About fifteen minutes later, I pulled up in front of Cacadulu and wondered what to do for the rest of my day. It was still noon, but the weather was already so “stimulating” that I thought I should keep improving my shape. I thought I could slip into the hotel, take the stairs to the fifth floor, and check if Lara had turned up. However, since I had a better chance to find my assistant in the early evening and I was afraid I might bump into Sandra now, I eventually gave up the idea and left the checking for later. Instead, I turned the car around to drive to Eternity, parked at the curb across the joint, and waited.

I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to achieve there. I only knew an urgent change in my routine was needed because otherwise, my stupid case would stay open like this forever. I had nothing to lose anyway. In the worst-case scenario, I would waste my time, but the time for wasting I had in abundance, so it wasn’t much of a problem. In the meantime, if someone worth following stepped out of the club, I could have my change at the price of a gallon of gas or even less.

The afternoon started lazily passing by without anything interesting happening. The street was totally empty, as if a neutron bomb had gone off and killed every living thing in a couple of miles radius. There wasn’t even half a pigeon loitering around the sidewalk! Besides, the temperature in my Ford kept rising steadily, and it was as hot as an oven in the cabin. At some point, I started breathing heavily, and the leather beneath my ass got so warm that I felt my butt cheeks sizzling like fried eggs and seriously worried that if they burned to it, I would have to take the entire seat with me if I wanted to get out.

Somewhere shortly after three p.m., the main gate to the yard finally opened, and a dingy white Dodge Diplomat crept out, turning to the right to go down the street. I waited a minute and started my car’s engine. I had no idea who I was about to shadow. It could literally be anyone from the boss down to the toilet attendant, although I didn’t really believe the latter would be able to fill the tank of this gas annihilator on a daily basis. Anyway, since I was already on the verge of fainting from the heat and had nothing else to do, I made my peace by following whoever might be in the vehicle.

We kept slowly dragging ourselves down the street—unbearably slowly, I should say—for nearly an hour. Ultimately, the Dodge stopped shortly after the corner of Washington and Ninth, and the driver prepared to park curbside. He started maneuvering, but he did it in such a complicated manner that after watching him for nearly five minutes, I asked myself if he actually knew how to drive. I had the feeling he wanted to paint the Mona Lisa’s portrait with the trace of his wheels on the asphalt. I turned my engine off, not far from him, and waited patiently for what seemed like an eternity. I might have also taken a short nap—there wasn’t much chance I would miss anything!

At some point, after the guy managed to render even the famous Gioconda smile precisely as it was in the painting, the vehicle finally stopped moving. The driver’s door opened extravagantly slowly, and something long and thin appeared out of the Dodge. It looked like a wooden leg, and it made my eyes bulge in surprise because the thought I would deal with pirates definitely hadn’t occurred to me. Very soon, though, I noticed intense wriggling inside the car, and the mystery cleared up.

First, an elbow followed the leg outside, and after that, a forearm and a hand, and it turned out the hand was actually holding the leg. The situation was still too weird, but only until I realized the wooden leg was, in fact, no leg at all but just an ordinary crutch. After I grasped the reason for my terrible confusion, it was easy. When the rest of the body crawled out, I recognized the man—he was my dandruff-haired bouncer friend, whose thighs I had shot a couple of days ago. He had his jacket on, but I noticed the bulge of a holster under his left armpit. The guy clumsily shut the front door, leaning on his stick, and painfully limped toward the nearby apartment building. It was an old five-story structure, seven yards away from him and some fifteen yards from me.

I quietly sneaked out of my car, leaving the door ajar, and hurried down the sidewalk, picking up an advertisement brochure from the previous building’s doorsteps. Then, I quickened my pace. In the meantime, the bouncer gained some distance from me, but he didn’t have much chance to escape or notice I was following him because he was too busy watching his steps. He kept his right leg folded at the knee and used his crutch and left leg to walk—the one I shot through the volume of sadomasochistic illustrations. It obviously provided quite decent protection, which couldn’t be said for the pack of powdered sugar. The latter had been an efficient silencer but quite a lousy bulletproof vest.

The blond-haired thug slowly dragged himself to the entrance and opened the door with difficulty. Then he stepped inside, letting it swing back, and when I saw I was going to lose him, I quickly ran to slip the brochure between the doorway and the lock. I managed to do it at the last second, and it prevented the clicking from happening. Then I listened tensely outside the door.

I heard a lot of puffing and panting on the other side and also an elevator rumbling, which soon stopped and started again. I waited ten more seconds and cautiously pushed the door open, running up the stairs while taking two steps at a time, stopping at every staircase flight to listen to the rumbling, and running up again. Luckily, I only had to repeat this sequence twice. On the third floor, the elevator suddenly halted, and the door started opening. The machine was an old model with a cage.

I stood behind the corner until the man came out and limped to his apartment—I needed some time to take a breath anyway—and when he lingered to take out his key, I drew out my Colt, slipping noiselessly behind his back. Then I thrust the muzzle of my gun at his right kidney and whispered in his ear, “Last time, we didn’t make a proper acquaintance, my friend! What’s your fucking name?”

The guy turned his head to me, surprised, but he had no chance to react because his right hand was busy holding the crutch, and he couldn’t reach for the shoulder holster under his left armpit. When the bastard recognized me a moment later, his face literally turned green.

“Boris,” he answered in a choked voice.

“Boris, who?” I insisted.

“Boris Halfenaked.”

I really had to make a serious effort not to laugh when I heard him say it. I promised myself to write that down in my notebook of people with crazy names and then roughly pushed Mr. Halfenaked into his messy little den. He didn’t resist at all. In fact, he couldn’t resist because he had to clutch onto his crutch to keep his balance. I waited for him until he crossed the small hallway leading to the living room, and then I stepped in, cautiously looking around.

His place turned out to be ridiculously small and could hardly be called living quarters. It looked like it was built with pieces from a Lego set. It was a single-space studio apartment with a tiny kitchenette in one of the corners, a folding bed in one of the others, a combined bathroom and toilet outside in the hallway, and nothing else. On one of the walls, I saw a poster of Elvis, which was almost full-size. There, the King was caught in his late years—with the enormous sideburns, the white aloha costume with an extravagant collar, and everything else. I also saw an acoustic guitar right next to it while all the other walls were adorned with various ninja and karate stuff—a nunchuck, a tonfa, three shurikens, and a couple of knives. Among them, a pair of handcuffs hung.

I noticed another aspect of my friend’s soft side by the window. It was a pretty tall and well-groomed Dracaena plant with a spray bottle nearby to keep its leaves healthy and good-looking and a plastic container full of fertilizer. There was a soil scoop stuck in it. When I glanced at the pot, something suddenly moved behind it and grabbed my attention. A white kitten was hiding there, looking at me curiously with its big, frightened eyes.

I turned my head back to Boris and nodded friendly toward the enormous poster. “Are you a fan?” I asked.

He didn’t reply.

“What’s your favorite song?”

The guy stared at me, confused. Clearly, our conversation seemed too weird to him, and he felt insecure.

“Heartbreak Hotel,” he answered after a while.

“Tsk, it’s a cliché.” I clicked my tongue disapprovingly. After that, without losing sight of him, I went to unhook the handcuffs from the wall. I quickly stepped back toward him with the toy dangling from my left index finger and my other hand aiming the gun at him. Then, I jerked the barrel up to show him the chandelier on the ceiling. It was big and flashy, with lots of crystal ornaments attached to it—like shiny, glistening specks of light jumping across waterfall streams. It didn’t go with the room’s style at all.

“Put your left wrist in here and click the other part over there—above your head,” I ordered. “And don’t forget to take your piece out of the holster under your armpit. Be extra careful and wise when you put it on the floor and kick it toward me!” Then I stepped back.

Halfenaked cast a glance at me but didn’t move. He had an expression as if I had just wanted him to cut off his own arm and eat it. I invitingly moved the barrel of my Colt, pointing it up and down his body, and my gesture convinced him to cooperate. He disarmed himself, placed the weapon on the floor, slid it toward me, and clicked the handcuffs around his left wrist and the chandelier stem—all without my help. Eventually, he leaned onto his crutch again because he couldn’t maintain his balance in this weird position. I relied on it; it was my intention to make him feel uncomfortable.

I bent over to grab his piece and put it on the desk beside the window. Then I glanced at his legs. They weren’t injured so bad, actually. The right one was shot five inches above the knee to the right of his thighbone if my memory served right. Neither the kneecap nor the femoral artery or vein had been affected, so it was going to heal just fine. As for his left leg, it was fine even now. Boris stood on it clearly without feeling any pain, and only once in a while would he reel for a moment. When he felt the urge to do it, his left arm pulled at the chandelier slightly, and it rustled restlessly above his head.

“What the hell do you want from me?” he asked me nervously after I gave him the silent treatment for a while.

“Well, it depends on how far you’re willing to go,” I answered nonchalantly. “The more you tell me, the less I will want from you, and the less painful it will be for you!”

“Yeah? How about I tell you nothing instead, and you just get the fuck out of my apartment right now?” The thug tried to scare me off very naively.

I shook my head disapprovingly and smiled at him sourly. Then, just before I answered him, I suddenly felt something moving at my feet. The kitten had come to rub its side against my left ankle. I bent over to pick it up and slowly ran my fingers along its furry back. It purred with pleasure, snuggling into my hands and licking my right thumb, which clutched the gun handle. Then I turned my eyes to Boris. He was staring at me, shocked, as if he had just seen Hannibal Lecter chatting with his infant daughter.

Still holding the animal, I asked him, surprised, “What? You think I’m gonna take it out on your pet? What kind of monster do you take me for?”

I let the little creature go, and without saying anything else, I sharply stepped toward him to thrust the gun at his left kneecap. I also put my left hand over the barrel as if I wanted to shield myself from the blood that was going to spurt out. My prisoner jumped up immediately as if a bee had stung him.

I froze in my pose and looked at him grimly for a moment. He was pale as a ghost now and apparently didn’t think I was bluffing. I wasn’t actually sure if I would shoot him—probably not—but, lucky for me, I had already proven myself to him in a similar situation, and I didn’t have to put too much effort to convince him I would do it again.

“I think the last time we got off on the wrong foot.” I meaningfully tapped the barrel on his kneecap twice and slowly raised my hand, pointing the weapon at his face. “Let’s not do it now! So how far were you be willing to go, you said?”

This time, the bastard had no desire to test me. He caved in right away.

“What do you wanna know?” He barked, seemingly ready to talk. “I’ll tell you everything!”

“Everything? Really?” I decided to test him myself. “What was your first love’s name?”

“Matilda.”

“Was she in love with you?”

“I think so.”

“How many times did you make her come?”

“None.”

“Wow, this guy is really willing to tell everything!” I was surprised and delighted at the same time. Then, I immediately embarked on the task of turning his determination to talk into viable information about my case.

“Okay, we can come back to this later.” I smiled. “Now I’m more eager to know what you know about a girl named Sonya. She’s cute, green-eyed, and usually a bit sulky. She likes hanging out with the scumbags who used to deliver dope to your boss.”

My prisoner stared at me, confused and uncertain. He didn’t seem to remember her, which was suspicious because I didn’t think the bastards had kept her in the shack the entire time. Nevertheless, I didn’t believe my friend here was a good enough actor to fake it convincingly.

“She pretty much looks like the one I was with when we and you played a tag game in Eternity.” I decided to aid his memory. “Except Sonya has brown hair, and her boobs are smaller.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen her,” Boris answered, glancing uneasily at the ceiling. Aside from being inconvenient, his pose was also ridiculous, with his right leg folded at the knee and his left arm raised like that.

“Think again!” I snapped, annoyed. “I know you’ve been to the shack where they all lived before your boss decided to waste his suppliers!”

The man looked at me, curious how I knew these things. In fact, he shouldn’t be because when he, Lara, and I played the tag game in question, it was just an hour after the killings had happened. He could have suspected we might have seen them. Anyway, my attempt to stir his memory obviously didn’t work.

“I’ve never been inside,” he grunted peevishly, and although his answer corresponded to what the Butterfly had told me, I wasn’t happy to hear it. “Plus, I never liked these douchbags; it was only business between us. Why would I care who they fuck?”

“Listen to me!” I growled impatiently and waved my Colt in front of his face. “It won’t work like that. I don’t wanna hurt you again, but I will because we haven’t even started yet, and you’re already pissing me off. One way or another, you’ll give me what I want!”

Suddenly, a sharp noise behind my back interrupted me, and Halfenaked anxiously glanced over my shoulder with a worried expression. I turned my head, too. It was the kitten again, accidentally tumbling the guitar while playing with one of Boris’ slippers. It actually made me feel stupid because the guy clearly thought I was capable of hurting his little friend. I didn’t do anything to convince him to the contrary, though.

“The scumbags’ other girlfriend is a whore who often wears a tacky white pair of pants with a butterfly print on them,” I continued after the pause, still irritated. “Now tell me you don’t know this one too, and I swear we’ll be both sorry for that!”

“No, I know her!” My prisoner hurriedly admitted before I even finished my sentence, probably because he was aware he had to give me something after all. “Her name’s Cynthia.”

“At last! Okay, then. We can start from here,” I urged him. “She’s a weird creature, and I’d like to talk to her, but the problem is she suddenly disappeared. Do you know where I could find her?”

Boris considered it for a moment. “She hasn’t been hanging around the club lately. Did you try in Villa Nueva?”

“Do you really think I could try that?” I asked him tartly. “The place is secured like a fucking military base! I would need an armored vehicle to get in.”

“Well, that’s not my problem, actually.” He attempted to shrug, and the chandelier above his head rustled, agitated again. “But you’re wrong! She’s just a fucking whore. You’ll get nothing from a piece of shit like her.”

“No, you’re wrong!” I disagreed, remembering how she tricked us when Lara and I talked to her outside Eternity. “She’s a whore, alright, but she’s shrewd and quite skilled at making people underestimate her. She knows very well what she’s doing and why, and most importantly, she knows why other people do what they do! Are you aware she delivers girls to Kurvallo now?”

The guy looked at me weirdly. “It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” he suddenly explained with disdain. “She has always been a sleazy, unsavory, and shabby-looking nothing. But then she somehow hit it off with the clown in Villa Nueva and started considering herself his private pimp. That doesn’t change the fact she’s a piece of shit, though!”

“Well, I think you’re slightly unfair and taking it a bit too personally,” I disagreed again. “Before hitting off with Kurvallo, she used to deliver to you boss, didn’t she? She kind of kicked you out of business.”

“What do you mean?” Boris decided to act dumb.

“You know exactly what I mean! She started doing what you did until then—delivering fresh meat!”

“How do you even know that?” The bouncer fixed his eyes on mine, alarmed.

“It doesn’t matter how I know it,” I replied curtly. “Let’s just say I’m like her—I make people misjudge me. What really matters here is that your interests and mine intersect. They aren’t as different as you may think!”

He didn’t say anything and kept looking at me, but he remained suspicious.

“Look, I know how badly you hate Cynthia and Kurvallo, and I think you’re right to hate them!” I made another attempt to get him on my side. “Now, I don’t know all the details, but I do know this whore siphoned staff members from your boss. So, he must be terribly pissed off, right?”

Halfenaked turned his head away, thoughtful. I actually took a bit of a long shot here, but I believed it wasn’t too long. He had always struck me as a guy who took it as his job to keep an eye on the strippers in the club, and besides, the bellhop I interrogated in my hotel room confirmed it. I was sure he hated Cynthia’s guts.

“Now that the whore has scrammed,” I confidently went on, “you have a real chance to regain your previous position. And guess what? I’m pissed off at this scum, too, because I have reasons to believe that Sonya—the girl I’ve been looking for—is being kept at Kurvallo’s residence because of her. So you can see now how we share a common interest, can’t you? We shouldn’t be enemies!”

My prisoner remained silent for a while. I let him think about it, and while he did, I felt sorry for making him stand upright in such an inconvenient pose, switching from a leg to a crutch with an arm handcuffed to the chandelier. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything to help him because I needed it this way. I just wasn’t sure he would cooperate if I didn’t have the upper hand.

“He has always been a miserable son of a bitch,” Boris unexpectedly went on after a while, and I presumed he was talking about the DEA’s chief. “The jerk had no reason to make a mess of the whole deal. He had enough girls for his parties even before that and didn’t need to let the damn bitch ruin it!”

“Wait a minute! Are you telling me your boss used to send strippers to his house even before Cynthia?” I was surprised. “I thought the guy just had fun at the club!”

The bouncer looked at me hesitantly. It was clear he didn’t want to discuss the matter, but it was also obvious he had bones to pick with Kurvallo and the Butterfly. I noticed his left cheek twitching when he talked about any of them. I actually started liking him now that I had seen his house with the poster of Elvis, the Dracaena, and the cat. In any case, he had nothing to do with the atrocious character my crazy bartender friend described for me, and I certainly didn’t believe he ate scorpions alive, let alone strangled his own mother or gutted his father!

“We never sent them against their will,” Boris continued talking when he calmed down. “All of them were free to go and come back, and since we’ve never experienced personnel shortages, it wasn’t such a big deal. However, none of the girls returned ever.”

“None?” I asked, puzzled. I was also worried because he was the second person to tell me this.

“I don’t know; maybe they liked it there. Maybe he’s taking really good care of them!” the bouncer murmured, unconvinced. “I have no idea what makes them go.”

I shook my head, worried. Something was definitely wrong here. This story smelled too bad, and I couldn’t accept Tanaka had never wondered what happened to his strippers in Villa Nueva.

“Why would a high-ranking official need a constant flow of women’s flesh in his house?” I mumbled thoughtfully, talking more to myself rather than him. “It makes no sense; besides, it’s too risky!”

“People are different, aren’t they?” Boris shrugged and tried to switch legs again, but then he remembered he couldn’t. “Everyone in this world has a weakness, so I guess his weakness is chicks. The dirtier and sluttier they are, the more attractive to him. He just couldn’t help it!”

I looked at the guy. He was damn right! Everyone had a weakness, but it was also true that everyone wanted to exploit other people’s weaknesses to their advantage. The more I thought about it, the more the pieces of this vicious puzzle stuck together, taking their correct place in my head. Suddenly, I knew how Larry and Bob laid their hands on this terribly compromising photo in my shirt pocket. The Butterfly made it happen! After she started working for Tanaka, she met Kurvallo, and that’s how the idea of blackmailing him flashed across her hind. At first, everything must have gone well, but then Tanaka learned about her gang’s little plan, and shit unexpectedly hit the fan. After that, she had no option but to switch camps to save her skin.

“So you’re saying your boss was okay with the constant staff leakage to Villa Nueva?” I continued with my questions, still puzzled. “That’s so weird. I bet he had personal relationships with some of the girls!”

My prisoner didn’t answer. He just looked at me fixedly, probably because of the nature of our conversation. He knew the man he worked for would go to any length to punish his subordinates for their mistakes. Of course, I could use my Colt to make my friend here stay on the subject, but the problem was I didn’t want to. The moment for bullying him had simply passed, and I had lost that advantage now.

“What’s in it for Tanaka, then?” I went on speculating. “What does he gain in return? Protection?”

The bouncer kept his silence.

I waited a few seconds, and after he said nothing more, I turned around and walked to the kitchenette. I found a half-full scotch bottle on the shelf above the sink, but I wasn’t so lucky with the glasses. The space was literally cluttered with kitchen stuff, which all seemed dirty. When I finally picked one that looked acceptable, I poured some liquor into it, turning my head back.

“You care for some?” I asked.

Boris just shrugged.

I found a second glass—this time far dirtier than mine—prepared another drink, and went to my prisoner to give it to him. He took it but had trouble adjusting the crutch to hold both. After half a minute, he managed it. The guy looked quite funny with his left hand handcuffed and the drink in the other.

“Believe it or not, I don’t actually have a beef with you,” I assured him, trying to sound as friendly as possible. “For all I know, you might be as nice a dude as anyone else. Well, your social behavior surely needs some polishing, but I guess it’s just the rough environment at your workplace.”

Halfenaked kept looking at me without speaking. He wasn’t sure why I was telling him this and what I was aiming at.

“All I want is to find the girl I talked you about. If you help me do it, I’ll let you go. Or I’ll let you stay, if you will!” I smiled, casting a glance around his tiny room. “For what it’s worth, I think you should take the first option. Eternity’s glory days are numbered now, and there’s no point in fighting for the title ‘Employee of the Month’ anymore!”

The bouncer just huffed. He obviously didn’t want to listen to me, but he also had no choice. In any case, I saw a glimpse of hope in his eyes when he heard what I said, but I didn’t go out of my way to convince him to grab the opportunity. I let him sway in uncertainty before he decided whether I was bluffing.

“And why should I trust you?” he grunted after a few moments when he finished his self-torture without any particular conclusion.

“Well, it’s simply because you’re not in a position to ignore me. Is that enough reason for you?” I forced myself to rub the barrel of my gun against his left cheek. “Besides, too many people have died lately. Who knows, maybe you are the next! But why am I to tell you this? After all, you are in charge of these things, right? It was you who killed Sandra’s bellhop, so you should be able to do the math yourself!”

My handcuffed friend looked at me, and his eyes squinted for a moment as he tried to figure out how I knew about it. He had clearly forgotten I had seen the same weapon he tossed at the crime scene when we played hide-and-seek in the club before that.

“You couldn’t know that!” Boris mumbled after deciding I was shooting in the dark.

“But I do!” I answered smugly. “And by the way, don’t bother making up a story! You aren’t that good anyway. The only thing I’m not positive about is why you had to waste the jerk. He was just a stupid junkie!”

“The idiot brought it to himself!” The bouncer shrugged when he realized there was no point in denying it. “He came over to confess that you questioned him.”

“He did that?” I was genuinely amazed at the bellhop’s stupidity.

“He was scared and thought he was saving his ass. He said you were snooping around and asking too many questions about Sandra and my boss, but he took you for a ride. I think he was expecting a reward or something.”

“Yeah, that sounds just about right.” I nodded, smiling. “He was a complete moron! And while we’re at it, what did you tell your boss about our incident that night at the club?”

The guy frowned, pressing his lips tightly as if I were asking him some very inappropriate and uncomfortable question—like how often he jerked off or something. It took him a whole minute just to open his mouth and another invitation from me.

“I said nothing,” he admitted at last.

“Well, I don’t believe you!” I shook my head, tapping the gun barrel on his forehead warningly. “I thought we had a deal!”

Since my prisoner was so nervous, my gesture worked perfectly.

“Are you kidding me?” He suddenly raised his voice. “He was going to kill me if he knew I had lost you! I told him someone shot me in the yard while I was searching there.”

I made a skeptical grimace but nothing more. In fact, what Tanaka knew about me didn’t really matter because things had already evolved past this. On the other hand, I thought he might be telling the truth because his boss did look like a man who would kill for such negligence, and Boris seemed quite alive to me. Eventually, I just turned around and went to sit on the desk beside the window and the Dracaena plant.

“Will you really let me go?” The bouncer asked after watching me for almost two minutes, sipping my drink silently. My idea was to strain his nerves as much as possible.

“I’m not a murderer like you if that’s what you ask,” I said, looking at him bluntly. “To be honest, I like you better than the bellhop, who you’ll always have on your conscience! The schmuck couldn’t stay focused for too long, which annoyed me a lot.”

“So you’ve got rid of the body after all?” my hanging friend asked me, shaking the chandelier as he tried to pump blood into his left arm. He looked like a bat, resting at home with a glass of whiskey after a busy night catching flies in the woods.

“I did what I did,” I answered bleakly. “Now tell me, why did your boss have to kill his suppliers so suddenly? It makes no sense!”

“My boss doesn’t usually explain himself to me,” Boris replied curtly, looking away with a gloomy expression. It made me think I was pushing him too hard. Maybe I had to reconsider my strategy and cut him some slack because there was a real chance of losing him. Despite everything he had done to me, I really didn’t want to hurt him anymore.

“Well, you must have heard rumors, at least!” I tried another approach. “You know, I don’t care about your boss; I only care about Sonya. She used to kick around with these two scumbags, and she’s my only concern.”

“They messed up big time,” my prisoner murmured reluctantly after hesitating for a while. “I think their bullshit threatened our deals.”

“What deals?”

He pulled a face that was supposed to tell me I shouldn’t ask him such things.

“Is that why you ransacked their shack?” I insisted.

Halfenaked looked at me, confused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “I’ve been there only to pay them. As I already said, I’ve never been inside, and I don’t think anyone else from the club has either.”

I stared at him searchingly. His reaction seemed sincere, and his words made sense. If Tanaka really had something to do with it, he would probably have gotten what he was looking for and wouldn’t have to kill Larry and Bob for it later. It meant the Butterfly lied to me when I talked to her outside the club. She said the drug dealers had tried to blackmail their middleman, but there was actually no middleman. It had been Kurvallo; he was the one who ransacked the shack, searching for the photos. And she covered for him because she had already reconsidered her goals and intended to switch sides!

This little whore! She was such a character! Her ambitiousness somehow turned the relationship between a ruthless drug lord and the DEA’s chief into a horrible mess, which was quite an achievement! It was still weird that Tanaka would risk his profitable business just to have a bunch of stupid photos, but maybe I didn’t see the bigger picture here. Perhaps he had other plans and needed leverage on Kurvallo.

“You know what I wonder?” I went on after a while, looking thoughtfully at my glass because Boris’ whiskey actually turned out to be pretty good. “I can’t even understand why you got involved in all this in the first place. You don’t strike me as a guy with no choice!”

“Does it really matter why I got involved?” He asked instead of answering.

“Well, for you, it does! Your boss isn’t exactly Mother Teresa, is he? His employees don’t mean shit to him, and I think you know someday, you might end up in the back of a truck at the bottom of the ocean—like his miserable drug suppliers did!”

My blond-haired prisoner cocked his head, irked.

“I guess I just needed a job like everyone else,” he grunted, sulking. He tried to look tough but didn’t do a great job. Keeping his balance was too much effort, and he felt awkward in this position. “Why do you even care? It’s not like you’re a friend of mine, and you certainly don’t strike me as a social worker either!”

“You’re right; I’m not!” I shrugged while sipping my drink again. “I’m just trying to understand why a guy like you who has interests in music and stuff would do such a stupid thing, entrusting his life to the hands of a brutal man like your boss. I’m curious, is all.”

“Well, why would a woman like the one you’re hanging out with entrust her life to his hands? I suppose we’re not that different, then, are we? Have you asked her the same question?”

“What?” I suddenly looked at him, alarmed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He stared at me, baffled. “You didn’t know?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I shouted, very annoyed, and spontaneously jumped from the desk to go over to him, still clutching the glass in my left hand and the gun in the other. My eyes must have looked pretty nasty at this moment because my prisoner recoiled, forgetting he had an injured leg.

“She came to the club to cut a deal,” he cried anxiously. “I thought you knew!”

“A deal? What deal?”

“How the hell would I know that? The only thing I know is that she came, asked for a meeting, and then my boss was really pissed off. Nobody dared speak to him for the rest of the day!”

“When did all this happen?” I grumbled with increasing nervousness in my voice.

“Two days ago, I thought you were in this together!”

I looked at him, frustrated. “Yeah, I thought so too! What happened afterward?”

“Nothing happened afterward! I proceeded with my job.”

“Did you see her coming out?”

“I left for business before that.”

“And you didn’t hear anything about it later on?”

“Nothing!”

I kept my eyes on his face, trying to press him, but he didn’t cave in. Maybe he was telling the truth. Then, I slowly returned to sit at the desk. These new pieces of the puzzle actually changed the entire situation drastically. They suddenly explained Lara’s disappearance and the picture with the message she left for me. They didn’t explain why she needed to meet Tanaka, but I suspected her reasons. She probably felt desperate and wanted to trade information with him. What a terribly wrong idea!

“Listen, have you noticed anything strange in the club lately? Any change in the routine, schedules, or shifts, maybe?” I asked Boris when I managed to put my nerves under control. I still had a knot in my stomach, though.

The man slowly shook his head. “I would have known if he killed her,” he tried to soothe me because he thought I would lose my shit again. “Someone had to take care of the body, you know. The guys talk about that when it happens!”

I looked at him grimly. His attempt didn’t bring me much relief.

“You should definitely quit this lousy job of yours!” I grunted after a while, still wondering how to get him to help me. The problem was I had no idea what I wanted him to do for me. “Take this as a word of advice: the golden age of Eternity has ended. Move ahead before it’s too late!”

“What do you even know about the golden ages and stuff?!” The bouncer refused to hear my point. “You’re just a gumshoe who barely makes both ends meet. Most of the time, you’re happy if you have enough money for a slice of pizza and a beer!”

I ignored his bickering and just shrugged.

“Think about it! If your boss destroyed his entire supply chain like that,” I snapped my fingers to illustrate my point, “then there’s more to it than meets the eye, isn’t there? It’s a lot of money, which means something more important is at stake here. Are you so hopelessly dumb to remain the last rat when the ship starts sinking?”

“Yeah! Like you would know if the ship is sinking!” He ridiculed me.

“Can’t you see he’s cleaning up?”

“No, I can’t!”

“Then you’re even dumber than I thought you were! He’s moving ahead of the events and trying to relocate his business!”

The guy suddenly fixed his grayish-blue eyes on mine as if he remembered something. His face remained tense for a while, thinking.

“Look, the whore you hate so much, she actually did you a favor!” I went on playing my cards. “As much a lowlife as she is, she somehow managed to drag Tanaka and Kurvallo into a fight, and soon, their shit will hit the fan big time. However, the good thing is that she set you free by driving you out of your previous role at the club. Now you have a real chance to scram before you become a patsy. You don’t really believe your boss will take his entire entourage with him when he decides to leave, do you?”

Halfenaked kept looking at me without saying anything. Despite his efforts, he obviously didn’t have enough information to grasp the bigger picture and realize how urgent his situation was. Nevertheless, I decided to give him another push.

“Okay, I can see it’s hard for you to believe me, but let me tell you something else!” I continued pressing him. “I’m only doing it because I think you’re not such a bad guy after all. And also because I know you care about the girl who used to work at the club’s coat check. She disappeared recently, didn’t she?”

The expression on Boris’ face changed sharply. His gaze suddenly became intense.

“What about her?” He barked anxiously.

“I know where she is.”

“How could you even know she disappeared in the first place?” He decided to test me.

“I just know. And that’s not the point! The point is that I’m trying to give you fair treatment here and convince you you can trust me. Believe it or not, you and I have more in common than you think. Our goals aren’t much different!”

The bouncer huffed again, but it was more than clear I had his attention this time. Despite that, winning him over to my side was still tough. He was taught to think as a thug, and it was too big of a challenge to take me for anything other than a foe. I waited a couple of seconds to let my words grow on him.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” After a while, he couldn’t resist asking me.

“Well, I mean, we could help each other,” I replied readily. “Your colleague is locked in Kurvallo’s mansion—that’s for sure. And I also believe the girl I’ve been looking for is there too. We could join forces and work together to get them out!”

I didn’t actually have my hopes too high about it. It was a long shot, and the moron had stereotypical thinking, but still, it was worth trying. I had nothing to lose anyway.

“How are you so sure she’s there?” Boris wanted to know.

“I saw a picture of her. Now, don’t ask me how I got the picture, but she was in Villa Nueva’s front yard with other girls in the middle of the night!”

“And why should I trust you?” The thug grunted, still not convinced.

“Because right now, it’s your only option,” I tried to give him a reason. “And it’s also because the longer we wait, the lesser our chances are.”

“Oh, fuck you and your idiotic chances!” He didn’t like my explanation. “Do you really think I’m that stupid? You’ll just tell me you saw a damn picture, and here I come, ready to fight for your cause!”

I looked at him, disappointed. I should admit I probably wouldn’t have believed it too if I were him, but still, I was disappointed. At the same time, I felt sorry for him. I could see on his face that a terrible suspicion was already gnawing at him. I decided to give it one last try, though.

“It was a late-night picture, so it’s unlikely she was heading to a party,” I reminded him. “And besides, Kurvallo’s men, who were taking her there, were armed. You know well that nothing good happens to the girls in this house!”

He looked at me sourly but didn’t answer. His expression was still tense, and I wondered how hard it must have been for him to watch his secret love all these years being fucked by his nasty boss and now thrown away. As I thought about it, I suddenly remembered how she gestured to me to have sex in the restrooms when Lara and I visited the club the second time. In light of the latest events, I realized it hadn’t actually been a sex offer but rather an attempt to escape from Tanaka.

Despite everything, Boris eventually refused to believe me. He closed himself in his shell of denial and completely stopped cooperating. A few minutes later, I was ready to give up because, until then, our conversation had become pointless.

“You know what?” I stood up to give him my last words before leaving. “I really hope you’ll take my advice seriously and jump ship. I wasn’t trying to trick you into helping me! As far as I’m concerned, you’re as much a victim in this situation as the girls in the villa.”

“What did you mean when you said Tanaka was moving ahead of the events?” Halfenaked asked me instead of answering. It surprised me because I thought my warning hadn’t touched his consciousness. “What do you know about the shit happening between him and Kurvallo?”

“Oh, it’ll be obvious pretty soon!” I assured him. “Kurvallo is a reckless bastard, and his political career is going down the drain now. He won’t hesitate to take your boss down with him for a second, and I think Tanaka knows it. He certainly has a backup plan, and you should have one, too!”

The bouncer didn’t reply; he just kept looking at me. His right hand still held the glass, but he hadn’t drunk yet. I silently finished my drink and prepared to leave. I had nothing else to say to him. The moment I took my first step toward the miniature hallway, I felt something moving at my feet. The kitten had come to me again, and I bent over to take it in my hands. I caressed its head and let it play on the desk. After that, I headed for the door.

“Wait!” Boris’ voice suddenly caught up with me when I was almost in the doorway.

I turned around to look at him. The weird prisoner under the flashy chandelier stared at me anxiously. After a second, he darted a glance toward the desk, where my empty glass, his weapon, the kitten, and the key to the handcuffs were. Obviously, the last one was why he didn’t want me to go. I just smiled at him crookedly and stepped out of the room.

He was overreacting. It wasn’t a radiator, after all; it was just a stupid chandelier. And he was nearly a seven-foot-tall adult male who could easily rip it off the ceiling with a single jerky movement of his massive arm. Unless, of course, it was a special gift from Louis the Fourteenth, in which case, my blond-haired friend was going to face a terrible dilemma: he had to choose between his precious antique and starving to death.

Outside, I walked down the staircase, thinking about Boris and his beloved Marilyn. Five minutes later, I reached where I had parked my Ford—it was fifteen yards up the street—and until then, the bouncer had enough time to get over the loss of his furniture, grab his gun, and catch up with me. Something was telling me he wouldn’t do it, though. For some reason, I was also sure he wouldn’t tell his boss anything about our meeting here and that I would never see him again.

I quickly hopped into the car and headed to my place, still engulfed in my thoughts. The new bits of information I had just learned turned everything in my head upside down. All my previous theories were gone, and I had no option but to start over. The problem was that there was no time. Only one path ahead remained now, but I didn’t even know why I had to follow it. As always, I ended up fighting someone else’s war and, as always, was left alone to do it, which depressed me.

After an hour of driving, I was down in front of my apartment building, but since there was no vacant spot on my side of the street, I made a U-turn to go over to the flower shop with the broken windows. The place looked abandoned, like a trashed telephone booth, and no one even cared to put new glass in its window frames. I was just stepping out of my car, feeling a bit dizzy from the terrible heat, when I heard an engine revving and tires squealing not far away from me. I had no time to think. I only knew that the street had been completely empty a few moments ago, and after that, my hallucination from a few weeks ago when masked men robbed the local bank office flashed across my mind. It made me drop to the ground immediately, without really knowing what I was doing or why.

I did it right on time. Just a second later, gunshots echoed over my head, and an entire waterfall of broken glass from my car rained upon my body.

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