The little band was playing a gentle melody that I half recognized. Mike was sawing at that fiddle of his with long, laborious stokes, his eyes following the measures of his sheet with dreamy, half closed lids. From the bar came the sound of gentle conversation, but the young, they were on the floor, swaying with the slow tune, the girls hanging on their boys with smiles as they walked round and around the room. The tables were mostly empty now that the music had called the dancers up, but in the darkness, I found my old friend sitting alone. I came beside him.
“Beastly heat,” I began. Even in the night, my sweat was already coming through my shirt. “I can barely stand the summers back home, and you drag me out here in a heatwave. This country barely has any air conditioning.”
“I didn’t call you out here to complain,” Barney cut in. “How was the trip?”
“Lousy,” I recalled. “Why am I here?”
“A man died,” he began.
“You don’t seem too broken up about it.”
“He was doing some business for me. I need someone to finish the job.”
“Business?”
“Accounts,” he said. “I bought this place from a…” he paused. “Well, the government here would have taken it away from him if he hadn’t sold. He wanted cash, mostly, and a way out. Now, this is a good investment, already making money, but I am thin. By the nature of things, I didn’t have time to be very thorough, as thorough as I like to be on business matters. I think there’s a leak. I kept on most of the original staff. Brought a few of my boys over, though.”
The song had finished, and the dancers were trickling back to the tables in a din of light laughs and lovers’ whispers. The lights had come up a sudden, and I blinked a few times at the sudden change.
“Just go over the books,” he said. “I like to run a tight ship.” He rose. “And if anyone does try to kill you, let me know, eh?” He rose, and, turning toward a waiter, whispered, “Give him what he asks,” and rushed off, presumably on other business.
Tale Told 