What the hell was I doing, listening to Nietzsche? Not to the man himself or to books on tape. From my own mind. I had been told by a god, personally told by a god, that “Nietzsche was a humbug asshole.” OK, it was an archaic, minor deity disguised as a large oak tree in the forest near my own house, and common sense suggests it was me talking to myself, but what spoken message from a divine source, minor or Most Major, isn’t? The “monster,” in this case, for a fair definition, would be a contract killer. Murderer for hire. Assassin. Hit man. Clipper. Ice Man. Sicario. Gatillero.

I was so far in, there seemed to be no way back. I could find no sound advice to give myself. I could not come up with some sound plan of my own. I therefore took Elizabeth’s, even though I disliked her, distrusted her, and was certain she was a sociopath.

—

On Monday, I made some handwritten changes to Elizabeth’s contract, initialed them, then signed and dated it where indicated, then went to her offices. They were humming. Workers busy as bees. Walls going up, doors being hung. Painters painting. Furniture coming in. Oh, joy.

I gave her the contract. She looked. She noticed the changes, read them, and looked perturbed.

The first kicked the signing bonus up to $400,000.

The second was to indemnify myself and my associates (to be named later) for all legal expenses incurred on behalf of LIFE, Inc., its principals, its primary investors (defined as over $1 million), its clients, by The Company (as named in the contract), and, should The Company be dissolved or cease to exist, that liability would be incurred by its successors, should there be any, and if not, by its principals.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

“Which part?”

“Both.”

“You had a problem. A big problem.”

“Which? What?”

“Cohen.”

“Well…”

“Your problem. Your screw up. Your disaster, waiting and eager to happen.”

“Are you going to fix it?”

“It’s fixed,” I said.

She looked blank.

“You read the Times. And The Wall Street Journal. You don’t read the Post. I bet you watch MSNBC…” Oh, the sneer that prompted. “…or Fox? You’re a Fox News person. I should have known. Anyway, you don’t watch New York 1.” She still looked blank. “Mr. Cohen died late Saturday night, early Sunday morning.”

It seemed as if she was about to say, “Thank God,” or at least, “Oh, good,” but she didn’t. She left that alone. For the moment. Instead she switched to a mental calculation as to whether $200,000 was the right price for what was, ostensibly, the second hit. Since that had been roughly the price of the first, it damn well should be. She accepted that. She went to the next item.

“This other thing is ridiculous.”