The Violinist

STARRY NIGHT

The fat man's body wobbled and collapsed. Grunting, Vincent caught the newly-made corpse and lowered it to the floor silently. He was careful to stay behind the man, so as to ensure that the blood spraying from the man's severed neck did not spatter on him. Laying the body gently on the floor Vincent tried to block out the horrible gurgling noise that made its way to his ears. It seemed the man wasn't quite dead yet, and was trying to call out for help. Not that he could. When Vincent killed, he was certain to do so as silently as possible. The man's windpipe had been completely severed, and the low gurgling noise died slowly, as did the man creating it.

"What a pleasant sound," Vincent mumbled as he untangled himself from the body. "I must be getting old."

It was sloppy work, for Vincent. Normally on a job like this, his victim was dead before he even had time to realize it. Vincent may have been a murderer, but that doesn't mean he liked to make people suffer. He did a job, and whenever possible, he preferred to do it as cleanly as possible. When he had to slit a throat, he made sure to take out the carotid artery as quickly he could. The immediate loss of blood to the brain meant that his victim would be unconscious within seconds, and would not have to suffer the indignity of bleeding to death.

Still, despite the slightly longer than normal death time, Vincent was quite proud of his work on this job. It had taken him several weeks of planning, and several more to actually execute.

The kill itself had been relatively straight forward. After making his way into the man's home during a party, he had spent some time ingratiating himself to the guests, though never to the victim himself. He made sure to be pleasant, agreeable, and immensely forgettable. It was an important skill, one he had taken years to develop. He was pleasant enough and social enough that no one would think it odd for him to be there, but not interesting enough to actually be remembered. He was a ghost – as any good assassin should be.

Midway through the event, when guests had stopped arriving and security began to relax, Vincent made his way across the banquet area toward his victim, and surreptitiously bumped a nearby waiter, causing him to spill cocktail sauce on his victim's shirt. Vincent immediately walked away, calmly but quickly making his way up to his victim's bedroom, even as his victim berated – and likely fired – the innocent waiter. Vincent felt bad about that, he truly did. But in his line of work, there was sometimes unavoidable collateral damage. At least the waiter had merely lost his job, and not his life. It was important to Vincent that he always stay positive.

While his victim wasted time yelling at the waiter, Vincent hid himself in the man's closet, quietly waiting for him to inevitably arrive seeking a change of shirt. It didn't take long but did take longer than he would have liked. Vincent was a patient man, but he wanted this job over early enough in the evening that he could sneak out with the caterer's staff.

Stashing himself in the closet, Vincent waited. It wasn't long before he heard the bedroom door open, and the heavy steps of his target walk through. Vincent closed his eyes and listened, following the man's footsteps from his bedroom door to the closet where Vincent lay. The man muttered angrily, railing against the waiter's heritage and the laziness of 'goddamn Mexicans'. Vincent was fairly certain the waiter had been Puerto Rican, but doubted that it made a difference to his target. Vincent waited until he heard the man remove his dinner jacket and knew it was time to strike.

Vincent pounced. Like the shadow of a black panther, Vincent slid from the closet without making a sound. The man hadn't even known he was there, before Vincent was upon him. Swiftly pulling the man's head to the side, Vincent placed his violin bow across his neck and sliced.

When it came to up close jobs, this was his preferred method of killing. In fact, it was how he got his name: The Violinist. A razor-sharp violin bow was easy to smuggle, transport, and hardly ever raised an eyebrow. And who would suspect a man walking down the street with a violin case to be an internationally renowned killer for hire?