“Did you get it done?” The Boss asked in his cruel, raspy voice. The old man was sitting in a dilapidated leather chair facing me. He was sitting, laid back, in front of a worn down mahogany desk that had a spoon, and a very dimly lit lamp placed on top of it. The lamp was the only light source in the room, so the only things I could see were The Boss, and the items on his desk.

“Well did you do it?” He asked with impatience laced into his voice. His cold eyes, the color of the mahogany of his desk, moved down to look at my clothing. I originally had on a crisp, clean new black and white tuxedo, but it is now covered in someone else’s blood. Specifically, my client’s blood.
The Boss looked up at me again. I suddenly remembered that he had asked a question.

“Yes.” The word came out, quick and clear. The Boss stayed still. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if his silence was unusual because this was only the second meeting I’ve had with him in person. The first was when he assigned me to my client. He was stern and concise. He gave me a file of my client to find out his whereabouts and left in a hurry so I wouldn’t interrogate him. But I wasn’t the type man to question my employers unless it was about the money I would be receiving at the very end, and this job happened to be paying enough for me to not ask anything at all.

The Boss unanticipatedly started chuckling dryly. I didn’t understand why. He asked me to do his dirty work for a reward, and I still haven’t received it. I did not necessarily find this situation funny. I wanted to ask why he was laughing but it is just as I said, I wasn’t the type of man to ask questions. So I just stood there in silence while the boss sat in his ratty, decrepit leather chair guffawing.

The Boss stopped laughing so he could wipe some small tears that were coming out of the wrinkly corners of his eyes.

“So you actually killed the man didn’t you?” He asked still smiling, and breathing heavily from the amount of laughter that he produced. His tone of voice changed from his usual cruel and raspy tone to a more light-hearted, jokester type voice.

“Yes.” I stated again plainly, not understanding why he thinks this is all some kind of joke. “Where is the money?” I asked finally, betraying my code of silence. The Boss chuckled again and stood up, ignoring my last question. He walked towards the front of his desk and stood right in front of me.

“You might find my methods, let’s say… strange, but you will find that someday I’m gonna be right, and you’re gonna thank me, and what I did.” I didn’t know what The Boss was talking about. He wasn’t making any sense and I knew that something terrible was about to come. So I took a few steps back. The Boss turned around and picked up the spoon very delicately off his desk. As if the spoon was made out of glass and one touch could make it break into a thousand tiny pieces.

“You see,” The Boss started as he made his way towards me. His eyes were widened and he had a malicious smile upon his face. I had started to walk backwards but I crashed into the wall behind me. “You see,” He stated again, this time his face inches away from mine. He had trapped me against the wall. If I try to move left or right I would be engulfed by the blackness of the room and I wouldn’t be able to see The Boss coming. “I believe in the saying, ‘An eye for an eye’, so therefore, I have to kill you in return for killing your client.”

“You’re the one who gave me the client!! So technically, you should be the one that ends up dead!!” I yelled.

“Yes, but you’re the one who actually killed him.”

“YOU’RE CRAZY! YOUR LOGIC DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!” I tried pushing The Boss back so I could try to escape, but instead he grabbed my wrists with one hand and pinned them to the wall, still holding the spoon in the other hand.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll go easy on you.” The Boss suddenly lifts up the spoon and says, “An eye for an eye…” I couldn’t remember what happened next. It was all a blur. All I remember was that I couldn’t see and that the last thing I heard was The Boss laughing and saying, “See you around.”