I fired twice. The two bullets sliced through his legs, just above the kneecaps. He wouldn't be going anywhere quickly.
I advanced, slowly, from the shadows. Catching the old man on his way home from his more legitimate work had been easy, because he knew he was in no danger. I hoped I would never become so careless.
He was mewling and weeping, trying to crawl away on his stomach and leaving a trail of blood in his wake. I headed him off, shouldering the compact sub machine gun I had procured for this particular job. I was taking no chances. Not with someone as experienced as him.
When he looked up and saw my face, saw the scar running down to my chin, and realized who I was, he got a look on his face that I treasure to this very day.
"Y...you're still alive?" His voice was raspy and tinged with pain, but the surprise overrode everything else.
I felt no sympathy for him. Given what he'd done to me, and what he'd threatened to do to others, I could not let him live. No matter how much professional respect I had for the man and the work he had done in the past, I could not let him live. He had changed, fallen from my good graces.
But I also could not help myself.
I smiled. "Unlike you," I said. And then I raised the gun.
It was pointless. Tacky. Unprofessional. Even childish. Everything that he, in the prime of his life, was not.
There could be no more fitting end to his career.