Missing
The man slid into the booth with all the grace of the snake that he was.
"Starting early?"
He downed the whiskey and signaled for another. "I'm off the clock."
Without the liquor, he might have been less blunt, but the whole business made him sick. He smiled up toward the waitress, but the young thing looked as shopworn as he felt. His fingers wrapped around the glass.
"It's done." He held the new drink to his lips. "It's done, I'm done, we're done."
He drank, letting the whiskey flood his throat. The glass rattled against the table when he let it go. He stood.
"We could do this in that fishbowl of an office of yours." The man's tone was pleasant, but the implications weren't. "Let your colleagues know how you pay back an old debt."
Hesitating, he wondered if he could hurt the man enough to make his own pain worthwhile. He sat down.
"I need another." The man signaled for another round of drinks. "It's an easy thing to do. The missing are found and the found become the missing." He smiled. "You do the honors of burying the unfortunates under paperwork or legal niceties or what-have-you and it ties up loose ends for my people."
"Once." He leaned in, the drinks making him bolder than he had a right to be. "One damn time. That's all I signed on for. Once."
The man's arm coiled and struck, his hand grabbing at his collar and pulling him practically across the table. "James Bond, 1975. Once is Not Enough."
The man's breath overpowered him like gas fumes. "Wrong movie. It wasn't Bond."
The man grinned, then released him, letting him fall back to his seat. "Maybe. But it's the terms of your contract with us."
