Lucero told the hit man to meet him behind the Loaf ’N Jug, where they could have some privacy. But the hit man parks out front. Broad daylight. Fuck. Lucero’s never done this sort of thing before, needs to be discreet. He’s dressed all in black, midtwenties, a bulge in his pocket. He goes thundering toward the hit man’s truck, flings open the door, and rolls inside, thinks holy flying fuck when he sees, okay, this is what the hit man looks like: huge, do-rag, ZZ Top beard hanging down, knuckle rings, the whole shitbag shebang. The real deal. This is the real-fucking-deal.

"What’s going on?" the hit man says, turning to him, calm as dirt.

Lucero is electric. Up till now it’s all been a few scratchy phone calls. A friend of a friend who knew a guy. Someone who could help. Seeing him now, in the flesh, Lucero feels compelled to tell the hit man everything, every tiny, wretched detail that led him to call upon the services of a professional. "Everything was going good for me," he says. "Fucking had a job, worked out there at Unit Three; I had a good car."

"Unit Three?" the hit man asks.

Lucero yammers uncontrollably. That’s always been a problem. Tangents darting like squirrels in his head. "Good cash, man, fucking had a good car, just everything was going good. I was expecting a kid, and my girlfriend went behind my back and said, 'Hey, I’m going to name the kid after my mom and dad,' you know, which, it ain’t right—I didn’t like that. I thought it was unfair. I thought we should sit down and talk about it. But that didn’t happen."

"That’s fucked-up", the hit man says.

"The fucked-up part about it is, like, love is blinding, you know?"

"Uh-huh," says the hit man.

People stroll in and out of the Loaf ’N Jug, a lady with Pringles, a guy slapping a fresh pack of Marlboros, a teenager sipping something blue. It’s a clear May day in Colorado, and the hit man is a good listener.

"She broke up with me in August while she was at home and I was at work," Lucero continues. "She took all my money, she fucking took my car, man. She took my car! Well, it was in her name."

"Uh-huh—"

Lucero’s leg is bouncing, vibrating nerves and anger and age-old uncertainty, nothing adding up. People treating him like shit. People always lying and tricking him. He has a switchblade in his belt. The .45 in his pants is loaded and cocked.

"She had the nerve to smile at me, all right?" says Lucero. "She had the nerve to smile at me! And she says, 'I can’t be with somebody who doesn’t even understand his own origins.'"

Like anyone else, given the choice, a hit man would prefer to understand any given backstory. But a hit man is going to put only so much work into that.

"Tell me what you want done," the hit man says. "Do you want something done?"

"Oh, I want something done. I want that bitch’s face cut."

Just saying it out loud, it’s the first step toward healing. Lucero knows that for sure now, and he says it repeatedly—cut her face up—and each time he feels lighter, a load off his heart, his pounding, suffering heart. The love of his life, she walked away laughing.

The hit man has ice blue eyes that don’t wander, don’t shift or pierce with disdain. "So you don’t want her dead, you want her scarred up?"