A Chance Encounter

"You're him right. You're Max."

"Yeah," said Max as he changed the clip in his gun. He had spent several rounds and now the jackets lay about him like a lazy dog. He stood before the downed tracker, who was just a freaking kid.

The tracker looked up at him and smiled. "Finally, a chance to meet the legend himself. And I can't believe he's going to be the one to finish me off. That's so cool."

"Well, after all, you did try to kill me," Max said. He squatted down over the soldier and reached inside his pocket and pulled out a neon pink book of matches, the logo stating that they were from Club Hanky Panky.

"No offense man, just doing my job," the tracker said, laying his head on the concrete. The tracker chuckled.

"None taken," Max replied. He lit two cigarettes and took a long puff from them both, then he took one and gave it to the kid. Max stood up.

"Before you do this, can I get your autograph? Make it out for my mother." The kid told him what to say on it. Max wrote it inside the matchbook. "Can you send that to her?" the soldier asked.

"Sure kid," Max smiled.

The soldier cracked a huge smile, his lips bloody. "My mother's a huge fan of yours. It'll do her good knowing her son was taken out by the best there is."

"Why don't you give it to her yourself, kid," Max said. He dropped the matchbook on the ground beside the soldier. "What's your name?"

"Dobie, sir."

"Dobie eh?" Max chuckled. "I like that."

There was a long pause, then the kid coughed.

"When you need a better line of work, look me up, Dobie," Max said as he dialed 911 on a cellphone and dropped it beside the kid and walked down the alley like a shadow being consumed by night.