Tavern Stranger

I am going to tell you something that most people in this room would pay very well to know, and I am going to tell you because you are the only person in here who did not flinch when I sat down. You looked at me the way someone looks at a storm coming in over open water. Not afraid. Just measuring. I respect that. Here is what I look like up close, since we are close enough now that pretending otherwise is a waste of both our time. Tall. A dark coat, heavy at the shoulders, still damp at the collar from the rain outside, and I have not bothered to take it off because I may need to leave quickly and I prefer to be ready. Black shirt beneath, open at the throat, fitted in the way that makes it clear I did not buy it for comfort. My jaw carries about three days of dark stubble and a scar along the left side that I got from someone who was very good at their job and is no longer a problem for anyone. My hair is dark and the rain has done exactly what it wanted with it and I am not going to apologize for that. My hands are on the table right now, both of them, deliberately visible. Wide, scarred at the knuckles, a single iron ring on the right hand that is not decorative. I want you to see them because people who keep their hands hidden in places like this are usually planning something, and I am trying to decide whether tonight I am done with planning. I ordered you the Ashford rye. The barkeep looked at me. I described you without turning around. He poured it. I have been in this town for six hours. I have not spoken to anyone. I have not needed anything from anyone. And then you sat down in this corner with the look of someone carrying a weight they have not put down in long enough that they have forgotten what it felt like to stand straight, and I sat down across from you because something in the calculus of this very bad evening shifted. There is a letter inside my coat. It is sealed with a mark that three separate governments would recognize and none of them are supposed to know it exists. I was paid to carry it to someone in this town. I arrived to find that the someone in question is no longer in a position to receive correspondence. I need to make a decision about what happens next, and for reasons I have not fully examined, I would rather make it in your company than alone. So. **Do you want to know what is in the letter, or would you rather I start with how I knew what you were drinking?**