I’m an assassin. Let’s get that out of the way right there. Call it what you want, be it hitman, murderer for hire, merc, thug, troubleshooter. Doesn’t change what it is. People give me money, tell me who to kill and sometimes how they want it done, and I make it so. I don’t dress it up, there’s no real point to that. Clean and simple, dirty as the job may be.

Anyway, here I am in an old, dilapidated bar in the outer rim. You know the kind. A name you can’t remember, in a town you’d best avoid. Windows that are more dirt and scum than glass, and ‘food’ that could kill kudzu if you used it as fertilizer. Drinks with just enough alcohol to make you order a few so you don’t have to remember how bad today was or think about how tomorrow will be just the same.

Like usual, I’m waiting for the next job. There’s only so many reasons someone would come to a person like me. Love, business, money. Oftentimes pride. But it’s all the same, really. It all boils down to something they think can only be fixed one way. When it’s particularly personal, they even want me to do something special. Leave a gift, set up the scene, that kind of thing. Send a message, you know?

Of course, I don’t always get a customer when I do this. I don’t even usually get one. Easy to get a job as a private eye or a kneecapper, but cold-blooded murder is a more special sort. The waiting is fine, though. A single job can set me up for a while. In point of fact, the windows here will be clean as the day they first got in before I’ll run out of money. In other words, I’ll die before I really feel strapped for cash.

But you know? Some nights are special. I look up as the door jingles, and this one’s as obvious as they come. He knows who I am, and where to find me, but damn if the rubbernecking isn’t funny. I lean back and wait for him to spot me. I consider counting the drunkest patron’s staccato tapping as I wait for this guy. But lo, he eventually figures it out and wanders over to slouch down next to me.

Amateur. It’s not like everyone in the bar is fully aware of why I’m here and why anyone would talk to me. But as I said, some nights are special. I look up as he tries to get my attention, then wave at the bartender for a drink. As it slides over in front of my latest customer, I wait. It doesn’t take long. He really has no subtlety.

“I need someone dead.”

No subtlety at all. I glance at him. “Who?”

The guy pulls out a photo and slaps it down between us. “My brother. A few years ago the bastard skipped out of town with our entire business’s savings. And my wife.

Hmm. Business, money, and love. That’s always fun. “And where is he now?”

He just drops a note on top of the picture. A single word. The name of a colony world halfway around the rim. Just as sketchy as where we are right now. Exactly the kind of place that law enforcement only checks up on in the hopes it’s vanished since the last time they stopped by.

I look at both for a while, then pocket the photo. “Anything else I should know?”

He thinks for a moment, then starts talking. “Yeah. This has to be a message. Nobody crosses me and gets away with it.” He pulls something out of his pocket, and sets it on the note. “Gotta make this one special.”

And we have pride, too. That’s a bingo. A special night indeed. “So where on that backwater can I find him, and what do you want me to do with this,” I nod at the object on the table, “thing?”

The guy takes a deep breath. “I want you to kill him with it. Was the last present he ever gave me. Useless piece of junk, only reason it’s important is it’s from him.”

I pick it up, and give it a look over as he continues.

“As to where he wound up, apparently he’s running a farm now. Some kind of grain or something, likes the water on that stupid swamp of a world.”

“No.” I put the trinket back on the table, along with the photo from earlier. “I’m not taking this job.”

“What!” His face starts turning red as he dumps wads of cash on the table. “I can pay as much as you want! I don’t care how much. I need him dead!”

“No. And I suggest you don’t ask anyone else to do this job either. Anyone dumb enough to take it is going to bump you to the top of their hit list the instant they see the headline.”

“And why,” he asks as he starts pocketing the money, “would they do that?”

I sigh. “Because no assassin worth the name wants to be associated with a knick-knack paddy-whack.”