Author's Note: I love Eames. The end.
Eames glanced over at the man sitting next to him, trying to read his expression. The man was grimy and was missing at least half his teeth, which he proudly displayed in a leering grin. Either his poker face was atrocious or even better than Eames', and as the thief highly doubted the latter option could ever be true, he folded.
"Ah ah, you can't quit now Eames," the dirty man said, trying to disguise his grin. "Not when the pot is finally filling up."
"As enticing as that sounds Horace I'd rather like to have some cash left for the week, I haven't grown partial to sleeping on park benches." Eames nervously rubbed two of his remaining chips together (they represented a tragically high percentage of his total funds).
"Three kings!" Horace yelled triumphantly, and the rest of the table groaned as their chips were raked away from them.
The night ended fairly disastrously, and Eames found himself standing outside the dingy Johannesburg café with about $7 to his name. It was raining and he had no place to stay that night, and even as a bolt of lightning flashed across the smoggy sky his stomach growled like thunder. He decided that the best use of his remaining money was dinner, so reluctantly he made his way back inside and ordered a sandwich.
As he sat eating at the bar, his back hunched, trying to ignore the sounds of the more successful gamblers still playing behind him, a man planted himself on the seat adjacent.
"I saw you at the table," the man said, his voice low and scratchy. Eames was in no mood for conversation with strangers, especially drunk ones, and he merely grunted in reply.
"You seem to be down on your luck," the man's accent was hard to distinguish, but in businesses such as this particular café, one found all kinds. "What would you say if I told you I could turn it around?"
Eames rolled his eyes.
"Look mate, I'm trying to finish my supper and get the hell out of this city, and I'm really not up for guessing games at the moment."
"This information's good," the man said brashly, leaning even closer towards Eames who was stubbornly trying to ignore him. "I seen you around here, I know what kinds of things you do. I heard about a job, and the pay is insane."
Eames finally looked at the man, while wiping his mouth with a napkin. The stranger was young and wiry with stringy black hair and wide, staring eyes. He looked like he might have been eastern European.
"What's the job?" Eames asked.
"Extraction," the man said eagerly. "I know you done it, and I want in. I tell you the details if you promise me a place on the team."
Eames shook his head. "I'm not even saying I'd take the job. And if the pay is as good as you say it is, there won't be any room for idiots who don't know what they're doing. Where'd you find out about this anyway?"
The man squirmed with a nervous excitement he never seemed to lose. "I find these things out, it's what I do. But when I tell you the reward you not gonna be able to say no." He leaned in even closer, making his eyes even wider, both feats Eames had assumed were impossible. "3 million American dollars." Eames's jaw literally dropped at the staggering number.
"Alright," he said slowly, recovering from shock. "I'll let you on the team. Now what's this job?"
The man looked positively ecstatic.
"It's for some giant company, huge, you know. Their boss just died and they wanta investigate, only the boss was doing some business with some shady characters and the company thinks it was them who killed him. So they need extractors to go into one of the guys they suspect's dream and find out if he did it."
"Sounds simple enough," Eames said "Why's the pay so high?"
The man shrugged. "I don't ask questions like that, man. Pay is high, you take it."
Eames raised an eyebrow. Nothing was ever that simple.
"Who's the mark?"
"Guy named Dom Cobb."