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with the entrance diagonal on the street corner, facing north-west toward
the crossroads. The building itself covered a quarter of the streets running
both south and east of the block. Above the small alcove of an entrance was a
neon sign that announced the name of the club. I had no idea what color it lit
up at night. I figured blue and white.
    I pushed the doors gently to see if they
opened, but they didn’t budge. On the right hand wall of the alcove was a large
security keypad with a speaker, and a buzzer to press. I pressed it and waited.
After a few moments, the speaker on the keypad crackled into life and a voice
came through.
    ‘What?’
    Hardly an advertisement for world class
customer service.
    ‘I need to speak to Jimmy Manhattan,’ I
said.
    ‘Never heard of him,’ replied the voice,
who promptly hung up.
    Well, that was rude. And a lie. I don’t
like being lied to. It makes me trigger finger twitch.
    I pressed the buzzer again.
    ‘What?’ said the same voice, as before,
except this time slightly less patient.
    ‘At the risk of sounding disrespectful,
we both know Jimmy’s in there. So how about you open the door so I can talk to
him? That way, I don’t have to kick your teeth so far down your throat that you
need to stick a toothbrush up your ass to get at your pearly whites.’
    There was silence on the other end for a
moment, then the buzzer clicked off again. I waited for a few moments, then I
heard several locks being undone behind the doors.
    The right hand door opened. I expected
whoever opened the door to be stood just behind it, ready to grab me as I
walked through, so as I stepped inside, took a step to my left and shuffled
sideways, so I was facing to the right. The guy that opened the door made no
attempt to attack me - he simply fixed me an intense, indignant gaze as he shut
the door and walked back into the club.
    He was a lot bigger than me, in both
height and width. He was wearing a gym vest and jeans, and had arms like my
legs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a small guy by any means. But physically
speaking, this guy dwarfed me in every way. I subconsciously moved my hand behind
me, touching the barrel of my gun for reassurance.
    Just in case.
    I assumed I was to follow him, so I did.

 
    EIGHT
     
    The club inside
was a nice, big place. The main area of the bar was wide open, with the
occasional table and chairs positioned around the perimeter. There were
different levels and podiums throughout the area, presumably for dancing on.
The bar ran a good length along the far wall, surrounded my mirrors and neon
blue. Behind the bar were rows of glass shelves that housed more liquor than I
knew existed.
    To the right of the bar was a red
curtain, leading into the back like some kind of VIP area. We were heading in
that direction, but before we got there, Jimmy Manhattan came out from behind it
to greet us. He was wearing a different, but I’m sure equally expensive, suit
from the one he had on yesterday morning. He looked a little more stressed than
the last time we met as well, but he hid it expertly behind his powerfully calm
persona.
    ‘Adrian, what a nice surprise,’ he said,
in his trademark friendly, smooth tone of voice. ‘What brings you here? Is the
job going well?’
    ‘That’s what I need to talk to you
about,’ I said. ‘The job isn’t panning out the way you, so confidently, said it
would.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘Well, for starters, Ted Jackson has
some serious security. He’s got an armored limousine and what looks like a
highly-trained assassin as his personal bodyguard. So, what aren’t you telling
me?’
    ‘I’m not sure what you’re implying here,
Adrian, but I don’t care for your tone.’
    ‘I could care less what you think of my
tone, and I’m not implying anything, I’m stating a fact. This guy you hired me to kill is clearly not your everyday, run-of-the-mill, working stiff
who just so happened to piss off your boss.’
    The big guy who let me in made