THE BRAND

“Your food, sir.”

Elmer Henshaw pointed to the corner of the table as he scrolled through pictures on his phone. They showed the metal frame and foundation of a 200,000 square-foot facility. Once complete, it would double his operation, allowing him to export to Europe. Unlike other marijuana products, his caused no long-term damage to the human body or mind, save for a crippling addiction. He set down his phone—What do I know about construction?—and slid over his wine and filet mignon.

“Is everything all right?” asked the woman at his side, half his age.

“Yes, quite.”

She raised her glass. “Cheers. To tonight.” They drank.

After a few minutes, she rose abruptly and swaggered toward the bathrooms. “Excuse me.”

She returned very quickly, or so Elmer thought until he looked up from his steak. A middle-aged man had taken the woman’s place. He was well dressed, like everyone in the restaurant, but unimpressive.

“Who are you?” Elmer demanded.

The man handed him a small, folded piece of paper. It read, There is a gun aimed at you. If you make a scene or raise your voice, you will be shot seven times. I am here to kill you, tell me why I shouldn’t.

Elmer’s heart pounded, but he lowered his voice. “Who hired you?”

The man never met Elmer’s glare, only ever showing his profile. “I’ll give you five minutes to plead your case. Don’t waste it.”

“What are they paying you?” Elmer asked. He got no answer. “I’ll give you double to take them out instead.”

Silence.

“Five million for my life.”

The man didn’t flinch.

“Ten million,” Elmer pleaded.

The man hooked a finger around the collar of his shirt and pulled to the side, revealing a small symbol burnt into his skin near his collar bone. Elmer knew exactly what it meant: this man was a member of The Deep, a network of people controlled by nothing but their personal principles. They were capable of doing whatever they thought best, even if it went against their own impulses and hopes. Bribery was probably futile. This man probably wasn’t hired by anyone. He probably wasn’t even a trained assassin, though he no doubt trained for this moment. He was here because some principle of his said that the best thing that he could do was kill Elmer Henshaw.

Five minutes. That was probably literal, which meant Elmer had only three minutes left to live, to convince the man that, in the grand scheme of the universe, he should continue to live. He was breathing rapidly now; he didn’t handle pressure well.

“You can’t kill me. There are too many witnesses.”

“Do you really think I care if I’m caught?”

Of course not, Elmer mentally answered. He had heard that no fear, no pain, no punishment could dissuade a member of The Deep. “Why do you think I should die? I haven’t killed anyone. I haven’t broken any law!”

“You haven’t taken a life, but how many lives have you destroyed?”

“I didn’t make them buy my product. The label warns that it can be addictive.”

“You made a safe variant of marijuana. It could have had legitimate uses, but you kept it secret,” the man explained in monotone. “You changed the formula to make it addictive and pushed it out to the masses.”

“What does killing me accomplish?” Elmer paused, choking. He cleared his throat. “My company will go on.”

“When you die, your secret will be exposed, and your company will become a villain in the eyes of the world.”

“They’ll never find out.”

“Not everyone who knows your secret is loyal to you. How do you think I found out?”

Elmer clenched his jaw. It couldn’t end this way. How could one random man stop him? “What about my wife and child?”

“You are actively ruining their lives by seeing other women.”

“It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”

“Here’s what you have to do,” the man said. “First, issue a press release detailing what you did. Then, go back to the original formula; get rid of the addictive properties.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Very well.” The man stood. It had been five minutes.

Elmer shrank back, but the man simply walked away. “Where are you going?”

The man pushed through the door. Elmer tried to shout after him but coughed instead, spraying wine across the white tablecloth. He gulped more of the beverage to calm his throat, but it burned. He coughed again. Thick, red globules splattered his food. Not wine, he was coughing up blood.

The server was asking if he was alright, but he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to answer. Five minutes, Elmer thought. It wasn’t a chance to plead my case; it was how long he needed to distract me for the poison to take hold. He knew I would never yield.