The Flesh is Weak

      Adrian stepped gingerly across the bloodstained carpet, a million things skittering through his head. Like the exact number and placement of bruises on Speck's nurses. And the inventory of the barrels taken from Dahmer's apartment. His mind finally floundered, lost in tangled trivia and gory minutia, all the things he loved reciting to horrify friends and strangers. But trivia became truly trivial in the face of reality.
      He grew strangely lightheaded, as if viewing the spectacle in the run-down apartment from a distance, or through some warping lens. Hordes of chattering people in surgical masks and rubber gloves scurried around him, snatching things with tweezers and stuffing them into plastic bags. Multi-colored tufts of hair drifted from beneath pieces of furniture in the wake of their hurrying feet. Rusty brown stains, some nearly too small too see, peppered the walls and ceiling. Adrian noticed huge squares missing from the peeling wallpaper where it had been cut away with exacto knives. He shut his eyes, imagining each crimson smear being assigned its own number.
      Two damp-browed men whisked by, too quickly for him to recognize their faces. One told the other that nothing had been found in the refrigerator. There was true disappointment in his voice.
      "Hey, Adrian. You'd better come take a look at this."
      Adrian struggled to remember the name of the man who'd called to him as he started down the uneven floorboards of the hallway. Two nights before, he and the Federal Agent had enjoyed several pitchers of beer together in a local tavern, each trying to stump the other with increasingly obscure and gruesome tidbits of information while the rest of the task force cheered them on and the civilians gasped. Adrian wondered if the other man's stomach was knotted as tightly as his own now that they were in the killer's world, where each bloody tidbit was actually the remnant of a stolen human life.
      A half-dozen people huddled outside the tiny, reeking bathroom. A uniformed female officer spoke in soothing tones to a young man with a handkerchief pressed to his trembling lips. A plastic FBI badge dangled from his lapel. Adrian slipped silently by them.
      The first words in Adrian's mind as he saw the thing were—how unoriginal. It didn't even look real as it floated in a tub brimming with scummy water. Crude stitches encircled the puckered wrists and shoulders, thick tatters of dark thread unraveling from the myriad joinings of skin to skin. It more closely resembled some perverted novelty made of rubber than what it was supposed to be.
      A forensic pathologist whose name he'd forgotten, but who everyone called Quincy, lifted the dripping thing from the water with enormous tongs and lowered it onto a body-bag. A patchwork quilt of mismatched flesh, it reminded Adrian of all the worst cliches. He catalogued the interchangeable serial killer fiction he'd read over the years, each author struggling to come up with some bizarre new motivation, or some grisly new manifestation of violence. This half-sewn thing was purely run-of-the-mill.
      Adrian actually found himself smiling as he left the bathroom and headed toward the yellow-taped front door. The suspect was downtown, in custody.

      "Are you a believer, Detective Marx?"
      Adrian turned away from the rain-slicked window, staring at the little man seated at the table. The face was unremarkable, the sort to be forgotten a moment after being seen. Hands folded atop the scarred wood, the man seemed calm almost to the point of disinterest.
      Endless UCLA psychology classes echoed through Adrian Marx's mind as he replayed the killer's strange question. He'd always found the workings of the murdering brain even more fascinating than the handiwork of the murdering hands.
      "What do you mean?"
      "The trappings," the man replied, patting his breastbone, "you wear them."
      Without thinking, Adrian set his hand to his chest. Through the material of tie and shirt, he felt a tiny bump. His heart skipped a beat as he pictured the chain around his neck, bearing the cross and medal his mother had given him as a child. He still wore them out of respect, although he hadn't set foot in a church in years.
      "How did you..."
      "I can smell them."
      The man grinned and Adrian smiled in return. But a chill crept up his spine, tiny frigid shocks reaching as far as his fingertips. There was no way the killer could've known he was wearing religious symbols. It had to be a mind game, or a lucky stab in the dark. Still, given the situation, it was eerily effective. Specific aspects of the crime scene had been withheld from the press in an attempt to lessen sensationalism, but all the stereotypical Satanic paraphernalia had been found in the killer's bedroom. Misshapen black candles that reeked sweetly of fat, and pentagrams sketched onto the floor in sticky crimson. A pitted knife with a goat-head handle. A dented chalice with a dark red ring at the bottom. He wondered if the man really believed any of it, or if it was just for show, and possibly an insanity defense. Maybe just a nod to Ramirez.
      "Then you must be able to smell how much trouble you're in."
      "And you have no idea how much trouble I've gone to."
      The little man laughed, rubbing his grizzled chin with a quivering hand. Adrian pulled back the chair at the opposite side of the table, spun it, and sat. Fighting not to show his annoyance, or his fascination, he simply stared.
      "You had no ID on you, and none was found anywhere in your apartment. Your fingerprints aren't on file. What should I call you?"
      "You can call me Bill, Detective Marx."
      "Just Bill?"
      "How about Bill Lyle?"
      The little man laughed again, his thin lips stretching thinner over a mouthful of glistening teeth. Adrian wondered what atrocities those teeth had committed. The man's laughter became a high-pitched chitter, as cold as the rain streaking the windows of the bare gray room. Absently, Adrian touched the slender cross beneath his shirt once more.

      "You again. Haven't you done enough already? Or have you just come to gloat?"
      The demon coalesced from a cloud of dark mist, drifting into shadow as he took solid form. He lowered his face but his eyes glistened a brilliant crimson in the streetlamp light illuminating the alleyway. The taste of victory was oddly bitter on his tongue.
      "No," he whispered. "Only to see."
      Drawing the ragged coat tighter around her throat, the woman shivered. Her eyes were dark holes in a pallid face ringed by filthy, matted hair. As she parted her lips, as if to speak again, the desiccated flesh at the corners of her mouth cracked and she winced. Her tongue shot out, probing the wound, dabbing at it. The demon crept forward at the sight of her blood, but hesitated. A moment later he moved back into darkness.
      "Would you like to taste it too, demon? Come on then, I can't stop you."
      "I long to taste it. But not why you might think."
      The woman cast the coat away and struggled to her feet. Her movements were awkward as she staggered toward the dark pool where the demon waited. Her features were hard, her eyes chips of ice. She raised a skeletal finger, pointing into the shadows.
      "Don't go soft on me now, demon. How many years have we played this game, how many lifetimes? Now you change your mind after you've won?"
      The demon cowered as the woman drew nearer, covering his face with a leathery wing. Strange feelings swirled through him, and for a moment he was ashamed for the woman to see his true visage. Mist curled around his feet as he willed himself to dissolve. But for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to leave her.
      "Look at me," she hissed. "This flesh is ruined, destroyed by your temptations and challenges. Do you want to hear me say it? I will. I was wrong, the spirit is the weaker. And you shamed me into binding myself to this fragile body. Now I am fallen. Isn't that what you wished to see, a fallen angel? Isn't that the highest aspiration of your miserable black heart?"
      Crumbling to his knees, the demon gazed up at the woman. He saw nothing of sores or bruises, nothing of pain or downfall. He saw only beauty. The things he felt were so alien to him, such a contradiction to his nature. In a single beat of his heart he recognized what had been there all along. He leapt to his feet, reaching out for her. But he drew his hand back, not wanting to touch her with his hideous skin.
      "And why would you imagine," he whispered, "that only angels fall."

      "Seems to me you must've read Silence Of The Lambs a few too many times."
      "The only lamb I know of has been silent for two thousand years."
      Adrian hoped the cameras and recorders were getting it all. And that someone had read the killer his rights, or it would all be useless. In court, anyway. It was all priceless to him, every answer the man gave both mysterious and fascinating.
      He gave himself a mental pat on the back for choosing to interrogate the man alone. The Feds waited outside the locked door, anxious for their own crack at the killer. Adrian had pulled both rank and jurisdiction on them. He'd waited his entire career for a case like this, and no one was going to steal his thunder.
      The sun was rising, a hazy glow emanating from the building-tops of Los Angeles. The morning sky was a dull slate-gray, laced with a few striated clouds. Adrian poured himself another cup of coffee, realizing he'd lost count of how many he'd consumed. Enough to make his fingertips tingle as he gripped the styrofoam cup. Yawning, he took his seat at the table. The man across from him seemed as alert as he'd been the evening before.
      "This has been fun," Adrian said, "but let's get down to it. Why were you making that thing we found in the tub?"
      "I wasn't making it."
      "Don't try that multiple personality jazz on me."
      "No. You ask the wrong question, Detective."
      "And you're becoming deliberately deceptive."
      "Ah, but it's my nature. Or it was."
      Adrian caught something, the first flaw in the killer's cool façade. A twitch at the corner of an eye, a light wince as if remembering some painful thing. He made a mental note to trace that line of questioning again when he got the chance.
      "Then what question should I ask?"
      "It won't be that simple," the little man said, chuckling, regaining his impassivity. "I said I would admit to a crime, not offer a confession."
      "Then, did you make that thing in the tub?"
      "Ah, much better! Yes, I made it."
      "Why?"
      "It was a labor of love."
      The killer laughed again in his familiar cackle, but Adrian found the mirth less than genuine this time. A nerve had been struck again, some deep-buried emotion that was perhaps the killer's true motivation. Adrian longed to dig at it, but it was too soon. He decided to proceed with the shock method instead.
      "The coroner at the scene estimated there might be as many as two hundred unique skin fragments sewn together to make that thing. Different shades, different textures."
      "I never counted them."
      "But you killed them."
      "Yes."
      "For a few inches of skin."
      "That was all I needed. And all I could use."
      Adrian hesitated before asking the question that surged into his mind. It seemed so callous, talking about people's lives this way. But he felt he was close to a key piece of information. He cleared his throat.
      "Why? Wouldn't it have been easier to kill fewer people, and use bigger pieces?"
      "Yes."
      "Then why didn't you."
      "Too much of the life remained. I needed to feel as myself."
      "And did you?"
      "Did I what?"
      "Feel as yourself. Did you wear the skin?"
      "Yes."
      "The stitches were ragged, like they'd been torn."
      "The flesh is weak."

      The filthy room was cold, the ancient radiator in the corner as dead as stone. The woman shivered on her narrow bed as the demon covered her with a threadbare blanket. He held a fingertip inches from her lips, aching to touch her, just once. But his hand was a mottled grayish-black next to her smooth cheek, and he felt ashamed of his ugliness. He decided that once the woman was asleep, he would find a human body to possess so he could comfort her without witnessing her disgust.
      "Why all of this," she whispered.
      "It is your room. I brought you here. You collapsed."
      "Why didn't you leave me in the alley?"
      "I couldn't."
      The woman raised herself onto her elbows, staring. The demon's eyes lowered, his shoulders hunched like a beaten child's. On the periphery of his vision he saw her studying him, and wondered what strange and contradictory feelings of her own she might be grappling with.
      "Then I'll simply die here. I can feel my heart struggling against the poisons I've consumed. I can feel my womb seeping with the diseases passed to me by the men and women I took to this bed. You were right. The spirit is weak when the flesh is willing. The matter is settled. Now you can go."
      "No. I was wrong."
      The demon took a lurching step toward the bed and the woman flinched. Gazing down in horror at his boil-covered body, he wished for nothing but a shadow to cloak himself within. Turning his back, he let his unnameable feelings mix and mingle.
      "How odd to hear you say that," she replied, her tone a shard of ice. "Since I am the one dying."
      "You aren't the only one. I'm dying too. In here."
      The demon whirled back, stabbing at his heart with a crooked finger. In that instant he realized that after eons of battle, in the end they were both right. And both wrong.
      "So I tasted flesh," she said half-mockingly, "and succumbed to its pleasures. While you found spirit within yourself. Ironic. Despite our differences we are of a kind, it seems."
      She fell back on the stained mattress, ropy phlegm rattling in her throat as she laughed. The demon moved a step closer, eyes brimming with pain.
      "Do you think me incapable of appreciating beauty," he asked, "unable to feel longing? Lucifer was once the most beautiful of angels. I am his child, though he molds us into ugliness with his hands and his bitterness. Surely you don't imagine it was hatred alone that kept me with you for so many centuries."
      "I never guessed. Perhaps I should've seen."
      "You were a thing of light, never to experience the flesh you were sworn to protect. I was nothing but meat and base instincts. But I aspired to feel more, to touch.... Now it's too late. I will leave you now, so you need never look upon my ugliness again."
      Tendrils of black mist curled from his pores, melting his skin away. His vision wavered and he lamented that he'd never see his precious adversary again.
      "No!"
      Startled, the demon summoned his mist back. Plumes of darkness twisted about his limbs as he approached the bedside. The woman's eyes were wide and full, her slender hands clutched beneath her chin.
      "If what you say is true," she whispered, "then grant me a dying wish."
      "Anything."
      "My body has been used often, and badly, by others. But I have never felt the touch of one who truly feels something for me. I would like to, before I die."
      Mind and heart caught in a whirlwind, the demon remained silent. He was elated and terrified, touched and ashamed.
      "But this body," he said, holding his hands out to display himself. "I could never caress you with such wretched flesh."
      "Then possess a body."
      "Something of the victim always remains. I won't allow myself to touch you with another's hands."
      "So I die unloved," she whispered.
      "No. There is an ancient magic I can conjure. I will weave myself a skin, and wear it when I come to you.
      "Then do. Dying takes time, it seems."
      The demon vanished into mist without another word, and as the last dark plumes dissipated, the woman closed her eyes. Beneath her blanket, she trembled.

      "So why all the theatrics?"
      "The what?"
      "The knife, the chalice," Adrian said impatiently. "All the Satanic…trappings, as you say."
      "Tools of the trade."
      "You asked me before if I was a believer. Are you?"
      "After belief comes acceptance."
      Adrian swished dregs of lukewarm coffee from cheek to cheek, then swallowed, frowning as they stung bitterly on his tongue. He shut his eyes, brilliant spots sparkling in the darkness behind his lids. Exhausted yet jittery from caffeine and adrenaline, he longed for a few more hours to talk to his killer.
      His killer?
      Adrian almost laughed at the thought, but not the feeling. Even beyond the usual territoriality of law enforcement, he felt a twinge of possessiveness. The time was nearing when he would have to defer to the agents outside the door. And after all had taken their turn, the man would be trundled off to some holding cell. The process which led to incarceration, and perhaps execution, would begin in earnest. Although the killer had declined a lawyer, it was only a matter of time before some pony-tailed, bleeding heart advocate came to the alleged rescue. Adrian wanted no excuse to scream mistreatment. No excuse to let this man slip through his fingers. The LAPD had enough black eyes.
      "So what have you accepted?"
      "What I am. What I will always be."
      "And what exactly is that?"
      "A demon from Hell."
      Grimacing, Adrian realized the man was going for an insanity defense after all. Or at least the old demonic possession dodge. Even with a complete confession, life in a mental institution was the best the system could hope for unless he could find some weak points in the story. He wondered if prison cell or padded cell would allow him better access to the man after all was said and done.
      "So is that how you want to be remembered? As Bill the Demon? Not as catchy as The Hillside Strangler, or The Night Stalker."
      Careful to coat his words with the lightest glaze of sarcasm, Adrian waited for the retort. Too much ridicule and the killer might clam up. Just enough, and the ego should come roaring through.
      "I don't care to be remembered," the man said disgustedly. "I only wish to die. The sooner I'm forgotten, the better."
      "So what you're saying is the devil made you do it."
      "Oh no." The lilt returned to the man's words. "I'm sure he's quite disappointed at my behavior."
      Perhaps it was fatigue, or the killer's blatant guilt, but Adrian realized his fascination was now with the story more so than the crimes. It suddenly seemed as if his entire life had been leading up to this moment, this real brush with the subject that had consumed his dreams even before he'd joined the force. He made a mental note to copy all the recordings before he turned them over. A six-figure advance was the least he'd accept for the best-selling book he'd write. His killer. Excitement jangled through him at a glimpse of his destiny, of joining the ranks of the famous and infamous. His name alongside the likes of Bugliosi and Clark. But Adrian felt a pang of guilt, wondering how hazy the line was between fascination and obsession. And whether he'd already crossed it.
      "You killed a couple of hundred people in a matter of days, just to cut a tiny piece from each. Then you sewed them all together to make a suit you wore and ruined. The devil would be let down by that?"
      "No. Only by my motivation. And by the sorry outcome."
      "You mean by getting caught so easily."
      "Oh no." The killer chuckled. "I waited for you to find me. A blind fool could've followed the trail of blood back to my room. I wanted you to catch me and kill me. This body," he said, holding up his palms, "will not die soon. I chose impulsively, but I don't care to wait."
      "Then why didn't you just kill yourself?"
      "Far too noble. I want to die at the hands of you little monkeys. A much greater indignity, and poetic justice. You are the prime source of my torment, after all."
      Adrian stood, letting warm blood flow back into his tingling legs. Moving slowly around the room, he stretched his aching shoulders and stiff neck. He glanced toward the coffee pot and discovered it empty, but didn't dare leave the room for the minute it would take to fetch water.
      "So what did you do after you put on the suit?"
      "I told you. It was a labor of love."

      "Have you bound yourself to this strange flesh?"
      "Yes," the demon replied, "I sealed the seams with magic, then became one with it. Each fragment is too small for any trace of life-force to remain.
      "What of your true form?"
      "Lost. Dissolved by the transmigration spell. This is my skin now."
      "And you killed all of them, just to love me?"
      "Yes, just to touch you."
      "Then what I do is right."
      The demon cast off the long overcoat he'd wrapped about his shoulders and stepped awkwardly toward the bed, still laboring to gain control of his new form. The woman watched his approach, studying the bizarre skin he wore. Myriad tiny patches were held together by dark loops of thread, the stitch-work tracing his body like meandering ebony streams. She tossed back the blanket and was naked underneath.
      "Come," she said.
      The demon hesitated as if unsure or uncomfortable in his new skin. Gently he climbed onto the bed and knelt before her. She rose onto her knees and moved closer. With a delicate touch, she traced the stitched ridges lacing his chest. His eyes followed her fingers, and in the moonlight trickling through her tattered curtains he could see the multi-colored patchwork of skin he'd made his own through magic.
      His hands hung slack at his sides, uncertain what to do. She chuckled softly as she raised her eyes and met his gaze. He was inexperienced, but knew she'd tested the limits of flesh by taking a host of others into her bed, and into her body. It would be best if he let her orchestrate their lovemaking. Placing her palms against his back, she pulled. Realizing she meant him to lie atop her, he complied. As they descended, she kissed the puckered stitches around his mismatched nipples.
      "You wanted to touch me," she said, resting her head on her pillow, "to love me. Now is the time to show me your love. And I will give you all I have."
      His nerves crackled like strands of lightning as he fumbled against her. As if sensing his urgency, her hand closed around his hardness, guiding him inside. The sensation was of being swallowed and cradled at once. Instinct told him his body would reach climax soon, and he moved slowly to keep it at bay.
      "No," she whispered in his ear, clutching harder at his back.
      Although his body warned him to slow, he wanted only to please her, and so increased his pace. Her hands, surprisingly strong, rasped his back, urging him on.
      "Don't stop, please," she groaned.
      His mind became a sheet of flame as he made love to her. Her fingers tensed against his back, her nails raking his skin. All at once she bucked beneath him, screaming behind her clenched teeth. Her passion was more than he could bear, and his seed surged. His nerves threatened to black out for a moment, his heart straining, his breath halting. The sensations were so intense and alien that he gave no thought to the sudden pain at his back.
      But as his senses returned, he felt the pain spreading across his body like a running blaze. He peered down at the beautiful woman beneath him, into eyes glossy with satisfaction but glimmering with a wicked edge. His mastery of his body was limited, but he felt incredible agony as her fingers scraped at his back once more, ripping apart more of his stitches.
      "No," he screamed, pulling away.
      He tried to raise himself but she held him down. His limbs felt weak, and were growing numb as more of his flesh was rent apart. Instinctively, he tried to summon his power and melt himself to mist. But he'd bound himself to his fleshy creation to love his angel completely, abandoning his immortal form for a love that had turned to treachery. Or perhaps had always been.
      "How does it feel to die," she spat. "I've tasted your pitiful love, now taste my hate. You've taught me well, demon. And I've learned."
      The misery seemed to last lifetimes as he struggled to free himself from her vicious hands. When at last she pushed him away, he crumbled to the floor.
      Fingers flittering against himself, he fought to hold his skin together as the seams ruptured around his torso, releasing gouts of crimson from the dark void within. His blood spattered to the stained floorboards, rivulets traced with the dark threads of his demon life-force. His mind whirled, trying to figure a way to save himself. He couldn't relinquish this new body, for he'd soon dissipate into nothingness. But the sewn flesh was dead, and would never heal. His only fragile hope was to wait and bleed, then try and raise a mist from the tendrils of blood. If he could quickly find another body to possess, he might survive. As he bled, he prayed to Hell that the tearing of his sewn skin would weaken the transmigration spell sufficiently to allow him to bind to another. If not, he would dissolve into oblivion.
      As he summoned his will, a wisp of dark mist rose from his trickling blood and he discovered he was free of his ruined body. But it was agony to keep himself together, and he knew he didn't have much time to find a victim. He commanded his scattering mist to move.
      The woman's laughter taunted him as he drifted away, swirling through the cracks in her window frame. As he passed, he saw how ugly she really was, her face a coarse landscape of scratches, her skin runny like melting wax. Infected needle marks dotted her bruised arms, open venereal sores crept into the darkness between her thighs.
      "Did you think I didn't know about your old magic," she taunted. "Your flesh is as weak as any. Your spirit as well."
      The demon didn't have to travel far. In the alleyway below the woman's window he found a host of humans. Faceless ones, society's castoffs. Gathering his failing mist, he rode in on a man's ragged breath and possessed the body, sensing as he entered that he might never leave. Cold and stinking of sweat, he struggled to his knees. Beside him rested an empty bottle and he broke it, wielding the sharpened edge like a blade. Grinning, he stood, then scaled the fire escape toward the woman's window.
      As he climbed, he imagined all the ways he might kill his angel. Then he pondered the same for himself. After he was done, he decided, he'd take his tattered skin back to the room where he'd crafted it, and wait to die at the hands of the ones whose fleeting little lives had been at the heart of his downfall.

      "Now let me get this straight. You think you really are a demon. Bill Lyle—Belial. I get it, very funny."
      Adrian counted off each fact on a finger. It was as much a display of mockery as a means to get the tale straight in his head.
      "You argued with an angel over the true nature of man, and eventually convinced her to take on a body to test the point. But you fell in love with her and killed all those people to make a skin suit so you could go to bed with her. But she betrayed you, and tore it up to kill you. Now you're stuck in this borrowed body, and want to die in it."
      "As I've said. But I might add, without the madness of passion, it seems now I recall the old spell might actually be a curse."
      "With a fish story like that," Adrian said off-handedly, "you're going to be spending the rest of your life in the funny farm, buddy. They'll never get a death penalty conviction. This is the Left Coast, you know."
      The killer abruptly leapt to his feet, his face twisted with terror and desperation. His hands clutched at nothing as his eyes skittered around the room. Alarmed, Adrian flinched back, hand falling instantly to his gun.
      "But they have to! They have to kill me!"
      "Just calm down, now," Adrian spoke soothingly, although panic swirled in his gut. "I was just kidding. Don't do something crazy."
      Adrian's heart hammered, but it wasn't from fear. He had no more call to lie to himself. It was from utter dread that his perfect subject was slipping away from him, story unfinished. His killer. He rose to his feet, offering a placid smile at the same time his hand tightened on his service revolver.
      "No, you're right. I should've seen. My apologies, Detective Marx." The killer's voice grew calm again. "I can't take that chance."
      In the blink of an eye the little man spun and hurled himself at the window. The filthy glass shattered, but the wire mesh molded within held fast. Strands of metal broke, spiraling out like springs. They pierced the killer's body, suspending him in place like some horrific marionette. His lifeblood gushed from dozens of glass-filled cuts across his face and throat.
      "Oh God," Adrian muttered in horror, rushing to the window.
      On the other side of the door, voices called and fists pounded. A steady thumping began, as someone tried to knock the door down.
      "What's going on in there," a male voice yelled. It was the Federal Officer he'd gotten drunk with. The voice sounded more suspicious and angry than concerned.
      Adrian dashed to the killer's side, pressing his palms against the wounds to staunch the profuse bleeding. Realizing the futility of the attempt, he pulled his hands back and stared at the dripping blood. Within the crimson smears, dark dots swam, mingling as if trying to meld together and fly free. His heart leapt to his mouth.
      "Help me," the killer gurgled. "Help me die."
      Splinters flew from the door frame as it began to give way. Adrian jerked his head back and forth between the bursting door and the bleeding man.
      When the door gave way, the others would rescue the man, save his life, and see to proper incarceration. And Adrian would lose everything. Drawing his gun, he realized that if he killed the man, the story would be his alone to tell. His killer.
      "Bless you," his killer said mockingly as gun barrel neared bloody grin.
      Adrian returned the smile, but only for a moment. He remembered the cameras as he pulled the trigger.