Bambi Starr is not my real name, but it will do. And it is close enough, no doubt- the night I was born, my mother saw a single shooting star streak across the sky, and she wanted to name me Etoille. My father stepped in at the last moment, though, and thus my name became Etelle duBois. And just like my new last name, my first name is almost a celestial body. Almost, but not quite, and maybe it meant more to me than I thought- for I have seen stars fall, stars like you would not believe. Stars like you could not believe, stars so large their very shining looks impossible, and their very falling means the end of a world. I love those stars more than words could say, love them more than life itself, and when I die I want to be in heaven and seven years old again and the stars are always tumbling to earth like gods dethroned.

It is so easy to remember that first night the stars fell down like rain, so easy to lose myself in memories, but I cannot. Not tonight, not when I am in the middle of yet another job. For I may play a beautiful prostitute, but when it comes to doing the deed, well, there is a secret of an entirely different variety hidden beneath my skirts, and I am currently holding it to Angelo Barretti's temple. He moans out something incomprehensible. Maybe it's Italian, but I really couldn't care less right now. I nudge him again with the toe of my boot, and he whimpers something about the hilltop to the north- if that's where he'd like to die, so be it. I will only be killing him, nothing more and nothing less.

Or maybe everything more, and everything less. Who am I to know?

Our feet rustle through the grass- Barretti's thoughts are racing, I'm sure, but I've more important business to deal with than my own mind- and I am alert to every sound my boots and his make as we click-clack our way through a rocky patch of ground before diving back into the waist-high grasses. It is not difficult going, but I practically drag Barretti along with me. For all the man he was in life, he is so weak in death, and I almost want to kill him here and now. Almost, but I promised I would wait, and I always keep my word.

Always.

We finally crest the hill, Barretti still clinging to my arm. He glances about hopefully, as though he'll somehow find that this was a trick, and that I will now allow him to take me in the moonlight, but this is no joke, nor is it a trick- nor will I be turning tricks for him, for that matter. All that is important now is the feel of my fully loaded revolver in my hand, and the sound of a shot muffled as it is against his skull.

Once I am done, I fancy I see his soul seeping into the ground. Heaven, it seems, is no place for men such as him.