Revenant

Chapter 35

But right now I needed to focus on the task at hand, which was talking this FBI agent sitting across from me out of committing suicide. The sort of 'death by hit man' suicide that would focus all sorts of unwanted attention from The Hand on Baltimore.

"Jesus Christ... you just don't get it! He isn't just a member of the Lemnu-ahu, he's their fixer! He doesn't even report to the council – his role within The Hand ended up transcending itself. As a very last resort the council will occasionally get him to fix things that have gone horribly, horribly wrong. And when they do, they'll ask him. Politely. He's-"

I was getting wound up again.

For good reason, of course, but still....

I took a moment to breathe deeply while closing my eyes, returning to the sort of slouch that booths at Denny's seemed designed to accommodate. After a while I opened my eyes again, and saw that Moss was simply looking at me, a picture of calm and stoicism.

"Look," he said eventually. "I'm not saying I want you to call him up and invite him someplace, or otherwise involve yourself in any way, okay? I'm just gathering intel at this point. Collating data. I want to be smart about this."

"Smart?" I gave a short laugh. "You want to be smart about how you're going to go about this really, really dumb idea?" I ran my fingers through my hair and exhaled through my nose. "Even if the stars align in just the right way and you somehow manage to pull off the underdog miracle of the millennium, you're dead. If you aren't already on The Hand's radar, you'll definitely end up on their shit list after something like that, no matter how quietly you think you're able to do it. And I can't be involved! At all! Look, not to sound petty or self-absorbed, but I spent a small personal fortune just to fake my own death so The Hand wouldn't know to come looking for me. And in the interests of being completely honest, they still scare the ever-loving shit out of me!"

"My intent isn't to involve you in any of this," Moss said after a while. "Anything you decide to divulge to me about Dreyvass never reaches their ears – you have my word."

"Yeah?" I asked bleakly. "You ever held up under torture before?"

He grinned at me. "Care to accompany me to the bathroom a moment, check out some scars?"

I scowled at him.

"You're going to end up in the ground, okay? A pile of ashes. If you've done any research you have to know this by now! Even if-"

And then, as every single one of them seems unconsciously able to do, our waitress appeared at the worst possible moment, disrupting the conversation. I swear, the ones who are really good at it have to be telepathic or something.

Wearing a big smile, she came over to our table and deposited the plate of food Moss had ordered in front of him, taking a moment to caution him that the plate was hot as she did so. Once she'd served Moss she turned and regarded me with an inquisitive eyebrow, looking first at my menu, and then at me.

I moved as if about to hand the menu back to her, but realized mid-gesture that it still contained the file Moss had handed to me.

"A few more minutes," I said, holding my palms up apologetically. "Sorry, I'm fussy that way."

She gave me a patient smile, then turned to Moss and gave him a much more genuine one. "Let me know if you need anything."

"Will do," Moss replied, returning her smile.

Our waitress gave the two of us yet another smile and then wandered away, presumably to do a bunch of other waitress-like things, like interrupting conversations. And smiling at people. I honestly don't know how they do it. If I had to work a job that involved smiling at people all day every day, I'd go batshit crazy inside of a week.