The Fixer, cont.

She imagined a hardened criminal-type with a three-day growth of beard and small black-glassy eyes; or a tall man with no neck, no personality, and no talent for communication. She was wrong on both accounts. He wasn't classically handsome. What does that mean? Did he have a roman nose, or was he six-foot all, or was he classical? No, he was ordinary. He had black - jet black - hair. It was the kind that showed blue highlights in the sun. His eyes were black - not brown - black - piercing black, but everything else was ordinary. He wasn't one of a fabulous build, he didn't stand out in the crowd except that he was dark.

And he did dark things for a living - his whole existence was dark. He was the fixer, the one who took care of any problems.

Just as she had given up, deciding hat he wasn't going to show and that she would have to bear the bad news to her boss, he appeared. He stepped out of a horse-drawn cab.

The mechanics of this new post-nuclear era were strange. People looked back to a simpler time, they wanted the feeling of the 1800s but without the work. They concentrated on an effort to survive, so the cars became horses, the mechanical kind. They looked like a horse, they had hair just like one, and they even had that tangy smell all horses carry, but in place of a heart, in place of a brain, there was an engine and a computer chip. The only thing you had to feed a mechanical horse was a little oil once a month. But this moves us away from our topic.

He stood up -- out of the cab,and she didn't know what to think. He wasn't what she had expected. She believed he probably wasn't what anyone expected. He didn't fit the profile, but none of them really did. He was wearing the long-fur coat. His was of black bear, it matched his eyes and his hair. He wore black boots and he looked dark, always dark.

"What information do you have for me?" he asked without preamble.

"Could we go somewhere a little less conspicuous? she asked.

"No, here will be fine. Tell me what is so important that they brought me to this God forsaken place. Do they have heat here? Ever?"

"Alright, here it is. Juneau has become the man. You are to find him, neutralize the situation, and then neutralize him."

"Juneau? You must be joking. He's been out of the picture for at least five years. Where are you getting your information? Do you have the slightest idea what could happen if I neutralize Juneau and then he's the wrong man? Do you understand the repercussions?"

"Do I understand the repercussions, he asks. Of course I do. Do you think I like freezing my ass off out here to tell you the former director of covert operations is the man? Do you really think that someone I have had a personal relationship with for 15 years is the man? Do you? I don't want to be the one telling you this, I don't want to know who you are, or what you look like. I don't want to know that you are the fixer. And I really don't want to know the repercussions of your job, but I do. If you neutralize Juneau and he isn't the one, the whole organization collapses, because someone has been playing us all for fools. Our lives will be worth nothing. Oh, yes, Mr. Fixer, I know the repercussions."