I drink it black, because I like to think it matches my soul… or these days, my fucking future.
“Nah… he’s got other stuff to work on, although let’s be honest here. He’s probably got that little woman of his tied to a fucking bed somewhere. Kinky bastard.”
Interesting. I really didn’t want to know any more than that. They were all a little too free with details of their deviant sex lives.
“So, this urgent job you want me to risk my life for?” I prompted, watching them exchange a look.
“Well… I dare say you could probably manage to get yourself killed doing this, but only if you’re a really shit PI.” Seb muttered, grabbing his phone, and scrolling through it. He showed me a picture of a man. Young, maybe late twenties, dark hair, glasses. Kind of nerdy looking.
“This here is Harvey Clarke. Deceased.” Oh shit. Here it comes. I groaned.
“Well, unfortunately my resurrection powers are on the fritz, sorry, gents.”
Seb shook his head, scrolling to another picture, showing me that one. An older man, similar in looks. Older than me. It was nice that someone was, because I felt really old around these assholes.
“This here is his daddy, not the kinky sexual kind, name of Jeff Clarke.”
This was going to take forever. “You wanna just cut to the chase, Mr Bennett? I thought you said you were in a rush?”
He made a frustrated sound, and glanced at Samuel, who nodded, looking resigned.
“You wanna go email all this shit to him, and I’ll finish up?”
Seb glared at me and left the room.
“Wow… what did I do?” Samuel leaned his big arms on the counter, and stared at me.
“He has quite a short fuse. You might want to try not pissing him off so quickly. Look… Harvey is dead, and his body is… due to show up fairly soon. The issue is, his father is making all kinds of noise, to try and track him down.”
I sipped the coffee, which was really fucking good, but then why would these mobster guys have cheap coffee?
“Right… so should I assume that you guys did something permanent to young Harvey?”
He sighed, running a hand over his beard.
“Look… it could come back on us. And we need to make sure that it doesn’t. His dad needs to stop looking, or at least make sure he doesn’t look anywhere around us… get it?”
No, not really. “Isn’t scaring people off more Marco’s thing?”
He smirked. “Don’t worry, Butch, we’re not sending you off to beat people up. He’s been seen in town, as of this morning. Find him. Get hired. That way we can steer him in the direction we want him to follow.”
I heard Seb muttering to someone outside the room, and then he reappeared with that dark haired girl I met before. Yeah, the one they both fucked, while we waited outside the damn building. I remembered her name… Cass.
I nodded at them both, while she shot me a smile, and Seb paid absolutely no attention to me at all. His eyes, and his attention, were firmly on her. That suited me just fine. If the woman was crazy enough to shack up with these guys, she was probably certifiable too.
“So… you want me to somehow find this guy, and somehow get him to hire me, and… wait a minute… is this so you don’t have to pay me?”
Samuel threw his head back as he laughed. “You’re a wily fucker, aren’t you? Don’t worry, we know you have a mortgage, and all kinds of shit to rebuild, after your nasty divorce. Took everything, didn’t she?”
Fuck me. These guys had someone check me out. It made sense, but it was still unnerving.
“Yeah, you got me. I suck at marriage. You’re paying me, right?”
Samuel nodded. “You just need to insinuate yourself into Mr Clarke’s life, and make sure he doesn’t look into us. Got it? Do what you have to. Lie, cheat, steal, I don’t know… flirt with him, if that’s what floats his boat. When the body shows up, the police will spin it for us, but they’re not all ours, bruv. And that’s why the story needs to be the same through you, so it becomes credible. This absolutely cannot come back to us, got it?”
I finished my coffee, standing up, so I could get the fuck out, before it was too late.
“Right. Got you. Cheat some poor bastard out of his money, while I pretend to look into his son’s death, that you guys probably caused, and then lie about what happened. Lovely.”