Which one of these unsuspecting people would be his victim? You? You? You there? The Storyteller spun the tale inside his head.

There were two loudmouths in identical New York Yankees baseball caps, worn backward, of course. The irritating morons didn’t shut up once through the interminable ads and trailers. They both deserved to die.

So did an atrociously dressed elderly couple, who didn’t talk to each other at all, not once in fifteen minutes before the houselights went down. Killing them would be a good deed, almost a public service.

A fragile-looking woman, early forties, seemed to be having the shakes two rows in front of the moldy oldies. Bothering no one—except him.

And then a big black dude with his sneakered feet up on the seat in front of him. Rude, inconsiderate bastard in his old-school Converses that must have been at least size fourteens.

Next, a black-bearded movie nerd who probably had seen the movie a dozen times already and worshipped Quentin Tarantino, of course.

Turned out, it was the bearded wonder who got up about halfway through the movie, just after Uma Thurman was buried alive. Jesus, who could walk out on that classic scene?

Duty-bound, he followed, a couple of seconds behind. Out into the dingy hall, then into the men’s room, which was located near theater two.

He was actually shaking now. Was this it? His moment? His first murder? The beginning of everything he’d dreamed about for months? Make that years.

He was pretty much on autopilot, trying not to think about anything except doing this right, then getting in and out of the movie theater without anybody noticing his face or too much else about him.

The bearded guy was standing at the urinal, which was kind of good news, actually. The shot was nicely framed and art-directed.

Wrinkled, grungy black T-shirt that said NYU FILM SCHOOL with a clapsticks logo on the back. Reminded him of a character out of a Daniel Clowes comic book, and that graphic shit was hot right now.

“And . . . action!” he said.

Then he shot the poor bearded loser in the back of the head, watched him drop like a heavy sack to the bathroom floor. Lie there—nothing moving. The blast roared through his head in the tiled room, louder than he’d dreamed it would be.

“Hey—what the? What happened? Hey!” he heard, and the Storyteller whirled around as if there was an audience watching him in the men’s room.

Two guys from the Sutton Theater crew had entered behind him. They must have been curious about the noise. And how much had they seen?

“Heart attack,” he said, blurted it out, tried to sound convincing. “Man just fell over at the urinal. Help me get him up. Poor guy. He’s bleeding!”

No panic, no affect, no second thoughts whatsoever. Everything was pure instinct now, right, wrong, or indifferent.