A Hired Man

I stood beneath the awning of the Casa del Sueño – the “house of sleep”. I’d stepped into the hostel’s bar as a lightning storm had descended. Now it was just raining. I saw the lightning storm which as it passed squeeze its way between the skyscrapers of Carranza Nuevo, a last few bolts meeting the heights. For a moment the clouds parted and I caught a glimpse of that baby blue sky, before it was swallowed up once again by those impenetrable sky- coverers. I finished my last cigarette and dropped it on the water saturated concrete. It wasn’t a good sign, starting a new job with no cigarettes, especially one like this.

I’d been awoken that morning in a haze of nicotine and whiskey from a knock at the door of my office and apartment. I stole a quick glance through the spy hole to see the shadow of a woman standing there – she was silhouetted, her features blacked, by the hanging lights of the hallway behind her. I slid the bolt and opened the door as far as the brass chain would allow.

“What?” The word had come out sharper than I’d intended. I blamed it on the whiskey.

“Mr. Temple?” Her voice was strange. It reminded me of electricity, or gunpowder.

“He’s not here.”

I tried to close the door, but she put out a hand with surprising strength and held the door open a fraction of an inch, and said, “Mr. Temple, my husband’s been murdered. He told me to seek you out.”

This gave me, as it should anyone, pause. “A dead man told you to find me?”

“With his dying breath,” that electric voice said with a spark.

I shut the door, undid the chain, and let her in. Once inside I could make out her features in greater detail – olive colored skin and black hair, an Etruscan face and spring green eyes. She stared into my face unblinkingly; haughty, dignified, and on a mission. As stunning as she was, I knew I had never seen her before.

“Well,” I began, leaning against my desk. Hangovers have always destroyed my bedside manner,

“Why should your husband have sent you to me?”

“I believe he was a friend of yours.”

I tried to stifle the little jump my heart made against my ribs. I’d had enough friends die already. “And who would that be?”

“Emilio Settimo.”

She was right, Emilio had been a friend.

And so, with an empty pack of cigarettes, I walked across the street to the doors of the Segnale Building, where Emilio had worked.