The Hitman's Informant

Chapter Three

"When did you get this laptop? The prehistoric ages?" I commented staring at the slab of a laptop that sat on the table in front of me, "It's gotta be older than I am."

I rubbed at the red skin on my wrist where the rope had kept them pinned to the rickety arms of the chair. The man slammed the piece of paper on the table beside the closed laptop. I looked at the man's giant hand covering the paper. My gaze drifted up his arm to meet his own gaze.

"Find anything you can on the person who lives at this address," the man stated, lifting his hand from the table.

Hesitantly I reached for the slip of paper and read the address that was scrawled on it. I nodded and opened up the laptop.

"Oh, sweet Jesus," I muttered as the desktop appeared on the screen, "how the hell is this thing still functional, I haven't seen a desktop like this since I was in elementary school!"

I looked up at the man not bothering to hide the judgment in my expression, "you need to get with the times old man."

A scowl formed on the man's face as Dion flew into a sudden coughing fit.

"Just get to work boy," he muttered giving Dion a glare.

I sigh and look back at the fossil of a laptop in front of me, trying to decide how I should go about gaining the information. Start by finding a name.

After about an hour of wrestling with the laptop and waiting for everything I'd done to load and process, I finally made some progress. I couldn't stop the disgust from showing on my face as I continued to uncover the disgusting truths about the man that I was researching.

"What have you found?" the man asked curiously.

"Masao Saguwara, fifty-three years old, he's got a thirty-year-old wife, one child and three mistresses," I recite a summary of all the information I've found, "he's also a regular at a local strip club, and it looks like his wife was forced into marriage with him at the age of...nineteen."

Disgust swirled around the room, "he's also invested in a lot of shady businesses that have been suspected of everything from illegal gambling to human trafficking, yet none of the allegations have stuck."

"What else?" Dion asks softly.

"I've got his personal information as well as his calendar with dates and times for all of his meetings, it looks to me as if he plays a bigger role in these shady businesses than just being an investor."

Unable to stomach looking at the profile any longer, I turn the laptop towards the other two to let them read everything for themselves. They bend over and read everything displayed on the screen.

"This is-" the man's shock ripples through the air, "this is over a month's worth of surveillance and background checks, and you managed to get it all in just over an hour."

Dion lifts his gaze to meet my own sending me a small nod.

My heart fluttered slightly and I turn my head with a little shrug, "if your computer wasn't so slow I would've gotten this much faster."

The man chuckles and stands to his full height, "alright kid, looks like you can be useful to us after all, you're hired."

Relief hits me in a wave so violent I fall against the back of the chair, my arms falling limp in my lap, "so I can go home now?" I sigh.

"Yes and no, we still don't know if we can trust you, can't have you running off to the authorities," the man replies with a chuckle, "you'll have to wait here until we can find a place for you."

I drop my chin to my chest, "really? I'm exhausted."

"Just wait a little longer, oh and now that you're part of the team, you can call me Ronny," Ronny says with a chuckle.

"I'm Tyler, nice to meet you, I guess," I groaned, fighting to keep my eyes open.

"Ronny, he can stay with me," Dion says, standing up and facing Ronny, "I've got a spare room."

"Dion, if I didn't know better, I'd think you're going soft," Ronny chuckles waving his hand, "if that's the case then go ahead."

Dion gives Ronny a glare as the man makes his way towards the door, "I'll see you back here tomorrow morning for work Tyler, I hope you can make a good cup of coffee, this is a cafe after all."

With that, Ronny left Dion and me alone in the room.

"I make a mean cup of coffee old man," I mutter, reaching down to untie my ankles.

Wordlessly, Dion begins to untie my other ankle until both of them are free. I stand up slowly, both my knees popping at the motion as I stretched out my back. Dion walks towards the door motioning for me to follow him.

"Why are you doing all of this?"

Dion stops, his hand resting on the door handle, "because it's my fault you're in this mess."

I couldn't find any words to respond to that, so I merely nodded and followed him out the door. He walked swiftly, but slowly enough that I could still keep up with him. It took me until now to notice that he had at some point taken his hair out of the little ponytail and let his bangs fall over his face, hiding the scar on his forehead.

We walked down a small hallway until we made it to the entrance of the coffee shop. A coffee bar would be a better description for the shop though, it had a very sophisticated and elegant feel.

A wooden bar filled with jars of different coffee beans and bottles of liquor lined the wall behind the bar that stood across from dark oak booths lined with dark green leather seats and small tables with two or three chairs that were placed in the spaces between the booths. The dark oak floors had matching green runners placed on the floor between the bar and the seating area. A small baked goods display sat empty at the end of the bar closest to the cash register.

"This place is gorgeous," I mumbled as we walked out of the door onto a desolate side street, "a hidden gem for sure."

Dion simply nodded and walked up to a sleek place car parked in front of the street, unlocking it and getting into the driver's seat. I let out a yawn, slid into the passenger seat, and buckled up my seatbelt as he pulled away from the curb.

Staying awake during the car ride was impossible. The moment I let my body completely relax, sleep took me over and I didn't wake until Dion gently shook my shoulder.

"Almost there, my place is just in this building."

With my senses partially regained, I slid out of the car and followed Dion to the elevator that led into the building from the underground parking lot. He hit the top floor button and we continued the elevator ride in silence.

After practically stumbling into his apartment, he led me to a bedroom and pulled out a t-shirt and sweatpants from the dresser and handed it to me along with a toothbrush. I mumbled my thanks and washed up, passing out the moment my head hit the soft pillow.

The day's events ran through my head as I slipped into sleep, wondering if this could all just be some insane dream and I'd wake up in my own room and continue my job hunt