Why didn't Julian tell Danny the truth about his last job?

Question

At the end of The Matador Julian asks Danny for help with a last job he needs to do in order to be free and not get killed by his boss, to which Danny reluctantly agrees. But then after it's done he tells Danny that he didn't have a job and they actually just killed Julian's boss and he is safe now.

Now I wonder why Julian didn't tell this to Danny right away. It seems Danny would have had less concerns with helping to kill Julian's assassin boss, who after all wanted to kill Julian, rather than some supposedly innocent business victim. What did Julian gain by this subterfuge? Was there anything more to it apart from Julian being a nag (and a nice twist for the audience)?

Answer 1

If I had to take a stab at it, I would wager that assassinating an assassin's handler would be orders of magnitude more risky than an average mark.

Who's to say that the assassin's handler didn't have assassins guarding him and/or posted at strategic points with rifles of their own?

Danny had a family and quite a lot to live for and would have been more likely to say 'no' if he knew that the mark would be high profile.

Still, was a dick move on Julian's part.