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Instead I ask, “Are you magic?”
He stares down at me in confusion, then notices the open bottle of paquir on the table.
Nodding in understanding, he says, “Looks like you’ve had an especially rough morning. Drinking early, I see?”
I shake my head.
“That’s not… that was from last night.”
“You don’t have to hide from me, man. Sometimes in life, a little day drinking is what the body needs.”
I sigh in exasperation.
“Was it a woman?” Vylco stares deep into my eyes, hoping to probe some insight.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I reply.
“Interesting. So it was a woman, but for the first time in your life, you don’t feel like offering up every excruciating detail?”
As I look away, hoping not to betray my secrecy, he flips over the photo on the table and inspects it.
“Am I supposed to be looking at this?”
“No,” I say in annoyance. “Probably not.”
“Very well. Then I guess I’ll just walk back the way I came, and you can pretend I was never here.”
He makes slow strides for the door, as I look from the pastry crumbs on the table to the mess of documents before me.
Maybe he can glean some insight you don’t have?
“Come back,” I say, in spite of my better judgment.
He eagerly returns to the table, sitting down across from me.
“Okay. So I guess since I don’t want to have to eliminate you, I can tell you what all this is. But I expect a strict vow of secrecy.”
“Naturally,” he says with a sly smile.
I explain everything. I tell him how, in the dead of night, I was approached for a case, despite thinking I was out. Then I tell him about the xaphan and how five years ago, eight of their officials died in a string of murders. Now they want justice, and I’m expected to be their deliverer.
I don’t, in explicit detail, tell him how I still feel like none of this is my business or how I’d just as easily wish the xaphan simply stop existing, but it’s implied.
During my entire retelling, he maintains a surprising kernel of interest, hanging on every word. I didn’t think any of it would be relevant to him, but I suppose that if anybody knew somebody hiding out in obscurity after heinous crimes, it would be him.
“And the girl just left then?” he asks, looking toward my bedroom.
“Who are you talking about?”
“Elia,” he says absentmindedly.
My soul aches in response.
“Can you please focus? This isn’t about Elia.”
He turns to me, his eyes seemingly blank, before standing up from the table.
“I find, if I’m looking for answers, the end always starts with the beginning,” he says before turning around and pushing the chair into the table. “But it should all be handled with care.”
