Manipulation is the key to great Art.
It’s the way the sculptor chips away at the stone to reveal his inner workings.

Like Giacometti, he would start off with a huge chunk of masonry and gradually chip away until he was left with these fragile figures that would fall apart if you were close enough to breathe upon them.

Manipulation is the medium but I work in psychology and violence, not stone.

My name is Eddie Temple.
I respect both the client and my victim and I approach the job in schematic terms.
For instance a victim’s personality is like a grid, the inner squares are his or hers instinctual behaviour, the outer grids are the weaknesses, these are the hot spots you’ve got to mess with, then the inner squares crumble and there you have a full deconstruction of the personality, ready to be put out of it’s misery.

You have to get to know the person …know the nuances, you wouldn’t catch me whacking a guy straight away, I’m steady EDDIE, cool manipulative and a psychic vampire. I like to feed off my victim, get to know them, make them feel comfortable, it’s just the old fear in the eyes when they figure out I’m not who they think I am, that makes it worth getting out of bed for.
I suppose my old man’s right I do have a kink in my personality, like if you drew a straight line on a piece of paper, cut it in half and put the two together, only you slightly alter them so the lines don’t match up… that’s what you call a kink, I’ve got the big kink with a crazy fucked up hobby which I enjoy right down to my wiry bones.

So I have to whack a squealer based in LA, called Lanky Williams. Due to his small stature, one of those playground ironies that stick like eternal Velcro. He’s a little shit who would turn in his own Mother. Warty with halitosis in fact he deserves being whacked for his personal hygiene alone.

He stitched up my Client, singing like an epileptic mocking bird, you couldn’t stop his tongue wagging and pointing to all sorts of worms. They tried to catch him between safe houses but he slipped away like a greasy warty little shit. A lot of the old crew got banged up because of his singing. But that doesn’t bother me, all I’m interested in is the existential hit. I keep myself to myself and don’t get involved in any of the crew bonding crap. I get one telephone call and I know I’m out there adopting someone who has only a few weeks to live.

Lanky Williams has got the whole works, big fuck off house, swimming pool, celebrity friends, BBQ’s in the Californian sunshine, all paid for by a Sunday paper. I’ve known him for four weeks, got to know he likes West Ham and Tom Jones, Eastenders and Bruce Forsyth. I’m gonna miss those drunken nights in the Cobra Club and sleeping over in his ex-Bette Davis mansion. He’s been a good four-week friend, a bit of a scumbag but most people are.

But all good things gotta come to an end, today’s the day. It’s time to get ready. I flicked on the CD. The waspish slide guitar of an Elmore James song jumped into my ears with sheets of relentless lightning, his tight-dog-collar vocals run around the room like a motorcycle wall of death.
I put on my stiff starched white shirt, wrestle with the silky black tie, around and around, up and through with soft manipulations, there’s something erotic in dressing on the last day, especially handling silk the way I do. I take my two fingers, sandwich the silky tie and run it the length of the material as though I’m squeezing out the insides of a rattlesnake. Black Armani suit, black winkle pickers with ornate steel caps at the point. I vaseline my hair, sweep it back and finger comb my goatee… Jeezuz I look like a gothic Eddie Cochran.

One last tinkle with my tie and the Elmore James’ song ends, crashing into the floor. I’m ready to go.

There he is walking by the poolside, he turns, tilts up his shades, “Yo Tony” (that’s Tony Iommi – I always create an alias from my favourite guitarist’s). He eyes me up and down: bemused by my black attire.
”You going to a funeral?”
”Aye…. Yours”. We both laugh, he crumples onto the sun bed wearing his loud Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts with the initials LW in bad stitching.
”Bloody hot innit? Too bloody hot”
”Aye, but it’s better than a rainy day in Peterlee”
”Too right son… Who’s Peter Lee?”
”Just a place Lanky, up North”
”Up North” he echoes, simulating a bad Yorkshire accent.
He leans over to his right to suck on a bent straw – the Cranberry juice goes down an inch.
He eyes me up and down again “Going out tonight?”
”Maybe”
”There’s a new lap dancing club opened up North of Belair”
”Really”. The voyeuristic little shit, I’ve put with his hookers and Blue Peter stories for nearly a month, this guy is definitely king scumbag.
”Sounds good”
”Looks good… Leather and Snakeskin interiors and lotsa horny Texas Cowgirls, knowwhatimean?”

He flops his head back wearing a coat hanger smile, catching the Sun’s bleach, full facial. Craning his neck up he takes off his shades and looks at me philosophically: “You know Tony – I don’t miss England at all, not even the footie. You can keep the Saturday afternoons, everything’s here, the whole caboodle” he expels a subterranean sigh as though he’s found his inner peace, his personal utopian city – well – loose tongues make walls crumble Mr Lanky Jericho fucking Williams, your bricks are moving their sorry little arses and it’s tumble time.

He takes off his Hawaiian shirt… Jesus he’s wearing a string vest in LA. He takes that off to reveal a wire mesh sunburn, people just have no taste… I approach him in my “I’m your friend for life” smile, he has no idea, he winks and rubs the oil in his arms, his arms look like Cumberland fucking sausages.

So I straighten my gun arm down by my side and bring it level with his head, he gets up all of a fluster offers me money, stumbles and looks up puppy dog like, then I pull the trigger, it feels like a single pubic hair of an Olympian God… What’s his name?… Zeus?

This is what I call the God Buzz, the second before you down someone, where time expands and everything goes all slo mo.
This big fat ugly duckling of a scumbag tumbles poetically into the swimming pool like a pregnant donkey and leaks out all of his head blood mixing with the chlorine. The mix of the blue sky reflected in the water and his oozing red stuff was fantastic, like an erotic fog eating up the cumulus nimbus. You should have seen his face, like he’s won the lottery but remembers he hasn’t put the numbers on. His head floating above the bloodied water like I’ve decapitated him, a singular planet his eyes rolling like billiard balls in this fucking amazing universe that I’ve created… jeez…I told you I was an Artist…. Shit reminds me….

“Must bring my camera” it’s on a yellow stickie on my desk at home, next time, it’ll have to be digital of course, this expels the photo lab paranoia, don’t want the bizzies drumming on my door like Cozy Powell at 5 am, just coz of some holiday snaps. I’m a bit more sussed than that. Anyway memory is a good camera I suppose… it’s the film emulsion that rots inside, I think it’s called conscience, but not with me, conscience is a suitcase too many… a safety valve that’s been fucked up for god knows how many years.

I jump into my car, wind down the window. I need a soundtrack to all of this, so I can reflect on my party piece. Gene Vincent singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” Why? Well it has a sweet menace thing going on, it’s tailored for aftermaths and follies… and because it’s nice.
The orchestral strings sweep in, like a wave of choreographed flying swans, dipping and rising up the driveway: curvaceous and trippy, just the way I like it. And there’s a bunch of those Berkeley Babes in the swimming pool performing one of those kaleidoscopic water ballets, they’re using Lanky’s head as a beach ball he’s wearing a huge grin on his face – he looks over, sticks out his tongue and winks with satisfaction.

I manage a wry smile. I drive off, with a few good photographs in my head.

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