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“I was here earlier tonight,” I say, holding my wrist out in evidence. “Lost my phone inside and really need to get hold of it.”
“Come back tomorrow.”
I pass him a hundred, and he stares at the folded note with a slight frown before jerking his head towards the corner. I follow, on high alert in case his apparent acquiescence turns out to be a trap, but he leads me to a side door, punching in a six-digit code to gain entry.
He stays outside and I walk into the main room as the pneumatic door swings closed and locks behind me. A few dozen patrons are still dotted around the floor, some dancing to the music, set to a slower tempo than had been playing earlier.
A young woman behind the bar shakes her head as I approach. “We’re past closing, sorry.”
“I’m not after a drink. I’m looking for a guy who was working here earlier. Goatee. Dark hair. Mid-thirties.”
She nods at the description, then checks behind her as though worried someone’s watching. “He finished his shift.”
There’s a wealth more information behind the sentence than the face value of the words. Her eyes glance to the side, where the door leads to the patio. The same place I took Emilia earlier tonight.
My gut tightens, abdomen pulling up in response to a surge of adrenaline. “I’ll just grab a breath of fresh air.”
She nods, frowning at the floor, then snatches a cloth and starts wiping down the counter, though it’s already clean.
The door is unlocked, and I push it wide, using a wedge to prop it open. The bartender glances over from where he’s sitting, smoking, a glass of dark spirits on the table in front of him.
“We’re closed, mate,” he calls out, then smirks as he recognises me. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you get enough earlier?”
I wait a few metres away, for him to finish smoking, for him to stand. Never say I don’t believe in a fair fight.
“Piss off, will you?” he calls out after a minute of silence. “I’ve just worked a ten-hour shift.”
I stare at my hands. With my new job starting Monday, I want to keep them in as pristine condition as possible. The last thing I need is someone turning amateur sleuth based on nothing but the state of my hands.
“You know,” I say in a friendly tone, like we just got off work together, and he invited me out here to unwind. “My life wasn’t meant to turn out like this.”
“You and me both.” He chuckles to himself, relaxing back in the chair until the front legs rise off the ground, keeping it steady with a leg propped against the table. “Tending bar was an interim job until my actual career got off the ground.”
I nod. “Same.” I leave a brief pause. “Except my job isn’t bartending, obviously.”
“Yeah.” He sounds put out again, tossing his butt to the ground and standing to grind it dead with his heel. “Cool story. Another time, maybe.”
“I was forced into the family business.”
His eyes survey me, impatient.
The cold air means I’m now wearing the jacket for my bespoke suit, even though I’d done without earlier. I pull at the cuffs of my shirt, enjoying the way everything settles flush against my body, a perfect fit.
“It wasn’t the life I would have chosen for myself.” I hold my hand out in front of me, not a single tremor showing though the adrenaline pumps through my body in ever greater quantities. “I tried to get out once. I would have made it if my wife hadn’t turned out to be a gigantic whore.”
“Great chat,” he scoffs. “When you’re done reminiscing, close the door on your way through, yeah?”
He claps me on the shoulder and gets one step past before I crack him in the back of his neck with my elbow, mash my hand across his mouth to muffle his cries, kick his ankle to make him stumble, then drag him a metre to the side to slam his skull against the breezeblock wall.
It makes such a deliciously rewarding sound in the still morning air that I do it again. And again. Once more for good luck and I let go, stepping back as I wait to see the result.
He staggers forward three steps, arms flailing, then falls to his knees. I dart behind him to grab his neck in a headlock, hauling backwards until I see stars and the world is a muffled bass beat in my ears.
One hand scrabbles at my arm, trying to loosen the chokehold, while his other fist hammers at me, catching a glancing blow to my cheekbone, the bridge of my nose, my forehead.
As the air supply to his brain falters, his arms grow steadily weaker before they drop with the same boneless feel as Emilia’s collapse. I haul him upward, exerting sustained pressure for another few seconds to ensure he’s out, then I let him drop.
The back of his head makes a satisfying crunch as it lands on the hard concrete.
