Leon howled in pain, pulling away, countering before Sam could get his bearings.  Knife still in back, he reached forward, grabbed Sam, and started slamming his head into the coffee table.  By the fourth time, Ripton Sam was unconscious, and a few more after that, he was dead.
       The Katters, limbs working well enough to crawl, moved as quickly and as far as she could.  She saw Leon’s messenger bag beside the door, where Sam had probably put it on his way in, and started pulling things out of it.  Leon threw Ripton Sam’s body on the floor.  She heard it thud, finding the case, opening it, wielding one of the razors, turning to look up at Leon, slicing the blade into his neck before he attacked again.  It didn’t quite make it to a sweet spot and instead hit closer to his breastbone, where it stuck.  He stood still, confused, not seeming to notice the straight-razor protruding from his chest, and then fell over into a fit of convulsing.
       The Katters got the other razor out of the case, crawling further away, watching Leon.  He was still.  A few moments passed, and just when The Katters was thinking of getting close enough to see if he was dead or unconscious, he sat up in a coughing fit, groaning in pain as he removed the straight-razor and set it in the floor beside him.  He made a soft whimper, like a hurt puppy, and gingerly tried to grab the knife in his back, but couldn’t properly reach it.
       “Leon?”
       He turned to look at her, backlit by the kitchen light, dark and tired.  But he was Leon again.  She held on to the razor anyways.  “What happened?”
       He tried to shrug but found it irritated the stab wound and created a surge of pain, and so opted for shaking his head instead.  He didn’t know.  He didn’t know how he had gotten hurt, and he didn’t know why he had just turned into a crazed behemoth Lecter-Hyde.  Neither did she.  For all she knew this was still just a bad drug trip.  But she felt it was over.
       “Do you ... do you feel better now?”
       “Hurts.”
       “Being stabbed in the back will do that to you.”  She found it odd he didn’t seem to be in shock, or completely crippled by the pain, but it was low on the list of strange things to happen to Leon today.  He reached for the knife again, in vain, and then looked at The Katters as “Fucking help me out here” as he could.
       “One sec,” she said, putting the straight-razor in an easy-to-reach pocket, keeping it handy Just in Case.  The numbness in her limbs had subsided enough to allow her to more or less walk, so she more or less walked her way over to Leon, kneeling beside him, one hand on his shoulder and the other on the knife hilt.  “Ready?”
       He nodded.
       In one swift movement, she removed the knife and Leon doubled forward, doing his best not to cry out.  She probed at the wound, relieved it wasn’t actually on his spine -- a crippled janitor was not good for business -- and then helped him sit back upright.
       She glanced over towards Ripton Sam’s remains, wincing.  If she hadn’t known it was him, she wouldn’t have been able to identify him.  His face was completely crushed in, and there were pieces of skull and gore all over the coffee table and carpet.
       Leon followed The Katters’ gaze, looking at the man he had just killed, gasping, choking and dry-retching, crawling backwards to sit against the couch, hugging his knees.
       The Katters moved to sit on the couch, next to Leon, above him, and handed him the bloodied knife that had been in his back.  “Souvenir.”
        He grabbed it, putting it into a coat pocket, and then stared over his knees at Ripton Sam, using his left hand to pick at a thread on his pants.
       “Are you okay?”
       Leon continued picking at the thread.
       “Had you ever killed anyone before?”
       Leon shook his head.  No.
       The Katters didn’t know what to tell him.  It’ll be easier from now on?  Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us?  They’ll hate you with a passion, Lee?
       Besides, Leon didn’t want comfort.  Not the fakey, don’t-worry-it’s-cool kind, anyways.  It wasn’t cool.  Leon had just smashed in a man’s face.  A serial murderer’s face, the face of someone who would’ve probably killed her and cut her into pieces by now, but a living person’s face nonetheless.
       “You can talk about it,” she said, quietly, uncomfortable but trying.  “If you want.  I won’t tell.”
       Leon started to say something but stopped, figuring out the words.  Finally, he settled on, “That man.   Will he go to hell?  Because of me?”
       It was the most complete thought she’d ever heard him say.  “What, because you killed him?”
       He nodded.  “No repentance.”
       “Killing him was incidental.  Repentance, whatever, was between him and whatever he believed in.”
       Leon’s expression was blank.  It was understood she wouldn’t tell anyone about this, that if anyone asked how Leon faired after Ripton Sam died, she would skimp on the details.
       “Okay,” she said, standing and gathering her straight-razors into the case, handing Leon his messenger bag.  “Let’s find a phone, call Sor and Ania, and then go home.”
       Leon rose, slowly, and limpingly followed The Katters to the phone in the kitchen.


       Two people sat in seemingly infinite darkness, lit only vaguely by the low blue light of various video screens before them.  It was a wall of monitors, each displaying a different part of Snowtown.  The Ripton monitors were over here, the Keisey ones over there, the Ramsey ones that-a-way, so on and so on.  The first of the two pressed a few buttons and adjusted a joystick, causing a middle Ramsey camera to move and follow two people standing outside of a house.  A katter and a limping man in an overcoat.  The man tapped the katter on the shoulder, looking displeased as he reached into her vest pocket and took out a pocket watch, which he put into his own vest pocket.  The video was on mute, but it was clear the katter was displeased about this and had started copiously swearing.
       Buttons were pressed and another camera was adjusted, following a different katter with long, braided hair, and a prostitute with a tattoo on her face.  They walked side-by-side, headed slowly towards the location of the previous camera.
       “The formula is going to have to be adjusted,” the second person said.
       The first moved another joystick.  “Of course it will.  That’s why this was the trial run.  I told you the Ripton Sam thing would work.”
       “You know you didn’t plan any of that.  The clues were too vague.  She could just have easily decided that Zebra was Ripton Sam, or that her freaking bathrobe was Ripton Sam.  This is Katters we’re talking about, you know.”
       “Fine.  But I did run with it pretty well.  I am master of improvisation.”
       “You’re master of yerface.”
       Erika turned in her spinny chair, adjusting her glasses.  “Yes.  Yes I am.”
       “Why go through all of that trouble, anyways?” Ky asked, shelling a peanut with her teeth and sucking on the nut inside.
       “I needed to see how well it would work with people around him who hopefully wouldn’t kill him or arrest him.  He doesn’t remember you stabbing him with the stuff, either, which is good.  Speaking if, it’s extremely bothersome that the wound bled that much.  We should try and fix that.”
       “We sound like such evil villains.”
       “I know, isn’t it great?”
       “Can I have a kitten to stroke in an evil and menacing way?”
       “What?  No.  I don’t want cats in my factory.”
       “Please.”
       “No.”
       “Pretty please.”
       “Goddamnit, no.”
       “You’re an awful husband.”
       “I love you, too.  Now go find my goggles and put in my James Barbour CD.  We have work to do.”