Explaining things to the mob lawyers!
Forty grand also buys me a ‘assistant,’ Toledo Pete groused to himself two days later. Like I need one. The guy had shown up the previous night: he called himself Vinnie, and wouldn’t give a last name. That made things a little awkward, because Pete had stopped being a trusting sort about five minutes after hearing his first siren. The monster kind. But a quick call to Joey confirmed that yeah, Vinnie was going to do a ride-along. Just to make the clients feel better about all the money they were spending, capisce?
“All right,” Pete said. “But if he dies, he dies.” He said that as flatly as he could. It must have succeeded, because after he said that it got a little quiet on the phone.
Eventually Joey replied, “Maybe you should try to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Or maybe you should try and get another monster hunter,” Pete said without hesitation. “I’ll give you the fee back right now; you can go find an idiot who’ll try to take care of the job and your guy. This ain’t like cleaning out rats or wasps. Hell, it ain’t like cleaning out a cave full of grizzlies. These things, they like to eat faces, and they’re good at it.”