Ch.241Two Face’s Customers – Bar Two Face is Closed Today

The reservation at Two Face was to be handled by Blingkerton’s former shooter. While her job had simply been to find a missing person, what it left behind was a tale of Blingkerton’s heroics in protecting citizens.

Heroics are worth money. The story of Blingkerton detectives stopping The Idealists’ riot would be worth enough to rent Two Face for a night. Our story would have been more expensive, but we never wrote memoirs.

If we had written them, they might have been memoirs but certainly not autobiographies. If we’d made money from those memoirs, we could have given a bit more to the Rat-Catcher’s wife.

When I called yesterday to check if Two Face was intact… I had to spend about two hours explaining to Sara how fine I was rather than how Two Face was doing.

I had to tell quite a few lies too. I couldn’t tell her that I’d gone to the heart of the factory district where the Industrial Spirit King resided, smashing dozens of mechanized angel terminals along the way. Nevertheless, she worried.

Two Face was intact. Sara was Sara. Those two facts weren’t lies and seemed like they would never change. Today I’d probably need to wear clothes that shouldn’t get blood stains or smell of gunpowder.

Since it was about time for customers to start arriving, I gave Levi a brief greeting and left Cafe Caligula. I was heading home. I decided to take the duffel bag with my rifle out of the car before going to Two Face.

Back home, I prepared another suit. Not formal enough to enter Eden, but probably one of the suits I’d received from The Morrígan before.

I put the assault rifle in the closet but never skipped wearing the holster harness and packing my pistol. If a rifle was a weapon for fighting, a pistol was closer to being part of one’s attire.

Besides, I was going to meet someone who had told me that while a man might go out without a suit, he should never go out without a pistol. So I gladly packed two spare magazines as well.

The familiar weight. The word “god-killer” that the head of the Half-Truth Faction had persistently called me felt heavy enough to make my shoulders and waist ache. As always, being just a detective was perfectly suitable.

I left home in time for Cafe Two Face to become Bar Two Face. Since someone would serve as my driver on the way back, I took my car.

The city’s landscape doesn’t change easily. Only the currents have changed. Except for the smell of suspicion and discord instead of burning gasoline, the city wore its usual colors.

Two Face had a “closed” sign hanging, but the door wasn’t locked. Judging by the signs of life inside, someone must have arrived early. I pushed the door open.

“Oh, we’re already closed for daytime business…”

That woman Sara had hired last time was cleaning the cafe. There wasn’t much need for cleaning if dozens of Blingkerton people were about to pour in.

“I’m here for the evening reservation. Where’s Sara?”

“Oh, she said it’s about time for her transformation and went upstairs. She said she doesn’t want to show her transformation process.”

It was something people normally didn’t show others. Werewolves maintaining their sanity after transformation wasn’t the result of some effort or drug use.

It was because they had killed all the werewolves who couldn’t regain their sanity after transformation and domesticated themselves. That’s why the moment of transformation from human to beast was embarrassing and concerning.

Two Face’s customers and I had seen it many times already, so Sara transformed comfortably, but she seemed to be careful around this woman. A slight laugh escaped me.

“Seems like Sara’s quite fond of you. Isn’t that right?”

Her name was probably Corin. She would be using the room I used to use. I could still picture that room in my mind, but if I went up right now, it would be someone else’s room, not mine.

The scenery I remembered, the smells and sounds I remembered, couldn’t possibly remain there. This is the kind of thing one should say when feeling melancholy, but just recalling it made me feel lighter.

Corin, who had been awkward and unable to blend into Two Face’s atmosphere for a while, smiled at my words. Her awkward smile resembled my old self.

“Sara is kind, you know. That’s why working here is enjoyable. I didn’t really like cooking before. But doing it at Two Face is fun.”

“Feeling like you’ve found a family at Two Face for the first time means your life is already quite ruined, Corin.”

Family, huh. It wasn’t for nothing that I was displeased when Madam Brünhild called me William’s son. All I remembered about my fourteen-year-old self was pointing a shotgun at his head and yelling at him to get lost.

I should have shot him then. After I started making a living from others’ deaths, I occasionally thought that. But that wouldn’t have been the case. If he had been that kind of person from the beginning, I wouldn’t have even this much of a life in my hands.

Corin, who had briefly made an unpleasant face, figured out the meaning of my words and let out a natural laugh while covering her mouth with one hand. Perhaps thinking Sara might hear, she lowered her voice and asked.

“Has Sara always been like this?”

“Sara’s parents were the kind of people who couldn’t help but pick up anything trembling on the street. Sara takes after them exactly.”

While we were talking, there was a sound of something shaking on the second floor, and soon the door opened and Sara came down. She had completed her transformation. I had stopped fearing beasts thanks to that brown wolf.

Glossy fur and an uncontrollably wagging tail. Her size, which stretched her elastic werewolf suit taut, was as usual. She spread her arms with her claws retracted. I didn’t hug her.

“Mickey! You’re early? What were you talking about with Corin?”

I smirked leisurely. Sara was a good person, but not particularly mature. She might seem very mature at first glance, but her inner self wasn’t.

“Stories about you?”

“What?”

“About how you were afraid of a dog a block away from here when you didn’t even know you were a wolf. Why?”

Sara easily jumped over the fairly high bar and ran toward me as if trying to stop me from talking. Normally, if a werewolf came running like this, drawing a gun first would be natural, but this was Sara.

She did run, but she couldn’t even properly block me and just flailed her arms in the air, which was quite amusing. Corin, who had been quietly watching, also burst into laughter somewhat naturally.

Sara growled, perhaps because it was truly embarrassing. She had an expression that suggested she would have let out a long howl if this weren’t a secret bar.

“You’re not getting any drinks from me today, Mickey! I’m telling you in advance! Got it?!”

“I’ll just make my own, then.”

She seemed to have been genuinely upset, but Sara’s anger appeared to subside somewhat at the sight of Corin laughing. It was around then that the reporter opened the door and came in.

The day wasn’t that cold yet, but that was just by my standards. She hung her coat on the coat rack and waved her hand widely.

“Brr, it’s cold… The others aren’t here yet? Sara said Blingkerton Detective Agency would rent out Two Face entirely and invited me for free drinks, so I came…”

“The only thing Blingkerton folks do on time is settling accounts. Ah, since you’re here, come this way.”

I led the reporter, who twitched her ears once, behind the bar. She didn’t give off the impression of a proper bartender like Sara, but her shirt attire wasn’t out of place behind the bar.

I spoke in a relaxed voice. All the tense matters were over. The detective’s responsibility had ended, and whatever happened to the world was no longer my concern.

“I teased her a bit, and Sara said she wouldn’t serve me a single drink today. Since I wasn’t planning to drink much anyway, I thought I’d ask you to be a day bartender.”

It was a casual joke, as I’d rather do it myself than properly ask. The reporter smiled as if it was unlike her.

“Shouldn’t someone who drinks as much as you know how to make drinks? And how far do you need to send an elf who supported Prohibition before you’re satisfied?!”

Elven ears were generally slanted, but they would stand straight when angry. It wasn’t usually that obvious. Elves had learned not to show emotions through their ears.

“You weren’t that far from me to begin with, so don’t exaggerate. You know I’m not seriously asking.”

The reporter briefly struck what she thought was the most bartender-like pose from behind the bar, then came back out. I wanted to have a leisurely drink before Blingkerton’s shooter arrived.

When she arrived, the atmosphere would surely turn into something like an after-party at Blingkerton Detective Agency. They were people with an uncomfortable level of camaraderie, as they weren’t originally loners.

Sara had said she wouldn’t serve me drinks, but she didn’t stop me from going behind the bar. I poured the strongest drink in the bar and added a few drops of hot sauce. The red color spread.

It was called Dragon Slayer, but it was a drink that took down people. Many couldn’t regain their senses after drinking more than two glasses unless they had twice the vitality. I downed such a drink.

I thought it was quite like me that not even intoxication rose. Still, it felt more like drinking alcohol than other drinks, so I decided to set aside that much disappointment.

The reporter twitched her nose first, and then I too smelled ozone. Blingkerton’s former shooter entered Two Face using teleportation magic instead of the door.

She acted as if this was her regular place, but it must have been about ten years since she last visited. She naturally, and half-jokingly, started complaining.

“This damn place hasn’t changed in 40 years. Why not bring in a jazz band, Sara! The atmosphere would be quite nice, wouldn’t it? You’ve got nothing to lose listening to an old woman’s advice.”

Sara didn’t take long to recognize her. Another whiff of ozone, and the space where she had been briefly flickered before she appeared in front of Sara.

The bartender hugged her once with her claws retracted. Though she was Blingkerton’s shooter, she wasn’t fast enough to avoid a hugging werewolf, nor strong enough to break free from the embrace.

“Is that the first thing you say when you visit after so long? Besides! Most of our customers are dragons or vampires who don’t really like jazz. Dragons are so traditional!”

Blingkerton’s shooter hugged Sara’s nape once, and when Sara released her arms, she lightly jumped back and landed. She was an incredibly healthy old woman for being sixty.

“Well, if this sixty-year-old detective is so particular about orthodoxy and whatnot, creatures that live for a thousand years must be even more so, not less. So, who’s this?”

Blingkerton’s shooter approached the reporter. Her face was wrinkled, but her attire wasn’t much different from mine, and with her coat flaps open, her holstered gun would be visible.

She couldn’t fail to recognize a common Blingkerton detective. She would quickly realize they knew each other through work. She looked up at Blingkerton’s shooter and said.

“I’m… someone who has a cooperative relationship with Michael! You could say I’m something of an informant!”

For someone described as “something of,” this woman’s connections were bizarrely extensive and deeply rooted. She knew the Industrial Spirit King while being family to the Forest’s Firstborn… listing it all would be surreal.

At the word “cooperator,” Blingkerton’s shooter put on a somewhat friendly expression and took off her hat. Few white-haired women could be as intimidating as the shooter.

“Ah, then I should properly introduce myself too. I’m Margaret Long, Blingkerton’s senior detective who taught that kid Mike since he was a little tyke. And you are?”

“Rose Leafman, reporter for Golden Age Press!”

The sight of the two shaking hands somehow felt like pages pulled from different books sticking together. Like that uncertain description, there was something vague that was difficult to express concretely.

Around the time they were exchanging greetings, two Blingkerton detectives teleported into Two Face, following the scent of ozone left by Blingkerton’s shooter. Blingkerton’s shooter scolded them.

“Hey, you bastards! Is the door just decoration? I enter like that because I’ve been a regular for almost 40 years, but do you have to follow like ants chasing a trail? Go out and come in through the door!”

It was quite a sight to see the Blingkerton detectives teleport back outside in confusion. After they came in, there wouldn’t be another quiet moment like now. I made and downed another drink.

That night was generally of that color. I spent time with Two Face’s original bartender, leaving the Blingkerton detectives to their celebration in the background. Nothing much happened except that the reporter got drunk too quickly.

Blingkerton’s shooter beckoned me over briefly, and when I walked over, she began introducing me to the gathered detectives. Rather than an introduction, she asked if they remembered me.

Of course, no one did. Though I had supposedly worked at Blingkerton, I had only done some odd jobs while receiving simple assignments from the shooter, so no one would remember me. I had been disconnected from Blingkerton for a long time.

Yehoel joined in the middle. Saying things like, “I asked the bootleggers, and there’s no raid today,” while naturally sitting on a bar stool… it seemed to show why The Idealists’ riot had become such a big deal. Fallen angels, huh.

The night before Armistice Day was like that. Tomorrow I would have to wear my uniform again. I had to endure another day of the God-President’s useless talk… and I had to visit Bunyan’s family.

It wouldn’t be a terrible feeling. From the beginning, we had sent all our pensions to the families of dead comrades. However, this would be the first time I visited the family of a comrade attributed to me.

Samuel or whatever that warlock-soldier’s name was, he was quite skilled. He had drawn our comrades, who would have otherwise clung to us in horrific forms, to look as human as possible, as much like their living selves as possible.

There was no need to even look at photos to recall names. We remembered everyone. We remembered all the comrades who died in the Argonne Forest and those who died after the Great War ended.

Since I would have to drink memorial alcohol tomorrow, I didn’t drink too much tonight. The way home and the coldness felt in the empty house, I didn’t drink more than enough to remember everything clearly.