Elephant Graveyard

Here is my second weekly flash fiction story. This one is crime genre. Please share and subscribe.

Elephant Graveyard

Hampton was not looking forward to lunch with T. Nobody looked forward to an encounter with T. If you were on T.’s side, you simply survived. If you weren’t, you simply didn’t.

“How ya doin’, kid,” said T. as Hampton approached him outside the restaurant entrance.

T. had aged but did not look his age. He was spare but still taut. The close-cropped hair said Marine, but the salt said drill sergeant not active duty.

They were seated at Hampton’s usual private table in the back.

“How are the kids?” asked T.

“Jake’s at Notre Dame. Loves it. Molly’s into lacrosse. Crazy sport. Did you know the ancient Iroquois played matches that lasted for days and covered whole villages?”

The waiter glided over and recited the specials.

Hampton needed to see for himself. He had heard chatter about the older man’s slipping. If Hampton had known it for sure, this lunch wouldn’t be happening. T. already would be dead.

“Could you repeat the first special?” asked T. when the waiter reappeared.

Hampton was glad he had done this himself. He owed it to T., who went back to the early days with Hampton’s father. Of course, anything required after this would be outsourced. The boss did not do wet work.

The two men spent the next hour making small talk which for them mostly involved their shared business and transactions old and new.

“No trouble on that last job? Phoenix can be tricky.”

“It was Tucson,” corrected T. “No trouble.”

Hampton remembered this man coming and going in his boyhood home. Huddling with his old man. Then leaving each time like a ghost.

“Not to be uncivil but any particular reason for the get-together?” asked T.

“Can’t a guy break bread with his godfather? I dunno, maybe I’m just getting sentimental, been missing my dad lately.”

In this line there was no gold watch. No 401(k). Any slip in facilities could be fatal. The price of sentimentality was prohibitive.

The sporadic conversation continued with T. as sparse as ever with words but showing uncanny recall of both recent jobs and legendary hits that Hampton knew only as nursery tales.

“It was simpler then,” said T. in a rare unsolicited reflection. “Written instructions. Paper maps.”

The two got up to leave. No bill came. It never did. 

“It isn’t apparent, maybe I’m being premature,” thought Hampton, with relief.

“How are the kids?” asked T. as they walked to the door.

The question was harmless enough. But the re-ask in such short order hit Hampton hard.  

Hampton’s shopworn heart was heavy as they rode the garage elevator down. He knew what this meant, what he was going to have to do.

Outside Hampton’s car the two men turned to embrace. The younger man tried to swallow any emotion. He could read nothing in T.’s face. Things were unchanged in that regard.

As they hugged, Hampton barely felt the long blade until it exited his back. The old killer gently laid his boss on the smooth cold pavement and cradled his head for the final moments.

“You were always my father's favorite,” whispered the dying man.

“That I remember,” said T.