Speakeasy

Alcohol was not a substance he understood. His home had no such concoction, and the very idea of willingly taking a liquid that would make a person act moronic and impede his or her memory seriously compromised his respect for human intelligence. Take this man at the bar, for example. His eyes were bloodshot, his clothes dirty, his tie askew, his face haggard with several days worth of stubble. This was the shining example of human achievement in this brightly lit basement, the sparkle of his cuff links belying his social status. A wealthy man, by all accounts, except for the fact he had to come here every night and lick the last remnants of alcohol from the bar as his cheek lay stuck to it. He was not alone in his quest, for several of his cronies had joined him, a drooling, half-lidded mass of unkempt bodies and wasters of time.

For a race that was encapsulated in the linear lines of minutes and hours, this purposeful waste of productive work was sickening to witness.

He turned away, the scales under his skin itching as he surveyed the bar. He caught the red glimmer of a familiar shade and he inwardly cringed as he met her gaze across the room, her dark smile drawing him to the back of the revelry on the dance floor. He pushed through the crowd, the dry skin of his gentle touch leaving scales across wayward wisps of feathers, sweating bared shoulders and the backs of black silk suits. He was jostled and turned by the dancing crowd, most of whom could barely manage a slow waltz let alone an energetic fox-trot. They staggered like formless mannequins on the dance floor, jerky, unfamiliar movements forced upon limbs that refused to co-operate.

A shoulder met his and nearly sent him toppling. "Watch it, jackass."

"I'm sorry, but you bumped into me."

"Then what are you saying sorry for?"

The man was blocking his view of Clara, who was busy concentrating hard on lighting her cigarette and ignoring the altercation about to occur. Though this was a linear world, there were clear patterns that could be discerned, and it was often easy to determine the outcome of a set of variables. A man bumps into another. He is inebriated. He is of low moral character. He has a girlfriend draped and bored on his arm, her pink lips twisted in a tired grimace. He yells expletives, he clenches his fists. Someone in the crowd reminds him that he is starting a fight with a priest. The man doesn't care. He only feels the dull ache of his shoulder and the disapproving glare of a drunk woman whom he doesn't even like very much, but with whose company he is constantly stuck.

The fist will come first, before the kicks and the swearing monologue that accompanies violence. He ducked before it came, and with one fell swoop grabbed the man's arm and twisted it behind his back. There was a satisfying crack, and a squeal of terror from his now not-so-bored girlfriend.

The man collapsed to the floor. Just a few feet away, Clara continued to study the ashes at the end of her cigarette, both oblivious and uncaring of the drama that unfolded before her. He slid into the seat she had reserved for him, and she offered the can of motor oil as a tantalizing temptation.

"Go on," she insisted. "No one here is going to care."

But she was wrong, for all eyes were now on him, some of them the friends of the man who had wanted so desperately to have just one night that didn't end in bored sighs and rolled eyes. Their hands were clenched in fists they tightened and released, mealy dark eyes piercing into the dark corner where Clara was tucked away.

She tapped her ashes into the ashtray before her, and blew out a long plume of smoke. It snaked above her head in an uneven halo. "Have a drink. I know you want it."

"I don't," he insisted, though his body craved the sustenance she was so blithely providing. He bent low to her, his brow creased as he offered her a worried whisper. "I think I may have caused a scene."

The man with the broken arm was still encircled by his pals, who were gathering him up, four strong men carrying him fireman style up the narrow stairs. They kept bumping his busted arm, the bone snagging against the railing. His scream of pain stopped the band playing for an entire minute before they resumed their usual ragtime plonking.

"You worry too much," she said, smacking her lips and taking a long sip of her gin and tonic. "Stuff likes this goes on here all the time, you know that."

"They're all staring at me."

"You're a priest and you aren't drinking. That's all they're worried about. That you're bringing around the coppers." She took another long sip before putting down her drink. It was hot and damp in the basement, and a layer of thick condensation lined her glass. She smoothed it over with the pad of her thumb before grabbing the can of motor oil and concealing it beneath the table.

"Just a shot," she promised, and she looked up and around, shifty-eyed enough to send the signal that was she was giving him was more potent that mere vodka or whiskey. She poured it, thick and black into a concealed shot glass and then placed it quickly onto the surface of the table. "Knock it back," she said, pushing it towards him. "You can thank me later."

All eyes in the dank basement were on him, even the soaked souls at the bar who were expert drinkers. He hesitated slightly, dry, scaled fingers touching the rim of the shot glass. Then, unable to resist any longer, he snatched it up and downed it in one shot, the thick black tar sliding like the congealed blood of his borrowed body down his throat. He closed his eyes, sickened by the unpalatable bitterness. But this feeling was quickly replaced by a cooling, gentle sensation, one not unlike standing beside a waterfall after wading in hot, sizzling lava.

The sages of the bar nodded their heads and offered him a toast by tapping on their empty glasses for a refill. All eyes turned away, for he had now revealed himself as nothing more than yet another thirsty member of God's chosen flock. There was no judgement. Jesus himself loved a bottle of wine or two.

"You've dragged me in here, and I see no evidence of my target," he chided Clara, who fidgeted where she sat, her pearls meeting her teeth in their usual click-clack-click, keeping in time with the jazz drum of the band.

"I know where, but I can't tell you yet." She finished her cigarette, tossing its smouldering ashes into the ashtray in the middle of the table. She sipped delicately at her drink. "If you want to finish your mission, you have to do something for me first."

He didn't like the sound of this. He'd been caught in this trap too many times before. Always, always, with the empty promises and half-truths. But she was the only connection he had, and he clung to it, hoping that somehow the pattern of her linear life would draw him to his target and he could complete his work and finally, without further delay, be allowed to go home.

"It's nothing big. Just the usual."

He bristled more at this. Sensing his worry, she secretively poured him another shot of motor oil and handed it to him. He downed it, and then another with practised ease. "I told you before. No more favours."

"I guess my information isn't worth going home for."

"You're lying. I can feel it deep in the fourth marrow of my rib. A stabbing pain that chafes against my skin." The effect of the motor oil was making him dizzy, but his scaled skin was starting to fade into its usual pink hue, his appearance more human than foreign. "There is no room for favours. Either you tell my what I need to know, or I am leaving you here."

She clacked a white pearl against her teeth in thought. "It's a damn shame you won't help me. I know I've been a little, well, prone to exaggeration at times, but I've never fully steered you wrong. Your mission always has been top priority."

He doubted this, but he listened nonetheless.

"What you need to understand is that sometimes, to get my information, certain obstacles need to be removed." She gave him a blood red smile, lipstick staining her white teeth and the circular pearl she had tapped against them. She pointed a finger in the air to a passing waiter, who rested a gin and tonic in front of her. He tried to take away the oiled shot glass, but she held her hand over it, preventing him. When they were alone she turned back to her robed companion. "Just one. That's all, I promise."

He didn't want to acquiesce, but there was such surety in her manner, and with his home contact so perversely silent, he had no other course but to follow her lead. "It's risky," he said, looking over his shoulder with nervous glances. The cronies at the bar nodded to him. "I've already made an impact here."

"People only see what they want to," she said. "You could slice him in half in front of this entire dance floor, hell you could go onstage and do it right in front of the band. Some people might turn away, others might gawk. None would turn you in. This is a blind man's home, in case you haven't noticed. Lost souls clamouring their way to the bottom of every bottle."

"That's not how it is for you. You're rarely drunk."

"I find my pleasures in other ways," she said, and downed her waiting gin and tonic in one, solid gulp.

He sighed, truly not wanting to be a party to this, but as she was his only connection, choice was seriously limited. He cast a glance out onto the crowd, the low ceiling hugging them in tight in the near darkness. The glittering chandelier affixed to the ceiling was missing several of its glass tears, its asymmetry a reflection of the general sense of darkness and decay within the confined space. It was much like his chapel, he realized, only packed solid with souls that kept a firm grip on their sins.

Or so the rote went. He scratched at his collar, the motor oil doing little to ease the way the seams of the black robe chafed his skin. He wasn't sure of this alien religious sect, with its promises of a life that never ends, and a non-linear existence that was heaven. He knew, from experience, that neither of these things were entirely true. What was strange was that they would harbour a consciousness of such a state, and that they would blanket it in ignorant, positive terms.

"I'm not talking about the usual method," she assured him. "This guy is a real sleazeball, a real crazy loony, if you know what I'm getting at. He's not a good person, not like my Daddy makes you believe he is, and not like me." She sat back in her chair, confident in her self-assurance. "He owes me a connection that he didn't deliver."

"I can sympathize," he said, tired of her excuses. "Why should I help you when you give me nothing but the same? Perhaps it's you who should be worried, I might make you suffer the same fate as those who disappoint you."

She stiffened at this, her body rigid. She cast an unforgiving glare on him that stopped his body's heart cold. "You will never say such a thing to me again," she ordered him. Long fingernails scraped dangerously over the surface of the table between them, ending in curled claws. "We're on similar missions, you and I, but you don't want to admit it." Her eyes sparkled with violent glee, murder intent in her iris. "Believe me or not, but never, ever, threaten me again. You know as well as I do that I have no qualms against getting rid of any obstacle in my path–and that includes alien freaks in priest robes."

She relaxed, enjoying his discomfort at her words. She poured him another shot, and he took it gratefully, the tremor in his hands betraying his fear. "I didn't mean to be unkind," he said to her, only to inwardly frown. That wasn't the right sentiment, he thought. Kindness. Such an unwelcome word.

"His name is Frankie, and he's one of Georgio's fences," she told him. "He told me he had connections in Hollywood, and he was going to get me in one of those moving pictures. Said there was a script made for me, and the director said it was all set, all I had to do was show up and I'm the lead. Don't even need an audition."

He nodded, taking in her words carefully.

She let out a tired sigh. "You don't know what moving pictures are, do you?"

"No," he admitted.

"No Clara Bow, no Louise Brooks where you come from, hunh? Shame. The world hasn't been the same since we all got so addicted to little flickers in the dark." She gave him a bored shrug of her marble white shoulder. "Think of it like this, a play performed by actors, only they aren't actors. They're shadows, with bits of grey and white scenery in between."

"You want to become a shadow of yourself?" he asked, confused.

"I'm going to be in pictures," she said, ignoring him. Her mouth was a thin, tight line of burgundy. "Frankie thinks he got one over on me, but he's going to pay for this."

"It seems a simple enough lie, one you've fallen for before. Isn't this how your other friend and I met?"

Her harsh features softened at the mention of her old flame's name. "Mikey and I had a thing, and it was grand while it lasted. But that's the trouble, see. People always disappoint." She drank the rest of her drink and motioned to the bartender to bring her another. "Me and Mikey weren't exactly on the best of terms when you met up with us."

He thought back on that night, on the spilling of blood, on the pleas for mercy and cold, glinting stab of steel digging through pliant flesh and into resisting muscle.

"No, you weren't," he said.

"It's like this," she explained. "I always expect more from people than they are willing to give. And sometimes, I get a little over the top angry about it. Like with Mikey that night. He was supposed to get me a diamond ring and all he brought me was this dull old ruby. Hell, any whore can have a ruby. I wanted a diamond. That's just not the way you treat the one you call your girl. That's casting her aside, telling her she's worth nothing more than second best." She shook her head. "It's over with. Ancient history. Frankie's the one on my mind now, and he's the one I'm concentrating this on. He'll be at the end of the bar at one o'clock, and I want you to tell him he has to come outside, that I'm waiting for him in a cab. He'll think we're going somewhere romantic, like the Clifford Motel. He'll fall for it. He's a dumb jerk like the rest of them were."

"I don't know," he said, still uncertain. "I've already broken a stranger's arm. This Frankie is going to be on his guard."

"Do what I told you," she ordered him, and got up from her table. She walked unevenly towards the front of the bar, her steps forced as she made her way through the dancing crowd to find the set of stairs that led to the alley outside. "I got everything waiting. All you have to do is play look-out. Easiest damn job in the world."

* * * * *

The pavement shone with the thin glimmer of moisture that had collected in pools beneath the black walls that lined the alley. He was warned against it, but he didn't care. He needed his sustenance. With a shake of his wrist, the bottle of motor oil slid into his hand and he took a long, refreshing drink from it, far more than the tiny amounts she'd used to taunt him. The crude black substance crept into every crevice of his mind, muddying it, the images of what he was seeing before him shuffled into uneven pieces. Along the slick back of a fossil fuel he rode into familiar territory, where images of time filtered into his consciousness, some crystal clear, others murky.

There was a hand. A glint of a knife. Wounded eyes pleaded with him, shocked at this act of betrayal. A name he recognized slid from blood-soaked lips, and with a final sigh the last syllable of it died with him.

"Frankie."

He was pulled out of his motorized dreams, the name echoing across the vast horizon of his timeless consciousness. Frankie. But he had pulled that man, that one she had pointed out, into the alley with nothing more than a promise of a shot of whiskey. Frankie. Why had the man stared at him like that, and called him by his own name?

Within the darkness, the glittering pools of water captured the flickering gaslight that hovered over them in hoary invitation. He tried to focus properly as a new, but familiar, shimmer walked towards him. He shook his wrist, the motor oil spilling out and staining his sleeve. He swore, the language alien on his numbed tongue.

She grabbed his wrist, her ghost's flesh injecting frostbite.

"I told you to wait."

She snatched his motor oil away, and he could feel his soul clamouring towards it, his tongue dry in fear as she held it aloft.

"No more of this," she said. She took off the cap. He shook his head. She nodded hers.

He turned away as she poured it out, black and thick upon the puddles of the alley, the ripples eddying outward and staining the soles of his shoes.

"I warned you about this stuff," she said, shaking her head as she kicked the now empty can across the alley. It landed with a dull thud against something soft and wet. "This is going to be a problem, is it? I hope you can find the wagon, my friend. You aren't tagging along to anything unless you're riding that hay ride."

He frowned, sure this wasn't the conversation he wanted to have. "He called me Frankie," he told her.

"Of course he would," she answered, and snapped her compact case shut.