Jeff stared at me as I put a kettle on for tea. Having no other choice, I had invited him inside my apartment. I hardly ever have guests. Paranoia tends to prevent me from making friends or forming relationships. Even having Jeff sitting at my breakfast nook unnerved me. Still, I remained civil. I poured him a cup of tea once the water finished boiling. I handed him his cup and watched as he took a sip. I waited for liquid to dribble out the side of his mouth where his scars hadn't healed properly. Nothing happened. I guess when you live with a mutilated face you learn to work around issues such as drinking and eating.

"Do I have something on my face?"

"Is that supposed to be funny?" I leaned against the kitchen counter.

"Perhaps."

"Why did you seek me out?"

His smirk widened as I asked the question. "Getting straight to the point, huh Hound? I knew I would like you."

"Bloodhound."

He spread his hands out. "As you wish." He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a small toy duck. He turned it over in his hands and flipped a switch at the bottom. Nothing happened.

"I rigged this little darling here to send out a frequency that will interfere with any eavesdropping devices."

"My apartment's not bugged."

"Can you really be too careful? You know the city. You know what people live here. Do you really want to end up the prey?"

I remained silent. He gave a nod, and then proceeded to pull out a stack of folded up papers from his jean pocket. He unfolded and smoothed out each paper, handing them to me as he did. "My brother, Liu, has been taken hostage by some people who aren't very happy with me."

"What did you do?" I noted the ransom notes he had been sent. Some threatening his life, and some threatening his brother only had so long to live unless Jeff gave himself up.

"I pissed off Richard Puscilli."

I froze. Hearing the name Puscilli sent chills down my spine. "What the fuck did you do?" I asked, quieter yet angrier.

"Let's just say me and his son had a bloody good time together."

"That was a stupid move. You pissed off the one person in the whole damn city that not even the craziest thugs would dare threaten."

"And now my brother is getting the same treatment I gave Puscilli Junior, yeah. The only problem is I don't know where he's being kept."

"And that's where I come in?"

"Bingo." He laughed.

I crossed my arms and moved closer to him. "What's in it for me?"

"Cash, fame, anything you want." He spread his arms open, almost like he was promising me the world. "Whatever you desire, I will provide. It's my gift to you."

"Your brother means that much to you?"

Jeff cackled. He laughed for a solid minute as if I had told the funniest joke on Earth. "Haha, oh no. Family doesn't mean shit to me. I just want to see the look on Puscilli's face when he realizes I've beaten him at his own game. Stealing my brother back from under his nose would be greater satisfaction than any sex you or I have ever had."

I squinted at him. I could tell by the way he looked and by the tone of his voice he wasn't bullshitting me like some other clients. The question remained, was I willing to take the job? I had heard rumors about Jeff. He was unstable. He was a lunatic. He killed anybody or anything that stood in his way of getting what he wanted.

"I want to ask one question." He stared at me, intrigue written all over his face. "If I decide to not take the job, are you going to kill me?"

He downed the rest of his tea before answering. "The plan was never to kill you. If you take the job, all the better for me. If you don't, I'll just have to settle for the second best Bounty Hunter this city can offer. No hard feelings."

I inhaled deeply, and let out a loud sigh. "Unlike my other clients, I actually believe you're telling the truth. You could just as easily lie."

"A killer I may be, but a liar I am not."

It was slight, but something in his demeanor changed when he uttered those words. He seemed to relax for a moment. As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared just as fast. "Will you take the job, or am I wasting my time?"

I studied him one last time. His sunken eyes, and that wide smile. Despite his crazed appearance I could tell there was something else underneath. Something he hid from the world. I felt that itch to know more about him as soon as I sensed the hint of whatever he was hiding.

"I want one grand up front and another grand once the job's complete. If problems or complications occur, I have the right to renegotiate my terms and conditions regardless of the initial agreed upon pay. Do we have a deal?" I held out my hand.

He grasped my hand. "Deal."

Once again, he had that look on his face that made me wonder if I was making the smartest move, or a move that would send me to an early grave.

We met up the next night at a little diner about thirty minutes away from my apartment. The name of the diner was Blue Moon Jack's All Night Diner. It had an old school style to it, with red vinyl seats and a jukebox in the back. The floors and walls looked dingy as hell, and the air smelled like grease.

We asked for a booth near the back and ordered as soon as the waitress came over. We wanted as little interruption as possible. Jeff wore a mask and a pair of sunglasses inside. Nobody seemed to care. Our food came out quickly, and we ate as we discussed the job.

"You said Puscilli kidnapped your brother, right?"

"Not Puscilli personally, but yes." Jeff squirted ketchup on his fries.

"Do you know your brother's last known whereabouts?"

"Around the South end of the city, I think. I knew he was trying to track me down."

"Why was he tracking you down?" I took a sip of coke. It tasted flat without whiskey.

"Revenge. He had been previously incarcerated for something I had done. He sent me letters from prison. They were nice at first, but the longer he was in the slammer, the more aggressive they became. He lost his mind. He escaped during a prison riot and has been looking for me ever since."

"How do you know he's been tracking you?"

"Brotherly intuition."

"That's not a thing." I pointed out. "Do you have actual proof that he had been trying to hunt you down?"

"I have connections near where Liu had been incarcerated at. When I hadn't heard from them in a while I sent some other guys to check on them. They were killed with notes scrawled in their blood that mentioned me."

"Did the trail of bodies continue?"

"Up until last week. The trail went dead around the South side, like I mentioned before. I was working in that area until Puscilli's kid started getting the idea he could take over. That's also the same week bodies stopped showing up."

"Makes sense." I looked out the window of the diner out onto the street. "Puscilli's not the type to threaten anyone directly. He uses what he knows to his advantage. Let's say you did him dirty. He knows you've been married for ten years. He also knows you have a little thing on the side. He'll torture you psychologically until you can't take the pressure anymore and buckle."

I could feel Jeff's gaze on me despite the sunglasses. "You know a lot about him."

I shrugged. "I've had my run in with him."

"What did you do?" I could feel that wicked smile in the way he asked me.

"Nothing. I was just a kid back then."

I ended the conversation there. I circled back to the point of the meeting. I needed more information before I could start working. I asked Jeff if Liu had any friends or if they had any surviving family that Liu would try to visit other than him. Jeff couldn't think of anybody.

"Well," he muttered. "There might be one person."

"A friend?"

He shook his head. "Not exactly. More like...like a fling."

"An ex lover?"

"Yeah. She lives in Rimestone. Sort of near that fountain of Puscilli's wife."

"Would Liu have had a reason to visit her?"

"If he was in a bad state of mind, yes. She was his only sanity for a long while."

Jeff drew out the word long to emphasize their relationship. I had tracked down more dangerous criminals on less information. We agreed to start in Rimestone the next night. We exited the diner and went our separate ways. Before parting I asked Jeff for her full name.

"Oh, shit, yeah, uh, hang on." Jeff paced back and forth a minute while muttering to himself.

"Violet. Violet Justice, I think."

"You're serious? That's a name?"

"Don't look at me. I didn't pick it."

With that, we left. He went to do whatever he did when he was alone. I was going to head home, but something about the name tugged at me. I had to find out why that name sounded so familiar.