A Dishonourable Profession.

Not a story for the serious-minded and of a delicate disposition.

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“Look, Lucinda, if you are going to persist in buying popsicles in a heat-wave, get the one’s coated in that chocolate that Hershey made for desert warfare. Or I should say chocolate for the troops sweltering in real heat. You’re dripping over the floor. Outside with you. You don’t leave evidence all over the place, you know that.”

Tanny Worth was training Lucinda to be a serial killer, but her heart was not in it. She really wanted to be an assassin, but her parents had two other children that had taken that role. I should have suggested to the parents they should let Jeremy re-train as a serial guy, he would be much better at it than Lucinda.

I thought Lucinda’s mother must have gotten a bit on the side because Lucinda seemed not of the kind of stock that gets pleasure out of knocking off anyone surreptitiously. I know Lucinda’s mother rather fancied the local priest and knew these holy-rollers are up for a bit of hanky-panky after their sermonising, but it’s usually the choir-boys.

However, I haven’t ever failed yet in my training methods, so Lucinda will eventually knuckle-down and kill a few unsuspecting people in time. As I said, patience is required for an effective dedicated serial killer. One really needs to have a brooding character if one wants to make it a lengthy career. I’ll do my best, but I think the cops will soon catch up with her not being able to prevent popsicle from dripping all over the place. However, she’ll possibly be pleased to be known as the ‘Popsicle Killer.’ No doubt, the police will stake out all the ‘Ice Cream’ trucks in the district and she’ll go down in a hail of bullets.

No matter, I must do my best with her. Her father is the leading Don of the State Mafia and wants to be proud of his daughter. They have had serial killers in his family since time immemorial. In fact records show since about the Crusade times. It was a matter of honour with the Don, and he wouldn’t brook failure from him.

Because the Don was very religious, he allowed Tanny Worth the S.K. trainer to beat Lucinda with a stick no thicker than his thumb as per Biblical specifications. But he, Tanny, didn’t really like to do that, he favoured electrodes, it was more in keeping with the spirit of S.K, ing. Also, he didn't want her taking him out.

Lucinda was still just fifteen but knew she would have to put her mind to it to become a creepy S. K.. However, between victims, she would contract herself out where it required a more overt assassin. A bullet to the head and double-tap to the chest was her thing. She knew she would have to be careful of her brothers as this was their territory and they jealously guarded their patch.

Although television and films make it seem as if there is a profusion of serial killers and assassins lurking around every corner of the cities, in fact, there are only a relatively few. Mafia organisations are thin on the ground now, as the real criminal types are now contracted to the big Corporations and wear smart suits. High echelon criminality has now become so respectable that it is taught in the very best of Universities. Ph.Ds are awarded in how to evade paying your fair share of tax, et cetera and how to extract money from those not so educated, including the government. Even the cops have to have further training when dealing with the top figures of Corporate crime. They are taught to cringe in an obsequious manner and bow before their betters otherwise pay-offs to their police-clubs would start to dry up.

Lucinda resolved to break the popsicle habit and take up weed. It wouldn’t matter particularly dropping that stuff around as everyone was using it. She didn’t want to get into the coke thing as the addicts had constant sniffles and it got a bit irksome in time. She had to dispense with two of her boy-friends because of their tendency to have to keep using handkerchiefs on their noses rather than for what it is intended for. She felt like shooting them but knew it would be an over-reaction. Her mother from early childhood told her that she would need a lot of tolerance as the men that would be in her life in the future would have short-fuses. Of course one way, her mother said, to handle a short-fuse, was to have a shorter one yourself.

Lucinda thought her temperament was more suited to a calculated calmness, but with a gun at the ready. This had kept her in good stead as she only had to push one bully off of a cliff in all of her primary school years. But now she was going to have to show a real willingness to master the intricacies of the serial killing work. She wasn’t pleased. She suspected that her resistance to it could lead to her developing ulcers. 

Tanny decided to start her off on the more beneficial aspects towards society, getting rid of the old and infirm. He said that they possibly would welcome her and make her a cup of tea or coffee first. They might even suggest the method depending on if she wanted to make a splash and get a name for herself, or be anonymous. Reluctantly she went to her first engagement.

When Lucinda first saw her intended quarry she knew there had been a mistake. Yes, he was over ninety but this was his honeymoon night and he was going at it vigorously like he had been denied it for seventy years, which he had. He had resigned his priesthood just the month before and would make up for lost time or die in the attempt. Lucinda was loathe to interrupt, it wouldn’t be polite. She decided to visit a retirement village instead and found numerous people begging for her expertise as soon as she climbed through the windows.

Lucinda was a great conversationalist and enjoyed her serial killing work from then on. She had been able to talk her father into letting her proceed with the elimination of the retirees that wanted out, as they were also willing to pay her as well. She became known as the ‘One foot in the grave’ serial killer. In this, she was aided and abetted by the very people she was to kill by the targets phoning her to let her know where and when any concerted attempts being made to apprehend her.

Lucinda lived for many years, finally passing away from a bullet to the head and double-tap to the chest from the contract she organised herself.

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