dispute without the aid and efficiency of a .45.
Why do I have an anger management problem?
Well, you know, that’s deep.
Too deep for an epilogue.
What I can tell you is I’m not always angry. I’ve found the yin to my yang—the calm to my storm—and that’s good enough for me. But that’s a whole other book.
So, yeah, back to the day job.
It’s fucking busy.
By eight a.m., I've already settled two disputes, signed off on a shipment coming through the port and authorized the disposal of a body found floating in the Delaware.
By noon, I'm sitting in a boardroom in Philadelphia wearing a custom suit listening to a bunch of lawyers argue over property acquisitions.
By six, I’m in Jersey collecting debts.
By midnight, I should be winding down in my brother’s club, maybe getting a lap dance or two in the back room.
But I’m not, and I never am.
Because instead, I'mwatching.
The only thing that cools my blood after a day of organizing crime is the soothing stillness that comes from stealth, observation and reliability.
I’ve watched many women over the years. Mostly benign archetypes leading quiet, non-threatening, uninteresting lives.
Learning their routines and habits was easy and quickly satisfying. I knew where they would be, any time, any day of the week. I sought comfort from that. Laying eyes on them walking to their cars after a routine day at work softened my shoulders.
The predictability was to my obsessive brain like a warm bath to my taut muscles.
Though I am a creature of habit, I have tried varying my sources of obsession. I watched a sex worker once but it was too fucking stressful. Her schedule was chaotic and I never knew where she was, which did the opposite of relaxing me—it made me half-crazy. The streets lost a good handful of pimps over those strained six months.
I returned to watching the same old calculable women withtheir humdrum habits and predictable routines, and it soothed me again for a while.
And then I foundher.
I pull up on the opposite side of the street, taking care to position my imported Aston beneath the low-hanging branches of a London plane, and kill the engine.
She lives on the third floor, second window from the left.
My pulse settles when I see the light come on. She got home safe. One illuminated window and my entire nervous system calms the fuck down.
I would hate myself for it if I didn’t love the feeling so much.
