the scarred man and Yasmin. And the scarred man to Lucy.
This was the only chain I could tug on.
I sipped my way, slowly, through my beer. The next karaoke singer delivered an accurate version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” that drew hearty applause, and then a drunken woman got the giggles halfway through a screech of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” She didn’t get booed because her top was tight and the crowd was more forgiving.
I hated this place. I missed the clean smells of Ollie’s bar. He was no doubt mad at me for running off. I missed hanging out with August. I hoped that Howell and the Company hadn’t leaned on him. Ollie knew nothing, not even that Mila played him for a friend. Interesting, though, that she’d been a regular visitor at Ollie’s. That couldn’t be coincidence, not with me getting a job there. Another thread to pull on, but later.
I watched one of the girls lean close to her date, nuzzle his cheek with a kiss.
I missed Lucy.
Third beer. You had to drink in a place like this. Order a soda or coffee and you were instantly noted as someone worried about keeping his senses. You were suspect. You had to drink.
The young woman with the roving eye was suddenly sitting next to me. “Don’t you want to sing?” she asked me in English, slurring her words. She hadn’t even tried Dutch with me. I guess I looked more American than I thought. I glanced over at the boyfriend. He watched me right back.
“I’d be out of tune,” I said.
“You and everyone else. Hmm. What should you sing?” She studied me, as though you could tell what a man’s musical taste was from his face. “Nirvana? You look a little angry.”
“Uh, no.”
“Ah.” Now a smile crept onto her face. “Prince, I think. I have a purple scarf you can borrow.”
“Maybe Radiohead.”
“They’re too solemn. Maybe Justin Timberlake? You could bring some sexy back.”
I didn’t look at her. The boyfriend had turned his attention to the stage. “No, I’m not a singer.”
“What are you then?”
“Just a guy having a beer who doesn’t want to sing and doesn’t want to talk. Sorry.”
Her smile turned to a frown. “Asshole. Faggot.”
“Go back to your boyfriend,” I said. “He’s willing to put up with your bad behavior. No one else will.”
She got up in a huff and then I saw a man had sat down two stools from me while the girl was chatting. Nic from Gregor’s phone, with his red ponytail and his dour face.
I moved my eyes back to the karaoke stage, where the crowd had turned on a Filipino guy singing a Kings of Leon song with hearty boos. He flipped off the crowd and an empty pint glass nearly hit him. The bartender started yelling at the offending table; they all shrugged like kids caught lobbing spitballs in class. The lazy bartender stayed behind the bar.
Either I was lucky, and Nic had decided to sit near me—or Gregor had warned him and given him a description of me, and he’d come to see who the hell I was.
I watched him from the corner of my eye and ordered another beer. I could see Nic pulling a smartphone from his pocket, studying it. He tugged nervously at the ponytail while he did so, thumbing through messages. He cursed quietly in Dutch and got up suddenly and headed for the bathrooms, which led into a hallway toward the back exit. He’d only drunk half his lager, so I followed him.
He turned into the bathroom and glanced back. He saw me. Knowing he was just going to the toilet, I would have retreated back to the bar. But now I couldn’t.
The bathroom was cleaner than the bar. Nic stood at a urinal, talking on the phone. I hate that. Don’t you think the other side can’t hear the crash of your pee against the porcelain?
I washed my hands, threw cold water on my face.
“I got the goods, the cops don’t know,” he said in English. He stopped talking. He finished and flushed the urinal and put the phone back in his pocket. Two of the Turks from the drunken table stood by the toilet stall, talking, smoking.
And they moved to block his way out. Sudden tension. Nic murmured words I couldn’t hear in Dutch; the men moved, but slower than they had to. They left. Nic rinsed his hands; there were no towels so he dried them on his jeans. I followed