Folks, I need your advice.

As you can imagine, hiring a hit man may be a once-in-a-lifetime proposition. It isn't something that comes up very often for most of us, so it is probably the rare individual who has a "How to hire a paid assassin" handbook immediately to hand. So, some questions:

1) Sure, the extent of security measures protecting your intended target may affect the amount of risk involved (and could influence price), but, assuming that the protective security is the same, should degree of fame influence the contracted price? Meaning, should you expect to pay more for a Huey P. Long than an Anton Cermak?

2) How much of a premium for timeliness? Like "I need this by Wednesday" versus "any time in 2008 is OK".

3) What is the accepted premium for plausible deniability? Meaning the cops go "Gee whiz we found this guy with a big hole in his head and we are a-thinkin' that what we got here is a homicide" versus the coroner saying "Mister Victim seems to have aspirated a few gallons of cream-of-tomato soup under circumstances that we are still investigating."

4) If deniability is not a paramount concern, how much of a premium is it reasonable to pay for having things done *exactly* the way you want? Meaning like if you want to make some things obvious. Send a message, you might say. is it typical to spend time negotiating methodology?

5) What's up with expenses? Are you smarter just to go fixed price or is it worth spending some time working through a time-and-materials arrangement?

6) Assuming everybody wants to be deniable, is it reasonable to accept some allowance for legal expenses? How do you do this? Lump sum? Retainer? Escrow? Anybody familiar with law firms that specialize in legal support of paid assassins? Or, as a customer, should this really be your problem at all?

7) Outsourcing and/or brokerage. Is it smarter to go direct or can you save some time and effort by working through an agent? Are any of these brokers reputable?

8) Prepayment. Is there an accepted standard for prepayment? It's not like you can have "progress payments". I mean, somebody is either dead or they are not. 50 percent? 40 percent? Less?

9) Certificate of completion. OK in some cases, a front-page story in the New York Times or a coroner's report might suffice, but what if you just want to make somebody disappear???

10) References. This is a tough one. Any ideas?


So, this is what I can think of, but I am hoping some of you can chime in with some "gotchas" that just aren't occurring to me at this time. This seems like this is one of those cases where I don't know what I don't know. "Unknown unknowns" as that wise man said.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Unrelated to the Starbucks thread, right?

Hugo

One useful piece of advice is that an awful lot of prospective customers of hit men are arrested by virtue of approaching police acting undercover as hit men. This is often orchestrated as a direct result of such people asking around where to find hit man.

I think double indemnity is what your looking for, I'll zoom across and pick up the necessary weapon from an accommodation address, you do the same: I'll let you know my target at a later stage of negotiation, as I can't actually think of anybody I dislike that much.

For sometime, Mrs. Boxer and I have kept a top 20 of: "People we'd happily never hear of again", but that doesn't mean to say I want to kill them, just gag them!

Is posh spice a politician? - as far as I can see she's a look alike for the Mekon in Dan Dare, these days.

You see my dilemma, if I get Jim to nip down to LA and do away with her, she immediately joins this list:
Jimi Hendrix
Buddy Holly
Otis Redding
Duane Allman
Janis Joplin
Steve Marriott
Marc Bolan

Only 4 in answer to your question, Mrs. B disqualified "Everybody connected with the EU" on the basis of plurals, but we decided to allow couples: Thus "The Beckhams" don't qualify, as David seems OK, but regrettably, the McCanns have been creeping up the chart!

Two people can keep a secret, if one is dead....

Best to do it yourself.

Try www.instanthitman.com. I've never used them myself but their website looks okay - you can even book the 'hit' online.

I gotta admit, the John Cusack reply was awesome. I was just reading it out load to Vixy who has now just filled me in on details of "Better off Dead", since I didn't get the "Badger" reference.

I plead guilty (again! guilty!) to assassin name dropping, but I had never seen this flick. I will have to get it.

I haven't found an Internet shrine of celluloid assassins, but I would think somebody needs to build it. Bronson was OK in _The Mechanic_, but I remain much more impressed by Edward Fox in the _Day of the Jackal_ and I think Von Sydow is the ultimate in _Three Days of the Condor_

Don't anybody go nominating The Terminator. To qualify you have to be completely indie and not pre-programmed.

A tip of the sawed-off shotgun to Javier Bardem for his work in _No Country for Old Men_. An imperfect film, but Javier was completely worth the price of admission.

Mr. Shh (Steve Buscemi) from "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead".

He was incredible. Very Scary.


Wasn't that Bruce Willis? Poor Jack Black...

No, though Brucey did act in an American copy-cat film later on.

"Wasn't that Bruce Willis? ***WINK***"

Sheesh!

Keyser Soze, oh yeah, Keyser Soze