Bakal was drinking an early morning coffee in the cafe of his favourite relative, Tia Maria. She was technically the sister of one of his foster-mothers, but they didn’t bother with the foster part. It was an old place with fading colours everywhere because she said she never wanted to spend time and money on making things worse. Old wood has soul, she said. Old plastic less so.
The doors had been replaced some thirty years ago after an unfortunate accident involving a truck and a drunk, but apart from that it was all the same as it must have been about a hundred years before.
There were hundreds of photos and paintings of artists and dancers on the walls, including a large frame with two photos clearly labelled Rimbeaud and Rambo. Although there were a few televisions like everywhere else they were much smaller than normal. They were mostly showing documentaries of exotic dancing with music. The one news channel she had on was always silent.
A smell of baking bread mixed with frying bacon came out of the little kitchen in the back where Leen worked. Leen was a skinny timid teenage girl with rusty hair and skin the colour of milk. She hardly ever talked but would smile sometimes for no reason that anyone else could see. She had come into the place a couple of years ago offering to clean the floors for lunch. It turned out that she couldn’t even fry an egg, but Maria taught her a few things.
“Bren,” she said. “I got some eggs from my cousin in the country.”
“That cousin I’ve never seen and who doesn’t have a name? That cousin?”
“That cousin, the very same. The cousin who is smart enough not to live here and who has a load of chickens and who loves me well enough to sell me the eggs for very little. I’ve been there. The chickens just run around being chickens. So Cafe Tia Maria gets good eggs from time to time.”
She smiled.
“Only for my special customers, mind.”
Bakal grinned at her.
“We even got some good bread,” she said. “That didn’t come out of a sawmill.”
A few minutes later, Bakal was sitting at a table, looking at the best breakfast he had seen since the last time he was here, some weeks before.
The place was half-empty with people going to work, those who had jobs, drinking coffee and eating toast smeared with sunshine spread. Like all cafes in the early morning there was not much talk and the main sound came from the soft mixture of different music coming from the TVs.
“You look a bit heated, Bren,” she said a while later. “Why’s that?”
“You caught me,” he said. And he stretched a little. “Remind me not to play poker with you.”
“Hah, cards are for fools. I’ve seen too many men lose their houses on a card. If you ain’t the smartest, if you ain’t the sharpest, stay well away, say I.”
She refilled his coffee.
“But, really, I’m seeing you look fed up for some time now. What is it? It’s not a woman, because they don’t make you suffer. You make them suffer, you horrible man.”
“Not true, favourite aunt. But look at the news and the lies all the time. It gets to me how dirty it all is.”
“Why do you care? I know. It’s your job. The job you don’t tell me about. I know you do something in the police but I don’t know what you do. I doubt you’re handing out fines to those guys who scream and shout at night. Who wake up the neighbours.”
She looked carefully at him.
“I get the feeling you do something a bit more dramatic, let’s say.”
He smiled at her.
“You could say that. But you’re right. I am definitely a bit fed up. If you’re the law you do get disillusioned sometimes. Little guy, little sin, we grab him. Big guy. Oh no, sir, we didn’t see anything.”
“Have some more coffee.”
The man walking in had ratty sweaty hair and was wearing an old coat too big for him. He looked around quickly at the coffee-drinkers and took out a heavy hand-gun. He was shaking a little as he aimed it at Tia Maria, and he started screaming at her.
“You, you fucking bitch. Open the cash. I need it.”
Maria stood in shock, her mouth open, eyes fixed on the gun. The place was silent.
He screamed louder.
“Open the fucking cash, you bitch.”
His gun was still shaking but it was still aimed at her.
Maria still stood. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. The man took one step closer, raised the gun to eye level, and breathed deep. He was still shaking.
“I said the cash, bitch,” he said slowly. “You have three seconds to give me the cash. One.”
“Hey,” Bakal shouted. “Over here.”
The man spun round and the back of his head exploded with the bang that only a gun can make in a room.
Bakal jumped up, his gun aimed at the dead man who was bleeding over the green and white tile floor. He moved slowly towards him and bent down to feel for his pulse, then he slowly put his gun away.
He spun round to the coffee-drinkers who were sitting, many of them with open mouths, and he slowly took out his ID.
“Police,” he said.
He looked at them all.
“I must ask you all to stay here for a while.”
No one said a thing. No one moved.
He turned round to see his aunt, who had sat down on a hidden stool. She looked at him, tears in her eyes, and quickly nodded to him.
“It’s OK,” she whispered.
He turned back to the crowd.
“As I said, you have to stay here for a few minutes. I know it’s a shock. I’m not a doctor but the man is definitely dead.”
He took out his phone and photographed the man. The face recognition light blinked red. Well known to the police. He would read it later, maybe.
He went back to his aunt and looked at her carefully.
“You’re OK,” he said at last. It wasn’t a question. “Feeling bad is much better than being in hospital dying slowly. That’s what happens most times when you’re shot. Don’t ask me how I know.”
She smiled slowly.
“That was horrible,” she said. “You saved my life, but that was horrible. I have to thank you, Bren, but, dear God, I hope never to see anything like that again.”
Bakal shrugged.
“I hope so as well.”
And at last he smiled at her, and then he turned to the others.
“Police will be here in a few minutes.”
He took out his phone again and took a panoramic shot of them all. Face recog did not flash red or amber for any of them.
Suddenly Maria jumped up and started the coffee machines.
“Coffee for everyone,” she said. “On the house.”
She skipped from table to table around the dead man and his blood on her floor, and took cups and saucers from the diners’ tables. She broke the trance and some of the diners started talking and calling people explaining they would be late.
Three uniformed police came in seven minutes later. Bakal knew one of them by sight. He was a sergeant in the police station where the SPI Team had their office. Like most police he was not thrilled by having an anti-corruption team in his building but he knew of Bakal. He nodded. When Bakal showed him his ID, he nodded again.
“I know you,” he said. “I didn’t know your name, Mr Bakal.”
He aimed his phone at the dead man and listened to what it said.
“Gregor Drebnik,” he said. “Also known as Stick, also known as Dreb. Drug addict known. Five convictions for hold-ups, two for assault with a deadly weapon.”
He looked down.
“I guess what’s in his hand counts as a deadly weapon.”
He turned back to Bakal.
“Tell me the tale,” he said.
“This guy aimed that cannon at the good lady and shouted about the money. I distracted his attention enough to get in a head shot.”
“He could have spasmed,” said the sergeant.
“If so, I’d be hit. I persuaded him to turn round first.”
The sergeant looked at him carefully.
“That was good shooting, Mr Bakal. I guess that’s not an accident.”
“I’ve practised some. Here’s the ambulance.”
The ambulance was older than any of the men standing there. It came to a halt and the co-driver jumped out.
“No rush,” said the sergeant. “Your man ain’t gonna fog mirrors any more. It’s not official but I reckon he’s kind of dead.”
The medic looked at the corpse and said, “Gunshots to the head are not usually good news.”
He felt for a pulse and listened with a stethoscope. He looked carefully in the eyes with a light.
“Yep, he’s gone to a better place.”
He stood up.
“Or a worse one. Anyone else? No? OK, you don’t need me for a while so I’ll go and pick up some walking wounded. Call me when the forensics is all done.”
He went and the sergeant turned back to Bakal.
“When the forensics get here they’ll want to look at your gun but till then keep it.”
He smiled.
“Just don’t shoot me, OK?”
He walked up to Maria who was bustling around the tables.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
She stopped and her busy smile dropped.
“The man on the floor came in, pointed that gun at me, insulted me and told me to give him the money in the till. Bren, Mr Bakal, shouted at him, the man turned, and Mr Bakal’s gun went off.”
“Bren? You know him?”
“He’s my nephew. I have known him since he was six years old.”
The sergeant turned to Bakal, who nodded.
The sergeant shrugged and started going round the tables, talking to each diner and taking their photos.
Ten minutes later the forensics van came up. Three women came out, the boss a sturdy woman in her fifties who took one look at the dead man and said, “Yeah, he’s dead.” She squatted by the man without touching anything and carefully avoiding the drying blood. She turned to Maria at last.
“When we’ve finished here, you can clean all this up. Bleach should do it but you’ll have to scrub a lot.”
She paused and looked for a moment at Maria.
“But you’ll always see it there.”
