“I don’t think we can do this.”
“It’s just a grilled cheese. With Banks and Amber gone, Chef García deserves the day off.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Although you are burning it.”
Alfonso turns back to the stove and sees the smoke coming from his frying pan. Quickly he flips the sandwich. Blackened bread stares up at him.
“You’re right, we can’t do this.”
Ricardo steps in front of his friend, turning down the heat.
“So what are you talking about?” Alfonso asks.
“Banks.”
“Aren’t we always…”
“This time it’s different,” Ricardo says, poking at the blackened sandwich.
“What do you mean?”
“What we’re doing. I don’t know if we should go through with it.”
The comment slaps Alfonso across the face, the way only something you could never have seen coming would.
“What? You were the one who started this whole thing. You were the one who wanted this.”
“I know I am. And I know he’s crazy and only gotten crazier in the past few months. I just…I don’t know…isn’t he kind of…our friend?”
“Our friend?” Alfonso asks and Ricardo looks a bit sheepish at the comment. “He murders people for a living.”
“He’s an assassin, we’ve always accepted that. He’s the good guy, killing the bad guys, remember?”
“And lately? Since the incident, is that still the case? Can we continue to lie to ourselves that he’s the good guy?”
“No, but—”
“No. We can’t. Because now he’s killing for no reason. He’s killing not on the job. He’s killing and not getting paid. That’s called murder.”
“I think it’s always called murder, paid or not,” Ricardo responds.
“You know what I mean.”
“But he’s a friend.”
“Okay, even for argument’s sake, let’s put aside the fact that he murders people for no damn reason, and because of us, he gets away with it. And let’s look at the fact that the man has not once in ten years ever done something with us outside of work. Let’s remember the countless times we have invited him out, or invited him over, or planned an evening to hang out, only to have him ignore our invitation or shrug us off without even the courtesy of lying about being busy. The man does not care about us. He does not care about anyone. In ten years, we’ve never even received a thank you for the work we do. He’s a crazed murderer, not our friend. He’s made that very clear.”
Ricardo flips the grilled cheese off the pan and onto a plate, revealing he too burned the bread to complete blackness.
“And what if Amber’s changed all that?” Ricardo asks.
“The nurse?”
“He loves her.”
“The man’s not capable of love.”
“She’s changed him.”
“He’s not capable of change.”
“Is he not capable of change, or are you not capable of seeing it?” Ricardo asks, while cutting the blackened grilled cheese and handing half to Alfonso.
“What are you talking about?”
“He thanked me last night, on the beach, for some advice about love.”
“You shared a moonlit beach chat about love with Banks?”
Ricardo laughs, “Yeah,” and takes a bite of his grilled cheese.
“That’s…It’s just not…he really thanked you?” Alfonso is speechless, lost in thought, and takes a bite of his sandwich as well. After chewing through the charred mess, he shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter, one thank you in ten years doesn’t mean he’s changed. It doesn’t change who he is. The lives he’s taken, the lives he will surely continue to take…one thank you doesn’t wipe that slate clean.”
“No. No it doesn’t, but it might show he’s moving in the right direction. Maybe with some help from us, his friends, he could become a better person. Learn some self-control. Or at least get back to who he used to be.”
“Again with the friends thing. We don’t owe him anything. He’s made it very clear, he is not our friend and he never will be our friend.”
“Then why’d he call me his friend last night?”
The comment stops Alfonso mid-bite. His eyes lock on his friend, looking for the laughter in his gaze, trying to figure out the joke. It’s not there. The man is deadly serious. They stare at each other, neither saying a word. Slowly they both take a bite of their sandwiches, thinking, wondering. Why now? What’s changed?
“Amber,” Alfonso finally says.
“The nurse,” Ricardo repeats.
“I don’t think we can do this.”
“Not to our friend.”
The surprise and revelation is short lived as Alfonso’s face darkens with fear. The realization hitting him all at once. No words need to be spoken. Ricardo can see the facts plain as day on his friend’s face.
“No.” Ricardo can’t believe it. Not like this. Not now.
“Yes…” Alfonso says, his eyes meeting his friend’s in a panic of misery. “I made the call this morning.”
Shocked and defeated, the two fall into chairs at the kitchen table.
“Tonight?”
“No. They should be safe tonight. Word still has to travel from my contact all the way up to El Bandido. It’ll happen tomorrow night at the summit soiree, just like we planned.”
“So we have time?”
“But no plan.”
“That we can come up with tonight…after we get some real food, cause this…” Ricardo holds up the half-eaten black monstrosity of a grilled cheese, “is disgusting.”