Annotated 41-8
I have to wonder about negotiations between hitmen (hitpeople?) and their employers. The dynamics are obviously something I can only guess at. In the short term, Carol is stuck with JJ and almost any terms he wants to name. Hiring a competitor of his or sending in a team would take too long when only he knows where the targets are. But in the long term, JJ is risking a long-standing relationship with a very wealthy client, which could really hurt his bottom line next year. The reasons the job has gotten “complicated” may not be entirely his fault, but they sure aren’t Carol’s.
On the other hand, he’s in a bit of a bind. If it gets out that he killed six people for the price of one, that affects his standing with the rest of his community, presumably.
For all his outward civility, I think JJ senses Carol’s weakened position and is exploiting it. He is, after all, a professional predator. He has to know the press has not been kind to Hurricane Studios lately, that HR (who is in theory his real employer) is nowhere to be seen, and that Carol is sounding increasingly ragged in their communications. Under those circumstances, jeopardizing a long-term relationship to preserve his rep and get a better short-term payday makes more sense. The relationship’s starting to look jeopardized as it is. Might as well squeeze a bit more out of it before it collapses on its own.
That “word to mouth reputation” line always felt off to me. I mean, if he was working for a criminal organisation, sure. But Carol can’t ever tell anyone she hired him. It’s not like she’ll recommend the nice assassin she knows to her friends and acquaintances over dinner, or leave a nice review on rateathug.com.
Telling that to your customers so that they will trust you not to screw them, though… I guess that makes sense.
Think this is JJ being sarcastic but you do hear of sites on the dark web that are more or less networking for professional criminals, Silk Road being the most infamous.
I think it is reasonable.
How was JJ hired in the first place? My guess – or the way I would write it – would be someting like filthy rich person A mentions to filthy rich person B (that they have reason to trust, maybe they have common in-laws or have dirt on each other) that they have a delicate problem where they need a discrete outside consultant, and see if they have any leads. Probably in a sauna in a rich people’s country club, on the rich people’s golfing course or in the classic smoke filled room with stuffed chairs and cigars.
“the press has not been kind to Hurricane Studios lately”
… I was thinking earlier today that I would have loved to see more of that side of things. Also a look at the poor people at Hurricane’s help desk dealing with players whose characters, including backup copy, were deleted from the game after a monster from a different game started rampaging in Arkerra, and the press department trying to make sense when addressing some of the stuff happening in the game, particularly during the last bits of the story…
My admittedly spare understanding is that actual freelance hitfolk are less of a thing in reality than in fiction. In reality most such people are part of an organization, and the jobs they do are strictly for said organization. Basically they’re a subclass of mafia enforcer or government agent. If an independent party wants to contract a hit (and they know what they’re doing, rather than just some bozo putting an ad on Craigslist or Silk Road), they don’t hire a hitman, they either make a deal with a crime boss who owns a hitman, or they roll their own in-house hitman.
There have been real world examples of freelance hitmen (and hitman hiring agencies), but they’re pretty unusual and usually short lived. It’s not a job that can easily exist without a human infrastructure.
While I enjoy JJ’s character, I’ve always had a hard time with a hit man who’s eloquent. It’s not just him though; it’s a common trope.
I guess it’s part of my question why anyone apparently so competent and educated wouldn’t have a legal job. It can’t be the money. JJ appears every bit as organized as HR, and as capable of managing a detailed-laden project, and even still has his grip on reality. With his project management skills, he could be making a lot more legally.
True, and it’s not like he doesn’t know how to market himself, which may be the big hurdle for otherwise competent people.
Social engineering is a powerful tool of great use to someone interested in getting away with things they otherwise wouldn’t.
Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t go into law. Or journalism. I had the intelligence. I had the drive. I had the opportunity. And even allowing for what’s happened to the journalism field, I could probably have made more money.
But that’s not who I really was. And I feel like JJ’s got a similar story. He has a psychological need for the power that his job gives him, power to intimidate and sometimes to kill. He could have been a corrupt cop, perhaps, but I feel like he also has the need to feel like he is defining his own life and not obeying others’ rules. Such people rarely end up behind a desk.