The Memorial
I huffed and puffed and tried to not let my temper run away with me. How dare she look me dead in the eye and tell me “No.”? This was not a super special restaurant where you had to be a celebrity to get in, and even if, I should count as one even if no one would be able to recognize unless they ran in certain circles. Nevertheless, this was just an ordinary place. They should have a spare table at any given moment. Sure, it had an awesome location and people flocked to get in - but still. Why did she have to be such a bitch?
I looked at the receptionist again, putting my most charming smile on my face and slid a stack of 100 Dollar bills across her small desk.
“Are you sure there’s no table left? Please check for my name again, I’m sure you’ll find one.”
But all she did was look annoyed. “I already told you, Sir, there’s none and I don’t care what your name is or for your money. You’re a nobody.”
The muscles in my neck coiled at that insult. A nobody. I don’t expect everyone to know me on sight, after all, I only came to this neck of the woods on special days. But still. Why do people have to be so rude? I looked down at my shaking hands. Snap her neck. Walk over her corpse. Find my own fucking table. So easy. Instead, I inhaled deeply.
“You’re going to regret that.” I glowered at her.
She looked bored. “I’m calling security now.”
I eyed the guy standing next to me for the past 5 minutes already. He was massive and armed to the teeth. If this wasn’t security then I don’t know who would be. Can only mean that there would be more coming. I could easily take him down and a squad or two on top without breaking a sweat. But it would also mean that I would be trashing this place. I liked this place, this view.
I took a steadying breath.
“No need. I’m leaving. But mark my words, this is not over.”
I turned and headed down the corridor trying to control my rage.
At the end of the hallway I found a good view at the window overlooking the river and closed my eyes.
“You can do this” I muttered to myself and took another deep breath before I opened my eyes again. I loved this view and all I had wanted was to look at it while having the wife’s memorial dinner. She had been the best thing ever and I still followed all her restaurant suggestions to the T. I closed my eyes again and contemplated going back and killing that receptionist. But then I would have needed to kill the security and whoever the actual security detail was. Plus, I guess I wouldn’t be too welcome for dinner afterwards anymore, and all the mess cleaning up. Screaming people calling the police.
I took a calming breath, took out my phone and speed dialed the only person I wanted to talk to right now. She picked up on the 2nd ring.
“Yes, Sir?” Her lovely voice chimed through the line.
I took another calming breath.
“They won’t let me in for the memorial dinner.” I announced. “I could tear this place down.”
“And did you kill anyone yet?” She purred.
“No, of course not. I do have some self-restraint.”
She chuckled - such a sweet sound coming from such a dangerous being. It always surprised me and calmed me down more than I wanted to admit.
“So what do you want to do about this now, Sir?”
I hated that she kept calling me Sir, but I hated it even more when she called me my cover name, so I ignored it.
“I don’t know.” I growled. “I want to do so many horrible things, especially to that arrogant receptionist. I want to drag her across the floor and smash her head against the wall until she apologizes. Then I want to rip out her fucking vocal cords.”
“But you won’t.” Not a question, but a statement. It confirmed what I felt I should get better at. I took one more deep breath.
“No, I won’t.” I exhaled and looked at the view.
“Can you prepare a contract for me? I want to buy it and fire that receptionist with a review that’ll have her struggle to find any kind of job ever again.”
“Mhm, evil enough … But why did you call me for this? Did you just want to hear my voice?” She purred again and I got soft in my knees.
“Day is off duty.” I said trying to put as much reason into my voice as possible. “He cannot do anything about this right now.”
“But you know that these kind of contracts aren’t my speciality. You’re not paying me for these kind of contracts. Are you sure you want me to do this?”
I almost sighed. I wanted her to do so many things, mostly with me, but I kept my voice firm. “Yes, Night. I want you to do this. As a thank you I will take you out for dinner once it’s mine.”
“Mhm …” she mused. “Alright. Consider it done.”
Before I could say anything else, she had hung up, leaving me to lean my head against the window cooling down my racing heart. Had I just really asked my Night Manager to do something as mundane as buying a restaurant? No way to change that now. Day would be pissed but he would understand, hopefully.
Forty-five minutes later my phone rang again and I held my breath answering it.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“I came across a few obstacles and had to dispatch Paul, so at least it was worth calling me.”
I blew out the breath I had held for longer than I had realized.
“Thank you.” I said, now thinking about Paul. What an understated name for this man. I sometimes wondered how such a big and soft spoken man could turn lithe and deathly assassin in just a blink of an eye.
“Who did he take out?”
“The place was owned by the Kurozumi. I sent him to sign the deal and he told me that there had been some resistance … at least at first.”
“Oh, good.” My mood lightened in an instant. “That’s really good. They were annoying me for quite a while now. It was time I got something of theirs.”
She chuckled again. “You may now invite me for a drink some time.” She purred into my ear.
“Will you behave?” I asked her, my voice dropping to a low whisper.
“Of course.” She whispered back. “I only fired the receptionist. I didn’t kill her. Is that behaved enough?”
“Yes.” A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “You know what, meet me up front now, please. I would like to invite you for dinner tonight.”
There was a pause at the end of the line.
“Are you sure, Sir?”
“Yes, and Mira would have wanted me to.”
“Alright. Be right there,” she said and hung up on me again.
Even though I had told her to meet me up front, I couldn’t move. I was glued to that glass window overlooking the river and how it reflected the city lights. Calmly flowing. It helped me breathe and stay focused. Had I made a mistake asking Night to join me? Had I lied saying that Mira would have wanted me to move on? I grabbed the vertical window column - double-T metal with the glass seated in the middle, leaving the T's head exposed. What a waste of material. I squeezed until my knuckles went white, counted the seconds I could hold it, then released and counted until the color returned.
Behind me the elevator pinged at the other end of the hallway. I didn’t even need to turn around to know that it was her coming out of the elevator. The click of her heels gave her away. I turned anyway and was met with Night in black heels, a green dress and her long red hair trailing down her back. She had dressed up. For me.
“Hello, Sir,” she said, that professional mask firmly in place.
I rolled my eyes. “Night, I thought we've been over that. There's no need to call me Sir.”
Her expression softened - a real smile this time. I liked that.
“You know I prefer it this way,” she almost whispered.
“Fair enough,” I said, keeping my voice low.
Why was it always like this between us? Others she didn’t even bother to look at when she shredded them apart with a voice that could freeze over the desert.
“Documents?” I asked, looking at the papers she had clutched under her arm, trying to distract myself from this devil of a temptation.
She nodded. “I thought I could bring the contracts. Would you care to review them over dinner?”
“That would be nice.” I smiled and held out my arm for her.
She hooked her arm into mine - her touch light, almost casual, but I knew she wouldn't let go unless I asked her to. The familiar twist of guilt clawed at my chest. As it had been doing for the last three years. Even though I had tried everything I could to save Mira and her last words had been to not get hung up on her, I just couldn’t help it.
I was absolutely certain that Mira had set me up. She had sent me to find a “fucking good lawyer” at The World’s End - a bar with a hidden strip club and a shady backroom - where I had found Night fucking a guy on a leather couch, a gun pointed at another man across from her. He signed a contract with shaking hands. She blew his brains out and came with a sound that was more statement than pleasure. When the guy she’d been fucking complained that he hadn’t finished yet, she shot him too. She then looked at me while pulling her tight black dress back down over her ass and asked what I wanted.
I told her that I had been looking for a lawyer but might be in the wrong place. She only smiled and asked if Mira had sent me, to which I nodded. “Then you have found your lawyer, Mr. Murdock. You may call me Night, Sir.” We shook hands, and agreed on a formal meeting in a week’s time. She sent me home with warm regards to my wife.
Mira had laughed until she could barely breathe when I told her. Then she told me to let her regain some of her strength or she might die of laughter instead of her tumour. She died two weeks after I had signed the contract with Night, telling me with her last breaths to move on from her and find a redhead. As if she hadn't already done exactly that for me. What a fucking joke. I tried. For her. But it’s hard, so so hard.
Taking a deep breath I pulled myself back to the present and looked at Night. “Ready?”
She nodded and I guided her back to the restaurant, where already a new receptionist was waiting for us.
“Good evening, Mr. Murdock. Please, let me show you to your table.” She bowed and gestured us through. I smiled. Night had been extremely effective in just 45 minutes. She knew me well enough to know that I would have killed the previous receptionist if I had seen her again. I tried not to let my satisfaction show.
The restaurant was packed, but our table was at the centre of the massive window overlooking the river. Exactly where I’d wanted it to be. I held Night’s chair as she sat, and leaned close enough to smell her perfume - something sweet and lovely.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For everything.”
She didn't look at me, smoothing the contracts on the table instead, but I caught the faintest flush on her cheek.
"Anything, Sir."
I let the "Sir" slide this time.
I'd just stepped out of the shower when my phone vibrated on the coffee table beside a small, grimy window. Looking at it, I instantly knew I wouldn’t be happy answering but picked up nevertheless.
“Day, it’s in the middle of the night here. All good?”
I heard him bristle at the other end of the line and had to fight a grin. Day was probably pacing circles around his desk.
“She bought a restaurant, Sir. Why?”
“Straight to the point, my friend,” I chuckled and took a deep breath. “It’s The Mackenzie Room in Vancouver.”
I could hear him suck in a breath so loud, I held the phone away from my ear.
“Sir, I didn’t know …I wouldn’t have called had I known. I’m so sorry. I just got a text from Night about a restaurant and that I should look into her transaction today.”
“No need to apologise, Day. We’re all a bit on edge around this day. I had asked Night to buy it for me last night and it turned out there were ties to some of our unfriendly counterparts. She took care of these, but we still need it to be properly clean. Can you look into it for me, please?”
“Of course, Sir. It would be an honour for me.”
“Thanks, Day. Call me if something doesn’t add up.”
We hung up and I sat in the old armchair of my rundown safe-house. Looking around, I probably should have maintained it better. A thick coat of dust had settled everywhere, including the bed, and moths had started eating the curtains. I traced a loose strand on the armchair. Had rats made it in here as well? I sighed, adding to my mental list to have someone come and fix it up again. The last few years had indeed been a blur and I simply hadn’t cared enough.
Memorial dinner had been a whirlwind of emotions and I didn’t dare think about it too deeply. Night had bought the restaurant on a whim, then showed up all dressed up and even though she keeps things utterly professional between us, I think there’s something. I see how she treats and interacts with others, and then there is this tension between us. Her dressing up in ways that left nothing to the imagination - that green dress clinging to every curve, the way she moved in those heels. I could have taken her right there. Her hotel room. My dirty-ass safe-house. Anywhere.
The thought hit me hard: I wanted to. But I didn't. Couldn't. Not yet. Maybe not ever, even with Mira’s last words. But grief and desire made terrible bedfellows, and I wasn't ready to untangle them.
I growled and forced the thought away. Another item on my growing list of emotional shit I had to get control over if I ever wanted to get a grip on myself again.
Aside from Night’s outfit being an absolute distraction, the evening had been pleasant. No awkward silence. I told her about how I had met Mira - she laughed until she cried hearing that Mira had me pop into her café for 2 weeks straight to order croissants and to only actually sell me one on the last day - and Night had told me how they met in that fancy London bar. She had been stalking a client, Mira had been looking to purchase the place. They both ended up staring at the same guy - the owner - at the same time, then got drunk together instead of pursuing him.
Later, she told me how much she disliked Portland, to which I had to agree. Something was off about that place and our business there. We agreed to look into it in the upcoming days.
The vibration of my phone tore me back to reality and the fact that I had scratched off the top layer of the arm chair’s material. What a loose strand could make you do. Looking at the holes below the fabric, I was certain that rats had infested this place. Good thing I didn't have anything important stashed here.
I picked it up on the third ring. “Anything wrong with the transaction?”
“I cannot clean it, Sir,” Day said, his voice dark.
I sat up straight.
“Because of our unfriendly counterparts, or did Night make a mistake?” Though I seriously doubted that. Still, Real Estate was Day’s area of expertise and he was a devil in the details.
“No. No, Sir,” he sighed. “She did an excellent job, but apparently there had been a witness who disagreed with the transaction and is now asking for retaliation.”
I checked my watch. It was close to 2am in Vancouver, which made it 11am in Paris. Would it be okay if I woke Night? Was her shift tied to Paris time or wherever we currently were? I internally sighed. Sometimes I really hated the strict time separations we had set up. But it served a purpose. A clean separation.
I decided to give her a few more hours of sleep.
“Send me the details. I will look into it myself. After all, it was me who couldn’t keep himself in check last night.”
I could hear the hesitation in his voice before Day agreed. He was always so worried, so careful. One day it would bite him in the ass. Or me, for being too impulsive and failing Mira when I couldn’t control my emotions. But what was done was now done and I had to deal with the consequences. Night did an excellent job, even Day said so and that means something coming from him. The witness was probably linked to the Kurozumi, but I didn't need Day spiralling about it alone in Paris.
It took him only five minutes to send me everything I needed including a very comprehensive summary. Looked like I was going to visit a Kurozumi associate. Paul wouldn't have left any survivors. I smiled. This should be easy.
My phone buzzed again.
“Let me guess: Day sent you the details as well?” I asked Night, trying to suppress my rising annoyance. Sure, it was her deal and she had to know if something was off. But why did he always have to be so over-caring? Didn't he trust me to handle things myself? Couldn't he have kept her out of it just this once?
“Yes, Sir, but I think you don’t necessarily need me for this one.” She paused. “Unless, you want me to come?”
“No,” I said, releasing a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding and cleared my throat. “It’s straightforward. I’ll debrief you later. Grab some sleep. We have a few busy days ahead of us.”
