Robert Delahue was a powerful man, and held a lot of sway in many fields. He claimed he was a politician. His official job, on the records, was chairperson advisory to Geotech Co. They work in financial advice I believe, or else software. It doesn’t matter, really, except that Delahue worked there the occasional Monday. Money had never been a problem, it found him on its own. He lived summers in a beach-house in Florida, drinking martinis by the pool, while ladies massaged his feet at twenty bucks an hour. You know the type I’m sure.

      Yes, Delahue had an eye for opportunity. Manipulative, risky, and dangerous, he always got what he wanted. He was arrogant, proud, and vain, but clever as a fox. He would break you down, tear you apart, until you couldn’t breathe to beg for mercy. And if you still got on his bad side, well, accidents happen.

      Of course, no one ever saw that side of him. He lived two lives, really. In one he donated to charities, and volunteered on walks to help cure AIDS, or cancer, or whatever. But only for the tax deductions. He was an eligible bachelor. He went to parties and hung out with mayors and department heads, flirting idly with their girlfriends and wives. This was the life people saw. The other life lied in the shadows. Parking garages. Fake data. Missing accounts. Men with no names. Money that left no trails. Cash, drugs, the city at dark. Drives to the dock at midnight. Which of these lives was the mask, the lie, I’ll never know. I didn’t ask. He played his games, relishing in the challenge.

      Every moment was a decision. A second was money lost. He was always on his toes, balancing the world in conversations over iced tea or coffee. He didn’t sleep. The doctor subscribed him masses of pills. Stress, he said, insomnia. That was only part of it. Sleep took time, time meant money, business, life. Even stress took effort he couldn’t spare. He was cool, calm, collected. You wanted to punch him, wipe that sly smile off his face, make him look at you straight. Tussle his hair. I’m sure he would have laughed it off, always calm, even when you had lost it, sweating in the leather clad offices with the designer drapes.

      He knew the ropes. Not a man up top didn’t know the name of Robert Delahue. And he knew every one of them as well. He also knew the men on the streets, the ones who ruled the alleys, the dredges of society. Not high class, but powerful. Ugly men. The slum lords, the drug kings. He knew them all, and pity the man who didn’t know him. Of course, if you got on his good side, you lived the life men dream of.

      Yes, Delahue really had it made. The world at his fingertips. It was all his. Just a thing to occupy him for the moment. He might have tired of it eventually, found some new toy. Global domination perhaps. And all with style, one crooked politician at a time, He never would have been the king, or president, but he would have controlled the one who was, brought them all together.

      But I killed him, ended it all. And the world is better for it.