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happen.
    There was a part of me just then that didn’t believe I could ever go through with the murder. But like a heroic knight on horseback, another thought came racing into my mind: Yeah, and if you stand back and do nothing like a damned coward, that little boy will get raped, choked to death and buried out in the Piney Woods! And that’s not even something that could happen. That’s something that will happen.       
    And with that internal argument settled, I set out for Stilletto’s.
    *          *          *
    And now I sit in the Nova, waiting on Jack, going over in my head how I plan for this to work. Walk up behind him. Cock the hammer. Aim. Pull the trigger. Simple.
    I was remembering how immediately after I’d bought the gun, I’d driven a little ways out into the country and fired two test shots, just to make sure it worked. The report had thrown off my aim by a dangerous margin. I didn’t like that. I knew right then that in order for my first shot to hit Jack in the head, I had to be standing at least within six or seven feet of him, or else I’d probably miss.
    I’d changed into my ‘poor boy’ disguise after I’d arrived in a parking lot across the street from Jack’s favorite titty bar. I changed in the car. I just laid the driver’s seat down and switched into the outfit right there, figuring no one would see since there were no lights anywhere on my side of the road. And I knew I was alone in this empty lot, parked cater-corner to the single-wide trailer office of a construction company.
    I was mulling everything over in the theater of my mind, when a feeling came over me. The only way I can describe it is. . . is that it was just a feeling of
    (((now)))
    Just then, I looked up and saw a tall, fat middle-aged man in a business suit push through the heavy front doors of Stilletto’s. I couldn’t see too clearly from that distance, but I knew it was him just the same.
    I tore open the glove compartment lid and found the little pistol, not much larger than the palm of my hand.
    I got out of the vehicle and stood up, suddenly realizing I had been sitting in there for hours and that I really needed to take a piss. On top of that, my legs had fallen asleep and were threatening to give out on me.
    Very little time. Jack was already a third of the way to his red Dodge truck. I forced my legs to jog across the street. Stiletto’s sat on a side road just a few hundred yards from the main boulevard where all the traffic was. There were no cars approaching. I tucked my hands deep into my pockets with my right hand holding the loaded gun, the index finger resting on the safe side of the trigger guard. I slowed from a jog to a brisk walk as I crossed into Stiletto’s parking lot.
    Jack was standing next to the driver’s door of his truck, fumbling through his keys when I came around the lowered tailgate and pulled the gun out of my pocket. He didn’t even notice me at first. I observed his whole body waver where he stood and realized he was drunk. I leveled the gun, aiming it at the side of his head and cocked the hammer. He glanced at me and did a groggy double-take.
    “Shit,” he wheezed in a small voice I could barely hear, and dropped his keys onto the black asphalt, “Here. . . Yuh-you can have my wallet, you can have my wallet, just don’t shoot! Please don’t kill me!”
    He didn’t even recognize me, not until I gave myself away. As tears built up in my eyes, I said, “I don’t want your fuckin’ money, Jack. . .”    
    And in his voice more than his thoughts, I heard him recognize me, “What, WHAT! WHY?”
    “I can’t let you hurt him,” I growled, but also hearing a slight pleading tone in my voice, “Not the way you hurt me! I can’t let you! I can’t let you hurt him!”
    As tears trickled down my cheeks, an understanding dawned on Jack’s drunken face. He knew who I meant. In his head I heard, Jacob? and saw the beaming innocence of the boy’s