I woke up late in the afternoon on the same day. It was actually almost evening, and Lara was missing from the room, which was unusual because she would typically wait for me. Anyway, I didn’t care to know where she was, and I got up, took a shower, shaved my beard, put on a new set of dirty clothes—I rotated them to avoid soiling some of them more than the others—and at last, I set on the task of cleaning my weapon. You always have to remember to take care of your weapon if you want to rely on it, and my old iron pal was sincerely touched by my attention. I felt him shiver in my hand and softly click with pleasure. After finishing the task, I patted him on the back and put him in the nightstand drawer because I wouldn’t need him for the rest of the day. I intended to go to the lobby bar, have a few drinks, and relax.

I slowly started down the stairs, and while remembering the adventures Lara and I had the previous night, I wondered whether I would meet Sandra at the reception. I kind of didn’t want to because, most probably, she was going to shower me with uncomfortable questions. Unfortunately, when I reached the lobby, my “girlfriend” smiled happily at me. She wore a summer ruffle-sleeve mini dress, which hung loosely on her body, its hem ready to fly up with the first puff of wind. Her hair was scraped back into a ponytail and had glitter dust in it. With all this, the receptionist shone charmingly with a pleasant, girlish vibe.

“You look fresh,” she said as she noticed me coming down, “for a man who has pretty wild nights, at least!”

“Oh, not at all!” I tried to dodge her calculated attack with a casual lie. “I slept like a rock. When I woke up, I was so entangled in bed sheets that I thought I had fallen through the floor all the way down to the laundry room.”

“Really? That’s weird,” Sandra said, licking her pretty lips with delicate lipstick. “Because I think I saw your car following mine early this morning.

I frowned but tried to remain calm despite her unpleasant remark. It meant she had noticed us after all.

“It’s just impossible!” I made an effort to sound convincing. “My car has been outside in the parking lot for three days now.”

“Well, maybe I was wrong then,” the receptionist agreed reluctantly. “After all, it would be too ridiculous if you had two completely identical Fords, right?”

“Right.” I nodded rather stupidly and asked myself whether she suspected anything about the stolen car. “It would be utterly ridiculous, indeed.”

I was worried that she might know our little secret, but if you thought about it, it was actually in the order of things. We didn’t really have a very delicate approach to our late-night adventures, and probably even the dead in the cemetery were already aware of what we were doing. However, I kept acting dumb and tried to pull a maneuver and change the subject of our conversation.

“How’s the little puppy, by the way?” I attempted to smile, but it came out weird and grotesque because I still felt stupid. “It looked so sweet last evening!”

“Oh, you mean Rocky? He’s fine. He suffers from hemorrhoids, but other than that, he’s just fine!”

“His name is Rocky?” I was sincerely surprised. Her stupid dog seemed to me more like the seventh dwarf from the fairytale of Snow White but with a gas mask on his face. Rocky was somewhat too majestic for him.

“Yes, it is! His mother was Eva, and his father was Adolf.”

“Well, his grandfather must have been Benito, then!” I suggested wittily.

“No, his grandfather was Bimbo. They were all performers like you, you know.”

“Like me?” I didn’t get her point.

“Didn’t you say you performed in the circus? They did, too!”

“Oh, you mean my… performances!” I mumbled sourly because I had forgotten entirely the bullshit I told her about myself when we met the previous time. And since I was quite sure more would follow pretty soon, I promptly tried to move to the next subject.

“Incidentally, have you, by any chance, come to invite me for a drink?” Sandra beat me to it before I could do anything. She also smiled cunningly. “I’ve got about twenty minutes to kill before a meeting.”

I looked at her, unsure at first. It wasn’t exactly my idea of changing the subject, but unfortunately, I didn’t know how to refuse the offer. The problem was that I immediately started talking nonsense whenever I opened my mouth around this woman, and afterward, my life became complicated. And since I hesitated for too long now, in the end, to avoid the awkwardness, I moved my head so indefinitely and confusingly that even I had no idea what my gesture meant.

Nevertheless, Sandra just smiled and came out from behind the reception desk without further commenting. She grabbed me by the elbow and led me toward the bar, with which she actually stripped me of the chance to make a decision. I had no option but to accept her invitation, and we slowly headed, arm in arm, toward the pink neon above the glass door as if we were heading to a wedding chapel in Vegas to get married. A few seconds later, my future “wife” resumed the unpleasant subject.

“Old Bimbo was kind of famous in the old days,” she explained to me willingly. “He was actually the most stupid dog I’ve ever seen, and Rocky has taken after him, I guess. Junior only cares about one thing—eating oatmeal porridge and barking at a footstool at my place. I suppose he’s just angry that it won’t bark back.”

I smiled sourly but considered it necessary to take some professional interest in the artistic career of the old cur. After all, I had to play the role I landed myself in!

“Where did Bimbo perform?” I asked.

“It was Venus Circus,” Sandra replied. “You must know the place. It was popular back in the day when performing with animals meant something. Now it’s more like pet training, you know, because of animal rights advocates and all.”

“Those were glorious days, indeed! I know the place, of course.” I confidently said, without having the slightest idea what she was talking about.

“As a matter of fact, ‘performing’ is a bit of a stretch if we refer to Bimbo,” my ruthless inquisitor continued her vicious act. “His crowning trick was nothing more than pissing in the hat of the co-starring clown. Then the guy would put the bowler on his head, pretending he knew nothing, and the audience would laugh. At least the dumbest part of them would do!”

“And that was all?”

“Yep, that was pretty much all of it! That’s how people knew them—‘Bimbo, Bambo, and the Bowler.’ It was their only trick, and it wasn’t even much of a trick. Bimbo used to do it not because he was trained so but because no one could make him break out of habit. Eventually, Bambo made a trick out of it so that the whole thing paid off at least. He was truly a stupid dog, I told you!”

At this moment, we reached the counter where we had drinks on our previous date and sat on the high stools again. Sandra called the bartender, ordering gin fizz for herself, and I ordered a glass of Beefeater. Then, I secretly looked her up from head to toe. I still considered her a very attractive chick despite her sexual manners befitting a hungry arachnid, and I kind of hoped we would repeat our little fight in the rubber plant. The hem of her dress slightly rode up when she crossed her naked legs, and her thighs made my eyes stick to their silky smooth skin like chewing gum.

“So how did it all end?” I asked after a while because I wanted to distract myself from screwing Sandra in my mind. “Their careers, I mean!”

“Well, one evening, Bimbo had an artistic spur,” the hotel owner explained after taking a sip of her drink, “and he thought shitting instead of pissing in the hat was an excellent idea. Bambo just flipped out and smashed him with a folding chair, which was part of the props for the act. He did it right on stage, in front of the audience, and literally made a whole circus of people cry!”

Surprised, I quietly whistled, picturing the horrible scene with all the kids weeping and tons of snot and tears flying all around the place.

“What a dramatic story!” I exclaimed.

“Uh-huh! And what about you? What was your accident like?”

“My what?” I looked at her, puzzled. However, I already suspected I was heading for the next embarrassing moment in my life.

“When we spoke the last time, you mentioned an elephant accident ending your career. Remember?”

With irritation, I remembered. It was extremely stupid of me to invent such a ridiculous story and forget about it, but there I was—I did it again, and now I had to play along. And since I had absolutely no idea how to fix this situation reasonably, the only thing I came up with was more improvising.

“Well, it’s not that interesting, actually,” I mumbled hesitantly. “There’s really nothing to say here. The elephant was just nervous, and since I was chewing gum while riding on its back, the poor animal thought I was eating something delicious. It accidentally brought me down with its trunk, then got scared and stepped on my left foot’s little toe. It was such a big shock for me; I never recovered!”

After making a complete fool of myself for the zillionth time, I finally stopped talking and awkwardly looked away to prevent further questions. I was the king of bullshit, really! Had I consciously tried to fabricate such monumental nonsense, I doubt I would have produced better results even after a month of thinking!

Sandra looked at me for a while, narrowing her eyes to decide if my lame attempt was worth pretending it was credible. Then she smiled leniently.

“This is a fascinating story!” she remarked. “I should admit, you would never strike me as a circus performer if I saw you on the street. I would probably think you are… a detective or something.”

I winced, surprised. I hated hearing her “assumption,” but since everybody in this city obviously knew everything about me, maybe I shouldn’t be sour about it. In any case, her unexpected insights stripped me of my lame disguise, and it was so sudden that the skin on my cheeks literally flaked when my fake beard came off. The new situation also broke the magic between us.

“Yeah, I know. Sometimes, even I can’t believe it, but it’s true,” I muttered dejectedly. “Such were my father and grandfather before me!” And after I said this, I clenched my teeth tight because I feared I would involve all my relatives, dating back to the Stone Age in the circus business, if I kept talking like this.

“So what are you doing these days then?” Sandra finally decided to leave the subject and mercifully pretended she believed in my Mexican soap opera-style family drama. “It must have been hard for you to quit after all these years on stage!”

“Honestly, it’s still hard, but I’m working on self-improvement now. I’m trying to be a better person,” I rambled recklessly. And instead of making an excuse and walking away, I started another round of bullshit—tenfold messier than the previous—without any idea how I was going to get out of it. “Currently, I’m trying to find a colleague of mine who went missing about a month ago.”

“Really? And who would that be?” Sandra promptly played along with my new sketch.

“She’s an ex-colleague from the circus, I mean.” My mouth grabbed the opportunity to go wild when it sensed my dumbass brain was missing from the driver’s seat. “She got involved with two scumbags and disappeared with them, leaving her little girl behind.”

“And now you hope to find her and convince her to return? Oh, that’s so sweet!” The hotel owner gave me a radiant smile. It made me want to punch myself in the face because I knew very well I didn’t look like a social worker at all. Unfortunately, there was no way for me to come clean and admit I was a PI because the woman was probably connected to the boss of Eternity in some way. As it seemed, I had laid my cards on the table prematurely, denying myself any chance to gain anything from them. To comfort myself, I could only think that she was clever enough to know what I did for a living, even without telling her.

“What does your colleague look like?” she decided to ask afterward.

I reluctantly described Lara’s sister. “She’s a fine green-eyed girl with chestnut hair, about five and a half feet tall. She’s really gorgeous, although a bit spoiled.”

“She must have been a tightrope dancer,” Sandra noted.

“Why do you think so?” I looked at her suspiciously.

“Tightrope dancers are always the hottest chicks in the business and often spoiled by the attention they get from the audience. Plus, they usually have fine structure because it helps with their balance, you know.”

“True,” I muttered sourly, agreeing with her. I suddenly felt entangled in my lies, and my will to kick back was completely gone. “She was a tightrope dancer.”

“What about her bad friends?” the hotel owner wanted to know.

“What about them?”

“How do they look?”

Since everything was over now, I described them as well.

“Hmm. I think I know these guys,” my inquisitor looked at me cunningly, preparing to nail me mercilessly to my cross. “I may even know that colleague of yours as well! Is it possible, by any chance, that her name is Sonya?”

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled barely audibly, like a man who was being accused of first-degree murder by the police, and his layer just said to him execution was inevitable.

“There are a few discrepancies, though.” My heartless girlfriend kept terrorizing me with obvious delight. She probably thought I deserved it, and maybe she was right. The woman I am talking about isn’t much into circus art. And I don’t think she has kids.”

“Well, my colleague wasn’t very good at her job, in fact. She used to hide it from people outside her circle,” I said, embarrassed. “And she was also a lame mother, as I said.”

“Do you really think you can make her change her mind about her little girl? It seems like a long shot to me!”

“Well, it’s worth trying, at least.” I almost choked on my emotions, but not for Sonya’s unborn child. I cried for myself.

“You know what? I think you should do it. You should definitely give it a shot.” The next moment, Sandra encouraged me with a condescending smile. “One never knows, after all! If you’re convincing enough, she might come to her senses and realize how much pain she has brought to her poor child’s life. If you’re lucky, she might even quit giving blowjobs to strangers!”

I looked at her, shocked. It was clearly the end of my pathetic journey. I had screwed it up completely, and now we both knew it. It was official! However, since there was simply no way for me to make the mess bigger than that, I made up my mind to finish my ridiculous act with a resonant verbal fart. So I held my nose and said, “Will you help me find her?”

Sandra looked at me with pity, faking a sigh of desperation, but she didn’t make much effort to be convincing.

“I wish I could help you. I really do!” She said afterward. “But unfortunately, there’s no way because the person in question disappeared some time ago, and now nobody knows where she is. She clearly does that every now and then!”

Just like my executioner, I sighed too, but unlike her, I was sincere when I did it. I had the recklessness to bet the ranch and lost everything! I was so lame at bluffing that if someday Hollywood made a movie about my shitty career, my grotesque attempt here would be the culmination of the entire story for sure. And to make my humiliation even more complete, Sandra asked me afterward, “What was your secretary’s last name again? You said Croft, didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t dare to.

“Is it possible that she’s Sonya’s sister?” The hotel owner nailed me on my cross again.

“No, it’s definitely not possible!” I replied tartly and rather too quickly. “Lara doesn’t have a family. She’s an orphan… from… the Vietnam War.”

And that was it! I officially hit the rock bottom with this. I was so pissed off—not at her but at myself—that I wanted to run away from our date. It was simply ridiculous to think I could squeeze any information from anybody without humiliating myself further.

“You know, this is all quite funny, actually,” Instead of bursting into laughter after my unsuccessful verbal stunt, the owner of Cacadulu smiled cunningly, “Have you noticed that your personal secretary looks amazingly like your former colleague? If they really aren’t sisters or very close cousins, at least, it would be such a rare genetic match. A genetic eccentricity, even!”

I puckered my lips, sour, and decided it was enough. I promised myself I wouldn’t fall for it again. It was time to abandon my delicate approach here and counterattack at last. My idea was to press Sandra’s back against the wall unscrupulously and get what I wanted from her because we were clearly enemies now and nothing less.

“Aren’t you running late for your meeting?” I looked at her coldly. “I hope I’m not keeping you!”

“Oh, no, I’ve got a few more minutes,” the hotel owner glanced at her watch.

“And who’s the guy, by the way?” I asked without really knowing if it was a man and without caring how profoundly inappropriate my question was.

“He’s an old friend of mine. Why do you care?” She shrugged, not too concerned.

“I wondered if, by any chance, he might be the boss of Eternity.”

“Why? You want to know something about him?” she smirked.

“Not exactly, no. But I noticed your Porsche parked in front of his club several times.”

“Oh, I really hope you’re not jealous of him!” Sandra smiled mischievously. “It’s not much of a second date thing to make a scene, you know.”

“Of course, I’m not jealous. Don’t be ridiculous!” I was quick to reject her suspicion. “I just wanted to know what kind of relationship you two have. Is it a symbiotic business connection, like similar marketing strategy and clientele, or some kind of joint venture?”

To be honest, I hoped Sandra would lose her shit after such a question because it was way out of line and would connect her to a drug distributor. I expected her to be pissed off and make a mistake. To my great surprise, however, she sipped at her drink and simply ran over my revised tactics of pressing her with no more emotion than a caterpillar tractor running over an ice cube.

“Neither of your assumptions is true,” she explained calmly. “I just go there sometimes to have fun. That’s all! People tend to feel bored when they drink at home, right?” And she spread her arms to indicate that she meant the hotel.

“I guess they do,” I mumbled thoughtfully. “But it’s weird that almost everybody in this hotel feels bored, too.”

“What do you mean, ‘everybody’?” Sandra raised her eyebrows, puzzled.

“Well, I mean, all the people who check in here go there to have fun.” I had to explain. “Almost your entire clientele, actually. I suspect they do it not just for fun. Maybe they run some kind of business there. Don’t you think so?”

“But who are these people? Give me someone in particular!” Sandra suddenly wanted to know, still keeping her cool.

“Like a bizarre couple, for example, who always wear shorts and Hawaiian shirts as if they have just returned from their vacation,” I described the albino guys because they were the first to come to mind. “I bet you’ve noticed them. They’re always so beachy, but weirdly enough, they never get tanned!”

At this moment, my early evening drinking companion finally abandoned her relaxed attitude and slightly leaned toward me, lowering her voice as she said, “You know what? I really think you should be very careful with these two. If your paths cross, I mean. There’s definitely something fishy about them!”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked her, surprised yet satisfied. I expected her to tell me they were aliens.

“I don’t know. I just don’t like them very much.”

“But you have to have reasons for not liking them!” I insisted.

“All I know is they’re in the car business. I’ve heard they buy old crap and resell it, but you know what? I don’t believe it. I suspect there’s more to it because I always see them driving the same wreck. Suspicious, isn’t it?”

“The car business?” I exclaimed, intrigued because the guys really didn’t strike me as salesmen. I was sure they were drug pushers or something. “Will you introduce me to them? I might have a proposal they’d like.”

“What proposal? You don’t mean to get rid of your car, do you?” Sandra asked skeptically.

“Well, my beauty’s kind of aged now,” I shrugged and started pulling up another show, hoping to get a whiff of something. “Maybe it’s time for us to separate.”

“You’re talking about the old Ford you’ve been driving since you came here, right?”

“Yep. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

“But how could you possibly get rid of it?” Sandra pretended she believed the bullshit I was trying to sell her. “After all, it’s not yours, is it?”

I suddenly stared at her, terrified. I had no idea how she knew that, but she seemed so sure that my hair bristled. Because of her extraordinary extrasensory abilities, my lame disguise as a retired circus performer immediately went down, and I remained naked and helpless in front of her like a newborn baby.

“What makes you think the car isn’t mine?” I swallowed dryly, forgetting about my unscrupulous plan to press Sandra’s back against the wall.

“I believe you rented the Ford. Am I right? You certainly can’t sell a leased car! I mean, it would be awesome if you could pull this trick, but could you really?”

After hearing this, I collapsed completely. My hair not only bristled now but waved like young prairie grass in the wind, and I wondered whether my perception of things was correct. Maybe I didn’t live in the real world after all, but in a parallel universe where everything happened backward, and everybody knew in advance what I would do before I did it or even before I knew I would do it. Nevertheless, I made an effort to pretend—just a bit longer, at least—that the contents of my head weren’t publicly available to everyone.

“But how could you even know all that?” I asked, flabbergasted.

Honestly, I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to hear the answer. It didn’t matter much, and besides, unlike me, Sandra wasn’t a person who made bluffs at every turn, so she probably had something very reasonable in mind when she said that.

“It’s the license plate,” she explained to me. She was obviously playing a game, and I had the feeling she actually liked it. “I know the owner of the car rental agency where this antique came from. He bought a whole lot of them from Mexico a while ago and registered them with sequential plate numbers. People who rent them often drop by as my clients.”

I just stared at Sandra without saying anything because there was simply nothing I could say. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. It seemed I had just fallen into my own trap, breaking my nose into the wall where I was supposed to press my opponent’s back. I actually felt like a dachshund that was so fat that his ass got stuck in the entrance of the rabbit hole every time he tried to catch prey. And now, of course, I had no other option but to make a fool of myself again.

“Well, we’re a bit short of money,” I mumbled, embarrassed, with almost no idea where I was going. “I know it’s not the right thing to do, but—”

“Say no more! I completely understand.” The hotel owner interrupted me, waving her hand to illustrate her generosity. “I’ll stop charging you for the room you occupy. I didn’t know you had a problem!”

“Oh, no, no. We have no problem. We can pay!” I promptly backed out, negating my previous statement. I was just like a virgin who desperately wanted to get rid of her virginity but was afraid of the act at the same time. And on top of that, we hadn’t even paid a dime so far!

“You should keep in mind that the idea probably won’t work, though,” Sandra returned to her point right after I stopped my stupid protest. “I think you won’t be able to fob these guys off with your old beauty!”

“Really? And why is that?” I was curious to know.

“I told you why! There’s something fishy about these guys. I think, just like your circus colleague, they live a double life. I suspect their car business is just a cover.”

“A cover? A cover for what?”

“Well, I don’t know that! That’s the whole idea of fishiness, isn’t it?” Sandra smiled.

“But you must have heard something, at least!”

“I’ve heard only rumors. People say they’re actually in the business of liquidating.”

“You mean like they liquidate companies or what?” I asked hesitantly.

“No, I mean, like they liquidate people!”

A heavy and awkward silence followed her last sentence. Her words sounded so rough that if it weren’t for these cute little lips that said them, I would have thought they were a direct threat to my life. After that, Sandra just said goodbye and left me alone at the counter. I thoughtfully watched her swaying hips as she went through the door and disappeared, and I wondered if there was even a single person on this planet who didn’t know everything about me. Probably there wasn’t. So far, the events didn’t suggest I had any sort of private life.

Annoyed, I thought about it and pictured Lara and I leaving the hotel every morning and hopping into our Ford, with people gathering around with flowers and colorful banners to celebrate the famous private detective Murphy Mellrow and his assistant going on their next secret mission. At the same time, in the citadel of evil at the other end of the city, the villains laid out the red carpet and opened champagne bottles, preparing to meet the star couple appropriately. A festive mood reigned all over the streets, and out of everybody, only the detective had no clue what all this was about, thinking that people in this city just liked to party.

I hung out in the bar for a few more minutes but didn’t feel like drinking anymore. My good mood had evaporated, and I slowly stood up to go to our room and see if Lara had come back. I started climbing up the staircase, and on my way to the fifth floor, I tried to convince myself that Sandra was joking when she made hints about liquidating me. However, even if it was a joke, our staying here was more than unreasonable now—after everything that had happened. We just couldn’t ignore that fact anymore. There was one small problem, though, and I realized it as soon as I reached our room. Lara was still missing, and the TV set in there worked again!

I nervously stepped away from the door after I tied the lock. The latter wouldn’t yield, and that’s how I knew it wasn’t Lara making the noise—she wouldn’t bother to lock herself inside. In fact, I didn’t even know a new lock was installed; I thought nobody cared about these things here. The situation seemed pretty much like when we caught someone rummaging through our stuff two days ago, and the booming TV set was the proof.

While I listened to the commercials, standing outside in the hallway and wondering what to do, I suddenly flared up. I realized I had made too many compromises about too many things lately. I was angry with myself for keeping this stupid case still open; I was angry with Sandra for betraying me and with Lara for not waiting for me here; I was angry with Larry and Bob for not living long enough so I could break their noses in person; and I was angry with a dozen other people who didn’t have a particular connection to this case. Being so pissed off, I just turned around to go to the neighboring door, and without thinking twice, I kicked it open and rushed inside. Luckily, the noise I made was muffled by the thundering TV set behind the wall, and it was even bigger luck that the room was empty.

After that, I quickly walked to the balcony door, stepped outside, and jumped over the iron railing to reach the fire escape, from where I moved to our balcony. Finally, I looked through the window. I saw the fucking junkie that usually sat in the elevator corner, trembling like a leaf, now stretched out on the bed like a king, his small, empty eyes fixed on the TV screen. All our stuff was scattered on the floor just like the previous time—when we returned from Larry and Bob’s shack.

I glanced at the door to our room. It was still ajar, and the dumbass had absolutely no chance to react if I stormed in—he was too relaxed. I needed less than ten seconds to put my plan into motion, rush inside, and grab him by his lean neck. The only thing he could do was scream, but since he knew it wouldn’t make any difference with the TV set booming, he didn’t even try.

Surprised, the jerk looked at me and instantly realized it was terribly pointless to fight. I grabbed him harder and violently dragged him to the TV set to pull the cord out of the outlet. Then, I pushed the bastard down on the floor, pressing his back against the bed foot with my left knee upon his chest.

“Now, you’ll tell me everything you know about everyone in this hotel and the entire neighborhood!” I pulled a nasty face. “And when I say everything, I mean literally everything!”

To my great surprise, the idiot looked at me relatively calmly. Clearly, my threats and appearance didn’t have the potential to match those of the dreadful creatures he probably met in his catatonic visions every morning in the elevator. His short, feather-like hair reminded me of Max and Moritz’s, and his loose red coat and baggy pants made him look like a Civil War volunteer who got lost and then robbed in the bushes while taking a shit.

“Oh, man, it’s too long to tell!” The dumbass opened his chapped lips to answer too brazenly for my taste. “Plus, you’d be better off not knowing.”

“Would I?” I roared angrily and slapped his face really hard with my right hand. “All the parties tonight are canceled, and there’s still a lot of time until the late-night show, so I guess I have plenty of time to kill!”

“But why are you doing this, man? Can’t you see I’m at work? Do you even know the responsibility of having a job?” The idiot naively tried to touch my morals without knowing I had none. “I really have to go back!”

“No, you absolutely don’t have to! You’ll spare the people your hideous shaking in the elevator tonight. Sometimes, I’m afraid you’ll dethatch the cabin from the cable system!”

The bastard suddenly looked at me, embarrassed, and curled closer to the bed’s foot. He seemed ashamed, which surprised me because I thought he was incapable of such a feeling.

“What do you want from me anyway?” he asked, swallowing the insult.

I loosened my grip on him just so he could talk more comfortably.

“Well, just start singing. That wouldn’t be so hard for you, I suppose.”

“No, it wouldn’t! What do you want to hear? The Star-Spangled Banner, alright?”

I gave him another hard slap.

“No, it’s not alright! But what you’re doing in my room—now and two days ago, would be perfectly fine!”

“But isn’t that clear, dude?”

“It isn’t!”

“I was looking for dope. What else do you think I could do here?”

I shook my head grimly because I wanted a more elaborate answer than this. I obviously had to be more uncompromising in my demands.

“Did you find any?” I gave him the next slap, and his pale cheek became bright red this time.

“No, I didn’t!” he cried worriedly because the slaps continued no matter what he said. “And the last time, I didn’t find anything either. You’re literally ruining my life, man! Here, if you don’t lay hands on something the first time, you’re just screwed.”

“What do you mean, ‘screwed’? What’s that supposed to tell me?”

The bellhop waved his hand in the air rather unclearly.

“Believe me, you wouldn’t want to know that. Don’t get me wrong, man! This neighborhood is too dangerous. You feel me?”

I frowned. We were going nowhere with my gentle approach here. I had hoped our little chat would be far more productive. It made me remove my knee from his chest and grab his left wrist, twisting it sharply to make him lay on his hip.

“Listen to me, you stupid fuck!” I roared in his ear. “Not only will I want to know everything you know; not only will I break all your fingers, and you won’t be able to hold a joint long enough to finish it; not only will you be late for work tonight, but you will also fly out of this fucking hotel riding in the back of the garbage truck! You’ve probably noticed I’m your boss’s bestie, so I think you understand what I’m talking about very well. You feel me now?”

To be even more convincing, I let go of him briefly and reached into the nightstand to pull my Colt out. The moron clearly didn’t check out the drawers, or he did it but didn’t dare touch the weapon because I found it there. I roughly thrust the gun into his face.

Surprisingly, my new approach worked, and the bellhop turned pale immediately. I expected it would take time for my words to reach his shitty brain, but he started shaking right away as if I had just cut off his little finger with a blunt axe and made him eat it! Initially, I couldn’t understand which threat on my list had scared him so much, but soon it became clear.

“But why would you wanna do this to me, dude? What have I done to you?” He started squealing and sobbing in my arms. “Do you even know what it’s like to have no job? I’ll die exactly ten minutes after I walk ten feet away from this place!”

At first, I looked at him, puzzled. I thought he was trying to beat around the bush again, and I was about to give him a slap with the muzzle of my gun, which was going to be a severe escalation in the trend of violence so far, but then I suddenly grasped the actual reason for his nervousness. The wretch was addicted. He was so deep in shit that this hotel was like the udder of a fat heroin cow to him, and it delivered a record-breaking yield of snow into his goddamn nose every single day. It was actually my trump card against him. I got his ass now!

“Stop whining as if you’re dying!” I gritted my teeth angrily. “You know perfectly well you can still have the opportunity to leech on hotel guests. All you have to do is talk!”

“What do you wanna know?” He bulged his eyes, ready to spill now. I smiled. If he opened his mouth as wide as he opened them, I was definitely in luck.

“Well, for starters,” I began gently, “let me know why you were so sure there were drugs in my room.”

“Are you kidding?” The bellhop barked hoarsely. “Everybody has dope in this shithole. Why do you even think people visit it in the first place? Across the street is Eternity. It’s the major narcotics depot in this part of the city—a true freight yard for all kinds of drugs!”

“And you’re just robbing the guests? How do you cover your tracks, then? How come no one has smashed your stupid head yet?”

The jerk sneered at me. His unhealthy-looking yellowish teeth disgusted me when the light from the window fell on for a second.

“You can’t really ask me such a thing, bro! You can’t want me to tell you this. It’s my trade secret!”

I shook my head disapprovingly and tapped his head a couple of times with the barrel of my gun. My gesture did the job and convinced him to talk again.

“Most people who come here,” he explained reluctantly, “have no idea what they have in their luggage. After partying all night and leaving Eternity, they no longer know who they are. It’s a shame not to take advantage of this. It’d be the same if you had qualms about robbing a dead man!”

Here, he paused for a while, hoping he told me enough, but I kept looking at him intensely with a grim expression. After a quarter of a minute, he realized he had been wrong in his presumption.

“The only problem is,” the bellhop continued, “that you must be really quick in this game. You must lay your hands on something the next morning, or the evening at most, because it’ll be over soon.”

“And why is that?” I wanted to know.

“Well, answer the question yourself! How many nights do you think people need to replenish their dope closet? They come here from neighboring counties, sometimes from neighboring states; they buy their shit; party; stay in the hotel until they reanimate, and then they leave. If you miss the window, you might have to wait for a while before you get another chance, and if it happens to be long, it’s a real hell, you know. You simply have no fucking idea what it’s like—the terrible nights, the nightmares, the awful mornings, the sweating, your muscle pain—”

Since I didn’t want to hear about his muscle pain, I stopped him.

“Okay, okay! I know the picture very well. I’ve seen you in the elevator!”

The bellhop recoiled again as he heard my accusation. It was weird because most drug addicts didn’t realize they had a problem while still using. This one was different, though. At the same time, I remembered Sandra telling me just the same thing when we first met—Eternity and Cacadulu shared pretty much the same pool of clients. I wanted to make the bastard elaborate on his boss’ role in this joint venture, but I feared he would collapse if I pushed him too hard. His boss was a tough woman. After knowing how rough she could be with people like me, I could only imagine how she treated dumbasses like him. So, I decided to leave these questions for later.

“Tell me about the supply chain now!” I commanded instead. “There are two black scumbags who deliver stuff to the owner of Eternity. They were small fish initially but suddenly turned into traffickers. How did that happen?”

The wretch turned his yellow eyeballs to look at me and grinned condescendingly. I knew my question was too much for him because he was nobody, but I hoped he had heard something on the street. Maybe he had even heard something about Sonya.

“Aren’t you modest here?” He clicked his teeth, ridiculing me. “Why don’t you ask me how Pablo Escobar is doing his thing?”

“There’s also a green-eyed chick who hangs around with them.” I ignored his sneer. “I believe you’ve seen her. She’s a good looker—the type of girl who usually wouldn’t involve herself with pieces of shit like them.”

“Well, that’s life, dude! Ginny was a good looker, too, and she shouldn’t have involved herself with Bugsy, but what do we know about love and friendship?”

I just shrugged and raised my hand with the gun.

“What the fuck, man! Are you goddamn nuts?” The idiot immediately screamed in terror. “How could you expect me to know such stuff?! No one gives me a fucking account of how they run their business. I don’t even care how they do it as long as the dope keeps coming!”

I slowly put down the weapon. I was bluffing, actually; I only wanted to give him a little push.

“What about Villa Nueva, then?” I moved on with my interrogation.

“What about it?” The bellhop licked his lips.

“What do you know? Unleash your imagination!”

“Well, it’s a really nice spot.” Quite expectantly, the junkie started fooling around. “Spanish style, a lovely garden, at least ten bedrooms, a couple of bathrooms with Jacuzzis… There’s a really wonderful porch out front, and the swimming pool is just swell! You know, I would absolutely lo-o-ove to—”

No matter how unpleasant it felt, I raised my hand again and roughly thrust the barrel of my gun into his disgusting mouth because just encouraging the bastard to talk obviously didn’t work anymore. My poor iron friend! I hoped he would forgive me for the humiliation I bestowed upon him.

“You know very well what kind of information I care about!” I hissed viciously.

“I know nothing, man!” The miserable fuck gabbled worriedly and hideously slobbered on my weapon. Terrified, I pulled the Colt out of his mouth and wiped it on his shabby red coat.

“Next bump on the road, and I’m thrusting this thing into your asshole and pulling the trigger!” I warned him. “No one will hear a thing, and you’ll suffer terribly!”

I bluffed again, of course. I couldn’t even imagine doing such a thing to my Colt. Luckily, the asshole wised up immediately and didn’t decide to test me.

“I know nothing!” he repeated mournfully. “I just drove Sandra to the mansion once when she had a broken leg and couldn’t drive. That’s all I can tell you!”

“And what was she doing there?”

“I have no idea. Probably putting legs over the guy’s shoulders.”

“Why would you think she screwed him?”

“Because she stayed inside for just the right amount of time to have a good fuck, and then, when she came out, her hair was messy as hell. Two days later, a brand-new Porsche popped up in front of the hotel. Sandra doesn’t have the money, you know.”

“Well, well! This could really be something,” I thought, intrigued. “It could be a lead!”

“When did that happen?” I asked him afterward.

The bellhop puckered his lips and made an indefinite gesture, which could easily mean something between two days and two hundred years. I was sure he would answer the same even if I asked him how old he was. Just like the bartender, he lived in the moment.

“A month or a few months ago, maybe. I’m not exactly sure.” After taking almost half a minute to think, he proved me right.

“And you never saw the guy coming around after that?”

He repeated his gesture, and in addition, he jerked his head diagonally—whatever it was supposed to mean.

“Who is he, anyway?” I kept asking him.

“Have no idea. Some big shot who breeds Porsches in his garage, obviously!”

I looked at the moron, thinking about the situation. His words shed a different light on Sandra’s character and portrayed her as a woman who loved playing double games. Unless, of course, the guy from Villa Nueva was somehow connected to the boss of Eternity, and they all were a trio, which was also possible. After a while, the wretch in front of me used the pause to make my interrogation go sideways.

“You’re asking too many questions, you know that?” He looked at me cunningly with the contracted pupils of a junkie. They had shrunk almost to pinhead size. “You a cop or something?”

“Neither. I’m a just homicidal maniac!” I turned my head toward him. “And I get outrageously pissed off when asked stupid questions!”

“So where did you hide it, man? Tell me!” He didn’t stop nagging. “Your dope! It must have been some very obvious place. It’s a matter of professional interest for me to know that!”

“Believe me, you’d be better off not knowing. This secret can be dangerous. You feel me?” I answered in his style. “And also, I think you might want to keep me posted if Sandra’s boyfriend comes around again. I hope it’ll be soon.”

“Sure thing!” the jerk agreed without even thinking for a second. “I, too, hope it’ll be soon. You’ll know it right away.”

I didn’t actually like the fact that he succumbed so quickly, and I knew he would most probably blow me off, but I couldn’t do anything about it now.

“So what exactly would my benefit be? What do I get from our deal, huh?” the idiot looked at me hopefully after a while, trying to negotiate something for himself.

“You’ll know that when the time comes,” I grunted evasively.

“Oh, man, these are the kinds of benefits I don’t like!” he said with a long face. “Usually, the only good thing coming out of these is the feeling of hope as you wait. But you can’t live on hope, right?”

Then he licked his lips and tried to smile disarmingly at me. His expression was terrible; I was ready to do anything to get him to stop smiling.

“You do know what kind of benefits I like! Do you?” he asked brazenly, glancing meaningfully at the scattered stuff on the floor.

“And you do know how easily I get mad! Do you?” I hissed threateningly.

“Okay, okay, goddamnit!” He backed out quickly. “You don’t have to be so touchy, dude! You’ll know even without me telling you anyway. When the time comes, I’ll simply disappear from the elevator for a while because this guy’s lousy with dope! I wouldn’t miss my chance with him.”

I frowned because I didn’t see how his disappearance from the elevator suited me. When I noticed he was missing, it would be too late.

“Didn’t you just say you had seen the guy just once? Did you lie to me?” I asked him angrily and suddenly hit him with the Colt across his mouth. His upper lip immediately split open, and a gush of blood spurted all over his face. I hated doing that, but I had no other option. Obviously, the jerk didn’t take me seriously enough.

“Why did you do it?” The bellhop screamed and cuddled at the foot of the bed, terrified.

I slowly put my face closer to his and looked him in the eyes. He was trembling with fear and wanted to pull further back, but he couldn’t go anywhere.

“Listen to me very carefully, you fuck!” I said in an icy voice. “I’ll ask you a couple of questions now, and then I may let you go. It’s entirely up to you what condition you’ll be in, though. So I suggest you think twice before answering! Got it?”

He held his lips in his right hand, frightened, and looked at me without answering. His eyes were wide open, which was kind of creepy because his pupils were so damn small.

“Your boss clearly has close business relationships with the boss of Eternity,” I continued without waiting for his reply. “And it’s clearly not just about clients. There’s something else, and this hotel is a front for it. I wanna know what it is!”

The bellhop swallowed dryly.

“I’ll tell you, but I don’t know much. I swear!” He said worriedly. “At first, it was about clients! But then, Sandra started visiting Eternity quite often—sometimes late at night—and her financial status suddenly improved. I suspect she launders for him, but I’m not sure.”

“What’s his name? The guy who owns the joint across the street?”

“Tanaka, Jonathan Tanaka.”

“I’m skeptical about the laundering, you know,” I said unconvinced. “Think more about it! The man seems rich enough to funnel everything through his own company. Why would he need a stinky hotel located less than fifty yards from the place where he distributes tons of drugs?”

The junkie shrugged, or at least tried. He was too scared and nervous.

“Maybe he has his reasons,” he answered hesitantly. Sometimes, Sandra makes business trips outta state. Then, all of a sudden, a bunch of guests check in here. I think she also acts as his marketing manager. There’s really no way to know what exactly is going on!”

I thought about it. It was an unexpected new angle, and it certainly made sense. She might be in this role.

“How many clients come and go every month?” I wanted to know. “In the ballpark, at least.”

“They’re not too many, but they come regularly. And they’re all rich. They don’t even know how much money they have in their wallets!”

“People of power?” I kept asking, ignoring that my questions had become more than a couple now. The bellhop didn’t choose to seek his rights or protest; he just nodded.

“And the owner of Villa Nueva. What’s his name?”

He shrugged.

“He’s in the deal too?” I went on with my interrogation.

“I told you, I don’t know the guy! I’ve been in his front yard once for just half an hour.”

“But you know he’s lousy with dope!” I frowned irritably and waved the gun in the air. “You some fucking prophet or what?”

“No, I’m not! It’s simply because Sandra comes loaded every time she pays him a visit.” The bellhop raised his voice. “That’s how I know the man is stuffed!”

“How could you possibly know she comes loaded?” I asked him, suspicious. “Don’t tell me you hit your boss’ room too!”

The idiot looked at me, surprised and blinking, and then, he suddenly realized he had fucked up really bad. He suddenly lost control and started shaking terribly, literally trying to crawl under the bed.

“Okay, okay, take it easy now!” I tried to calm him down, happy to see him helpless in my hands. “I don’t care if you do! I don’t wanna know as long as you keep your damn mouth shut about our little conversation here. Now, focus on the last questions! Do you know a whore who likes butterflies enough to wear one printed on her ass?”

His eyes fixed on mine, puzzled at first, but then he nodded barely. “She’s an ex-prostitute,” he explained. “She used to work in the area, but at some point, she was promoted to deliver girls for Tanaka’s clients. Originally, one of his thugs used to do it, but I guess he didn’t do a great job.”

“Oh, there’s a side business with girls, then! It’s not just about dope.”

He looked at me rather weirdly. “Eternity’s a strip joint, man! Of course, it’s about girls too. Where there is dope, there are always girls!”

I puckered my lips and accepted his answer because I couldn’t disagree. I thought for a moment and wondered what else I could ask him, but there weren’t many things on my mind. He was just a piece of shit—nobody! Then I remembered something.

“There’s one more thing I wanna know,” I said. “There’s this weird couple—a man and woman who sometimes hang around here and across the street. They always wear beach clothes, and they look quite ridiculous. I’m sure you’ve seen them a lot.”

“Why do you ask about them?” The bellhop swallowed tensely, and I noticed he felt uncomfortable. He was sweating profoundly.

“Just tell me who they are!”

He shivered and slowly shook his head.

“You know full well that I’m gonna have my question answered, don’t you?” I used my weapon to make him see my point. I tried not to be too aggressive, though. I didn’t mean to hit him anymore.

The guy kept looking at the Colt for a while, but I wasn’t sure he was seeing it. His shaking suddenly became more intense, and I thought I might lose him soon. Then, surprisingly, I heard him say, “They’re aliens!”

At first, I thought he was making fun of me, and the impulse to give him a tap on the head with my gun seized me, but then I checked myself.

“Who told you that? The bartender?” I remembered the crazy theory my other weird friend had.

The junkie didn’t hear my last question. He had entered the phase of total unresponsiveness—probably because of his intense emotions over the past fifteen minutes. His eyes were watery now, and I couldn’t see any sign of reason in them.

“Okay, you can fuck off!” I quickly said to get rid of him before he lost consciousness, here in my room. I really didn’t want to drag him along the corridor all the way to the elevator.

As it turned out, I had underestimated the bastard. I hadn’t even finished my quite short last sentence yet when the jerk jumped up like a wound-up spring and shot himself toward the balcony door. It was simply unbelievable seeing him do it so soon after he lay helpless at my feet! Before I knew it, he was already gone—down from the fire escape platform on the fifth floor.

I thought I would never see him again. I was sure he had suffered a terrible death, but when I stepped out onto the balcony and looked down, he was nowhere in sight. I could not see his lean body bouncing off the iron stairs, lying smashed on the broken sidewalk, or cuddling in some of the dumpsters nearby. He had vanished into thin air!

Right then, I heard someone banging on the door behind me. I quickly stepped into the room and went to unlock and answer it. It was Lara. She had just missed the show! When I opened the door, she rushed inside, skirted around me, and flopped on the bed with her shoes on, puffing. She was sweating heavily and appeared as someone who had crossed the Sinai desert on their way to the Promised Land.

“The weather’s just unbelievable!” I heard her swear after she took a deep breath. “My cunt feels like a stewed plum!”

“Where have you been?” I asked her, ignoring the overly descriptive part at the end of her sentence.

“Where haven’t I!”

Then she suddenly noticed the blood on the floor.

“What has happened here?” she grunted, bewildered.

“It’s nothing. I just cut myself while shaving my beard.”

“Did you shave on the bed?” Lara was astonished.

I shrugged. She also shrugged and pulled the bed sheet from under her body, flinging it at her feet because it was already wet from her sweat. Then she kicked it on the floor, turning around, and soon after, she stopped moving altogether. She seemed asleep or pretended to be sleeping; I couldn’t tell for sure.

I looked at her for a while and then went to the balcony for a quick cigarette. It was already getting dark. As I smoked, I thought about Lara. Lately, she was acting very strangely—something was definitely wrong with her. She was too secretive and moody and would go out alone early in the day, which wasn’t typical of her. And it wasn’t like the weather was so pleasant and encouraging for outdoor activities either! I wanted to tell her we should leave the hotel and move to my place because things here were getting too complicated and dangerous, but I left it for the morning.

I stayed on the balcony until I finished the cigarette and then finished another one. Afterward, I stepped back inside and turned the TV on, lying on the bare mattress beside my assistant. After such a peaceful and relaxing day, I didn’t feel like sleeping, so I watched some stupid show. After an hour and a half of staring at the screen, I finally dozed off with my head full of crap, and almost in my dream, I thought that my crazy friends—the bum with the tin basin and the bartender—were probably right about television after all. It really had the power to brainwash people’s minds and turn them into fucking zombies.

A couple of minutes later, I fell into Morpheus’ arms for the rest of the night.

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