The man sitting at the pew didn’t look nearly as imposing at the goons carrying heavy weaponry scattered throughout the church, aside from the fact that he was clearly the one charge and the goons with heavy weaponry would start shooting if he told them to. Noticeably, none of the church staff was present, not even the priest, Arlo. Armed men posted up in the church was a stark contrast to the usual lax, welcoming atmosphere of the little church.

  Bartolome sat back facing Arthur. There was a length of long grey hair slicked down on his head that hung to about his shoulders, though perfectly groomed. There weren’t a whole lot of other details Arthur was able to make out from the distance, in the dark. The man just sat there, staring forward as though there were some invisible sermon happening in front of them all. Arthur wasn’t really sure if he should approach or call out as the bodyguards just stood around. But as though reading his mind, the man at the pew raised one hand without turning around and beckoned Arthur forward.

  Arthur wasn’t sure how he managed that trick, but nevertheless it was concerning. Despite the fact the man hadn’t said anything, Arthur felt like obeying in this given moment was the smart thing to do. He walked down the aisle until he was standing just behind the man, hesitating to come around his front as though he was about to see some horrible, disfigured face. Instead, as he did, what he saw was a surprisingly handsome looking middle aged man. He was wearing expensive black sunglasses despite being indoors, at night, in a particularly low light room. In fact, everything he had on looked expensive. A silk shirt with a faint grey pattern, slacks, and black velvet slip on shoes. His beard was neatly trimmed. He wore a few pieces of subtle jewelry, excluding the large, obvious cross hung around his neck. Meeting in a church was starting to make sense.

  The man’s silver hair stood in contrast to his dark clothing. His skin was equally olive colored and dark, and he had a particularly sharp jaw underneath the well trimmed, short silver beard. To Arthur, he looked like some sort of aged, European movie star that you would see on the front of a Men’s Health magazine. When he spoke, it was in a thick Spanish accent.

  “Welcome, my friend, might I ask your name?”

  Arthur wasn’t sure if this was a test, or if they really hadn’t even told Bartolome his name. “I’m Arthur Rowe. I uh…I have something for you.”

  For the first time that Arthur noticed, the man actually moved from his statue-like stillness; to look up at Arthur and flash the faintest smile. He motioned for Arthur to sit on the bench next to him, with a gentle hand. For the most part he didn’t seem particularly threatening, just odd. He probably didn’t need to be threatening considering he was surrounded with armed guards.

  Arthur gingerly stepped past Bartolome, making sure not to touch him, and sat down. Bartolome sat on his left, next to the aisle, and Arthur was closer to the middle now. It was a ways to the other end of the bench, and one of the goons was standing just a few feet away on either side. He realized, whether by design or accident, he was now more or less trapped in the pew with no easy way out. He had a feeling it was by design.

  “I must say, Mister Arthur Rowe, that your presence here is unexpected.” Arthur tried to keep a straight face, surprised that they hadn’t even told Bartolome he was coming. Which meant right now he was just some stranger that showed up out of nowhere, to the church where nobody was supposed to be right now. The man continued. His voice was silky smooth, the accent causing his ‘s’ words to come off with just a faint lisp. He spoke calmly, and slowly, and he was doing an excellent job at coming across as welcoming, warm, and charismatic. And yet, Arthur couldn’t help but feel something lay deeper underneath that. Arthur had a lot of experience dealing with duplicitous people, and that instinct was coming up now. Underneath the smile and talk, there was a threat of power and violence, so controlled it was barely noticeable. It made Arthur’s skin crawl.

  “But I am not necessarily opposed to an uninvited guest. Especially one with…” Bartolome trailed off. His finger barely moved, but pointed toward the bag Arthur was carrying, urging him to explain.

  “Yes, it’s a delivery. I was under the impression you’d be expecting it…” Arthur said, reaching into the bag to remove the box. Although Bartolome’s face wasn’t particularly expressive, it was obvious that he didn’t know what was inside the box, much less what the box even was. Before Arthur could reveal the insides, one of his goons moved over as though Bartolome had ordered an unseen command. The goon looked like he was going to forcefully take the box from Arthur before Bartolome made a soft noise, then shook his head. The bodyguard stopped where he was, waiting for the next order.

  Gently, Bartolome placed one long, thin finger on Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur didn’t like that, at all. It was done so non-threateningly that it felt like a threat, somehow. Simultaneously, it was awkward, and strange. Like a knife in a hidden compartment, poking against the flesh just enough to make one uncomfortable. Arthur fought every urge to shrink away. Bartolome noticed this, or maybe was testing him, for he left his hand there for almost ten seconds before speaking again.

  “I’m sure our guest here means no ill-will, am I correct?”

  Arthur nodded a little too vigorously. “That’s right. Look I don’t know what this whole thing is,” he began to explain rapidly, “But I mean no harm. And what’s in the box can’t you harm you either. It’s not like anything crazy, like a bomb or something…” Arthur trailed off, realizing how spooked and desperate he sounded. One of the bodyguards snorted behind him, noticing how obviously jittery Arthur was being.

  Bartolome just stared at him through his sunglasses. Arthur almost expected that same, strange orange glint that he had been seeing in the eyes of all these people, but it wasn’t there. Bartolome’s eyes were different. They were like black pits. Not brown, or grey, just dark, dark circles. Like a void in space. If he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, his eyes would be noticeably wrong, and even with sunglasses in this dark lit room they were visibily empty. As Arthur stared, Bartolome let out a soft chuckle, like the humor of what Arthur had just said took a moment to process.

  “I believe you Mister Arthur Rowe. Truly.” Bartolome turned forward again, removing his hand. “Would it be fair of me to say that you are, you would say, in over your head? Drowning? So to speak?”

  The question, although unexpected, didn’t feel too far off. Clearly Bartolome picked up on Arthur’s jumpy attitude. Normally a question like that might annoy Arthur or even make him slightly embarrased, or upset. But in this case, it was just the truth. No matter where his pride was at this moment, Arthur didn’t really feel like expressing it to this man. Arthur held the box in his lap, almost like some sort of comforting support animal. The cold steel didn’t do a good job of comforting him. He nodded in response.

  “I think I am. In over my head.”

  “And,” Bartolome continued, “You would rather not be here, in this situation. But, you found yourself in a difficult position, and decided that the only option was forward. To see this duty through?”

  Arthur just nodded again. Somehow, this strange, old but young, weird foreign man who looked like a mob boss, was apparently comforting him. Or just toying with him.

  “That is commendable. However, I must inform you. Just your being here, in your capacity, means you are involved in our little world more so than the majority of your kind. I also must inform you the very nature of this meeting, impromptu as it is, also means that your employer thinks one of two things.”

  Multiple thoughts ran through Arthur’s head, at that comment. But for the moment he tried to focus, and followed Bartolome’s logic. It wasn’t a hard thing to do, and all his paranoia and fear and concern about this job had been seemingly building up to this point. All his concerns about what the Assistant and her boss thought of him and what they intended for him were just niggling thoughts in the back of his head, until now. As Bartolome spoke, the conclusions came to Arthur in a rush.

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  “It means they didn’t want to be here themselves, or…”

  Bartolome had gone back to sitting almost perfectly still, but his lips curled into a cruel smile. “Or, they don’t care whether you live or die. In fact, it’s probably both.”

  All of a sudden all those background thoughts and fears came rushing forward, and it was overwhelming. Arthur leaned forward, gripping the box on his lap. He didn’t know why he was here, who these people were, or what the fuck he was delivering. It was a hand, obviously, but what did it mean. All he knew was that he had taken this awful job without a second thought. All for what. Money? He shook his head. What a joke. He hadn’t asked, hadn’t stopped to think, hadn’t considered this had all gone way too far. All for a bit of money. Money that would be gone in less than a year. He’d fucked up and it was too late to do anything about it.

  In that moment of introspection, Arthur realized he had willingly walked a path that would lead to his demise. He couldn’t run from here. He certainly couldn’t fight past all the guards. All of a sudden a degree of hyper focus came to the front of his mind. In this moment, his decisions didn’t matter, his feelings didn’t matter, his desires didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered, he recognized, was this was the critical point in the meeting tonight. The point where the tide would choose which way it was going, and the point where everything that came next would determine his survival. It was a powerful, instinctual drive that suddenly manifested in him, and it was clear what needed to happen next.

  There was only one thing he could do, potentially, to get him out of this horrible situation and clean his hands of it forever. He could talk. Bartolome was seemingly savoring in his despair, like he could read Arthur’s mind, just watching the realization unfold. The man liked to play with his food, so to speak, but clearly valued being polite and cordial. Arthur took a deep breath, and resolved to find a way out of this. He was never one to roll over and take it. Even if he had been an idiot up to this point, he wasn’t giving up. No matter what it took.

  “You’re right. And I was a fool to take this job.”

  “I would say so,” Bartolome said, with the pleasure of a cat playing with a half dead mouse.

  Don’t flatter him. He doesn’t care. Information. Why. Why is the hand important. Where’s the angle. Press the angle.

  “I just don’t get why they wanted me to give this to you.” Bartolome turned his head to Arthur again, but said nothing. Those inky pits staring a hole into Arthur’s soul. He’s listening. “Even for…whatever this is. Whatever you guys do, whatever you are. The item seems strange.”

  Bartolome was silent. Arthur wasn’t sure if he was sussing out why this strange delivery boy just started jabbering, or if he was actually intrigued. He felt like he was reaching an edge. Just one more small push to keep the man interested, without pushing too hard as to go flying off the cliff.

  “I mean, you don’t get something like this every day. Certainly not when you’re a detective.”

  Bartolome’s head turned just a millimeter. The micro-movement was almost imperceptible to Arthur. But whatever signal he’d just sent, the nearest bodyguard had picked up on. He stepped down the aisle, yanking the box aside out of Arthur’s hands and pulling him up out of the seat by his arm like he was a ragdoll.

  “Wait!” Arthur cried, but realized the man was just searching him, not preparing to kill him, as his hands crawled through Arthur’s pockets and small areas of his arms and legs. “I’m off duty! Not here on anything official! I swear!” Arthur stammered as the goon pulled his handgun out from it’s holster.

  He showed it to Bartolome. Surprisingly, Bartolome waved dismissively. The goon handed Bartolome Arthur’s wallet, and at the same time roughly jammed Arthur’s pistol back into it’s holster. Before Arthur could react, the bodyguard roughly pushed him back down into the pew like he was a criminal about to be interrogated. It took Arthur a second to realize they hadn’t taken his gun. One pistol wouldn’t be much against fifteen automatic rifles…but even so. He could quick draw and maybe get a shot off at Bartolome if he really wanted to. Which meant that for some reason, Bartolome wasn’t afraid of the gun.

  Bartolome picked through Arthur’s things in his wallet, showing visible disgust at his choice of cheap light leather wallet as he carelessly tossed some punch cards and ratty old business cards onto the floor, alongside a few dollars. The only thing he didn’t get rid of was Arthur’s detective badge, which he studied for a moment. Without picking up any of the things he had just discarded onto the floor, Bartolome handed back the wallet.

  “I can see how a police officer might be of use. But why as a delivery boy? This doesn’t seem suited to your…skill sets,” Bartolome mused. It was more a rhetorical question, Arthur decided. The man was thinking out loud. So he didn’t reply, just waited. “How well do you know your benefactors?”

  “Not very well…I’ve met with his assistant many times. She’s been my main point of contact. I’m not totally sure who her boss is. They’re not very sociable. All business. Hand offs, instructions and whatnot. Whenever we meet it’s always in secluded places, the meetings are short, and they just give me the job before disappearing. They usually never even answer my calls or texts unless it’s really important.”

  Bartolome just stared, expressionless, which Arthur took as a sign to keep explaining.

  “I came into contact with them because I accidentally walked in on the Assistant trading some information from our forensics department. It wasn’t obvious then what was happening, but now I know better. She didn’t say a word to me at all, but a week later or so I got a call from her offering me a job. Light work, nothing illegal even, technically. Might’ve gotten me in some trouble at the precinct. But they offered a lot of money for not a lot of work, so I did it. As time went on, the jobs got more complicated, and often more illegal, but the pay kept getting better. But every so often, I got a bad feeling about a job. Like, something I was doing might end up screwing someone over, or getting a case all messed up. Sometimes they were just…off.”

  “Like this job,” Bartolome interjected.

  “...yeah. Like this one.”

  “And you determined this job was rotten when you…looked at the contents of the delivery, no?”

  Arthur nodded, and slowly began to come to a realization about this, that Bartolome apparently already had come to much earlier. “They knew I would look inside,” Arthur said slowly.

  “Presumably, on account of you having done a little more peeping than you were meant to on previous jobs, no?”

  Arthur just nodded, then stopped and shook his head. “No. Well, maybe…I didn’t think they ever knew I looked. And it was never to sell them out or anything. Just curiosity. But they couldn’t have known I looked. I kept everything airtight.”

  “At least, as far as you know,” Bartolome said with a sneer. “Now, Mister Arthur Rowe.”

  Arthur swallowed again. He wasn’t sure why Bartolome had just led him down this path of discovery, but could only hope that it meant he was getting out of here alive, somehow.

  “First of all, let’s take a look inside this box, to see your delivery. While I’m doing that, I want you to explain, in detail, the appearance of this Assistant and whatever else you know about them, and any others who might be involved in their operation.”

  Arthur nodded, handing the box over. Bartolome found the release controls, and Arthur braced as the box opened. To his despair, for the first time since being here, Bartolome showed real emotion. He reached inside flipping over the severed hand, and as he inspected it Arthur saw his upper lip curl and his brow furrow. It was a quiet, restrained anger, but anger none the less. Arthur had seen it plenty of times in other detectives. An innate, emotional anger that only showed up when someone had gotten screwed over, but it was too late to do anything about it. Too many cops at the precinct having a case get dropped due to a screw-up. Too many bad sentencings from judges letting people off far too easy. Too many kid killers.

  Arthur gave Bartolome a few moments, and as the man replaced the lid on the box, Arthur spoke, describing as best he could the appearances of the Assistant and everyone else who he figured might be involved. As he did so, Arthur realized one of the bodyguards had gotten close and was listening in as well, apparently taking notes. Bartolome was staring into his soul again, but Arthur kept his voice from wavering. He felt like he was making progress on his own survival. By the time he finished, Bartolome’s expression hadn’t changed.

  “I don’t know who any of those people are,” Bartolome said flatly. “Yet that doesn’t mean much, considering they clearly know who I am, or they wouldn’t have sent this.” Bartolome went quiet again, thinking about something.

  After a while of silence that Arthur couldn’t bear, he spoke up. “They’re trying to exploit you. Use you. They want you to do something rash, or stupid, without them ever being in the picture.” The reasoning felt half-baked, more of a way to save his own skin and provide value to this man. But it was the best Arthur could come up with.

  “I don’t think so,” Bartolome said flatly, causing Arthur to deflate. Bartolome looked at him again. “I will have to ruminate on this. Which means that our little meeting here has come to it’s conclusion. Obviously your benefactor wants to get rid of you, and expected me to do it for him. And to tell you the truth, I feel somewhat inclined to. Despite the fact you are mostly a bystander in all this, you have brought me something deeply aggravating and distressing. In fact, I have half the mind to kill you right here and let poor Arlo deal with the cleanup.”

  Arthur squeezed his hands into fists, having to sit there silently and wait for his execution verdict. Bartolome wasn’t even looking at him now. It was like he was an ant, or a worm, and Bartolome was deciding if he wanted to muster the energy to splat him against the ground and bother with the mess. It felt humiliating, and terrifying. And in that moment, Arthur decided it wasn’t going to end like this. If it was going down, he was going down swinging, rather, shooting. He might be able to take this old bastard with him. He was ready, and began to slowly reach for his gun. Then, Bartolome spoke again.

  “I’ve just had a thought.”