But Joey figured that’s what the pictures were really about. A way for them to verify the hit. And to keep an eye on him.

And well, he liked the work. Liked it a lot better than he thought he would. His own hours. His own decisions. He liked the careful planning. The sense of control. Not having to answer to other people. Spending half your time inside, with the prison population who and what it is, he had already mostly picked up how to do it. If he wanted to say no to a certain job, for any reason, he could. But you didn’t want to be a guy who got a reputation for saying no, or for being picky, or they wouldn’t recommend you for the next job.

And you had to do the job right every time because one little fuckup and you’d be toast. You’d be caught. You’d be finished.

He was okay with all that.

And the money was really good. Even better than they said.

One thing about the job though. It reinforced his being alone. He had to work alone, had to cut himself off from pretty much everyone, and while a part of him liked that, actually preferred it, at the same time it made him feel isolated, and anxious, and well, a little crazy. Limited human interaction, only the most careful human contact, he was okay with it but he could tell it wasn’t good for him, and that, whatever was already a little off about him, this was making it worse.

And the cell phone kind of reinforced that even more. Regular people got to use their phones to stay in touch, keep connections, have more people in their lives. But for him, the phone was a way of keeping people away. Avoiding human contact, doing it by phone. A device for business. For making arrangements. For documentation. And nothing more.

And then, after being so careful at his work, so good at it for so long, he was on his way to “finalize” a job, as he liked to say, and was double-checking his phone’s camera like he always does but for some reason it wasn’t working, his code wasn’t getting him in. He tried his code twice, three times, and couldn’t figure out what was wrong but fuck, now he had no way to document the hit. He was getting more and more frustrated, wanted to stomp the fuckin’ phone under his feet, and suddenly a call comes, and he answers, confused, ’cause he sees his own number, and a kid says “Sir, were you just at the GreenGirl? We swapped phones. You’ve got mine, and I’ve got yours.” Fuck!