1

Jones noticed the blood on his sleeve when he reached for his wallet. For a second, he thought the barista had noticed it too, but the look she gave him was too brief for shock. She sidestepped the length of the counter and pierced a Danish with a cheap pair of tongs while Jones turned his body to conceal the evidence he had missed. The young woman left the bagged pastry in front of the well-dressed man who had been standing ahead of Jones in line and reused the same parting words Jones had heard her use with the previous two customers.

Jones had initially pegged the barista’s age at twenty, but up close he was less sure. The toque and pigtails had influenced his initial hunch, but the tattoos climbing her right arm changed his mind. A winding branch populated with colourful birds started at the wrist and continued under the sleeve of her t-shirt. The quality of the work varied, and Jones could tell there was a degree of trial and error until one final artist completed the bulk of the work. There was something tough and not at all twenty about her.

“What can I get you?”

Jones had already looked at the menu board while he waited out of the range of the well-dressed man’s cologne. His regular was listed and so was his backup; the presence of both meant the coffee shop was good. Jones had never set foot in Brew before. He had only found the place after a minor fender-bender caused a massive traffic jam on Queen Street East. The red taillights stared Jones in the eye and refused to blink first. When Jones did, his mind was waiting. The split-second of empty thought was all the opening his brain needed to start rolling. His thoughts picked up faster than the cars on the road around him and Jones knew where they were headed. He searched hard for a distraction, any distraction, that would put the brakes on his mind. Jones found what he was looking for buried back from the road on a quiet looking side street. A U-turn and few right turns got him a closer look at the busy café, and at the vacant parking space far from the crawling traffic on the main road.

“Cortado.”

The barista nodded and turned her back to Jones. She stepped to the espresso machine and let her hands simultaneously reach for a container of beans and a cup. When she spoke, it was over her shoulder.

“You want it for here, or to go?”

He should have asked for it to go, but to go implied a destination and Jones was not ready to go anywhere.

The barista tamped the coffee and started the drip before she turned to ring Jones up. When his change was in his palm, he dropped the coins in the coffee mug that had been stationed next to the register and heard the money clink against the other tips. The sound produced a nod of appreciation from the barista and she said, “Thanks,” just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the espresso machine.

It was just after six, and there was a steady choral hum in the busy coffee shop fueled by the conversations taking place at most of the tables. Jones stepped left and glanced around the room; people were either focused on their companions or their phones—no one was looking at him.

The slap of metal against granite pulled Jones’ eyes toward the barista, who began adding steamed milk to his coffee. The waitress turned faster than anyone with a hot drink in their hands should have and set his order in front of him. Jones paused and stared at the coffee. The drink had all the qualities that he had expected; it was the cup that threw him. The barista had made the cortado in a cheap juice glass instead of a mug. Jones glanced toward the woman to see if she was going to offer an explanation, but she had already side-stepped toward the register and the next customer.

The glass was uncomfortably hot and it made the journey to the corner table feel longer than the few seconds it took to cross the floor. The table had just been vacated and Jones had noticed a few people debating a seat change as he approached it. Jones put the drink down and gave his fingers a small shake as he shrugged off his coat and took his seat against the exposed brick wall. The coffee shop had been filled with eclectic pieces of furniture and antique bric-a-brac to give it a sense of history. The décor felt forced; the wall was the real deal. The bricks lacked uniformity and the mortar in-between displayed long fractures. Jones was sure that he could have picked chunks of the aged concrete away with his fingernails if he tried.

The table afforded Jones with a view of the entire room and the door. There was only one table separating him from the entrance and it was occupied by a woman waiting for her companion to return to the jacket left draped over the backrest of her chair. The short window of solitude left her unable to resist the impulse to pick at the cement. Jones watched a shiny blue fingernail probe the cracks the way a bird uses its beak to probe the dirt for worms. She eased the sliver of mortar free and spent a few moments looking at it before she suddenly dropped it so that she could inspect her nails. She suddenly had no further interest in the wall or the piece of concrete next to her cup.

Jones braved a tentative sip of the coffee and found the heat of the misappropriated juice glass manageable, but the coffee still too hot to drink. He let his fingers loosely linger on the glass and felt the warmth diffuse into his palm. He liked the feeling almost as much as he liked the taste of coffee. He swung his focus from one physical sensation to the next, as though they were monkey bars that allowed him to stay above the feelings lurking beneath. He had no emotions for what he had done—this was not the first time he had killed a man, but it was the first time he had done it at home. There were different rules about murder on the other side of the world: there, it earned you a medal; here, it was more complicated. The dead were victims even when they weren’t.

Jones felt his focus turning inward and he began searching for another diversion. Jones watched the woman at the next table take another sip from her glass. Her sips were frequent and she paired the wine with glances around the room. The last look caught the eye of the barista. There was a nod from behind the counter and Jones pegged the woman as a regular. A mane of dyed blonde hair resisted the impulse to move as the woman tilted her head to drain the last of the wine in her glass. Jones glanced at the counter and saw the barista rise from a crouch with a bottle in her hand. She removed a stainless steel stopper a fraction of a second before a dull tone announced the bottle had made contact with the counter. The blonde rose from her seat to get the bottle, as though beckoned by the sound, and slipped past a man waiting in line. Judging from the amount of contact and the dirty look from the guy in line, the blonde had either misjudged the space or the width of her hips; either way, she didn’t apologize.

“Thanks, hon.”

“No problem, Diane.”

Diane’s status as a regular allowed her the perk of refilling her own drink, and when she turned to make her way back to the table, Jones saw that the wine was flirting with the lip of the glass. She paused before taking her seat to again look around the room, and Jones noticed that Diane was a pleasant looking woman made less attractive by her efforts to emphasize her sexuality. Her clothes were just a bit too tight and her make-up just a bit too loud. The overall effect held Jones’ gaze longer than he had planned, and he realized too late that the cosmetic decisions had been a trap. Diane sensed his attention and she turned her head in his direction. Jones shifted his glancing eyes back to his drink and lifted the glass to his lips. He heard the tinkle of the wine glass touching the tabletop, but he didn’t hear the chair move. He glanced toward the other table and found eyes looking back at his. Jones met Diane’s stare, and she responded with a tiny smile and a slow shift of her shoulders that lifted her chest and elongated her torso. Jones didn’t respond to the subtle carnal introduction; instead, he took another sip of his cortado and then fished out his phone.

Jones heard Diane’s chair scrape over the uneven pre-war floorboard before making a final bark as she jerked it toward the table. Even though the coast was clear, Jones didn’t lift his head again; his eyes drifted from his phone to his sleeve and again the spot of blood he had missed. The blood that had been red inside the veins of Kevin McGregor was now black on his sleeve. Jones lifted his arm and rotated it back and forth. There were no other stains, but he could pick up the faint scent of gunpowder from his hand. He rolled up his sleeve and then sat back in the chair to give his shirt and pants another look. He didn’t see any other signs of missed evidence, but the light at the table wasn’t much better than the light in the basement.

Jones slid his phone back into his pocket and then lifted the glass. The thin material that had radiated with such ferocity a few minutes ago had given away most of its heat. The coffee inside was colder than he liked, but Jones drank it quickly. He let the glass linger at his lips until the last of the coffee lost its fight with gravity and then he stood up. He draped his jacket over his arm as his right hand lifted the chair and quietly brought it back to the edge of the table. Jones scanned the room for anyone who might be looking his way and found that only Diane was interested in what he was doing.

She was staring at him, and Jones didn’t need to guess what she was looking at. Diane caught herself and lifted her eyes away from the jacket over the forearm that ended so abruptly. Jones had never been comfortable with an empty sleeve. He had always thought that the cuff made his arm look like an elephant’s trunk, so Jones made it a habit to roll up his sleeve. His forearm was capped with a synthetic fabric sock that a physical therapist had once described as space age. Jones had wanted nothing to do with a prosthetic. An artificial limb had always been more artificial than limb for him, so he scrapped it in favour of the sock. He still got looks like the one Diane had given him, but it was better than looking at a hand that wasn’t his.

Jones had expected Diane to be embarrassed for staring, but she surprised him. She looked at him and slowly raised an eyebrow as though she was waiting for the answer to a question she had just whispered in his ear. Jones held her eye for a moment and then reached for the juice glass and stepped away from the table. He walked along the counter and placed the glass next to a collection of other empty mugs and glasses before turning to walk through an archway in the brick wall that bisected the coffee house. The other side of the wall offered bigger tables, a few more comfortable chairs, and a sofa for customers interested in a bit of distance from the din of the coffee machines and stream of customers coming in off of the street.

There were several people alone at tables for four, each working on a silver laptop bearing the single white Apple. Each of the people working on a computer had attempted to assert their independence with decals and stickers. The attempts at individuality were so uniform that they made the laptops even more similar.

Jones found the bathroom door open and the light off. The flea market décor in the room was done no favours by the aggressive hundred-watt fluorescent bulb in the ceiling that exposed every flaw and imperfection left by age or carelessness. Jones hung his coat on a thin metal hook that had once been a yellow brass, but now was mostly black, and looked at himself in the mirror. He checked his clothes for blood but found only flecks of mortar and concrete on his shoulders and in his hair. Jones tousled his hair clean and slapped at his shirt until it stopped giving off plumes of dust. He used the washroom and took his time washing up. Jones pulled the sock off his wrist so that he could use his arm to rub at the soap. He worked the lather all over his hand and up his wrist. The fancy all-natural soap wouldn’t erase the gunshot residue or eliminate the DNA evidence—Jones knew he would need a stiff brush and something that wasn’t natural for that, but the soap would at least do something about the smell. The cordite had been a gift at first. The scent exploded into existence and completely overpowered the dense odour that had crept out from inside the wall and invaded Jones’ nose. Even now, in a bathroom reeking of lilac, he could smell the cellar as though he was still standing there. Jones squeezed his eyes shut; the thought of the bodies was pulling on him, but he knew better than to give in. He would have to go back to the memories soon enough, but not yet.

When he had rinsed as best he could, he used his forearm to release a tiny glob of soap on the bloodstain on his sleeve. The white bubbles went pink as he scrubbed and he rinsed them away. Jones figured the absence of a hand dryer was because it would have clashed with the old fixtures. The same logic must have applied to a paper towel dispenser, but the line of function over form was drawn at paper towels. A pile was lazily stacked in the indentation meant for a bar of soap. The proximity to the faucet had left the flimsy brown sheet on top brittle in the places where someone else’s water had dried. Jones pulled up four sheets and dried his hand and arm, but the thin material had no chance against his wet sleeve. He pushed the shirt past his forearm and tossed the ball of wadded paper at the garbage can. The uneven lump bounced off the summit of piled trash and rolled toward the corner of the room. Jones sighed as he pulled the sock out of his mouth and fit it back onto his arm. Lifting the jacket off the hook, he realized that he had been in such a rush to wash his hands, that he missed the graffiti.

Jones took a step closer to the door as he shrugged the coat over his shoulders. This was not the colourful kind of graffiti that could pass for art; this was the ball-point kind of graffiti that could sometimes pass for wit. According to the door, Becky gave the best head in the world. Someone had left Becky’s number and someone else had crossed it out and written a new number underneath. Someone else had taken the time to draw a crude drawing of Donald Trump on the door. The only thing that really resembled him was the hair, but it was enough. Trump’s head was oversized and someone had drawn small swastikas instead of pupils, and underneath the caricature someone had written Make America grate again. Jones bent down to examine the words written around the doorknob. It was clear that someone had taken their time with that one because each of the letters was a close match for Times New Roman font. Jones followed the words, I know you are, but what am I?

Jones bent down the rest of the way to get the wad of paper towel off the floor. As he stood up, he noticed some writing on the door that hadn’t stood out before. The script wasn’t ostentatious or illustrated like some of the other graffiti. The black letters were small and written with a calligrapher’s skill. The message had been placed next to the hinges, and Jones would have missed them had he not been inches away. He took a small step back and tilted his head so that his shadow was no longer obscuring the tiny words. Someone had taken their time writing the message. They had rested a shoulder on the wall, committing to getting it right.

Jones put his body against the wall and slowly bent his knees until he was eye-level with the words. He had descended about a foot and a half, which put the girl at around five feet. Jones felt like the height confirmed the gender. Jones knew that his personal experience didn’t make the idea of a man with beautiful penmanship impossible, but he had never come across a guy with beautiful handwriting.

Jones read the message another time before giving the bathroom another look. There was no reason a person would choose to hang around in the corner of a public washroom—except to kill time. Jones inched a bit closer to the writing. It was faded and a few of the letters had drifted to the right, likely after knuckles brushed against them. There was no period at the end of the sentence; he could forgive the sin—it was a door after all. Instead of punctuation, there was a small round smudge. Jones licked his thumb and gently put it on the edge of the dark cloud at the end of the sentence. Part of the mark came off without a fight. Lifting his thumb toward the light revealed a grey smear. Jones tried the same thing with a wet index finger on Trump’s hair. When he lifted his finger, there wasn’t a hair out of place.

Jones pulled his phone from his pocket and took shots of the message. He checked his work and repeated the task with the flash on. Satisfied, he took shots of every other thing that had been written or sketched onto the door before stepping back to get a final shot of the entire unintentional canvas.

Jones opened the bathroom door and almost collided with the woman waiting on the other side.

Jones nodded and moved past the woman as she made an obvious show of taking a deep breath in anticipation of the smell she thought was waiting for her inside.

Jones walked back to the counter and took up a spot behind a guy in coveralls who had just ordered.

While the barista was making change, she flashed a look at Jones and said, “We don’t do free refills.”

“I want to talk.”

The barista poured the coffee and passed the cup to the guy in coveralls. To him, she said, “Thanks,” and to Jones, she said, “We don’t do that either.”

“We’re doing that now,” Jones said.

The barista crossed her arms and looked Jones up and then down. She furrowed her eyebrows and two deep lines emerged in between. “No, that’s what you’re doing.”

Her lipstick coloured her pursed lips a deep shade of red that seconds ago had been attractive, but now seemed more like the stained mouth of something carnivorous.

“It’s about the bathroom.”

The furrow released and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, gross. Did you clog it?”

The woman waiting behind Jones cleared her throat. Jones stepped left and let her order. After money changed hands, and the steamer stopped hissing, Jones said, “I didn’t clog the toilet.”

The barista put the coffee down and pointed at the tip jar after the customer walked away. “You see her drop anything in there?”

“No,” Jones said.

“That’s on you.”

Jones put a loonie in the cup. The tip seemed to satisfy the barista. “We out of toilet paper?”

“It’s about the graffiti.”

“Oh.” She rolled her eyes and started to wipe the counter. “I don’t know Becky.”

“It’s not that.”

The barista took another order from a guy in a suit who wanted a gluten-free cookie and a latte. She rang him up and then spoke to Jones while she worked. “Look, we take care of the graffiti ourselves, but you can leave a business card if you want. I’ll pass it on to the owner when she comes in.”

She put the latte down and lifted a glass top off a cake stand that doubled as a cookie display. The glass was heavy and exposed ropey veins running up the barista’s tattooed arm as she held it. She thanked the guy for his tip and sighed when she looked at Jones again. “You’re still here.”

“I don’t want to remove the graffiti. I want to talk about it.”

“Christ, man. I don’t have time for whatever this is. I’m paid to sell coffee, not talk about the bathroom.”

Jones stepped over to the register.

“What now?”

“Another cortado.”

She sighed again, louder this time, and took his money. “You said we take care of the graffiti. Did you mean you when you said we, or is it someone else?”

“What do you care? You said you didn’t remove graffiti.”

Jones fished a twenty out of his pocket. He let the barista see the money before he fed it into the tip jar. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I just have a few questions. I have no problem paying you for your time.”

The barista looked at the tip jar. “My time is worth more than that.”

Jones lifted an eyebrow. “How much do you make an hour?”

“What’s that got to do with what I’m worth?”

Jones doubled the tip. The barista nodded and turned her back on Jones to make the second cortado. She set the drink down on the counter. It was in a juice glass again. “You’ve got until you finish your drink, or five minutes—whichever comes first.”

“Alright.”

The barista took the twenties and put them in the back pocket of her jeans. “We paint over the graffiti ourselves.”

“How often?”

She shrugged. “Whenever it gets bad and there’s a lull. There’s a can of paint under the sink. Painting over it is easier than scrubbing it off.”

“When was the last time you painted it?”

The barista jutted her chin at the glass. “You’re still on the clock whether you drink it or not.”

“It’s too hot in that glass.”

“Wuss.”

“Why not a mug?”

“Most of them are dirty so I have to be selective about giving them out. I thought a big guy like you could handle a warm cup.”

“When did you last paint the door?”

The barista thought about it for a second. “Four days ago.”

“You know that for sure?”

She nodded. “I painted it myself. I remember because I got paint on my jeans.” She took a step back. “See?”

Jones saw a whiskered patch of white just below the pocket from an unintentional brush stroke.

“You’re still wearing them?”

She rolled her eyes. “They’re still jeans. Why do you even care about this anyway?”

Jones pulled out his phone and showed her the picture.

The barista flicked a glance at the phone and then looked again when she saw that Jones hadn’t paid her forty bucks so that he could flash her a picture of his dick. She leaned into the phone and stared at the words for a long time.

“That wasn’t on the door when I painted it.”

Jones took back the phone and looked at the picture. “And you never noticed it when you were cleaning the washroom?”

She shook her head. “We done?”

“Almost. You remember a girl that came in recently—under twenty, around five feet tall, probably wearing a lot of make-up?”

The barista thought about the question long enough to give the impression that she was putting effort into it. “No. Why?”

“Because she’s the one who left the message.”

The barista smiled. “Bullshit. What is this, some kind of scam to hit on me? You come around with money and some bullshit story about graffiti so you can get me into the back of your Mystery Machine?”

Jones raised his palm to slow her down. “This is exactly what it looks like. I don’t have a Mystery Machine, just a mystery.”

“What do you care, dude? You took a piss and read a note on a door. What’s it to you?”

Jones knew that there was no way he could explain the answer to her. “Under twenty, around five feet tall, a lot of make-up. Ring any bells?”

“Do you know how many people come in here every day?”

“I only care about the last four. Do you have a security system?”

She snorted. “Of course.”

“Cameras?”

The barista shook her head. “Just an alarm. It’s the kind that calls one of those companies that can talk to you directly if it goes off. I hit the wrong code one time and they started talking to me. It scared the shit out of me.”

Jones went into his pocket and put some more money into the tip jar. “Another twenty for you to ask your co-workers about the girl.”

The barista leaned forward and took the money out of the jar. “This is forty.”

“The other twenty is for you.”

She raised an eyebrow and rested a hand on her hip. “Why?”

“To keep you from painting the door for a little while.”

She put both bills in her back pocket. “I think you’re crazy.”

“Doesn’t make the money any less green. Do we have a deal?”

She nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Sheena.” She said it with an edge; like she was daring him to say something about it.

“Like the Ramones song.”

Sheena crossed her arms. “Uh hunh.”

“You here tomorrow, Sheena?”

“Yup. Maybe some other weirdo will come in and start dropping cash to talk about the gum under the tables.”

Jones tested the glass and found it bearable. “I’ll check in tomorrow to see if you found anything out.”

“Sure thing, dude.”

“You want to know my name?” a woman’s voice said.

Jones looked to his right and saw Diane looking at him. Sheena smiled and busied herself down the counter.

“It won’t cost you a twenty to find out,” Diane said. She swayed slightly and overcompensated when she realized it. Her heel made a loud tap on the floor and Diane laughed it off.

“Do you come here a lot?”

Diane smiled and put a hand on Jones’ shoulder. She glanced down for just a second, but Jones caught it. “I’m here all the time.”

“So you know the regulars?”

Diane laughed and Jones smelled the wine on her breath. “I know the irregulars too.”

“I’m looking for a girl. She’d be under twenty, around five feet tall, and wearing a lot of make-up.”

Diane flashed a look over Jones’ shoulder, probably at Sheena, who was still out of earshot. She turned up the volume. “You’re looking for a girl?”

Jones held up his hand. “I’m not looking for a girl, Diane. I think this girl might be in trouble.”

Diane looked Jones over. “You a cop or something?”

“I’m a something.”

From her tone, Jones could tell that the possibility of a yes had excited her. “What does that mean?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

Diane laughed. “Shut up. That’s not a real thing.”

“It is,” Jones said. “So tell me, Diane, do you remember a girl under twenty with a lot of eye make-up in here in the last four days?”

Diane thought about it for a second and then she laughed. “Hey, how’d you know my name was Diane? You really must be a private investigator.” She put her hand on his arm again. “A good one.”

“The girl,” Jones said.

Diane leaned closer and laughed. “Oh, right. Duh. I’m such a scatterbrain. It’s the wine.” She leaned in a little closer. “I get into so much trouble when I have too much.” With her hand still on Jones, she said, “Let me think.” Her thumb moved back and forth over the fabric of his jacket. When she spoke, her voice was quiet—an invitation to come closer and share a secret. “I think I might remember someone like that. Why don’t you buy me a drink and we can talk about it?”

“You think you saw her?”

Diane smiled. “Maybe.”

“She would have been left-handed.”

Diane looked. Jones caught her.

“Sorry.”

Jones shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry about. I’m not left-handed. Listen, why don’t you let me buy you that drink.”

Diane smiled wide. “If you insist.”

“I do.”

The promise of a drink loosened the grip on Jones’ arm. He watched Diane walk back to her table with a lot of hip thrown into her gait.

“I gotta ask. How the hell do you know she’s left-handed?”

Jones looked over his shoulder and saw that Sheena had made her way back. “The smudges,” he said. “Her knuckles made them when her hand moved to the right.”

“Bullshit.”

Jones turned and rested his elbows on the counter. “The place she picked to write was another dead giveaway. No righty would have picked that spot. It would have been too hard to write there. That’s why most of the other tags are in the middle of the door.”

“What are you, some kind of handwriting expert.”

Jones smiled and lifted his arm. “Used to be left-handed.”

Sheena looked at the empty jacket sleeve unimpressed. Jones put it down and instantly liked her more than he had a second before. She rested her back against the prep counter opposite Jones and crossed her arms. “Are you really a private investigator? Like in the movies?”

Jones shook his head. “If this were the movies, I’d have already solved the case.”

“How do you know she wore too much make-up?”

Jones checked on Diane; she was using her phone to check her make-up. “Graffiti is a dying art. At least, the restroom variety is. Not many people carry pens around anymore. Students do, but this girl isn’t a student.”

“Why not?”

“She didn’t use a pen or a pencil for her message; those don’t wipe off that easy. She used eyeliner, I think. Something cheap.”

Sheena wrinkled her nose as though the bullshit she was sure she was hearing smelled as bad as the real thing. “Watch the register.” She walked out from behind the counter and turned the corner toward the bathroom. Less than half a minute later, she was back. A customer had approached the register and Jones had told her the barista had gone to use the restroom. The answer was accepted with an exasperated sigh and a dramatic gesture of checking her watch. The fact that Sheena appeared seconds later and attended to the customer before saying a word to Jones did nothing to generate a tip.

When the customer had walked away with her coffee, Sheena said, “You were right. It was cheap eyeliner.”

“Makes you wonder how she afforded to drink here,” Jones said.

“The coffee isn’t that pricey.”

Jones consulted the menu board. “It isn’t that cheap, either. Maybe she wasn’t the one paying.”

He put a ten on the counter next to his empty juice glass, and Sheena waved him off. “It’s okay. The second one is on me.”

“You said it yourself, no free refills.”

“That was when I thought you were a kook.”

“Did you change your mind?”

“I’m open to the possibility of you not being a kook.”

“Can I get a large coffee?”

Sheena took the ten off the counter and paused at the register. “You planning to not sleep for a while?”

The words hit Jones hard when he realized he wasn’t, but he didn’t acknowledge their truth to Sheena. “Not for me.” He jutted his chin toward Diane. “For her.”

Sheena looked at Diane. “She doesn’t like coffee.”

“I can tell what she likes; this is what she needs. Think you could bring it over to her?”

“She’s going to like that less than the coffee. I think she wants you to stick around.”

Jones shook his head. “I have to keep moving.”