The one piece of Majors' advice that I had failed to heed was "Trust no one." Unfortunately, it was the one that mattered the most.

After the job was completed, the guns dumped, the money hidden in the safest place we could procure, Majors gave us a list of rules to follow. Do not contact the others. Be patient. Lay low, avoid trouble; after going through this ordeal and getting away with it, there was no sense in getting my stupid ass arrested in a bar fight or something.

"And whatever else," he said, "keep this last bit in mind. I know you're going to get the urge to talk about tonight. You'll want to tell somebody about it. No, listen to me. Maybe you'll want to brag, or maybe you'll feel guilty and want to get it off your chest. You might be drunk in a bar, trading war stories with one of your buddies. Or maybe you and your girl are makin' pillow talk. If you tell one single solitary soul about tonight, you'll be making the biggest mistake of your life. Because if you can't bear the burden of a secret yourself, sure as hell no one else is going to bear it for you."

It was advice I'd heard before, a pearl of wisdom he'd offered when we'd done other jobs together. For some reason, Majors could never overstate the necessity of discretion. I always laughed it off, thinking that talking about a job with people who had no need to know was an amateur's mistake. I mean, that was how purse-snatchers got busted, for Christ's sake, not professionals.

The rest of the crew suffered Majors' lectures as well, but we always listened patiently because we were used to them. We had worked for him many times before, and his endless lists of inviolable rules were notorious among the players in our business. I can still picture him, pacing back and forth in front of us, shaking a gnarled indexed finger and spouting instructions at us through his thick beard. Inwardly, I had laughed at the performance, just as I had a thousand times before, on a thousand other jobs.

And yet, here I am. And it happened just the way Majors warned me.

I'm standing in my living room, looking down at her. One of the knuckles in my left hand might be broken, I'm not sure. Either way, both of my hands are sore as hell.

"I never hit a woman before," I say in a quiet voice, and considering what I just did to her, I imagine she found little comfort in that tiny virtue.

Her name is Clarissa, and after a mere six months, I imagined myself to be in love with her. It had been easy to convince myself of the idea, as any man would do when given the fawning attention of a beautiful woman. But add another two months to our relationship, and we had both come to learn what a fragile relationship love really is.

I'm not sure what set off the argument between ussomething trivial, not even worth dwelling onbut in the end, she threatened me. It's strange how the natural progression of an argument still shocks its participants.

One night several months ago, while we were lying in bed, I confessed to her that I had robbed an import-export business owned by the Mafia, and my partners and I had gotten away with over two million dollars in untraceable cash. I told her that right at that moment, even as I spoke, the money was in a safe place, under Majors’ care, waiting for us to decide that it was finally safe to split it up. There was no good reason for me to discuss any of it with her. Maybe I was bragging, or maybe I just needed to get it off my chest. I suppose I would owe Majors an apology if I ever intended to tell him about my indiscretion.

So tonight, in the course of our argument, she said it would serve me right if my name got back to the wrong people, and I guess I snapped.

Years ago, when I was a teenager, a kid named Leroy and I were partners in an auto theft operation. Some dons who ran a chop shop would tell us what sort of cars to get them and we'd hit the streets. We made three percent of market value on whatever we delivered. It seemed like the sweetest deal on earth to a couple of fresh-faced punks like us. Then one day we got caught.

Once the cops had us at the station, I clammed up quick. All they knew was we had broken a rear passenger window out of a Nissan. They couldn't prove anything beyond vandalism, so I figured they'd hold us overnight and let us go with a warning. Of course, I had no idea at the time that Leroy was talking his ass off, trying to make a deal. Come morning, Leroy got released on recognizance, and I had a ten thousand dollar bond hanging over my head.

I didn't see Leroy for over a year after our arrest. By the time I ran into him in some little hick bar in the middle of nowhere, I had finished a probation sentence and paid attorney fees and fines out the nose, but at least the whole ordeal was behind me. Nevertheless, the moment I saw him sitting at the bar and laughing it up with some punk friend of his, I walked straight up to him and smacked him in the back of the head with a beer bottle. Then I kicked him a few times before the bouncers dragged me outside.

Beating Leroy bloody made me feel a whole hell of a lot better, although I can't say exactly why. Now that I've got Clarissa lying in the same pathetic fetal position, I can't help but notice that I'm not getting that same good feeling. But this time, I know why.

The cat's still in the bag. It's not over yet.

Her groaning reminds me that she is still alive. I break out of my trance and go into the kitchen to find an electrical cord.

Maybe she was bluffing when she threatened to talk. Hell, maybe I had lied every time I ever said I loved her. But as I wrap the cord around her neck, it occurs to me that when Majors told me to trust no one, maybe he should have told me the person I should trust least is myself.