Another component of Five Talents is the mafia that owns a restaurant where my depressed chef, Sally Degneri “works.” The mafia happen to have an assassin working as his waitress- a plant for when the time comes to break ties with their chef. This is my introduction of a mythos of assassins having a bar where you can find and hire them:
There are myths of a bar where killers drink and dine.
You may think I’m telling you about a specific bar in a specific city, but you’d be wrong.
In every city, in true cities with enough crowds for the faceless and nameless to blend and disappear into, the bar puts up shop for those faceless wanderers to find their refuge and repast.
In every true city, where you may see a particular face once and never again, the bar is there. In every true city where you may see a particular face every day of your life and never realize you’ve seen it before among the masses of strangers to you, the bar is there.
The bar is where these faceless killers have their easy truce, the honor among killers. Where no weapons are drawn, no contracts executed, only taken. It is where the words of those looking to hire these faceless men and women reach them, and where they take the jobs only the faceless can deliver.
You know this bar is in your city.
It could be that dive bar that’s worn and musty, that never has a crowd except the grizzled regulars who barely register your presence. It could be the lounge where the wait staff are quick, professional, and efficient and the chairs just modern and trendy enough that you can’t get comfortable enough to stay more than an hour or two. Perhaps even, it’s the unmarked brick building marked only by a neon light bulb sign reading “BAR” that you doubt is actually open because the sign is never lit.
That bar does open, and it only wants the faceless who don’t need to check Yelp for its hours and reviews (it’s closed on Saturdays and Sundays, but does have 4.5 Stars from 182 reviews). The rest are welcome to pass through, but they’ll likely notice nothing unusual about any of the denizens in this bar.
These bars have owners, and more than bartender, brewer, or business man, that owner is an intermediary for the faceless and those with contracts they want filled.
In Los Angeles, the bar has an owner. That owner is a father. His daughter helped as bartender.
Until she was hired by Benny.
optionalirony.com 