The two policemen were talking casually to the bartender. He was talking back but it clear to everyone was not comfortable with their presence. His eyes kept darting up to glance at the bald man pinned to the wall. You could hear his wheezing breath being choked out of his throat as the fingers which gripped his flesh clenched ever tighter. You could hear the thumps as he kicked the wall behind him struggling for survival. You could hear the capillaries pop in his eyes as the oxygen was cut off from his brain and hear it shutting down. You could hear the body fall clumsily to the ground with a thud and see the third policeman taking a seat beside his two cohorts.
All three began to interrogate the bartender. The bartender growing ever more edgy with each question they asked. The policeman closest to the man in the coat looked over at him and asked him a question. The man did not respond keeping his head down. The policeman look irritated but then began to laugh,
“Agh, you do not speak Korean!” He sniggered narrowing his eyes, “Do you, Spectrum?”
The man in the coat drained the contents of the last shot glass and returned it to the bars scratched surface.
“What’s it to you?” was the response that came from the almost stoic man.
“Oh nothing to me, nothing at all.” The policeman giggled, visibly amused with the conversation he was having. His other two counterparts were continuing to talk and now jeer at the bartender who was looking increasingly alarmed.
The policeman resumed the conversation now in a slightly more serious tone, “They want to know if he has seen the two girls, has he? Have you?”
“You already know the answer to that,” Spectrum answered “don’t you?” He slowly sat up and looked at the man he was talking to. He was less of a man and more of a monster. His eyes were completely red except for two inhuman white pupils which swiveled madly inside his eye sockets. His skin was white like chalk and his short white hair greasy and falling out in clumps.
“Maybe so but what is life without a little foreplay!” The policeman giggled. His thin pale lips curled upwards revealing his rotten black teeth. He turned his head to his associate beside him who was just as grotesque as he was in appearance. He said something to him in Korean and then produced a large gold brick and put it on the bar. The bartender dropped a bottle of rice wine he was holding in surprise when he saw the gold brick. All three of the policemen began to laugh. The bartender looked at each of them. He began to laugh nervously looking at the brick and then back at the policeman. The officer closest to Spectrum pushed the brick towards the bartender. The bartender picked it up hesitantly. He stroked the block of precious metal and weighed it in his dirty hands. He looked back to the policemen. He began to smile and then he swallowed hard. He put the brick underneath the bar and nodded his head towards the storeroom door. Two of the policemen stood up and left the bar and walked into the storeroom.
“Will you not join us, no?” The policeman asked Spectrum with mock innocence. Spectrum got off his stool, turned his back to the officer and walked towards the door to leave. The policeman too left his stool and made his way to the storeroom laughing maniacally as he did so.
Spectrum left the bar with the sound of a young woman’s screams rattling in his ears.
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