She'd taken the piece of paper Tacky had given her, asked around a bit in the seedier, local part of Las Vegas. Folks remembered the kid hustling for a buck here and there on street corners, but no one remembered seeing a parent or guardian. 

Charlie was eight, the only child of a single, heroin-addicted mother. 

Father unknown. 

Merci set up shop across the street from his shithole apartment, using the sight of her rifle as a scope into the comings and goings of the down and out dwellers in his apartment building. She wanted to pity them, but Jesus, no one had told them to gamble away their homes, cars, and self respect on the Strip.

The kid had caught her attention...pushing for a better profit while dealing drugs for one of her crewmates. He'd had a pair of balls, that kid...and lost a kidney in the process. And still, remained faithful. Dedicated. Quiet. Unheard of, from an average child. 

It was this unusual behavior that brought her here. She sat for an hour before she saw him coming down the street towards 'home'. Leaving her rifle where it was, she exited the front door of the abandoned building she'd been in to cut him off.

"Charlie. Hey. My name's Merci. I work with Tacky," she said, watching the wary look on his face turn to a knowing smile. He crossed the road to meet her.

"Hello Miss Merci! Does Mister Tacky have some work for me? I can work the streets just fine, but I can't run yet," he says proudly, his pale face showing obvious neglect and lack of nutrition. He was way too thin, and he looked tired.

"Well, that depends on you, Charlie. Can you come in here and have a chat with me? There are ears about," she said, looking up and down the street.

"Oh. Yes, Ma'am," he replies, following Merci back inside the rotting building. When they entered the room she'd set up in, he stopped short at the sight of her rifle. 

"Oh. You killing someone, then. You need help drawing someone out?" he asks, a bit warily.

"No, Son," she says in reply. "I was just watching. Your mother, she uses. Doesn't look after you worth a damn, doesn't get you fed properly and you don't go to school, do you? Id like to offer you a better life, Charlie. You won't have to hustle on the streets, steal, lie your way through life, just to reach adulthood. You can come with me, today. I can end all the shit, right here, right now. You just tell me what you want."

Charlie looks at the woman who's offering him everything he's never had. And he believed her. 

They sat together for another hour, playing thumb wars before his trashed mother made her way outside to look for a milk delivery that had been delivered the day before. Merci sighted down the scope as Charlie looked on.

Eight years of beatings and verbal abuse shone in his eyes when he told her to pull the trigger.

He barely got the words out before Merci dropped the woman.

As they left the building together, hand in hand, Merci glanced at her watch. 

Happy birthday, she thought to herself with a smile.