Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

CONALL WARNER

I stared at Bimbo sitting at the bar, behind the rain-splattered window with the giant neon letters. It read FIUME in red. I crossed the road from where the cabbie dropped me off. Where I told him to drop me off. I had surveyed the area and checked that the cylinder was loaded with bullets in the rain, in the red ambience pooling from the bar's sign.

A cacophony of sounds hit me when I entered the ardent bar.

The music was low and some kind of pop-rock. Glasses clinking around round high top tables. Between one gaiety group of friends, cans and bottles were toasted with.

Laughter and incoherent shouting played on. A wall of liquor surmounted behind the bartender. It loomed over the room with hanging tags from bottles, containing the date and brand of the spirit.

Fiume was a strange bar. You didn't ask for a specific drink, make and model, you picked it out. You pointed at a bottle and you were poured a glass or more, depending on the cash in hand or wallet. If you couldn't read the tag on a bottle, it didn't matter. Most people go for the top ones, because it's practically a randomiser since the tags are written in minuscule handwriting.

After one glass, the bartender would ask if the customer could guess the type of alcohol that they had just consumed. If they got it right, they got a free refill of the same bottle. Then the bartender would ask if they could guess the year in which it was made. If the customer got remotely close to the decade, the bottle was handed to them to do as they pleased.

The game was only fun if the bar was empty or freed up.

Faye Jost, the Hindu bartender, laughs at everything, even bad jokes. She always wears a jogging suit with tights and a hat. The hat was playful, fitting with the theme of the bar.

She once worked in the pedagogical industry, moving around schools. The hat had been stolen from a school play, she told me when we went to talking, when the bar was less busy. I only talked when she wasn't busy. I liked to see her play with the Fiume virgins who became fish-white at the gills when she came around with her plunging neckline and her braid tucked under her hat.

Bimbo must have chosen this place to spite me. It was the only place I enjoyed going to, and I couldn't bear to pull the gun out inside the bar.

Faye would kill me, but it would also affect her business. No one wants to have a drink at a closed crime scene.

I was being placed on the pulpit, high pressure rushing down my neck for me to do something, give a sermon perhaps, although it was unlikely.

Faye waved at me when I walked to the bar. I slovenly returned the greeting and sat a chair away from Bimbo. He already had a glass in front of him and Faye was holding a bottle for him. She hid the tag under her clasped hands with painted fingernails. I looked at the wall of liquor. He had picked a bottle from the top.

"Is it... a... chardonnay?" Faye clapped her hand against the bottle, congratulating Bimbo.

"Correct. Now you've got to guess what year it was made in." She poured him another glass, about two fingers cut off.

"And what's my reward for this?" he said. "I get to take you out to the city tonight?"

"Oh stop it, I don't even know you that well. Your reward is the whole bottle. I'll even throw in a Fiume coaster. Hint, that chardonnay was made from the grapes in that vineyard around here." She came over to me.

"Whatchu want darling?"

"Oh, I'm just here to talk."

"Uhhhh - I'm a bit busy right now so - "

"Sorry, not with you, with him."

"Oh of course. Ummm, I'll get out of your hair then. Mister, you let that glass sit with you for a while, really feel the age in it. I'll be back, just need to check up on these people, see what they want. It's a full house tonight!"

She hurried off, her sneakers slapping on the surface. She had taken the bottle with her without reason.

"She's a fine lady, isn't she?" Bimbo said. "She would look hea-ven-ly in a tundra. Of course, she would freeze over in a tundra but - "

"Shut up and listen, will ya? Why'd you save me from your own trap? Change your mind?"

"No, I want to change your mind. I've got a job for you."

"What job?"

"I want you to kill Yaegar for me."

"Why?"

"For his money mostly. And the company."

"That's only if the company falls to you. He always goes on business meetings, I'm assuming he has business partners, backup owners if ever he were to die a deadly death."

"No, we don't have business partners. We don't even have business meetings, it's pretend. What we do is drive to LA so he can get more cash from this old rundown house. It's your competition money by the way, we bring it from LA so we can clean it through our business. I'm gonna go to LA when this all blows over, I'm gonna take his cash. But that's not all his money, that's just the physical assets that I need cleaned. The clean money is in an offshore bank account which I can then withdraw from ATMs and use as I please. Sparingly of course or privately, so the IRS doesn't sniff anything. That's why I need the company so I can keep on cleaning until it's all done and dusted. And then I'll split it with you. Sound like a good deal?"

"So I'm the business partner now. Where is he?"

"336 Signal Hill Road. He's got the assistant manager, I forget her name - "

"Me too."

"Yeah, well, he's keeping her hostage if ever you survived the explosion you didn't meet. He thinks I'm disposing of Dorothy's car right now instead of talking with the enemy, so let's keep it that way until the very end shall we? And don't make such a mess. It's a nice house, we just bought it."