Perfect

HARLOW
I didn’t have to do this.
Clearly I was capable of more. I’m almost fifty and I have been working for the same man for over two decades. Two decades of me, Harlow Morrison doing dirty work so I could sit in some fancy coffee place and watch those idiots get their daily dose of addiction. I had addictions too, but coffee wasn’t one of them. It’s not so much that I hate it, but that I think it’s a little impotent as far as addictions go. If you’re going to get high, do coke or take a hit of smack! Jeez but watching this younger generation with those fruity coffees and fancy lattes or whatever the hell they are, is just plain annoying. So why am I doing it? Well, cause The Big Man says so. And when The Big Man gives you orders you don’t say you got better things to do, you take the money and you go drive to whatever stupid place they ask you to do the ‘work,’ which, for the past many weeks, has been keeping tabs on that stupid kid from the Vegas hotel.
Why this job is so important to The Big Man, I have no idea. But at least I know now that he trusts me with it and no one else. And he knows I would never pull one over him. I’ve been loyal to Zaff all this time and if he wants a personal favor in return for it, I can manage that. I’ve been following the boy’s every move. For the past few weeks he has been seeing someone—the same girl I saw him with in Vegas, and it looks as though they’ve started to like each other a lot more than they did when they first saw each other a few weeks ago. It’s strange but I’ve been on pretty much every date of theirs and probably know more about their habits than their parents do. I could have had some lower ranking worker doing all this, but Zaff Heliot is one guy you don’t want to counter-question. He is the one who gives us our paychecks, keeps the business running smoothly and even though we do the dirty work, the truth is, without Zaff’s contacts it would be impossible to keep doing what we do.
The boy kisses her, and they look like they’re really hitting it off. The boy looks like a bit of a player, which reminds of me when I used to be his age and had women coming after me all the time. I guess every young person reminds you a little of your own youth. You see yourself in them no matter where they come from. But it’s a cruel world. Innocent cannot remain innocent for long and I’m saddened to think that there will come a time when this twenty-two year old boy will find himself having to face something that will fuck him up forever. Isn’t that what always happens? From what little I know of what’s about to happen to him, I want him to enjoy this little time of innocence, whatever’s left of it anyway.
My phone rings and its Zaff. “Hello?”
“Are you keeping an eye on him, Harlow?”
“Yes. He’s sitting two tables away.”
“Don’t let him see you yet,” Zaff says and I’m tempted to tell him that this isn’t my first time doing something like this, but I don’t.
“I won’t,” I say. “At least not until you say so.”
“Things are about to change, Harlow.”
The boy and girl are making out again.
“I know, Zaff.”
“I don’t like it, but I have no choice.”
“I know that too.”
“Harlow,” Zaff says. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”
It’s his way of confirming whether I’m still on his side. “Zaff,” I say. “Twenty-three years, I’ve been with you. I’m not going to change sides now.”
“Some people just did.”
“Some people will always be bastards.”
“True.”
Zaff disconnects the call.
The Big Man does not say goodbye.
Not even if you’ve been on his side for twenty-three years.
But not like I could complain.
The last time I met Zaff, he was in the middle of taking out a guy’s eyeballs with a penknife because the guy had ratted him out to the cops during an intense interrogation. Me, I make sure I’m never in that kind of a scenario.
You might say I prefer to keep my eyeballs.

Notes