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"Get that God Damn gun out of my face." He brushed off the gun waving two inches from his forehead. "What are you, James Bond? You in a fucking movie?"

Hugh was trying not to show off his nervousness, but it didn't work. His only tell, his gun moveing up and down between the eye line and the widows peek, was picked up immediately by the old man. The man giggled, he actually giggled. Usually, when a man, this age, giggles it either starts from dementia, or ends in a coughing fit, but this man was in peak mental and physical health. He was not going away, naturally, any time soon, and that's why Huge was here, at night, in ridiculous black clothing, pointing a gun at this man's frontal lobe. This was, technically, his first hit, and by the way the man was laughing, the last time he was going to go after an ex-hit man.

"This your first 'hit' isn't it, greenhorn." His voice faltered sarcastically on hit. "By the way, I heard you coming when you parked a block away . . . and you probably should have gotten new shoes. Police like a nice, big, bloody, foot print to match to someone. You might want to get rid of them and buy some used shoes tomorrow. Jesus," he still giggled. "Where did they pick you up. Do they honesty think that lowly of me, to send you after me."

Thinking back, while trying not to show it, he remembered his briefing. "Now this fucker is fucked up in the head, a bit." Mobsters like to articulate themselves using the F-word and sometimes Bitch and Shit and Douche. It's a general stereotype, but Huge likes to say it fits. His employer paces back and forth. Nervous ticks to show he is still thinking this though. Since his teenage years, Huge was taught in the art of reading people. He thought back to his mother--god rest her recently deceased soul--perhaps the only woman who had any power in the mob, and his father, the abusive peace of shit. Huge had mixed feelings about the mystery around his "disappearance," but he knew not to ask any questions of favors, especially from your mother. He had a strange upbringing, but he learned a lot of interesting things.

"Hey, pig fucker," Hugh made a mental note of that new description. He has been called a pig and a fucker, but never both in that order. "Wake up. Come back to me and listen. This shit's important."

Hugh did take it a bit to far.

"Why do you want me to do this? What'd this guy do?"

"None of your damn business. Just do what I tell you."

"What's his name?"

"Stop askin' stupid questions. I'll tell you everything you need to know. Just watch yourself. He's fucking crazy. He'll talk your head off and may or may not try somethin'."

The target got up and started across the room. This made Hugh snap back from his memories. "What the fuck, sit back down." He didn't want to speak, but it just came out.

The old man looked back. "Can't an old man poor himself a drink?" Looking back to his bar, he mixes himself a rum and coke. "You want something."

"No."

"Sit down son. Do you even know what your doing here."

"I'm here to kill you."

"Why?"

Hugh felt he said to much.

"I didn't do anything to you?"

"That doesn't matter. I'm here on a job."

The man turned around and for the first time he looked deadly serous. "That's the only thing that matters, son." A smile creeps along his face. "Drink?"

Hugh stays silent.

"This is your job, obviously your first. Why be a hit man?"

Hugh still said nothing.

"Come on buddy. Drink. Drink is good, drink is important, drink is life. Alcohol is what made us wholly human. Beer and bread where the first scientifically found ideas. First time humans looked around at nature for information. Plus it's tasty."

Still Hugh made no move. Still Hugh aimed the gun at the old mans head.

"Can you please put down the gun. I'm not going to do anything. Just want to drink in peace."

Hugh hesitated but eventually dropped his gun and took the drink the old man waved in the air. "There you go."

"I only want to kill bad people, anyone who deserves to die." He thought more. "I guess I don't want to think of the ones I kill them for."

"Shut up, kid." the old man paused and seemed a bit disappointed in Hugh's outburst of emotion. "By the way guns don't kill people, they scare people--knives kill people."

"What?"

"Guns are loud. They leave gun powder all over you. They have trails that are hard to get rid of. Knives, on the other hand, are everywhere. If you know what your doing, there is no link to you. Guns are scary to people not in the business, because guns look scary in the movies."

Hugh had to laugh at the absurdity of his situation. After the first drink, he sat down and smiled more. After the second, he relaxed like he was with an old friend. Now he was laughing. He was sitting down for cocktail hour with the man he was sent to kill not thirty minutes ago.

"I was standing over this guy, holding Betty in my hand. Betty was my machete--I had two knives, one small for the killin' and one machete for intimidation . . . and maybe to take a few fingers. Anyway this guy is so scarred he pisses himself. Now I can't help myself, I'm falling over laughing my ass off . . . "

Both men are giggling now. After another hour of drinking they where all over each other. The old man had Hugh in a head lock with a small blade to his throat. "Now you dig the knife into the opposite jugular and pull across, under the chin."

"Ok. Ok let me try." Hugh laughed. "So you hold there head like this. And jam the knife in the jugular." He practiced in the air first, and then asked for the mans head. "Ok. Hold still." He grabbed the old mans head. Hugh's face morphed from happily drunk to emotionless. Instead of pretending to stick him, Hugh actually slices from jugular to jugular under the old mans chin. He dropped down to the ground, smiled, and gurgled. Hugh saw the old man slowly, mouth. "Good job son."

Hugh cleaned the knife and slipped it into his pocket. He looked around for any evidence that he was there. He purposefully didn't touch anything with ungloved hands. He didn't worry about a stay hair and grabbed the glass he drank from and though it in his trunk along with his shoes and gun. He made a mental note to get a new pair of used shoes tomorrow. And drove back to his employer to drop everything off and pick up his money.