Jay
“Okay. It's over. Ray Philips is dead, along with his bodyguard. The job is finished, completed to your specifications. I am done. Completely. This is the end of the line for me, Marlon. I'm out.”
I stood in Marlon Hillary's office, tendering my resignation.
I knew he probably wouldn't be too thrilled about it. I was his best man in this department. I'd done things for him, taken out hits, that no other hitman would have even dared consider. High profile targets. Risky figures, from whom lesser men than myself might well have shied away. Not that I thought you could have too much of a lesser than myself these days, after everything I'd done, but that was another story.
Marlon leaned back in his chair, studying me. He'd aged so much in the past decade but believed himself invincible. With as much money as he had, perhaps he was.
He pressed the tips of his fingers together, tapping them gently like he was considering the matter intently. He gave a deep sigh, like he really had far more to consider in all of this than he actually did.
I waited patiently for whatever it was he thought he had he to say to me. As I stood there waiting, my eyes happened to rove across his desk to a photograph, featuring himself, and his wife, and Keisha.
I shifted uncomfortably on my feet, grateful that he couldn't see into my mind, and know what I'd been doing while thinking about her the previous night.
“I suppose I always knew this day would come,” he said, at last, leaning forward again toward his desk, crossing his arms over his surface.
I was starting to get more nervous than I cared to admit. I couldn't quite say why- it was just something about his body language.
“Yeah, well... Bird's got to leave the nest and all that. And my time has come. I've got places to go, and people to see, and it's time for me to leave this life behind me. So. If I could just have what you owe me for this last job, I'll be on my way. And the two of us can go on with our lives, and never see each other again.”
He was silent for a moment, and finally, let out another sigh. Then he shook his head.
“No, actually. No, I don't think that works for me.”
I stared at my employer, wide-eyed, not sure that I'd heard him correctly.
I blinked.
“Um... Excuse me?”
“I don't think I'm done with you yet,” said Marlon. “And if I'm not done with you, that means you aren't done with me. So no. You aren't going anywhere.”
What the fuck?
I tried to wrap my head around this.
“Look, Hillary. We've had a great run together. And you've been great to work for, as far as that goes. But I just can't take this anymore. This line of work. It isn't for me. And so I'm asking you. Give me the money you owe me. Let me be on my way. And you and I won't have any problems with each other.”
I'd meant for this to be brief. I didn't have time for Marlon's games...
“And I'm telling you,” said Marlon, as calm and as cool as a cucumber as he spoke, “No.”
“What the hell?” I demanded of him, my blood starting to boil.
“Do you know how many times I've put my ass on the line for you? How much I've risked just to get the job done, each and every time you've asked? I got shot, Marlon! Look!”
I pointed at my face, leaning into him, pointing to the wound across my cheek, where the bodyguard's bullet had grazed me.
“I got shot, and I killed two men, all so that you could add another zero behind a decimal point in your bank account! I've earned that money, fair and square!”
Marlon remained neutral, collected, almost indifferent.
“Your skills, your loyalty, and your ability to complete the job have never been in question,” he said, fixing me with his dark eyes. “That, in point of fact, is your problem. You have become, what you might call, a victim of your own success. You have performed valiantly for me, time and time again. You've done exactly what I asked you to do, exactly when I asked you to do it. And now that I've become accustomed to your services, I'm not sure that I can part with them quite so easily. To be quite frank with you, Sampson, your leaving simply doesn't work for me at this time.”
I gaped at him. Scarcely able to believe the words coming from his mouth.
“Jesus Christ, Marlon!” I spat, my brow furrowing, the nice guy act I'd been putting on for him quickly diminishing. “You have got to be shitting me right now!”
“I'm afraid not,” he said, with a shake of his head. “I still have a lot of work for you to do. Many targets that still need to be taken care of. And I'm depending on you to be the one who takes care of them for me. You've proven yourself with your winning record. You've earned my trust, far more effectively than most ever do. I am a very rich man, Sampson, but trust does not come cheap. And you and I stand to make an awful lot more money together.”
“So what? I'm supposed to keep killing people for you so you can just not pay me once the job is done?”
“You will receive payment, in time. But only after my list of targets is completed. Only, Sampson, after I am properly finished with you, and no longer in need of your services...”
“Oh, come on! Fuck that, Marlon! I want out! Now! Not six months from now! Or a year! Or the day after tomorrow! Now!”
“And I told you,” said Marlon. “I'm not letting you out...” For the first time over the course of the conversation, his tone became genuinely menacing. My blood went colder than I wanted to admit, and in a state of panic, I reached for my gun.
I jerked the barrel up and pointed it at his forehead, narrowing my eyes to look as serious as possible.
“Give me my fucking money, Hillary!”
He glared at me, his eyes so cold that it turned the blood in my veins to ice. He wasn't afraid of me. He didn't even flinch. How could a man like that have a daughter as sweet as...
“Go ahead. Try it. You and I both know what will happen if you do. My men will be swarming this room like flies on a corpse. Your corpse, to be specific. I suggest that you strongly rethink your options at this moment, and try to decide on a wiser course of action.”
I clenched my teeth and started to shake. No target I'd ever had to do away with made me anywhere as nervous as Marlon was doing.
Frustrated, I finally jerked my gun away, and pressed a hand to my forehead, trying to wrap my head around all of this.
“Go home, Jay. Get some rest. Wait for my call. And if you ever point a fucking gun in my face like that again, I can assure you that it will be the very last thing that you ever do.”
As if to emphasize his point, the doors to Marlon's office swung open at that moment. Two bodyguards stepped into the room, his very own Tweedle-dee, and Tweedle-dum, and I knew that this conversation was over, regardless of whether or not I wanted it to be.
I tried to think. To conjure up something, anything I might say to come away from this conversation with the upper hand. Finally, though, I had no choice but to succumb to my defeat. I turned on my feet, and I trudged toward the door, my hands curled into fists.
“I want my fucking money, Marlon!” I reiterated as I made my way to the door, never having felt more powerless in all my life.
As I made my way to the elevator, I was already scheming.
Trying to figure out some way I could possibly get out of this. Some way I could get this son of a bitch off my back, and call it quits once and for all, the way I'd been planning to in the first place.
The doors to the elevator slid shut in front of me, and I was afforded a last, extended glance into Hillary's office as they closed. And all of the sudden, I thought I could glimpse a seedling of an idea for how I might get my money from Hillary after all. And it might just have been the dumbest idea I'd ever had before in my life...