"Incident at a Diner," by Chris Miller, in Dead-End Jobs: A Hitman Anthology, edited by Andy Rausch, All Due Respect, 2021.
This is one of those stories that grew on me, meaning I liked it better the more I thought about it. There are so many moving pieces it takes a while to sort everything out.
Sam and Millie are meeting for breakfast in a diner in rural Texas. They are deep in lust and soaking in guilt because Sam is cheating on his wife.
But they aren't the only people having trouble in that joint. A man and woman are arguing furiously about something. Two gangster-types from New Jersey are complaining about an associate has screwed up. And then there's the old cowboy who seems to have his own agenda. How is this all going to work out? And, let's remember: why is this story in a book about hit men?
The climax surprised me a lot.
