A pair of girls from Madam's establishment are smoking with their backs at the barricaded way up and short skirts pressed on the stairs. One of them tabs her wrist and made a suggestive gesture which I politely declined by ignoring.
The elevator passed this floor with its lousily recognizable screeches from the coils and hoisting rope. And when it finally opens, I found myself stuck between a lady with wheat color skin in zebra strap pants and a guy in three-piece pursing his lips to the far right of his mouth.
Three floors of elevator ride in the tangible air of loom got me taking out the pack of red again. I almost let a laugh slip when the man immediately emulates this action just to find something to do.
The ride was torturously hilarious for what happened between them is written on their faces in excessive details that would put the Iliad in shame. But the repressed grin by the shaky cigarette in my mouth dropped as the door at the second floor underground opens. Beyond the veil of ashes in the air between the elevator light, it's still pitch black.
The man and woman bypass me in impressive speed and hurling footsteps. The man tried to slow her down but she ditched his approach at the first level of the stairs up. In the dark, the man's restive action of tossing away the just-lit cigarette draws a very slow curve in the air before it hits the steel door of Stynx.
And I can swear. The camera buried behind the sign flashes the smallest light in the world before closing. Someone's home huh?
5:07 I check my watch under the dull lantern hanging above and decide it's about time they open.
I step through the closing door kick off as much debris and trash and peddle and avoid the gooey substance on the wall and sit 2 meters away from the entrance. The concrete ground of an abandoned second floor is....well you get the picture, you can work out the imaginations.
I bring out the carton of black specials from the cramped inner pocket with a carnival mask next to it. Took some tries but I found the lid opening and the lighter in another pocket.
8 packs of black and gold special with two letter marks in the middle line from my feet to the wall. I pull the first of many out with my thumb and index finger on the dark brown filter, the lighter buzzes rhythmically upon the king-size cig and shows the small golden ring of brand name between the black wrap and filter.
The thing sells the best not without reasons. Constructed savor, low nicotine, filled to the tip with tar so it burns twice as fast despite the length. No more than 2 minutes later, my tongue tastes nothing but butter and fake burns and glimmering dot of yellow moves closer to my lip by the inches before I nib it out and flick it at the steel gate. The camera light came back to life, I wave at it, it closes. I pull another one out,
done it, and this time flick it at where the red pinpoint was in the dark. It's actually easier if you think of what's in front of you as a picture. By the fifth toss, the green and teal neon sign turns the basement from pitch black to sinister in an instance.
"Business or something else?"
The door rolls to the right and the light from within made me squint my eyes before the familiar figure blocks it like fucking saint Petyr at pearly gate.
"Business," I say and put the sixth cigarette back between my lips. "Strictly business." The green sign and teal rules of the neon at the corner vision made my right eye twitch. Warden was about to say some but curled it back in his throat and behind his eyes.
***
Almost forgot silence exists in Stynx too. Before the animals get in and after the hangover starts. The music isn't louder than the other bullshit going on by the pool table but I'm pretty sure I had them opening half an hour earlier.
The place's empty with chairs leaning by the high tables on the right and the poker table at the west corner. The green carpet under warm lantern light bears no trace of the brown blood stein two nights ago. And the most unearthly of them all is the lack of that albino, smirking bartender in long sleeve, black vest all year around.
I pull a chair down at the counter and fight the urge to poke my head over the row of rivets at the other side of it. Some half-assed decency and the prospect of Lev walking straight out of the dark red curtain had me in check and smoking quietly like a homesick child.
Out of pure boredom, I bring out the mask bought from cricket's. Toying it in my hands just made the idea of eventually putting it on more absurd. I read it somewhere its called 'Volto', a full oval mask in porcelain white that hides everything before my ears except those two eye holes. I'd say it's made of stiff leather to the touch.
Between two ceiling lights in black cages emanating yellow lights that barely reflect the strips of metal on the counter, the hollow eye sockets and the golden floral trims at the edge, and the star of the show, the Augur in the middle. It's made of straight and thick lines, depicting a man in robes of tunic with his hand holding a curling wooden wand. His head raised at the black nothingness of eye hole in seraphic.
Fitting as hell, this one.
I stash it in my jacket and snuff the cig butt on the metal counter. The White Russian just walks out of the red curtain, it doesn't sway an inch as he squeezes through the half-shut gap with an ashtray in hand and clear violence in the first three steps. But as his sharp features through posts of lamps like a speeding night drive, the steps grew mild and the hint of displease by his brows untied.
"Your nights grow younger by the day." He places the heavy glass ashtray down in front of me and gestures a hand forward like an invitation or a salute. Slim fingers as white as a butterfly specimen.
On the opposite side of the counter, he puts a hand by the sink and the other one by the waist.
"Couldn't tell them apart. The city never sleeps and nor do I." I grin a meek smirk in response and bring out the pack of red on the counter. He nods, then again more compellingly.
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"What can I get you?"
Eyes up, head low. He slaps the switch and while the sleeves of his smooth shirt barely stay by his wrist. "Gin and Tonic?" I scratch the side of my tongue with teeth to get the clingy taste of butter out.
"Rusty nail."
"At six." He move his hands off the faucet and bends over for the whiskey. "Sure you're here for business?" A bottle of single malt without age tag between him and I before he moves silently to the back shelf for honey liquor. Left sleeve dragged down just a little as he reaches upward, revealing a part of his arm full of complicated images of a checker and a large 'T'. I’d say his skin is more dark green shades of ink than bleaching white.
"I'm not planning on staying long." I can almost hear a hum out of him as he holds the bottle by the bottom and brings it here next to the whiskey.
"Expecting another friend?" He continues, innocently enough as he pulls some hat trick behind the bottles but instead of a rabbit, he's holding a whiskey glass and a pre-sculpt rock in it clinking the corners, both seemingly out of thick air.
"Looking for new ones." After some back and forth I sweep the cigarette bud and the black smears off and collect them in the ashtray.
"Then," I pat off the black prints on my palm while Lev draw a straight line in the air from the pourer by his eye to the glass. He brings a spiraling stir from counter and digs it to the bottom, tilting the spoon end of the rod made the ice resurfaces as well as letting the sweet flow above the whiskey.
"I suggest you come back later with the crowd or get four more drinks in advance." Lev jokes with slightly hinted brows and clears out the bottles to serve the drink. I take a sip before answering. The first of today couldn't come sooner.
Savoring the robust and invasive honey and spice in the tincture carved a yawning path to the bottom of oak and alcoholic finish. Some have it down their throat in one go for the easy swallow, it's a damn shame to do so.
"Who said I'm looking for one here?" I let a grinning of teeth slips through edges of the glass and his abruptly raised expression. Blue eyes behind, veil of cold dribbles at the rim of glass from mine. They look far away for some reason.
"Well, where else would you be looking for them?" He put the stirring rod down in the sink and presses both hands behind the counter, two-button vest strangle his torso like a nut job's jumpsuit, and as he leans ahead the figure of him grows smaller but the presence of his gesture multiplies. He's not reaching for a gun right now, the arms spreading further than my shoulder it's not an ideal way for firearm access. But it is a very palpable foretold of warning and initiative.
So I shoot mine for the heck of it, nibbling out a cig from the pack beside the ashtray. Lighting it turned the tip into a weathered lily, a bore burst case of lead.
"Piao Jie." Lev's vision turns seamlessly left at entrance before shaking. "I know you don't serve drink while doing business, just like you knew I don't like the taste of booze for my first drink." Five fingers on the rim of glass I swirl steadily and watch the thickness of the gold melt into amber as the ice collides the sound in an otherworldly quiet place with still chairs, hanging signs, turned-off neons and a bartender breaking me down piece by piece with his sharp eyes.
***
The pale bartender drops the act and wipes his hands dry off a rug by sink. "Tell me about these friends." His voice carries no accent and his tone wears sarcasm as a disguise. Whatever's behind those eyes switched.
"Let's start with the less troubling one." I take a small swig from the glass, the cubs numbs my upper lip for a second. "Does the name Xiao. Mean anything or ring any bell to you? Black hair, about half a notch shorter than me, always wearing gloves....." A frown was repressed by him. "Very well-trained bulldog under the Miss Qin’s wing." Lev hums a dry laugh that makes him look even older than he already looks.
"Sounds like you already done the work yourself. You want to spend 30 thousand just to hear my voice?" I drag a corner of my lip to cheek, head tilts in the same direction.
"I paid the good Christian up north a visit already." I lean just a bit closer and bring the glass up for another sip. "Now I need you to give something other than mandatory horse shit I already knew."
He laughs genuinely this time and draws his hands off the counter and back on his belt. His head is low with those bleeding white brows knit and untie simultaneously. The sharp features of his mirror a statue of an angry Greek god.
I pull my other leg up the stool footing and my hands move to the pack of cigarettes out of habit and a distinct intuition I won't like what he's about to tell me. If he doesn't refuse this trade altogether.
A small silence. The irritating ones. Like waiting for the fan to swirl in your direction on a summer morning. When it passes, Lev takes two steps right to the end of the counter and shouts, the loudest I've ever heard of him, at the hallway behind me.
"Push the opening hour back 20 minutes! .....Someone's got a bone to pick." Couldn't tell if warden made any response. But the last sentence was undoubtedly directed at me.
Than. Lev did something unseen again. With proficiency as mixing drinks, he pulls out a king-size, full-white pack of cigarettes with his left hand while the right snake out a zipper.
"I assume the sacrilegious father didn't tell you much did he?" With the hard pack as veil, he pulls the spark closer.
"Told an interesting ghost story. Some….fable." A twitch of mouth behind fingers and the totting fag. A breath came after another, each time breathing out more smoke till the first centimeter's completely black.
"All I got for the question are fables as well." He stashes the pack of cigarettes back in his vast. "She's a myth. A very recent myth."
"6 months ago, the name came to my notice." He took a puff, like dipping a toe in water. "A closer with excellent skill. Three cases in downtown in broad daylight, four in Little Italy, a couple more in your neighborhood too." Lev extends the cigarette hand at my face on the last sentence, the ember draws closer and I take another sip watching it stop on the ashtray.
"You smelled something odd?" I ask with a clear answer in mind just as Lev.
"Good hunches." He let out a bitter smile "Want to try your luck as a broker?"
"Your market seems oversaturated enough. I'd rather be a bartender." I smile and take another sip to let the image of Xiao....the face of Xiao disappear in my head. Leaving just the figure, the contour. "So what did you find strange about her?" Lev shake his head slowly as the burning ring of cinder between his finger twiddles.
"I don't make assumptions. That's your work." I found myself unknowingly copying his response, shaking my head at his comment.
"But you're not a fucking robot. You overthink as well, so come on now." A side of brow's tilted with the eyelid as he brings the smoke back between lips. A twitch by the eye and a small drop at the corner of mouth.
"The hits. They look fabricated. Her identity wasn't done properly. Her handiwork for the Qins appeared in accordant attributes. Precise, clean, but always sloppy at the end, as if she was begging to leave a mark." The burning tip of cig brightens at his indifference. "It's a bad joke like pulling the bedsheet over a corpse." He hinges the lower lip as if chewing the smoke in mouth. His blue eyes survey the empty bar like he did a million times during rush hour.
Six months ago.....
"What I found strange is. She came under the scope six months ago and I hadn't heard of her at all, wouldn't that contradict your point?" Lev shrugs at the question but still takes a long drag before responding.
"She wanted to be seen, but avoid the spotlight. She wants a role to play in the background....." His eyes wander off the surface of the counter and downward while slightly frowning. "That is," He bends down a little and reaches the left hand under the counter. "until she became Qin Yan's personal bodyguard not long after you disappeared. Now that completed her story."
"I can strike those conclusions through flair. What else you got?" A flash of alien emotion glazes through his pupils, a faint stretch on both eyelids. The glint itself and the expression ain't much of a spectacle, but it is unsettling seeing the mischievousness in them.
"Come to think of it, I also have a brief footage of the woman from not long ago. Do you want to see it?" My thumb slip off the whiskey glass for the sudden pressure of clinching my fist and a skip of heartbeat, that single pump of blood gone to adrenaline and the glass slides five centimeters left.
First worthwhile thing on her…
"Yes." Words jumped out before anything slightly less patent could muster. Lev crook his brows and puts the cigarette back in his mouth while depicting my every flow of thoughts.
He takes a hard drag that sunk his cheeks in and the dry Virginia tobacco with little tar moves lazily like a cigar, direct contrary to the massive vail of smoke he puffs out.
Haphazardly, he takes out a pruning scissor under the counter and cut the brittle tip off the cig. Lev places the rest of it on the groove of ashtray. The whiff of smoke invariably spins through the air like a censer before the leftover on the glass burns out.
"This way." Lev motions at the curtain in far right corner the color of poisoned blood.