~4.22~

The man known as Ivan was good at a great many things, but passing by watching eyes unnoticed was not one of them. He was one of those men who had an aura… a presence… about him. Depending on his mood, he could be radiating anything from cold competence to quiet menace, but he always radiated something.

If he didn’t want to have his face remembered, he had two options: not let people see it, or not leave them behind when he left. Each of the choices brought with it its own difficulties. The latter was often more easily accomplished as he could engineer success in a wider range of situations, but it could cause all manner of later complications that were not so easily managed. The former was more difficult and could easily go awry due to circumstances beyond Ivan’s control, which often led to the application of the second strategy.

His preference would have been to skip the subterfuge and go straight for the direct option, but he had to admit that when the stealthy option worked, it was often tidier from the start. Neatness counted big in Ivan’s book. Enough deaths could result in a clean resolution to nearly any situation, but each one on their own could be plenty messy, and they often were.

So Ivan found himself opting for the quiet approach more often than his instincts would otherwise dictate, but when success was essential and killing was counterindicated, he subcontracted the task to somebody whose inclination was to escape notice… not just to stay out of sight, because a hiding man could be found, and a man found hiding would immediately be questioned even if there were nothing else amiss.

A man who went unnoticed, though, didn’t need to be hide… and would often simply be ejected or moved along even if attention did fall upon him, if only because the main reason some people escaped notice was that most people did not want to see them.