I was making a catalogue of immediate personal miseries:

It was (still) ungodly hot out. The night was humid enough to make my balls feel like a monster-hosting swamp. Everyone around me was either speaking too loudly or too quietly—seeming either to be shouting and making me nervous or whispering and making me paranoid. The drinks were overpriced and under-poured, the bartenders skimping a full finger’s worth of the good stuff. The food all looked pre-chewed, and I was smart enough—or at the very least cautious enough—not to give it the benefit of the doubt and try a taste test. This last misery fed the next: I was starving. And that misery fueled half of one of the priors: when I got hungry, I got anxious; anxiety plus paranoia multiplied by the time-honored Presley male patience equaled a brewing shit storm of biblical proportions.

All of which was very, very not good. I’d come here to end a life. I was fully aware, if not marginally willing, to have that life be my own, but a life was a life and I intended to have one snuffed out before the night’s end. A shit storm brewing in the mind of a man whose endgame is death is a recipe for disaster.

Worst of all: I was trapped—no better word for it, “TRAPPED!”—in a three-piece monkey suit that was tight where I needed it loose and loose where I needed it tight. This was, without a doubt, the absolute greatest and most pressing of my immediate personal miseries. I could have gone an entire night with heat, swamp-nuts, noise pollution, and shitty food and drink—hey, I’d been to my fair share of shindigs in the past; you been to one you been to them all—but throwing Jason Presley in an Armani suit when he’s geared to commit murder is a good way to motivate a full-on Carrion Crew “fundraiser” massacre.

Case in point: my catalogue of immediate personal miseries were rapidly culminating into the sort of situation that would likely end in a very public misery.

I’d gotten in easily enough. There were suits of all makes, models, and years coming and going. Bodyguards were as plentiful as the pearls draped around the guests’ “plus one”s necks, and, from the looks of things, the number of goons you had shadowing you seemed directly proportional to your personal sense of self-worth. It occurred to me, in a near laugh-inducing flash, that the men attending this event actually seemed to view burly men the same way women viewed diamonds and rubies. The idea of two of these self-righteous blowhards “retiring” to the bathroom to gloat about the protection they had in their entourage replacing the otherwise time-honored tradition of measuring dicks was, on its own, almost enough to have me doubling over with laughter.

“Ah, yes, my good man. Impressive. Very impressive. But—BUT!—one of my own—yes, that large fellow with the rippling pectorals and meticulously oiled abdominals—was once, get this, an underground street fighter for the Russian mafia. Dreadfully brutish, I agree, but he hums like a Rolls Royce when he’s sliding that three-thousand dollar an hour pecker of his right up my—”

And so it was, with all that importance-reflecting protection surrounding and shambling after all the moneybags that the Carrion Crew had invited, I had an easy in. I just sauntered myself up to a particularly high-and-mighty looking fellow with three men—all looking just as grumpy and uncomfortable as myself—and made his trio of bodyguards into a quartet. The doorman, who everyone knew was actually a well-armed guard and in no way a simple “invitations please”-dweeb, checked for the guy’s envelope, offered what was barely a glance in our direction, and with a simple “they’re with me” from my unknowing host, I was in.

That none of the other three bodyguards even seemed to notice me did not speak highly of their services.

Once in, I followed a similar pattern. Not wanting to spotlight myself as a solitary figure, knowing that would be a quick way to have someone recognize me, I kept close to whatever wandering group I happened by without leading on that I was actually trying to pose as one of them. A few times I was forced to nod an awkward greeting, and on two occasions I had to go so far as to bullshit my way through a phony dialogue to keep up appearances:

“Oh my! Look who it is! How you been, you old so-and-so? Have you been working out? Well you’re looking good! Keep it up! And tell the family I said “hello,” would you? Good man. Good man!”

Then, leaving them feeling bewildered and likely a bit violated, I made my leave, feeling phony and more than a little nauseated for it.

I strolled alongside busboys carrying empty trays. I made a show of adjusting the tablecloth and place settings at a few of the tables. Then, scooping up a discarded catering menu, I scrutinized over the same three entrees for an absurdly long moment so that I could cross a vast and uncomfortably empty length of floor that should have been used for dancing. Then, partially proud but mostly astounded that I hadn’t been identified and killed, I started for the stairs. I was far from searching for a needle in a haystack; if anything I was hunting that same needle among a mountain of AIDS-infected hypodermics. Danny hadn’t been bullshitting when he said that this was a dangerous move—one wouldn’t be crossing any lines or daring any argument to say it was a flat-our stupid move, too—but the needle in question was T-Built, and that meant I had a better chance of sneezing around that metaphorical haystack and blowing away everything but that famously elusive length of metal.

As I worked my way up the stairs, fighting the urge to wrestle a little more room out of the confining area that somebody obviously hung like a field mouse considered the “crotch” of this suit, I worked to maintain the illusion that I knew where I was going and, more importantly, that I belonged there. A guy going Michael Jackson-level crazy on his groin or one who was sweating bullets and glancing around like a lost tourist was a good way of getting noticed in all the wrong ways. This stood true for almost all situations, but in ones like this—ones where almost everyone was packing some kind of heat and a good number of them knew your face and wanted you dead—the importance of going unnoticed was somewhat greater. Moderately greater. Okay, it was of the utmost importance.

Spotting a pair coming down the stairs, one looking familiar enough to possibly be a prior acquaintance, I moved to wipe my face in what I hoped was a casual, “Whoo! This heat!”-sort of gesture. Making it just personal enough to present itself as a social prompt while serving to hide my face in the instant we passed each other, the two grunted a set of insincere agreements—“Yes, chum. Quite hot, indeed. And a good day to you, as well!”—and continued on their way. Sighing, I issued a silent prayer of thanks for the heat, which made my sweaty brow and flushed features not as suspicious as they otherwise would be, and finished climbing the plush, carpeted steps. The second floor of the building, carpeted in the same scarlet as the staircase leading up to it, was a large square that served more as a balcony that overlooked the first floor. Doors occupied the outer walls, some open and offering passersby a view of various interiors—fancy private offices, libraries, and what appeared to be a trophy room loaded with shocked-looking animal heads—while others, most of them, were shut. A few people stood around the perimeter, seeming, at a glance, to be innocently chatting amongst themselves or overseeing the party below. Upon closer inspection, however, one might catch sight of an envelope slipping from one coat to another between those engaged in casual banter. And if one of those stoic party-watchers moved to whisper something into the collar of their coat and you happened to glance at the waistband of their pants at just the right moment you might see the boxy grip of something that looked suspiciously like a gun tucked therein. I rolled my eyes, and the act allowed me to catch a scurry of movement in my periphery that was so casual it could only have been intentional.

Glancing without actually turning my head, I watched as three men walked towards one of the closed doors along the adjacent wall from where I was standing. Casual as it all seemed, there was something excessive about the process—as though they were working a little too hard at being nonchalant about it—and I noticed after a few seconds that one of the men, the one in the middle, wasn’t matching the others’ strides quite right. In fact, I realized, he was outright working not to match their paces. Then I noticed the two outer men’s grips on either of the middle’s biceps; an otherwise chummy gesture revealing itself to be one that was actually quite threatening. They were, without making it obvious, dragging the middle man to one of the closed doors. Were I a betting man, I’d be willing to wager that at least one of those outermost men, if not both of them, had their free hands tucked inside their jackets with a Saturday night special cocked and leveled through a concealing layer of formality at their “buddy.”

The three reached the door, and the man on the far right, after an awkward “adjustment” with his free hand beneath his coat, made for the knob. The middle man moved to turn. The motion was still young, still subtle enough to be something as innocent as a moment of “Oh, I’ve forgotten something,” but I knew it for what it was. He was trying to make a run for it. The leftmost man shifted, a strange tilt that looked almost like he’d been caught in a momentary and unexpected breeze, and the middle man went still. His face, only partially aimed my way, was a mask of shock and pain. Then, sharing a quick glance around the area between them, the two outermost men grabbed the other—suddenly seeming to struggle a bit more with the chummy gesture—and escorted him through the now-open door.

And nobody else, having either missed the moment entirely or seen it as something entirely different, had a twinge of suspicion that they’d been present—some by mere feet—to a murder. It was, after all, just three pals retiring to a private room. Perhaps there was brandy and cigars to be had back there. Or maybe they wanted to deliberate over some business papers that one kept in there. Or maybe they were just a couple of adventurous queers who’d gotten a bit cock-crazy and decided they were so in need for a good, old-fashioned circle-jerk that anyplace—“THIS PLACE!”—was as perfect a place to bust a trio of nuts as any other. All of those were far, far more likely possibilities for the momentary scene than the possibility of some nefarious and lethal exchange. That one of the men seemed to struggle with something bulking up the inside of his coat made no difference. And that the other seemed to teeter under some sudden force—surely not the contained recoil of a silenced weapon poised under his own coat—might have just been the sudden loss of equilibrium in a man who maybe, perhaps had a little too much to drink. And if that middle man, forgetful and out-of-sync with his friends as he seemed, appeared to have some sort of stain on his undershirt a moment before vanishing into that room, well that… that must be a trick of the light, or perhaps a bit of spilled drink, right? Right?

And be careful how you answer, folks, I thought, glancing over the bannister and making a quick sweep of the first floor for any sign of T-Built, because when two of those three men reemerge from that mysterious room, it very well could be you who turns out to be their next third “buddy.”

Catching no sign of my target, I spared a second to glance back at that door and wondered what they’d do with the body. If the man they’d just dragged in there wasn’t already dead, I was certain they were, at that very moment, finishing the job. I wasn’t about to fool myself into thinking that it’d be the only business-related killing that would take place there—the Carrion Crew was quickly making a name for itself in the business of death, something that the Crow Gang had always worked to avoid whenever it could be—but it seemed a risky move to go around piling up bodies in a rented building.

Unless, of course, the Carrions had gone and bought this place.

That thought brought a full-on, panic-induced shudder down upon me. It was bad enough to think that I was tromping around what might as well have been a castle occupied almost entirely by people who’d celebrate the chance to kill me. To imagine, however, that I had infiltrated a hornets’ nest—given my enemies the proverbial home field advantage—was nothing if not crap-in-your-pants terrifying. And if they had managed to acquire this place and make it their own, then it didn’t matter who they killed, how they killed them, and they sure-as-shit didn’t have to worry about where they put the bodies.

My heartbeat drummed in my chest, and I realized, too late for my own good, that I was sprinting across a shaky bridge on the way to panic. All of Danny’s talk of danger and suicide struck me, and I nearly made a scene by toppling over. By some miracle—I certainly wasn’t doing myself any favors in the realm of grace at that moment—I stayed on my feet. I glanced around, worried that some hawkeyed guard actually worth the wages he was earning might have seen me stumble and was in the process of noting my profile, but saw that nobody had cared enough about me to notice my blunder. This made my paranoia spike, my hunger-induced anxiety amplifying the effects a hundred times over, and I was suddenly certain that nobody was looking because I’d already been made; somebody had already spotted me, recognized me, and ordered the guards to let them handle their unwelcomed guest. Why else would they not bother even glancing my way? They knew that one of their higher-ups was about to come sneaking out of any one of those closed doors and put a silenced bullet right through my…

Sweet fucking hell, Jason! I scolded myself, You trying to give yourself a heart attack and end yourself before these Carrion cocksuckers have a chance to do it for you? Calm the fuck down!

And so, knowing it was either that or risk making myself a target, I did. I calmed the fuck down.

I’d snuck in with my unknowing entourage somewhere around eight-fifteen in the evening. Since then, I’d done my little double-oh-seven dance through most of the lower level and then climbed a stairway into Hell—Led Zeppelin had it wrong; so very, very wrong!—just to watch the casual assassination of a man who, despite the total lack of response, was surrounded on all sides by potential witnesses. These potential witnesses, both members of the Carrions as well as people of interest for them, either didn’t notice what had happened or were Oscar Award worthy actors when it came to not blinking in the presence of death.

Hell, I’d blinked—I’d almost thrown myself to the floor in an anxiety attack—and I was there to commit premeditated murder! If anybody in that place had an excuse to be indifferent to the subject of killing it should have been me!

I was either the world’s worst would-be assassin, or these assholes were just next-level awful.

Or, third option: you were caught, you were killed, and now you’re in Hell and surrounded by the worst sort of demons.

I paused at that, caught in a momentary existential hiccup and looking for some sign of reality, and then decided that I likely wouldn’t find any one way or the other. Either I really was where I thought I was and it wouldn’t be any more insistent on itself or this was a constructed illusion and the powers that brought it into being knew better than me how to make it appear real.

“If this is the Matrix,” I muttered to myself, “then I’d better get a cool bullet-time scene out of all this.”

Nobody laughed, because nobody heard. The loneliness that accompanied this realization, not the fear of being caught or the worry of being outgunned, made me regret not bringing some sort of backup. It seemed silly the instant I thought it, but the growing possibility that I might die paled greatly in comparison that in that moment, whether I died or not, I was by myself. Worse yet, like a mechanical hum that you’re only just becoming aware of, it occurred to me that the feeling stretched back much farther than I could readily identify. How long had I been feeling this dizzying sense of isolation? How long had my nonsensical ramblings fallen on deaf, nonexistent ears? How long had it been since I genuinely felt a sense of companionship that didn’t seem thrust upon me; that I personally sought and embraced?

A cold chill tickled the back of my neck—a still wind that I knew in an instant wasn’t really there—and I turned. There, at the opposite end of the vast, all-encompassing “balcony” that the second floor represented, and looking back at me was a ghost that typically only made her appearances on the streets when I rode.

There’s your answer, kid, I thought, though I “heard” it in my father’s voice.

Then, this thought coming to me in Michael’s smug tone: Guess you been lonely for as long as you been crazy.

“T-BUILT SENDS HIS CONDOLENCES, PRESLEY!”

I sighed and looked down; looked away from the symbol of my loneliness and pain, and I called myself every awful name anyone had ever thought to call me and more. I’d snuck into this place somewhere around eight-fifteen, done my little double-oh-seven dance, and then climbed a stairway into Hell. I’d had a breakdown, pulled myself out of the abyss, reminded myself I was crazy, and—I dared a look at my watch and cringed—I’d done it all in only twenty minutes.

“Twenty minutes,” I muttered to myself, realizing it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.

The party—this “fundraiser” as the Carrion Crew was calling it—was barely in full-swing, and I was practically ready for a ride in a white van to a pretty palace with padded walls and a “hug me” jacket fitted just for me.

I’d told myself to calm the fuck down, and I’d only fooled myself into thinking that I’d managed to do it in a matter of seconds. No, instead I’d been using twenty minutes of ducking, dodging, and doing nothing to work myself up into a frothy lather of lunacy. I didn’t demons or machines to plug me into a fake reality—I’d gone and put myself there.

Sucking in a deep breath, I promised myself that things would change (if) when I got out of there. Once T-Built was good and dead, I was certain that the shackles that were holding me beneath the waters of my own misery would shatter and let me breathe the sweet air of happiness once more. It was there, I knew—Danny had been trying to tell me that for years, I realized—but a person could point and declare that shimmering light just on the other side of the water’s surface as “HAPPINESS” all they wanted, but if you could only stare at that divide—if you had no earthly way of even touching it, let alone crossing over—then what difference did it make? T-Built had taken my happiness and, in doing so, thrown an anchor over my neck and cast me into these cold, dark depths. His existence kept me down there. He’d die and, just like that, I’d be free and I’d be happy again. And then, yes, I could commit to making everything else better.

Everything would be better (if) when I got out of there.

Across the divide, at the other side of the second level, I felt the symbol of my loneliness and pain scowl back at me; disapproval a silent song that it wailed back in my direction. Ignoring it, I reminded myself that all of it—the ghost, the disapproval; all of it—was only in my head. I stepped over to the wide, elaborately carved wooden banister and scanned the first floor for any sign of T-Built once more. The party approaching full swing as the hour drew closer, and what was only a few minutes before an open and easily traveled area was now congested and writhing with bodies that were, with each passing minute, finding themselves pressed more and more against one another.

At this rate, I thought, this party will have to upgrade itself to a formal orgy by nine.

Then, just as I was beginning to question whether the son of a bitch was going to flake out of his own peoples’ event, I spotted him.

There, amidst the fat cats, suits, and degenerates, I saw T-Built.