I watched myself talking. Like I was riding in my own mind. A spectator to a film without end. "I don't give a shit Alberto. You kill me now if you have to bro, I'm not going anywhere. I have my girl, my job, everything I need here. Why would I risk it? Throw my documents into the sea for all I care. Go on, do your worst."
Alberto narrowed his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. The clubs music rose loud around us, lasers tracking lines of light through the smoke as he stared at me and then shook his head, laughing. "Ok, ok... maybe we can arrange another way Ash."
I looked at him as I swiveled the glass in my hand by its stem. Alberto was all leather skin and bristle. His brow was lined with a multitude of hard wrinkles, tension taught skin between the ravaged scars born of past murders. His sleepless dark eyes twinkled above that perpetual grin and he reached out to grab his glass of red wine and swilled the contents, mimicking my movements.
"Another way, sure we can arrange something else Ash. Just let me think about it." He stroked that bog-brush mustache before taking a long swallow of the claret and topping up the glass from the bottle. "What about Adam, amigo? Do you think he would be interested in a run to Europe?"
"Now come on Alberto, he's as soft as putty." I started to rise but he motioned me with one hand to sit, the other hand emerging from his coat pocket and depositing a Ballester pistol in his lap.
An image flashed across my synapses. A tiger ripping my own face apart. Blood flowing between my bulging eyes as long fangs sunk into pallid cheeks. My head throbbed in time to the beat of the music and I massaged my temples as I sat back down carefully.
Alberto laughed as I stared at him. His smile stretched impossibly wide, teeth shining luminous in the reflected glare of the laser's light. Lizard eyes flashed at me from beneath his bushy brows and his skin folded in on itself to eat up the features on his face. I shook my head.
Everything snapped back to normality as I stared at the bottle on the table.
Alberto stopped laughing. "Wine hombre? Not only red wine my friend, have you ever tried mescaline? I love that shit but I'm guessing you haven't got the stomach for it Ash. I put a whole dropper of that stuff in there. Now we gonna trip together my friend, and we'll come to some arrangement by the end of the night. Count on it!"
The red wine swirled in my glass. I saw a barmaid approaching through the bloody swirls of claret.
To be continued...
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