As a child I couldn’t imagine ever harming a cat, or a hamster.  Everyone’s got their hang-ups, I guess.  These days I’ve put childish notions behind me and built a pretty good career for myself.  Sure, there were times when I thought about giving it up.  Sometimes you look into their beady eyes, and it’s like they are begging you to reconsider.

            “You can choose not to do this,” they seem to be saying, if they could indeed talk.  But really, I could no more choose to not follow through than they could choose to be someone else’s pet, in some other place, living some other life.

            It’s simple: you can, like I do, choose to live in the future.  In the future everything is settled.  Everything that will happen today has already happened tomorrow, and tomorrow is where a guy like me has to dwell.  I am known as Capybara, and I am a pet assassin.

            I had just finished liquidating a French terrier over in Sootville last week, when I found myself on the Devonair Memorial Bridge, heading back into Luxopolis to catch my kid brother’s wedding rehearsal.  It’s free to cross over into Sootville, but it costs five bucks to get out of there.  There’s some sort of joke in that.

            It was a regular job, no mess, no evidence that would lead back to me.  Most times it looks like an accident.  Lot of work goes into pulling that off, let me tell you. 

But I’ve had my close calls.  Luxopolis has one agent who specializes in murder-for-hire crimes: The Lynx.  The perfect undercover detective, The Lynx has caught every hitman in the city except one: Capybara.

Only eight of the twelve tollbooth lanes were open.  Three were cash lanes, and I always pay cash.  I pulled up to the middle lane just as surely as I always play the middle square in tic-tac-toe. I reached for my billfold and took out a ten note. 

A cashier I had never seen before stood there in his crisp blue polyester vest with a name tag that read “Carl”.  He was a pale and slightly built man, but sported an enormous afro and gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses.

“How’s it going, Carl?  You new here?” I asked.

            “Good afternoon.  Yes, sir.  Today is my first day,” he answered in a thin voice.

            I handed him the ten.  As he made change, I could hear the cash register ding like an old- fashioned dime store machine.  He reached out to hand me my five and I noticed a tiny diamond tattoo on the purlicue of his right hand. 

            “Diamond in the fold,” I whispered to myself, committing the detail to memory.

            “Excuse me?” the man asked.

            “Uh…I said have a nice day,” I offered.

He paused a moment, staring at me through his dark lenses.

“Have a nice day, sir,” he finally said and pressed the button to open the barrier.

I pulled through quickly.  Not too quickly, but not wasting time, either.  Something about that man had unnerved me.  I checked the rearview mirror and thought I noticed that now there were only two cash lanes open, although in the late afternoon sunlight it was difficult to be sure.

Diamond on his hand.  Was he a poker player?  It could mean anything.  But details like that are important.  In my line of work, it could spell the difference between capture and freedom.

One time, years ago, I was waiting for a stall in the bathroom of a club call The Sash.  As a man came out of one stall, I saw he was wearing a royal blue ascot and had onyx cufflinks.  I sat down to my business and noticed the tear pattern on the roll of toilet paper: he was left-handed.  Afterwards I spotted him ordering a martini, but noticed that he reached for his drink with his right hand.  Right away I knew it was One Hand Montoya in disguise. He’d been looking for me ever since I snuffed out his boss’s boa constrictor.  I cleared out.  No sense letting him figure out who I was.

            See?  It’s stuff like that; like the time I was at a grocery store and I noticed the way the stocker boy was laying in the bags of flour, like he’d never made of row of anything in his life. The lady selling papers at the corner of Bluebonnet and Main, she kept scratching the inside of her thumb with her middle fingernail.  You wouldn’t think details like that matter, but they do; you just never know when.

            I got to the rehearsal a few minutes early.  I hadn’t seen Jimmy in a few months; I figured we’d chat a bit.  It was one ritzy joint.  He had rented the ballroom on the ground floor of the Pelican Hotel, a five-star affair if there ever was one.

            He was getting hitched to the mayor’s granddaughter, so you can imagine the who’s-who cast that showed up for the rehearsal.  Everyone in it, plus a few dozen hangers-on were in attendance.  There was even a photographer from the Times.

            The practice went off without a hitch and was followed by a huge cocktail party, complete with a five-piece orchestra and a host of waiters.  I took it all in, wondering what the wedding reception would be like.

            “Mr. Stone?” came a clear voice behind me, as someone tapped my shoulder.

            I spun around to see a dazzling woman with red hair and deep blue eyes, wearing a black satin dress.

            “I’m Gideon Stone, yes.  Who might you be?” I answered her.

            “I’m Destiny Wallace with the Times,” she blurted quickly.  “With the mayor’s granddaughter getting married and so many of the town’s A-listers here, I thought I’d do a piece for the paper’s Society Page.  And here I find Gideon Stone, heir to Lapiz Industries himself.”

            “Madam, you knew the Stone family would be in attendance, I believe,” I stated to her tersely.  I waited for her countenance to deflate.  It didn’t.

            “Oh, okay.  Look, maybe I should say I was hoping Mr. Gideon Stone would be showing up for his little brother’s wedding to-do,” she confessed.

            “Really, madam?” I asked her, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the way the light from the chandeliers reflected in her red locks, or the way her dark violet lips framed every syllable.  She was alluring, to put it simply.

            We chatted for a bit, but it had been a long enough day.  I decided to leave.

            “Shall we dance?” she asked suddenly.

            “Really, Miss Wallace, I’m quite done in for the evening,” I protested.

          “You wouldn’t refuse a lady a dance, would you, Mr. Stone?” she challenged, with the loveliest pout on her lips.

            “Well, just one,” I acquiesced, as I took her hand and led her to the middle of the floor where several other couples were swaying and rocking.

            “I haven’t waltzed in a long time, Miss Wallace,” I confessed as we stepped and sometimes stumbled through the three-beat rhythms.

            “It’s quite alright, Mr. Stone.  A man in your line of work has little time to play.”

            “How would you know that, Miss Wallace?” I asked, puzzled by her comment.

            “I just mean, what with work and everything else you do, it must feel like you lead two lives.”  She smiled, her eyes drilling into mine.

            I felt a trickle of sweat start to form on the back of my neck.

            Just then, the best man decided to call for a toast by clinging a fork against his glass.  Ting-ting.  Ting-ting.  It sounded oddly like a cash register.

            Miss Wallace motioned to one of the waiters holding a tray with two champagne glasses left on it.  She lifted one and offered it to me.

            “Have a drink, Mr. Stone.  I’m sure the day has taken its toll on your nerves,” she said.

            Toll.

            I reached for the glass she was extending toward me and that’s when I saw it: a tiny diamond tattooed on the space between her thumb and her index finger.

            The Lynx.  It had to be!

            Never had I ever thought I would be face to face with him, in so public a space.  His disguise had been nearly perfect.

            I took the proffered glass and promptly smashed it on the floor.

            “I won’t be falling for that today!” I cried triumphantly.

            “Mr. Stone!” my adversary cried.  “What’s gotten into you?”

            “Gideon!  What’s the matter with you?” came Jimmy’s voice from a few feet away.

            People all around had turned their heads in dismay and murmurs and gasps could be heard from all sides.

            I quickly concluded that The Lynx would never blow his cover in a place like this.

            “Not everything is what it seems to be, ladies and gentleman,” I declared to the shocked crowd.  I reached for those red locks and yanked them toward me to remove the disguise.

            Only…they didn’t come off.  Instead, Miss Wallace let out a piercing scream.

            “Mr. Stone!” she wailed in obvious agony, her hair still tightly in my grip.

            “Unhand her, man!” a portly gentleman shouted at me while several others closed in around me to intervene.

            “Oh my,” I uttered, realizing my mistake.  “I’m terribly sorry.  Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve made a ghastly error; please excuse me!”

            I could feel the blood rising through my neck and face, the sweat pouring from my forehead as I sped toward the rear of the ballroom, making for the men’s room.  Shocked faces followed me every step of the way, with some people moving to gain space away from my trajectory.     

            “Siri,” I muttered into the phone in my breast pocket. “How popular are diamond tattoos on the hand?” 

I felt humiliated, and poor Miss Wallace was humiliated.  How could I have done this?

            In the restroom, I splashed cold water on my face, touching some to my neck, trying to calm myself.  I picked up one luxurious paper napkin from a silver tray and dried myself slowly.  Then I balled up the paper and threw it into the trash receptacle.

            I was about to declare myself sufficiently composed when I spotted an anomaly in my reflection.  There was a thin, pale band of skin where my signet ring should have been.  I had dropped it in the trash can.  Blast.

            I took my phone out and switched on its flashlight.  I peered into the dark cavity and shined the light on the whole of the evening’s sanitary offerings.  After moving a few crumpled wads aside, I saw them: a blue polyester vest and a voluminous brown bush of a wig.

            The Lynx.

            “Mr. Stone?” came her voice through the door.  “Are you okay?”

            I remained silent.

            “Mr. Stone, can I come in?  It’s okay!  Can I come in and check on you?” she called so politely.

            I looked around hastily and took position atop the toilet nearest the door.

            “Mr. Stone, I’m coming in now. It’s okay, really.”

            She entered and slowly walked the length of the room.  I counted silently to myself as she stepped past my stall.  When I could hear she had reached the last stall I made my move.

            I sprinted to the door and tore down the back hallway toward the kitchen, all the while hearing her calling out to me.

            “Mr. Stone! Come back!”

            I blasted through the kitchens and eventually through an exit door, after which I got myself lost in downtown Luxopolis.  That was too close.

            The next day the Times published a doozy in the social pages:

“Business Tycoon Stone Assaults Reporter!”

The article went on to state that Miss Wallace would not be pressing charges; and a follow-up article the next day stated that the matter had been settled out of court.

            Going forward, a mental note to myself:  The Lynx is a woman.