The cat was sulking over in a corner, tiny bits of fur periodically spasming to the floor. It hadn't been brushed in weeks and was beginning to unravel like a Russian dictatorship. It had left hairs on everything made out of cotton in the posh apartment. It's beady eyes traced along the path of carnage in the room. It was very upset. The intruder had knocked over so many things and exposed so many new sides that had as yet been impossible to get to . . . it was going to take a good week to cover everything new that was exposed in his ebony hair.

In the opposite corner of the room, the wax conquistador lay broken in two. The candle was probably the most useless thing in the house - it was a good thirty pounds of wax and a good ninety percent tacky. Whoever builds tacky conquistador souvenirs had made an opus in this candle. The conquistadors waxen blue eyes looked straight down to the floor, like the horror of having it's spine snapped and it's torso ripped from it's legs was a trauma too much to take. It's tiny pupils recorded nothing of the astonishing devastation in the room, but if they had they would certainly not have testified, anyway.

Halfway between the two things, the only two grumpy witnesses, lay Holly. She was in the fetal position and bleeding slightly from her forehead. She didn't notice. Her sobbing and clutching at her own cold breast was all that her attention could focus on. It felt to her as if it was an endless sobbing. It seemed as if she had been born sobbing like this and she would never die until she stopped.

The assailant, wearing all black, sat in a L.L. Bean recliner, with a crowbar propped up against his head. He looked incredibly dejected. He took his tiny, expensive Marlboro and stuck it in his exposed face and inhaled. He looked at the odd position his feet had been put in. He didn't remember putting them so that one was horizontal and one was vertical, a figure four with his ankles touching. The thought that it was wrong to put his dirty, cheap shoes on this nice sofa flashed across his cerebrum, but then he reminded himself that what he had just done to Holly was probably the greater of two evils. Besides, it was more comfortable to have his legs at ninety degree angles like this.

The cat went over and peed on the conquistador.

The man got up and shook the charley horse out of his thighs. He stretched his back and then kicked the cat. The last thing he needed was a foul stench coming from this place. That's the only reason why Holly was still alive. He despised the fetid stench of dead bodies.

Just as his vertebra were popping because of the stretching, the humor of the situation struck him. This was all so random, so incredibly chaotic it was unbelievable. It was like playing the lottery, except the odds of your losing were dictated by your range to him. The closer you were to him the more likely you were to get hurt.

What were the chances of finding an apartment with a conquistador that went up to his thighs? He'd picked this apartment solely because he couldn't run any farther. He wanted to continue running until New York ran out of pavement, but his burning lungs told him that this was as good of a place to stop as the next house. So he entered.

This line of thought reminded him why he'd been trying not to think at all. He stubbed the Marlboro on a coaster and shivered. He thought briefly about who he was running from, the man with an aura of anger and vengeance. The man he was running from gave chills to about anyone with a lick of sense.

There was ice in that man's eyes, and probably his heart, too. The lone assailant looked around the room quickly just to make sure that his pursuer wasn't looking in on him at that exact second. As he did, he spotted a Shoney's name tag that said "Norm." The name tag had been a gag gift to the opulent living Holly, but he decided that he needed it more than she did. Because he was being chased by this psychopath he would need a new identity, a path out of the country, and Norm was as good of a name as any other.

Norm clipped on the name tag and rewinded in his head to when it had started. . . . to the two men it had started with. He didn't know the name of the assailant, but his boss he'd known since he was eight. Alec "Big Time" Wilson had employed "Norm" as an errand boy since before puberty. Alec Wilson was the closest Norm would ever get to a father. The man who was probably hunting Norm down had just stabbed Alec in the chest with a knife easily as large as Norm's forearm.

The thought of his mentor dead gave him an epileptic type fit. Alec had always been a man of honor who didn't deserve to die like that. That's why Norm could work for him - even though he was a criminal, he was an honorable man. He'd never ask Norm to do anything that Norm wouldn't want to do - although there was very little illegal that Norm wouldn't want to do.

His whole life, Norm had never seen Alec Wilson break a promise. Never. Myth had it that from the cradle, Alec Wilson had never broken a promise. So the fact that the man who had killed him had made Alec break a promise and destroy his life long honor was a veritable sin.

Of course, it had been an odd promise that Alec Wilson had made.

The man who would one day kill Alec Wilson marched up to Alec in the midst of all his bodyguards and troops. And then he shoved Alec. The flabbergasted Alec demanded," What the hell is wrong with you, pus mop? I could have you killed for that, in fact I just might!"

The man spoke in a voice that was made of gravel and broken glass. That voice could have frozen hell over with a word. His words were short, and carefully chosen. He was not a man who spoke much, to anyone. "They say you are a man of honor. I say your a two bit punk. Prove to me your a man of honor. Make me a promise, fat man.'

"Fat man? I'll promise you that I'll have you beaten for calling me such a thing! What the hell promise you want?"

"Oh, you'll have goons beating me before the days over. They always do." He paused. Norm only got a side view from an odd angle of the glare that the man had given Alec, but it was the most hateful stare two eyes could make. Those eyes must have been furnaced in the fires of hell by ironsmithing trolls. Alec, despite his measurable back up, could not meet that gaze for long.

"The promise I want from you punk - I want you to promise me that when I kill you, you'll laugh. I want to hear you squeal like a pig in joy that you’re finally getting the justice you've deserved for thirty odd years. I want to hear you cry to the heavens in joy, knowing that the world is now a better, cleaner place as you traipse off to hell."

The man turned his back on the mob and trotted off. His walk was almost as haunting as the eyes he had - every step was measured and had a purpose. He was so confidant that Alec wouldn't be able to round up his thugs in time to have him chased that his steps were small and slow.

Alec had to prove to his men that he was as tough as this threatening ghost. He hollered at the fleeing spook," I'll laugh when I kill you! Hell, since you'll never be man enough to kill me, why not! I swear on my immortal soul that if God sends an armada with you and you do manage to kill me, I will laugh to the heavens! You hear me? I'll laugh! But since you'll never kill me, it won't matter!"

But later that day, after the man had broken into the stronghold of Alec and his troops, and killed half of the petty hoods that were in there at the time. . . . he snuck in to where Alec was hiding, and slipped the knife in slowly, savoring the pain Alec experienced. He smiled as inch after inch of the knife disappeared. It was the first time that probably anyone would see this man smile.

Long after the man left, Alec lay gasping on the floor, flopping a tiny bit. In all the chaos, no one had found him in time. His left lung had been punctured and the resultant lack of oxygen had done him brain damage by the time someone found him. By the time the ambulance was called, his heart had given up the futile attempts at maintaining life.

He never did find the air to laugh.

He'd kept every promise but his last. And it was the one he'd sworn on his soul.

Norm paced. He could hide out here. He'd already stormed the proverbial Normandy beach. On the other hand, the guy had sworn to kill everyone that worked for Alec. Maybe he was stalking Norm right now. Or maybe it was an idle threat to scare him out of crime. Who knew?

Holly twitched slightly on the floor, so he nudged her with a foot. He felt no remorse, he wasn't sorry for her and didn't feel the need to send for an ambulance. . .but he probably had a responsibility towards feeding that cat. . . .

He resumed pacing.