The guy is the fucking double image of me. More than that: he’s me. He’s me, sitting there, looking back at me. There’s no real expression on his face, he’s just looking up at me, there’s no fear in him. No fear at all. He’s just sitting there, waiting to see what’s going to happen next, maybe even with the hint of a smile on his lips. Fuck this, I says to myself, and that’s when I do it. Without taking my eyes off him, and with my chatsby still aimed at his head, with my left hand I slide off my balaclava. He sees me, and he lets out a gasp. He starts scrambling to the back of the booth. He’s pushing back with his feet and putting his hands up in front of his face. I looks back at I and sees Himself. Mad Frank Marby and Pat Allardyce are pushing their way into the room. They’ll be onto us in seconds. I turn back around. And I shoot him, my double, straight through the face.

His face is red and yellow, like the sun. Smoke is pouring from this great round wound where his face should be. Mad Frank Marby and Pat Allardyce come up behind me. What the fuck have you done? Pat Allardyce says to me, and for a second we just stand there, the three of us, with our guns at our sides, while this star man smoulders and spits in front of us, this broiling mess that is like staring into the heart of a star with all the colours of red and orange and yellow, the different degrees of heat, this furnace, and at one point his hands spring up like his body is still going on, his burnt and bloody hands go up, as if to steady himself on the table, and then it’s like he’s trying to raise himself up, and I see Mad Frank Marby take a step back, Mad Frank Marby flinches then, but one of his arms gives way, and he slumps back into the booth but not before he turns his head around and looks at me with this face like a Cyclops, this face like a blazing sun, and then he falls forward, onto the table, and there’s a hiss like water into fire as his head hits the formica and black smoke comes up.

What the fuck just happened? Pat Allardyce says to me. You were supposed to take this cunt alive. I’m sorry, I says to him, I’m sorry. I just fucking lost it there for a minute. He fucking shot me, I says to them, he fucking shot me in the leg. Let’s get the fuck out of here, Pat Allardyce says, and he puts his arm under my shoulder and drags me out, back through this corridor of stinking flesh, out into the street.