Revenant

Chapter 10

"You and I should have a talk," I corrected, automatically.

He gave me an odd look.

"Huh?"

"If you're gonna look the part," I said, motioning to his suit, "you should take the time to learn to act it. Grammar is your friend. And it's not 'Pops', either - I'm not some friendly restaurant owner in an old-timey comic."

"Oh, but you do run this joint, right?" He looked around for a five-count, nodding. "Nice place. You know, you might actually do some decent business in here if you ever decided to put something on the menu that costs less than the average mortgage payment."

"Ah, the lost art of witty banter. So much fun. What the hell do you want?"

He dropped the smile. "I want you to back off my contract."

"Funny, I was going to tell you to do the same."

"I mean it, guy. Step off. This is my job."

"I heard it no longer belonged to you."

"You were misinformed."

"A bit difficult to imagine, seeing as how I spoke to the man himself."

He looked a little ruffled at that. "He's heard some things that aren't true."

"So? Go talk to him about it. Standing around here talking to me isn't going to do you any good. Might even do the opposite, if you're not careful."

"I'm in the process of working things out with Diavolo as we speak. In the meantime, like I said before, I'd really appreciate it if you left things alone while I finished straightening it all out."

"Sorry," I said, giving him a tight smile. "It doesn't work like that."

"It does when I say it does," he said, drawing himself up and raising his voice a tad. "Back. Off."

"Fuck. That," I replied, using exactly the same tone.

He frowned at me. "This conversation's starting to make me unhappy."

"Really? Well, now I'm all sad for you." I nodded toward the door. "Still, it's a nice, sunny day outside. Maybe that'll cheer you up."

"Do you know what happens when I get unhappy?" he asked, his voice dripping with exaggerated menace.

"You leave a shitty tip?"

He showed me his teeth. "I leave people with holes in them."

Jesus. Blurting it out in a public place, just like that. Professionals just didn't do that sort of thing. And then there was the other rookie stuff he did, like mentioning Diavolo by name . . .

Could he really be this stupid?

I must have looked startled for a moment, because he nodded to me, like he was driving home a point or something. "Yeah, now we understand each other. So just cool it, okay? This one isn't for amateurs - there's some strange stuff going on."

Being called an 'amateur' by someone like him made me want to do something strenuous, like slam his face into a table over and over until it stopped being funny. However, after thinking about it for a few seconds, I realized he'd just handed me a useful tidbit of information - despite having tracked me down, he had no real clue who I was. If I led him along a bit, he might give me a couple more useful tidbits.

"Strange?" I asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Like how?"

If he was as stupid and obvious as he sounded, he wouldn't be able to resist telling me exactly what he meant.