EP-ANRE-MA180722

Mikey's bar smelled like stale beer and stale people. It had never seen better days. It had been settled into existence as a decrepit shithole and it had been a decrepit shithole its entire existence. The only living creature that genuinely enjoyed this place were the flies, who got in through the holes in the screen door, or the busted windows in the back by the bathrooms where no mortal with a functioning sense of smell dare tread.

There was a single knock on the doorframe.

"Yo Mikey!" A deep voice, smooth but hard like asphalt.

"What?!"

"Just making sure you folks are open," the deep voice said. An obvious East Coast accent. Something underneath that Mikey couldn't care enough - or was too thick-headed - to pick up on. A man pushed the door open.

\*Fuck he's tall,\* Mikey thought. Imposing. Military style haircut, dark, a jaw that looked like it was used by prison inmates to smash rocks, and two cold gray eyes. "How the fuck you know my name?"

The man jerked back a thumb. "The place is called Mikey's ain't it?" He didn't smile, just jutted his jaw forward in mild amusement. "C'n I have a beer?"

Mikey was uncomfortable, which wasn't uncommon. Michael Jordan - his parents had been cruel - was almost always uncomfortable. He was a heavyset man for who hygiene was a concept that appealed in theory but in practice included too many things he'd been raised to consider girly and sissy. He also wasn't very good with people. It was part of Mikey's Bar's advertised "charm". But this wasn't his usual discomfort. This was the discomfort of a man who usually strongarms and stinkeyes and occasionally blackmailed people finding himself intimidated. Reluctantly, he poured the man a beer and set it down in front of him.

"You got a name, stranger? Not a lot of people come through these parts we don't know."

The stranger looked him in the eyes again for a few seconds, those dead, grey eyes, and moved his jaw like he was chatting something over. Mikey felt like he was being tested. "Name's Mark, Mikey." No looking away, not even blinking. Mikey's eyes started to sting a bit. Mark drank his beer and Mikey sighed with relief at the reprieve.

"Still haven't answered my question, friend. Why're you down here?"

"First time you asked me that question, Mikey."

Mikey glared at him.

"You keep running your mouth, friend, and we run it out for you. This is..."

\*"I know whose territory this is, Mikey."\*

The stranger's whisper cut through the air. Mark looked left and right, seemingly not out of nervousness but to appraise the location again.

"A friend suggested this place."

Mikey frowned.

"Bout a week ago. Yae big, suit, official type."

Mikey snatched the glass from the bar. Or rather, he was going to. The stranger's hand had shot out like snake and had the bite of one too, and Mikey couldn't help but wince.

"He probably asked a whole bunch of questions you weren't very keen on answering."

"Who... Who are..."

Mark's other hand shot out, grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his face onto the glass. Mikey was in pain. His eyes hurt. His face hurt. He was dazed and now, properly scared. Mark dragged him halfway over the bar and brought his mouth level with Mikey's ear.

"You know those CIA spooks, when they eh, when they try to intimidate people from these podunk trailer parks, they eh, they'll do this thing where they show you a picture of a crater, right. And they'll tell you that's what's gonna happen unless you cooperate, right? Predator missile right up your collective ass holes, you know?"

He barely paused, his voice a slow monotonous whisper that hit Mikey's brain like hammer on an old cupcake.

"See my friend last week should have done that but that ain't the kind of person he is. He's a bit soft but he's a good guy, you know. So when y'all cut him up like that they sent me."

Mikey's mouth was full of blood, but he managed a whisper.

"W- whhhho"

Mark pulled him over the bar and shattered his windpipe with a single kick. As Mikey's world slowly went black, Mark leaned in and looked into his dying eyes. "I'm your own personal predator missile, Mikey."

Mark straightened up and called a number as he walked out of the bar overlooking the biker gang's trailer Park.

"It's me. Yeah, it's definitely them. I'll find the girl. Yeah. No promises, ma'am. Yeah. Collateral out."