“Go ahead, but if I see something shiny and black come out of your ass, I’m not going to wait long enough for you to turn around and spoil my evening.”

As Derek slowly removed his wallet, he was thankful that his wife had chosen the brown wallet instead of the black one for the birthday gift she bought for him. He tossed it over his shoulder and heard it hit the floor. Ralph bent over, keeping his Colt fixed on Derek, picked up the wallet, thumbed it open, and saw the glossy business card tucked in between a few hundred dollar bills.

“So far, so good, Derek. Now I want you to turn yourself around and give me your undivided attention.” Derek turned slowly around, his hands still in the air. “So, let me ask you, what do you mean by ‘your services?’”

“I am a Freelance Detective. My clients hire me to assist them in locating and resolving issues.”

“Freelance Detective, you say? Now, I’ve been in law enforcement for a lot of years. But I have to admit that I’ve never heard of a ‘freelance detective’ during those my years.”

“I have some experience in the detective field. Eight years as an MP with the Army and three years with the Columbus Ohio police department.”

“Yippee for you. But that still doesn’t explain what the hell a freelance detective is.”

“I am retained by private clients to assist them ...”

“Yup, I kind of deduced that part already,” Ralph said, cutting Derek off mid-sentence. “Let’s try this a different way. Are you one of them private eyes?”

“Not really, but sort of.”

“Well, that certainly clears up this whole situation.”

“Sorry to be so vague.”

“Is that what you call it? Being vague? I’d be more likely to say you are monkey punting around the truth. To me, ‘freelance detective’ sounds like something an assassin would call himself or herself, depending on the particular assassin.  You an assassin?”

“Not at all. I don’t kill anyone. Just locate them, isolate them, render them powerless if needed, and then alert local authorities. Basically, I do what a detective does, but I don’t have to worry about following all the protocols.”

“When I was down in Texas,” Ralph said, pointing the Colt directly at Derek’s chest, “I was the fire chief in my town’s volunteer fire department. I always use to say there are two types of firefighters: one who follows the rules and listens to the officers, and the other type, who may or may not be as well trained, hell, may even be better trained, but goes off and does things the way he thinks they should be done. Come to think of it, I think I actually called that second type of fire fighter a ‘freelancer.’

“Now, here is the problem as I see it, Derek. Freelancers get themselves into situations way more often than do those who follow the rules. And when a freelancer gets himself into a situation, me, as fire chief, would have to send someone else in to get the freelancer out of the situation. That means that I have to risk injury or death for one of my rule followers to save the freelancer’s ass.

“Derek, I have to tell you that I don’t like saving a freelancer’s ass by putting my own ass or the ass of someone else at risk.”

“I don’t blame you at all. But let me tell you how I see things,” Derek said.

“I can’t wait to hear your side of things, Derek.”

“Let’s say that that freelancer’s wife is trapped inside a burning building and the other fire fighters won’t even try to save her because of protocol. Would you blame the freelancer for running in and at least trying to save his wife?”

“Can’t say that I would.”

“And if the freelancer was prevented from going in after his wife, who ends up dying in the fire, could you understand how the freelancer may feel about following protocol?”

“I suppose a man might be prone to think ill about any protocol that he thinks prevented his wife from being saved. I’m with you so far.”

“Let me ask you, . . Uh, I don’t know what to call you?”

“Let’s start with referring to me as ‘the only man in the room with a gun.’ Unless you have something stuffed in your waistband.”

“Nothing stuffed in my waistband Mr. ‘only man in the room with a gun,’ sir.”

“Good to hear. Proceed with your story,”

“When I was on the police force in Columbus, my wife was held captive during a bank robbery gone bad.  A spaced-out loser with a Glock held her and five others at gunpoint. I knew the bank and knew that I could get in the rear entrance, walk up, and pop the bastard before he knew what I was doing. But, I wasn’t allowed to do it. I wasn’t allowed to ‘freelance.’

“Another ten minutes goes by, with me trying to convince my Captain that I could get in and make the whole problem go away. He kept telling me about the department’s ‘protocol’ and how we needed to wait for a hostage negotiator.

“Then we heard the shots. Three of them. One for my wife, one for some eighteen-year-old kid, and one for himself. Bastard killed my wife and a kid, then shot himself dead in the head.

“So you see, Mr. ‘only one in the room with a gun’ how I may just feel about following protocols?”

“Turn around and face that wall,” Ralph said without pause.

As Derek turned, he heard Ralph move closer, and then he felt himself being frisked.

“Okay, freelancing Derek, you can turn around now.”

Derek turned to see Ralph lowering his Colt.

“The name is Ralph Fox. And just because I put my trusty peacemaker down doesn’t mean that I won’t pull it back up if you decide to do something stupid.”

“Understood, Ralph.”

“You said you was hired by a Thomas O’Connell, did ya?”

“Yes sir. He hired me to protect him from his brother, Alexander, who my client believes has already killed three men. The three men who, I have to believe were found in this room.”

“I’d say your client is right about Alexander killing people.”

Derek looked around the room, noting the blood-stained couch and splatter stains on the ceiling and walls.

“What the hell happened in this room?” he asked.

“Something that was pretty damn fatal.”

Derek, relieved from the stress he was feeling when a gun was being pointed at him, regained his level of curiosity.

“Not sure if you or your team discovered this yet, but there is a trap door under the bed here.” Derek moved the institutional looking bed to reveal the opening in the floor.