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Never said what she did down there, only that every evening she had to go to work.

She'd hit the east side of Sainte-Catherine, compete with the working gay men and Frenchwomen, wearing out her high heels and chain-smoking, being one of the last to leave the rue before she came back to our cheap hotel room and woke me up, that weary smile on her face, dead on her feet and smelling like colognes if it had been a good night, frowning and smelling like no one but herself and her own sweat if it had been a wasted night, either way grinning and shaking me to wake me up.

"Rise and shine, Jean-Claude. Mommy will make you breakfast.

As I sat on the floor eating a hot breakfast, television on, she drank coffee and smoked.

I asked, "Why do the people up here make that funny sound all the time?"

"What funny sound?"

"Eh. They always say eh. "

"You have to say it at the end of a sentence to make it work. You use it to ask a question or to affirm a position. Like, it's freaking cold outside, eh? You don't care, eh?"

"Eh. Bee. Cee. Dee."

She laughed. "On Saturday, want to go to the Parisien and see a movie?"

"Can we go to the underground city and ride the metro too?"

"Eh."

"Bee. Cee. Dee."

She laughed. "We can ride the metro from one end to the other if you like."

Days later she bought me a heavy coat. The meant we'd be there for the winter.

That coat meant stability.

We would settle into that Canadian life. I became Jean-Claude. I would go to Westmount Park Elementary. I'd get to spend more weekends up at the park learning to skate.

Jean-Claude. I'd stand in the mirror and practice my name. Jean-Claude.

I was going to become a French-Canadian.

The man called Midnight was gone out of our lives and we were no longer on the run.

Then came the darkness

My mother came home one night, mouth bloodied, screaming my name.

I jumped to my feet and ran to her when she came in the door.

Another man had beat her up.

I asked where this evil man was.

He was down at Avenue du President-Kennedy and City Councilors. He'd beat her, left the hotel, and gone to Biddle's, a small jazz club sandwiched between two huge businesses, Croix Bleue and Roche-Bobois. She knew where he was because she had followed him there.

I tucked the .22 inside the right pocket of my brand-new winter coat.

I followed her out into the streets.

We hid out on President-Kennedy, waited across the street from Biddle's.

The big man crossed the street, his inebriated stagger taking him west, toward the section of Sainte-Catherine that had the nicest strip clubs. Gun in hand, I walked behind him.

Went after the evil man who had wounded my mother.

He passed Cafe Supreme, then pause when he saw my mother at the next corner.

He yelled, "Putain de merde. Salope. Plote. Sale pute."

She yelled back, "Give me my money."

"You and your tricks. Get away before I have you arrested."

"You came. You owe me for my work. And for what you did to my face.

"Your nasty pussy bloodied my loins. Consider us even."

"Last time. Pay me. Or else."

"Or else?" He laughed. "Out of the way, cunt. Out of my way or I will beat you again."

She stood there, frowning. "Just give me what you owe me. That's all. Don't rob me."

"I'll give you what you deserve. And you deserve a good beating."

He walked towards her, his fists doubled.

I caught up with him and, as I passed him, raised my gun and squeezed the trigger. The soft pop of a .22, then the bullet entered his head and rattled around in his skull. He crumpled where he stood. My mother ran to him, fished his wallet out of his pocket, took all of the money out, wiped the wallet down, then walked away, hurried up Union, and I followed her back home, both of us moving with speed and silence. We said nothing about what we'd just done.

She took to the edge of the worn bed, sat there pulling her hair, rocking and crying.

The cash from the dead man's wallet was spread on the tattered bedspread.

I was in the bathroom losing a battle with nausea.

She came and stood over me, sweating, breathing hard, her face swollen.

She said, "It's okay."

Mama got in the bed, clothes on. I did the same. Neither of us slept.

The morning news talked about a man named Ian Lafreniere being gunned down.

He was from Toronto.

My mother said, "Toronto. No love lost."

Then the news said he was a police officer. Married. With three children.

Not a normal john. Not someone who would have been low priority.

My mother shivered, talked to herself, and packed as fast as she could.

I knew the routine. I rushed, packed what I wanted to take, which never was much.

Hours later we were on the run.

She said, "Give me the gun. Give it to me before we end up incarcerated at Bordeaux."

She took all the bullets out, wiped the gun down, pulled filthy trash back, pushed that gun into the bottom of the garbage can, covered it up, then put the bullets in a different garbage can.

I asked, "Where are we going."

"We'll have to sneak through Toronto, slip into New York, find our way south from there."

"That nausea rose again, made me sweat, but didn't take over.

I said, "My daddy."

"What about your daddy?"

"Tell me about my daddy again."

"Not now."

"Please?"

She took a deep breath, rocked and closed her eyes. "Your daddy... met him in Montego Bay... he was an army man. Jumped out of planes. Took sniper training, made Delta force."

"Where is he now?"

"He's... he's in South America. He's down there fighting for his country."

"Can we go there?"

"No. We can't go there."

"You said my daddy was strong?"

"He was strong, used to fight bulls bare-handed, beat them every time."

I wanted to be like my daddy, a mercenary who fought bulls with his bare hands.

She said, "It's time I explained to you what I do. You're old enough to know."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"People say things."

"What do I do?"

"Pute."

She struck me hard enough to split my lip, The struck me over and over.

Pute meant "whore."

Then she cried and reached for me. I pulled away from her. Over and over she apologized. But that first wicked blow changed everything.

On the road to perdition, I tasted my own blood.

From the hand of a woman I had killed for.

What was between us unraveled.

I had protected her. I had killed for her. And she had attacked me in return.

Love turned upside down and hate took root.

That hatred never left.

Would never leave.

Thousands of sunrises and sunsets had gone by since that last day in Montreal.

She had trained me to be a killer and in the end she had stolen from me. She had abused me, did things to me a mother should never do to her son.

The pain remained, as forever as the Appalachians.

And that hate was still there, spreading across those mountains like kudzu.

Hate had blackened the part of my heart that once burned with unconditional love for her.

Jean-Claude no longer existed.

I'd had many names since being Jean-Claude.

Now my name is Gideon.

I was a long way from Montreal.

I was on the other side of the Atlantic holed up in a hotel in central London.

And I was afraid. I'd killed a man in Tampa. Had killed a man and most of his associates.

Had increased my income by over six figures honoring that contract.

And I knew that brutal death would not go unpunished.

It wasn't confirmed, but I had been followed.

That told me that there might be a contract out on me.

Revenge knew no bounds.

The hunter had now become the hunted.

I had become one of them.

The people I went to see, when I was the last face they saw.

So I was afraid. There was nothing wrong with fear.

So long as that fear was controlled.

But it was undeniable, the way it was bubbling beneath the surface.

I was on edge because I had been stalked for the last day.

Afraid because death was at my hotel room, lurking on the other side of my door.

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