That doesn't make the killing any less atrocious, of course. But it does remove it a step or two from the unexamined cliché of your interpretation, and it would be consistent with the next killing that "felt right" -- completing the hit he'd been contracted for. Just a thought.
I'm with eytanz. The "random hooker was really the woman who turned him in" interpretation is a little too neat for my tastes, though it's not counter-textual. However, I think you misunderstand my problem with the whole scenario. It's not the horrifying and atrocious (as you would call it) murder of the hooker that bugs me. The murder is neither horrifying nor atrocious because the author has worked really hard to make the prostitute a cardboard cutout, a not real person. She's just the silhouette at the other end of the firing range. There's nothing there to be horrified by. She's a plot point on the way to a clever ending. That bothers me. Using the shorthand of the hooker cliché is just emblematic of how little value the author saw in the character. Characters should be people, not stereotypes. And, for my personal tastes, women characters should be people, because frankly, I'm kinda done with fiction where the woman is just the love/sex interest or the body count. Been there, done that. Met my quota. This is a purely personal sticking point, I'm well aware, and that's why I classed it as a pet peeve.
I just wanted to respond to this, because as an
Old School SF fan, I really value these cardboard cutouts. Don't get me wrong, I understand the rage that can be brought by sexist stereotypes and cliche's, but I tend to look at older SF as being a more innocent form. Writting for a small, specific audience in the pulps, where the Author knew their audience well enough that they could pull out shorthand for any issue they didn't think was
what the game is about. Now this one is an old Resnick story, not 1950's old but still from an earlier age of SF... Back in the old Heinlein stories (like All You Zombies as a classic example of magnificent storytelling dripping with gender stereotypes) I always give the benefit of the doubt, each time he pulls out a piece of writerly shorthand like this, I took it as "you, my readers, aren't interested in this... Let's skip on to the time travel!". And I appreciated that, the competition - the game - of SF wasn't about writing a perfectly structured example of the 20th century American short. The game was to write a stripped down world, an action packed tale, and smack through to a twist in less than 20 pages. Cardboard cutout cliche's allowed you to add plot/emotional elements rapidly, without feeling the need to develop them.
Now, apart from Heinlein, Bester was the absolute KING of this technique (so, i'll have Gully rape a schoolteacher to build some dramatic tension, but then we'll move onto the explosive material that detonates when you
think at it). So, when I read that Resnick was "channelling Bester" in this story I thought - AHA!
That's not to say I still think this is an acceptable way to build tension, and I can see why it annoys the hell out of feminists... But I think it is a key part of SF's stripped down heritage... And I respect Resnick for writing what appears to be a stylistic tribute to the one of best SF writers there ever was.
