My throat burned the entire way there my lungs barreling inside my body gasping for air as I got there, I thought I was being followed, either by the suited man (had he merely marked me?, I kept asking myself) or the other suited man, who came as I was encoding the message regarding the first suited man and the body retrieved from my apartment. I had not, until this moment, had the occasion to think through the meeting with the second, though the meeting with the first had culled me down into a state of terror and frenzied wonder, so that my interaction with the latter man was whirled into a fever. Had "Hell" been left there as a lure? By the former for the latter? Or had the latter tried to keep me from here?
What he had said, exactly, I struggled to remember.
No, that's the problem. He hadn't said anything, I thought (though I was wrong), he just shoved through the door and did what he did hardly acknowledging my presence. But what presence, I must ask myself--though I could not have thought to think this then--was there to be seen? I was nothing at that moment--utterly nothing in a moment belonging only to him. He came through a door forced open, went to where I had hidden the thing, looked around, though I could not see what he was doing from where I was following, felt ill with his tortuous movements around the apartment, tried to grab him as he ran, but he ran out of the room before I could catch him. Smash him, I said to myself, grab his collar and slam him against the wall--break his face to stop his dash. But he was gone and rather than chase him I needed to know what he had done.
It looked unmoved, deader than dead, immovable even. I didn't bother trying but spent several minutes examining--the suit which would be exchanged, the pockets! Had I checked them closely enough? Would I have found the matchbook there first? As I was following its lead now, it was heavily in my mind. Almost there, I assured myself, not much longer, as I ran.
It had a look of freshness, as if recently become. The body, I mean, not the bar. The bar, when I finally got there--much later than I had assured myself--my lungs then like the smoldering pit of a kiln, was distracted by a commotion in the back. I walked in and nobody noticed me--not at first. I stepped along the long side of its L-shaped counter, there was shouting in back, and the few people hanging around out front were staring seriously in that direction, as if to hear more closely by staring in the direction of the tumult. The atmosphere was barren but hostile.
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