for a few seconds, joseph was silent, and thanking himself to have had the foresight to send sebastian to check a different lead.
one aggressive pain in the ass was more than enough to deal with at one time without setting off another.
only a thin veneer of professionalism, heavily tested, kept him from rolling his eyes, shifting half a step back from the spot their so-called source of intel spat on.
“ last i checked, people were still people no matter what part of the woods you’re in. ”
he did note, as much as he didn’t want to find something agreeable here, that the man did hold some point.
the middle of the backwater south was not his element. the rural country, its people, all stood like a second language to someone so accustomed to urban life.
“ look, the faster you’re able to help us, the sooner you don’t have to deal with us anymore. let’s just … start at the beginning. ”
“Go on, then- Get up in there,” Joel sighed, stepping back to ease open the door to his, well... shack. He properly lived elsewhere, but he’d found the place abandoned and it was out of the way enough that it was good for conducting ‘business’.
There was a cheap futon couch up against the far wall, positioned behind a dusty coffee table with an ashtray filled to the brim with cigarette butts sitting dead center. Two wooden chairs flanked the opposite end of the tabletop, along with a weathered looking metal tanker desk from the 1980s, and finally- An absolutely ancient looking Coca-Cola mini fridge.
The smuggler pulled two bottles of Negra Modelo from the fridge, offering one to Joseph by setting it on the table. If Specs didn’t want it, then that just meant more for Joel- Which was fine with him.
Using the tip of his boot to drag the wooden chair closer by it’s leg, he turned it around to face him and sat down with an arm hanging over the backrest.
“Okay, so- The man you guys want is Robert. He looks like any ol’ run of the mill dirtbag, but he’s smart. It won’t be easy getting the drop on him, he’s like a rat. As soon as he smells something fishy in the air, he’ll skitter on outta there and we’ll have to kill a lot of people. Now I got some notion that might get up your nose, which is why we’re gonna go meet Tess.”
Joel took a sip from his beer bottle and exhaled roughly, as he was not looking forward to that conversation. He and Tess had effectively ended their partnership some time ago, but they’d survived Hell together, so it wasn’t like there was a lack of affection between them.
“She’s... a friend of mine. Just between us, she hates Robert, but they’re still on friendly terms out of necessity. We originally were going eliminate him as competition by taking over his business, but that went South.”
He took another hard pull of his drink, wiping the traces of foam stuck to his beard away with the back of his hand. There was an expensive looking watch fastened around his wrist, the crystal lense shattered by a single bullet hole.
“Tess owes me a favor, so she’ll help us out. If you want anybody watching your back, it’d be her. You keepin’ up with all this?”
theartofmadeline
2087
yousharknotpass
amandla
kianamaiart
