"Working hard or hardly working?"

"What?"

He looked at the young barista a moment before opting out of a second try. "Nothing. I'll have my usual."

"..."

"A vanilla breve, please." He smoothed his hair down a bit while she wrote the order on a dry-erase tablet velcro-stickered to the counter. She tapped a few prompts on the iPad register and swiveled it around for him. "Busy today," he tried.

"Yeah," she said, already looking past him.

He hit the 'tip' button for 25% anyway, the highest of the three options, and moved down the counter to wait for his drink. The place wasn't that busy, but he wasn't that good at smalltalk.

Being a downtown coffee shop it was of course a remodel of a remodel of a remodel, back to the earliest days of the small west coast town. He assumed that various iterations probably tried to hide the exposed-brick walls and the real wood floors and open ceilings. The trend now was to accentuate all that, but he figured it was only a decade or so before things would change up again and the next hipster-fueled makeover would include checkered linoleum or patterned wallpaper or opened umbrellas hung upside down from the ceiling.

He looked around, not actively trying to strike up a conversation, but also not avoiding one. He like the place, liked the staff. He nodded to one of the two owners; it was either Gary or Brian--he could never remember which one was which and he felt he was too long a regular to ask at this point. He instead opted for a 'what's up?' head nod that went unnoticed.

He checked his watch. He still had ten minutes before his meeting.

"Vanilla breve on the bar!"

"That's mine." He looked at the lop-sided palm frond design in the foam. "Oh, hey, you're getting pretty good."

The young man offered a half-hearted 'thanks' and went back to work at the controls of the big stainless steal machine. Strange how the coffee here was so much better when so many places used the same machine.

He looked around at the staff, a final check to see if any of them wanted to say 'hi.' They must all be too busy. He made his way to one of the small, two-person tables and set his drink down. One of the advantages of wearing his polar fleece vest a size too big was he could store more things in the pockets without them rubbing against him, including his Bluetooth headset. He took it out of his right inside pocket and slid it over his head. They made smaller versions now, earbuds and such, but he preferred the one he'd used forever. One foam earpiece over his left ear--letting him keep his right ear open to catch interesting conversations--and a mouthpiece that he could move down if he needed to talk or keep straight up like an antenna.

He liked to keep things simple. Tried-and-true. Why change what worked?

He connected his headset to his iPhone and tapped the screen to open Tubi, a TV app that specializes in old television shows. He was working his way through Hunter, an 80s cop show that combined a Dirty Harry aesthetic with a Sam and Diane 'will they/won't they' partnership.

The breve was good, but not quite sweet enough. He got up, carrying his iPhone open-handed so he could keep watching his show, and grabbed a couple packs of raw sugar. Much better.

The episode was about how Dee Dee, Hunter's partner, was going undercover as a singer. He paused it on a hunch, quickly went to iTunes to confirm. Yep, a whole episode built around showing the versatility of the actress. He wondered if it helped her sell any albums. Probably part of her contract, to have episodes like that. Cheaper to make the writers comply than to pay her more per season.

It was still a pretty good episode, though.

He was temporarily distracted by an adorable set of three year old twin boys watching their equally adorable grandpa like he was a wizard as he drew silly characters of Crayola reds and greens and burnt umbers onto the pages of a spiral notebook.

"You Skitterchest?"

He looked up to see a large man standing to his left. The man had to be 6' 4", 270. He looked like a retired powerlifter. Stood like one, too, as though his joints were finally forced to make good on all those checks his muscles had been writing for decades. He wore black tee under an unbuttoned black-and-white flannel jacket, some kind of dark cargo pants, and Columbia hiking boots. West Coasters lack of pretense made it hard to size them up, but the man's $1200 wrist watch and the half-karat diamond pinky ring were enough to know he was someone that 'did okay.'

"I'm Blandon Skwëttervest. Are you Dan Ferguson?"

"I am."

"Excellent. Did you want to order, or--"

Dan pulled out the chair and sat down. He rested his massive forearms on the table, but thought better of it when the wood started to bend down with the added weight as though the nearest quarter of the table might snap off.

"Well, then, shall we get started?" Blandon asked.

"Started and finished," Ferguson said. "Imma make this real quick. You tell Grimshaw I paid him what he's owed. As far as I figure it, we're squared up."

Blandon took a slow sip of his drink, listening as the giant gave his two cents on the situation. He wondered how Hunter would handle it. Probably with a pithy remark and 'I'm your Huckleberry' smirk. Blandon was always jealous of that, of men that could do that kind of thing and not look ridiculous.

"You clear on where I stand, Suiterman?"

"Skwëttervest."

"Who gives a shit? You clear?"

He took another slow drink before responding. "Well, I mean, I'm clear on it, but my opinions don't really matter. I'm just a representative."

"That's what you can represent, then. My foot in Grimshaw's ass if he thinks I'm about--"

"Mmm. You might want to rethink that. That's a pretty rude thing--"

"Who do you think you're talking to, Skittlebag?"

"Skwëttervest."

"I said my piece. If Grimshaw wants to push me, you tell him--"

"You sure you don't want a latte or something? A mocha? The mochas here are sublime. They make their own--"

"I don't want shit other than for you to tell me you understand what I said to you."

"I do."

"So you'll tell that nickle-n-diming bastard what I said?"

"I will not."

Ferguson's cheeks reddened. "You won't?"

"I won't."

"Then what are you doing here?"

Blandon was now concerned about the table as well. It looked as though Ferguson's shear bulk might break it in half. "Like I said, I'm the representative."

"The representative. So, if you aren't going to tell him what I said, maybe you'll need to represent my message in a different way? Maybe I send you back to him different than I found you."

"I wish you wouldn't."

Ferguson paused, sizing up the much smaller man. He'd dealt with some garden variety assholes and wannabe tough guys for decades. Small town real estate was just as cutthroat as any when using 'alternative banking.' He always managed to come out ahead, though. The trick was not to show weakness. The old broken bones days were a thing of the past. Nowadays it was civil court or asset forfeiture that kept them all up at night, not finding a horse head in his bed. But still, they should at least make some show of it, shouldn't they? Some respect of the old ways. But no, they sent this... what? Dweeb?

Ferguson did a mental inventory, a way of sizing up his opponent. He'd learned the trick in his early days, the rougher days when threats weren't litigious in nature but violent. It worked for business deals as well as fisticuffs. This guy was nothing. Caucasian male. Maybe five-nine, a soft two bills. Mid-to-late-thirties. Super Cuts hair. Goatee improperly trimmed, actually accentuating the slight double chin he probably grew it to hide. His dark pants and dark shirt were a size too big, which Ferguson had grown to assume men 'of a certain age' did to disguise their middle-aging bodies, but which made them appear larger and more oddly shaped than they really were. It was similar to how some men wore a too-big jacket, they excess fabric flaring out just below the waist, giving them the appearance of a directional arrow pointing straight up.

Nah, this guy was nothing. A rube. A tool. Nothing he had to concern himself with. It was like someone had invented a 'generic male creator' and he was the prototype.

No, Ferguson was not the slightest bit intimidated.

"You tell your boss he can kiss my ass. And if I see you again, buddy, I'll send you back to him with two broken legs."

"I wish you wouldn't."

"You wish I wouldn't? You know, you're something else, kid."

With that Ferguson got up and left, letting the door slam behind him. He walked the half block to the pay lot, finding a ticket on his windshield. He placed it under the windshield wiper of the vehicle next to his and got in. He turned the ignition, put the large SUV in reverse and started to back up before immediately slamming on the breaks.

"What the--?"

Ferguson got out of his rig, red-faced and fuming.

"You're really going to get it now, you son of--"

The sound was jarring.

He was looking up, directly into the blue-blue sky. It was lovely. Quiet.

No, not quiet. Ringing. His ears were ringing.

His hand was bloody.

Not injured, just bloody.

His chest hurt.

That little shit was looking down at him now.

He was holding a gun.

That little shit had shot him!

Ferguson could taste blood. It was filling his mouth.

He was having trouble breathing.

Sounds were coming back now: traffic, screaming people, car horns. Now sirens.

He had to move, to get to help. He had to get that son of a bitch!

He reached into his jacket for the .38 snub he carried with him.

He pulled it from its holster, his hand sticky with blood.

He tried to raise it but that little asshole stepped directly on his elbow, pinning his arm to the ground. He was leaning in, saying something.

Through muffled ringing, the last thing Ferguson heard before the second shot was, "I wish you wouldn't."

Reports of the small town murder in broad daylight filled the local and state news for three days. The victim was identified as a local real estate developer with a questionable past and a series of exes and offspring all preparing to stake their claims on his estate in what would likely be long, drawn out and complicated court cases.

The shooter was only described as a 5'10" caucasian, medium build, somewhere between 30 and 45 years old.

At least, that's what Blandon read in the local paper a few days later as he waited for his usual-- a vanilla breve--and tried unsuccessfully to get any of the baristas to notice him. Unsuccessful, he put on his headset and turned his iPhone on so he could catch another episode of Hunter.