Page 32 of Nobody's Hero

There was a guy at the bar who only had one.

Koenig wondered how he’d lost it. Not well, judging by the lumpy scar tissue in and around his eye socket. He’d replaced it with a ball bearing. Koenig was sure it was supposed to look menacing. Probably was in his social circle. All Koenig saw was someone with compromised vision. Monocular instead of binocular. Limited depth perception. A reduced ability to judge spatial distance. Probably why the bar didn’t have a dartboard or a pool table. Games like that need two eyes. One-Eye looked like he was in charge, and that meant if he couldn’t play, no one could.

One-Eye was a big man, bigger than the Jolly Green Giant. Six and a half foot in his bare feet. Bulky. Prison muscles, Koenig thought. The kind of man who found employment as someone else’s blunt instrument. His face looked like it had been riveted together from scrap iron. Crudely shaved head. Looked like a badly plucked chicken. Lots of nicks, as if the razor had been blunt. He had the swollen knuckles of a brawler. He was probably effective against other brawlers. Put him up against a professional boxer, though, and he’d lose every time. He’d be too slow. Wild haymakers. No footwork, no balance. Just rage.

Nothing subtle.

Which as a metaphor for the bar was perfect.

Because Big City Nights was as subtle as a five-foot wrench. It didn’t even have a bar. Not in the traditional sense. What Big City Nights had was scaffolding boards nailed onto stacked pallet crates. Three stacks. Two at each end, one in the middle to stop the boards sagging. The kind of hipster bullshit found in Greenwich Village. Where interior designers were paid thousands to get an edgy-but-safe look.

There was a metal bucket perched at one end of the makeshift bar. It was big and round and looked like the kind of thing farmers used to feed livestock. Pigs, not chickens. It was full of half-melted ice and cans of beer. Some cigarette butts. None of those woke ideas like fridges for Big City Nights. The floor was stickier than a fly trap.

There were no windows in Big City Nights. It was a square room. Like a holding cell. Or a drunk tank. It had probably been part of the bookmaker’s or the doughnut shop before it was annexed. The metal door was the only way in and out. Big City Nights was less welcoming than a do not stop for hitchhikers sign. It was the most unfriendly bar Koenig had ever been in, and he’d spent time in Paris.

Unless there was someone in the bathroom – which seemed unlikely; there wasn’t one – there were five people in the bar. One-Eye, the bartender, and three men seated around a table that looked like it had come from a yard sale. They were playing three-card brag. Idiot’s poker.

‘What would you like to drink?’ Koenig said to Danielle.

‘What are my choices?’

Koenig cast his eyes behind the barman to the shelf where the whiskies and gins and vodkas were usually kept. All he saw was a bunch of dead flies and a mangy cat. It was either asleep or dead. It certainly wasn’t moving.

‘Beer or nothing, I think,’ he said.

‘Beer’s fine.’

‘Two,’ he said to the bartender. ‘And I don’t suppose you have any Sam Adams cooling in the back?’

The bartender replied by pointing a remote at the TV on the wall and muting the soccer game. ‘We’re closed,’ he said.

‘That’s a real shame,’ Koenig said. ‘This place looks sokitsch.’

‘We’re closed,’ the bartender said again.

‘And I say you’re not.Isay you’re not being hospitable to strangers. I’m not sure I like how that makes me feel.’

The bartender looked to One-Eye for instructions. One-Eye shrugged. The bartender reached across and fished two cans from the farmer’s bucket. He slammed them on the makeshift bar.

‘Not those two,’ Koenig said. ‘I’d like ones that aren’t going to spurt everywhere. I’d hate to damage the wood.’

‘Whoareyou?’ the bartender asked.

‘Nobody,’ Koenig said. ‘I’m nobody, you’re nobody, the three gentlemen playing cards are nobodies.’ He faced One-Eye. ‘But you, sir, I think you might be someone.’

‘Depends,’ One-Eye said.

‘On?’

‘On who’s asking.’

‘I’ve told you,’ Koenig said. ‘I’m no one.’

‘And what do you want, Mr No One? You might be a Yank, but you don’t look like no tourist.’

‘I have a problem you might be able to help me with.’

‘How?’