The Placid Parlour was located on a short strip mostly made up of other businesses in the same general vein. Even in the evening Myra could see people sitting on outside chairs, or on the move between bars, eateries or pool halls.

“You’d think they’d disperse after what went down here,” Brown commented from his customary spot in the passenger seat.

“You’d think a lot of things about people, but you’d usually be wrong,” Myra replied.

“Did that sound good in your head?”

“It sounded alright.”

A drunken yahoo wandered in the path of the automobile and was greatly amused when she stopped. He started making a game of being in the way, but didn’t get far before Myra flashed her shield at him. That cleared the street and she drove the last few metres before coming to a stop before the Placid Parlour.

The neon sign above the door was off and the sign in the window was flipped to Closed. The lights within were still on, though, so they both walked over to the door. Myra knocked firmly and fished her shield out again. A figure moved within and she pressed it against the glass. The person came over and Myra recognised him from the station, when he’d given his initial statement.

“Good evening, officers,” the young man said with some weariness in his voice as he opened. “What can I do for you?”

“Good evening,” Myra said back. “Tom, wasn’t it? Can we come in?”

The thin, somewhat unkempt man stepped aside and let them in, before hurriedly locking the door.

The interior made for a rather interesting contrast. It was a well-designed and well-furnished place, all in warm, soothing colours and dark wood, and the bottles on display behind the bar all looked like something Chief Matew would enjoy having in his desk. It was a place for people with a bit more to spend, and weighed against all that was the destruction caused by the Green Bomber’s massacre.

“I’m just doing a bit of cleaning,” Tom said awkwardly as he swerved around a blanket that had been laid over a section of the floor. “Gotta work to get paid, and the boss hasn’t quite decided what to do about... all of this.”

Myra had never actually been here before, but the file had included a crude top-down drawing of this place, and she knew where to look for the spots where those six people had died. One blast had missed and severely damaged a wall. The others had hit their marks, destroying each person to a terrifying degree, as well as their immediate surroundings.

One had been hit while sitting on a couch up ahead on Myra’s left. It, and the wall behind, were burnt and wrecked, and the couch sloped to one side like an automobile with two missing wheels. Another had been blasted while pretty much as the centre of the floor space, and Tom stepped around another blanket on his way to the bar.

Aside from a small stock room in the back, and an even smaller restroom next to it, The Lounge was just one big open space, and there was no other exit. All the Bomber had had to do was stand in the doorway, and he’d held life and death in the palm of his hand. One patron had tried to make it around the bar and to the stockroom. A newspaper had been taped to the wall there, and several hand towels placed over a section of the bar.

“I have been put on the Green Bomber investigation,” Myra explained as she and Brown followed Tom. “I am revisiting each location he’s hit and I just wanted to check in with you.”

The man took up a cleaning rag he’d apparently been using and began twisting it nervously in his hands. His eyes were haunted.

“I’ve said all I know,” he told her softly. “I was just going over the drinks, right over there, when he burst in. No forewarning or anything. He blew up... burned... whatever... the closest person and then started ranting. He... pointed at me and shouted ‘You! You!’, and I really thought I was next. But he blasted someone else, and went back to ranting.”

Tom twisted the rag in the opposite direction.

“I said all this the first time around. Nothing’s changed. It’s not like I’ve seen him since.”

“But you are sure he looked straight at you?” Myra asked.

“Yeah,” Tom replied, looking distinctly ill at ease. “I am very sure.”

“And he definitely knew you were still alive when he left?”

“Me, Janice and that old guy,” Tom said. “I took cover over there...” he pointed to the corner behind the bar, “but none of his blasts ever hit that close to me. And the other two were pressed up against the wall in different spots. They didn’t really have anywhere to run. And he...”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Tom swallowed, trying to move awful memories along. “He picked his shots. Or throws, or whatever he was doing. Only one of them missed. He shouted ‘Begone!’ each time, after the first one. Then... things were just quiet. The... the usual noises came in from outside. I don’t think anyone realised what had been going on. I thought for sure he was going to walk over. But he just muttered more nonsense. It was like he was disappointed or something. And then he left.”

The young man let out a big, shaking breath.

“I-I really don’t want to be here,” he added, glancing about at the half-wrecked parlour. “B-but I need money.”

He turned around and started putting the rag to its intended purpose, with somewhat forceful strokes.

“Sounds like you had a real lucky break,” Brown commented.

“Yeah, I guess,” the other man said quietly, deliberately absorbed in his task.

“I realise this is difficult for you,” Myra said in her best professional voice. “But in the time since, have you thought of anything about the Bomber? Anything that stood out? Anything strange about his clothing or some such? Did he mention a location, or refer to a person?”

“He was angry at... someone,” Tom mumbled, still cleaning the damaged bar. “Some vague him and the vague evil he’d done. Look, the nonsense he said, I described it as well as I could in my first statement, when it was all fresh in my mind. I don’t have anything to add to that.”

Myra waited in silence. She felt she sensed an addendum coming and signalled for Brown to keep quiet as well. Finally Tom turned around and went back to twisting the rag.

“I see him, when I’m not careful,” the man said. “Framed against that doorway. And I hear the ‘FOOOSH’ of that green stuff he uses.”

He went through another period of silent hesitation, and Myra and Brown let him reach the end of it unhurried.

“In that image, which I admit may have gotten skewed... the only thing that stands out is something white on his shoes, and the bottom of his pants.”

“Something white?” Brown repeated.

“That’s all I’ve got for you,” Tom said. “I don’t know what it was. I wasn’t focused on his shoes.”

“Thank you,” Myra said. “If you can think of anything else at all, no matter how minor, please call the station. Any little detail might add to the puzzle.”

“Sure.”

He followed them to the door and locked it behind them with the same haste he’d shown before.

“That wasn’t much,” Brown said as they reached the auto.

“But it was something,” she replied and reached into the glove department. “And now for a little more something.”

She took out the cheap city map she’d bought at the gas station on the way, as well as three pens.

“It was around this time of night that the Bomber struck,” she went on. “Look around; which route would you say he used to get to the Parlour?”

He saw the same things she did and reached the same conclusion.

“Either direction has plenty of people,” he said. “And his description was already infamous by that point. I question if he used either of them.”

“Indeed.”

Myra strode into the nearest alley, but found it blocked by an iron fence with spiked tops. The second-closest one was narrow, dark and upon inspection it was littered with garbage. But it was passable, and so Myra took a flashlight out of her pocket and used it to light her way through.

“Do you see any mysterious white stuff?” Brown asked, with what Myra felt was a bit of sarcasm.

“No. But logic seems to suggest this is the most likely route for him.

The other side opened to a very narrow gap between the row of buildings and a minor river. There was no real lighting to be had, but shining her light to either side revealed a bridge to the left.

“Water always flows through the path of least resistance,” Myra said, momentarily thinking of her school days. “Maybe a patternless, directionless lunatic might behave in the same way.”

“I don’t have any better ideas,” Brown said reluctantly and followed her to the bridge. The other side basically mirrored the one they’d left, and a bit of walking about revealed three routes that didn’t seem too public for the Bomber.

Myra leaned up against a wall beneath the meagre light of a single outdoor bulb and looked at the map.

“People know what he dressed like, and they know about this staff or rod or whatever it is,” she said thoughtfully. “There’s been no shortage of misguided reports of old men with canes, or just men in general in red clothing. So however mad he is he seems to at least have the sense to stay out of sight until launching into one of his... stage acts.”

“Yes,” Brown said, waiting for her to continue. “Makes sense.”

“So...”

Myra took the blue pen and drew on the map, through the alley they’d first gone through.

“Blue for a route we can be pretty sure he used. Then green for a continuing route he’s likely to have used.”

She drew on the bridge, branching out into the three further routes.

“And red for ones that aren’t impossible, but seem unlikely.”

She added a few red strokes.

“We go over each and every place he’s hit so far, be it with murder or public oratory, and maybe when we look at the entire thing we can see a general pattern in how he uses the city’s back doors.”

Myra looked the altered map over for a few seconds, looking for a mistake she might have made. Finding none, she folded it up for now.

“It’s an idea,” Brown said. “And it’s an improvement on nothing.”

“I appreciate the full-throated support,” she told him dryly.

“Any time, partner. So... the loft is the nearest spot in our friend’s... career.”

“Yeah,” Myra said, and sighed a bit. “But we can make another stop first. Before the hour gets too late.”