Ch.3Request Log #001 – The Roaring Twenties (3)

I had just put it down, but instead of saying something, he was just staring at me, creating an atmosphere.

He was an Orc with both size and age. With a height that seemed to be about 7 feet, grayish clay-colored skin, and a protruding belly, he was still muscular beneath his loose work clothes. His bared tusks and hissing weren’t a pleasant sight.

Just earlier, while taking a taxi here, I was told that Orcs might seem gruff but they’re good people. Now I immediately meet an Orc who seems anything but good-natured. The situation is almost laughable.

The bartender seems to know him, growls unpleasantly, and then walks out from behind the bar.

Two Face used to be a quieter place, at least until the night before last.

“Ah, did I say something wrong to your elder? I sent back that shipment because the milk was spoiled, not because the delivery boy was a runt. If you can’t trust a wolf’s nose, whose nose can you trust, huh?”

It wasn’t unusual for dairy farmers to sell spoiled milk mixed with lime or flour.

While most speakeasies focused solely on liquor, the bartender put considerable effort into the café side of the business as a hobby. So when someone tampered with the milk meant for the café, her reaction became harsh.

The Orc who brought the milk growled back. It sounded similar to the bartender’s growl but with a phlegmy undertone.

“Did your elder send something that would kill you if you drank it? You could just eat it as is…”

The bartender clapped once with a grin. Another mess was about to unfold. If the bartender excelled at anything, it was getting under people’s skin. As expected, provocative words followed.

“Oh, really? Then take it back and tell the old dairy farmer to eat it all himself. It’s not like he’ll die from drinking it, you little Orc who smells like boiled pig skin.”

My plan for a quiet breakfast was already looking unlikely.

“Mickey, put that dollar back and help me send this guy packing? I’ll throw in eggs and bacon!”

My plan to have a decent breakfast at a familiar place slipped further away. But I couldn’t just sit there—if left unchecked, he’d wreck the entire café.

“I’ve told you several times that it’s 20 dollars a day plus expenses.”

I couldn’t use my gun. This was in the middle of an upscale residential area—gunshots would bring police within a minute. I didn’t want to waste my hard-earned money on bribing cops.

“Since there are 24 hours in a day, if you only need me for an hour, couldn’t you hire me for just 1 dollar?”

Ignoring the bartender’s nonsense as she approached behind me, flicking her ponytail that substituted for a tail, I pulled out brass knuckles. The gleaming metal on my fist was always intimidating.

Orcs were a strong race. Some people claimed physical strength meant nothing in the age of guns, but they quieted down after being charged by a drunk Orc.

I positioned myself with my back against a concrete pillar. Fortunately, fighting Orcs wasn’t new to me. As a race skilled in physical labor, Orcs often played the role of corporate enemies.

The Orc rolled up his work sleeves and spat dirty saliva onto the café floor.

“Smooth bastard… so eager to look good for the ladies? A guy with nothing but cow shit in his head, full of pretense…”

Why was he so angry? He probably got beaten by the dairy farm owner after the milk was returned.

I dodged his wild punch by ducking low, using our size difference. The Orc’s fist struck the concrete pillar I’d been leaning against, but he wasn’t strong enough to break concrete.

I was familiar with that feeling. First comes an electric tingling sensation, then an ominous feeling like ants crawling up from your fingertips. That’s when the body starts to anticipate.

Not realizing he was about to shatter his knuckles, he hit the well-secured concrete pillar, and his arm began to tremble. His thick, muscular arm quivered.

I won’t describe what happened to his hand. Or what kind of scream he let out.

As his body hunched over, I drove my knuckle-clad fist into the space between his neck and collarbone.

They were disgustingly sturdy. Even though my knuckles sank in properly, I didn’t feel bones breaking. Still, it was enough to cut off his breath momentarily and bring him to his knees.

The Orc clutched his throat with his uninjured hand, coughing and curling up. His head, which had been two spans higher than mine, lowered to where I could finally meet his gaze.

Would pulling out my gun be a stupid choice? Probably not. The bartender ran a speakeasy, so she was protected by the mafia, and it was obvious who had more influence—the mafia or a dairy farmer.

I drew my pistol from inside my coat. After releasing the safety, I pressed the muzzle against his head.

This Orc wasn’t fighting for some cause—he’d simply come here because his dairy farm boss told him to teach someone a lesson. He wouldn’t resist further. Life is more important than one’s boss.

After subduing the Orc, I nodded to the bartender.

“Who supplies alcohol to your bar again?”

It might have seemed like an unrelated question, but it would be funnier if the bartender couldn’t read my intentions. The corners of her mouth curved up gently.

“Italian guys. And if your dairy farm elder decides not to deliver fresh milk starting tomorrow, I’ll be whining and clinging to those mafia friends’ pant legs.”

This was unimaginable, but exaggeration was something of a verbal habit for the bartender.

“Then it won’t be some random detective coming to your farm, but proper thugs. We all know how that would end up… If you understand, I’ll be expecting fresh milk starting tomorrow, okay?”

Her voice was mixed with aegyo. Utterly annoying, but she knew how to survive by acting this way.

Since everything seemed settled, I put my gun back inside my coat. The will to fight had completely disappeared from both sides.

I tossed the Orc a cloth to wrap his hand, which he’d damaged by punching the concrete pillar with all his might, then sat down in my original seat. I didn’t have much ill feeling toward him, though it was somewhat amusing.

The Orc didn’t thank me. He didn’t have any positive feelings toward me either. Soon he left, carrying the milk crate he’d brought.

After watching the Orc leave, I spoke to the bartender, who looked like she might wag her tail.

“Who are you calling a random detective? Even when I handle things quietly…”

“Well, a truly professional and impressive detective wouldn’t care about a client’s criticism. Got you there!”

An unsophisticated person pretending to be innocent smiles. Soon the bartender approached, put her arm around my shoulder, and briefly hugged me. She put on quite a show of bravado… but she was also someone who got tired of her own pretenses.

I felt her breath approach as she buried her face in my neck. After sniffing a few times like a dog finding a safe place, she relaxed and leaned into me.

“Can you stay at the bar today? I can handle sending one big worker away for a lesson, but if the old dairy farmer loses his mind and sends guys with guns, I’ll get a headache too.”

Another request I couldn’t refuse. I’d never failed when following her requests. Rather, there were times I would have succeeded if I had listened to her.

“Fine, fine. Just give me that breakfast you promised. It’s not like you to keep someone standing who’s been starving since last night and just had to fight.”

She raised her head and met my gaze with her bright yellow eyes. She hugged me with somewhat inhuman strength before letting go.

“I’ll bring you a plate piled high, Mickey. Need a light?”

I shook my head, put a cigarette in my mouth, and gathered mana at my fingertips. The mana reacted with the air to create a flame half the size of a fingernail, lighting the cigarette. The lack of oil smell made it much better than a lighter.

Lighters were for the 70% of people who couldn’t use magic. Creating a small flame was basic knowledge even for someone like me who knew only a few spells.

Well, whether one could use magic or not, some people enjoyed the woody smell of matches.

Being at Bar Two Face made me understand such people a little. The wooden furniture in this bar, passed down since her grandfather’s time, gave off a pleasant scent unique to aged wood.

After briefly hearing the sound of oil sizzling, the bartender came out with two plates. One had generous scrambled eggs with bacon and sausage, and the other had a bagel sandwich with salt-cured salmon.

It was quite hearty for breakfast, but just right for filling my empty stomach.

Customers were starting to come in. People ordering coffee or tea and chatting filled the café, spreading a harmonious atmosphere I didn’t particularly like.

I was glad I sat at the bar. The only customers at this hour were humans who came in groups, so the bar remained quiet.

Only the bartender sat across from me on a chair behind the bar, resting her chin on her hand. It was a familiar sight whenever I came to Two Face, and not an unpleasant one. I’d never disliked the bartender, though things could be awkward.

“So, what were you doing that you skipped dinner? Chasing a murderer? Or maybe stealing something from a mafia den? Tell me about your adventure.”

After emptying the plate of eggs and bacon and wiping my mouth, I chuckled.

“What? Has another detective drama started on the radio? Why would a detective do what cops should be doing?”

Radio detective dramas were mostly garbage. They were sponsored by America’s largest detective agency, which might explain why these fictional detectives were always doing police work.

And why were these busy people so obsessed with romance? As a working detective, I’d never experienced anything like that… but apparently it was trending.

“How did you know? If you heard the voice of the actor playing the detective this time, you’d want to listen too!”

I bit into the sandwich, hoping the bagel and cream cheese would mask the overly salty taste of the cured salmon. Even detectives need to fill their stomachs to function.

“Not likely. Watching those shows only reminds me of detectives who specialize in infidelity investigations.”

Detectives specializing in infidelity investigations often approached women who believed their husbands were cheating, becoming their new, exciting bad-boy lovers. In the end, they were the ones having affairs.

“Hey, that’s too harsh! So, what was the job?”

“Tracking an embezzler. The client paid extra to finish it in a day, so I stayed up all night watching him, then went directly to his house in the morning to bring him in. That’s why I’m sleep-deprived.”

This was what being a real detective was about. I was acting more like a problem solver, which is why I even took jobs like this. If I were purely a detective, finding cats stuck in trees would be the most lucrative work.

“How much did you get? If it wasn’t much, I’ll say it again.”

“What, that I should quit and run this café with you? It’s too late for that now. And I got 300. That’s definitely not a small amount.”

Six years ago, toward the end of the Great War, I was a somewhat different person. I thought enlisting and going to war would bring some kind of honor. Was what I saw in the Argonne Forest honor or glory?

The bartender was the only person who tried to persuade me when my ears were blocked by ambition and youthful recklessness, and I didn’t listen to her. That’s around when things became awkward between us.

“Well, that’s not a small amount. So, are you staying here all night?”

“No, I’ll leave when the Italian guys arrive. You know I only have one face to sit with your bar customers.”

Most of Bar Two Face’s customers were races with two faces.

Vampires who acted like charming, aristocratic humans by day but sought potentially fatal one-night stands by night, dragons and werewolves seeking quiet—these were the main clientele.

If nothing else, they all had high alcohol tolerance. So an enormous amount of alcohol disappeared in a single night… and Bar Two Face became a golden goose for the local mafia.

And just as ordinary people disliked detectives, so did the mafia.

We were neutral people who worked for anyone who paid us, and in this neighborhood, neutrality signaled not that I wasn’t your enemy, but that I wasn’t your ally.

So it was better to leave before encountering them. With the bartender’s request, I’d stay until 6 PM.

Passing time wasn’t difficult. Conversations with the bartender rarely ended because we ran out of things to say. Sometimes silence fell when we didn’t want to speak, but that was different.

The clock moved forward tick by tick, as if the hearts of people waiting for drinking hours were pulling the clock hands. The morning sunlight became the warm afternoon of early March, then the early evening with winter not yet fully gone.

The bell rang announcing 6 PM sharp. Thick curtains covered the windows that had let in warm sunlight during the day.

The vampires who had been having lofty conversations about society and culture at the group tables behind me now looked like baby birds waiting for food. Their eyes were bloodshot, their fangs prominent.

The dragons who had been lounging in plush seats reading newspapers were now trying to suppress the scales appearing on their cheeks, waiting for Café Two Face to become Bar Two Face.

When did Café Two Face end and Bar Two Face begin? You could tell by watching the bartender. As the 6 PM bell rang and the sunset’s gentle red glow that had illuminated the café faded.

This was no longer a café. The bartender began to bounce lightly in place, unable to hide her excitement. The veins on her hands and arms seemed to expand and thicken, and despite the warm interior, her breath carried a light mist.

Thick fur began to rise from her forearms. Her fingernails became front paw claws, and inhuman muscles rose on her arms that had been quite strong even in human form. Her face elongated, and her ears moved to the top of her head.

Until now, her ponytail had substituted for a tail, but now a real tail emerged from outside her bartender suit. The high-elasticity suit designed for werewolves didn’t tear at all during the transformation.

Her already golden eyes turned bright yellow. She looked like she wanted to howl at the sky, but properly socialized werewolves only did that among their own kind.

Her already low voice now completely changed to a growl.

“It’s embarrassing to transform in front of you, Mickey. Are you leaving without even having one drink?”

I stood up after pointing to the Italian guys with hyena heads who were entering through the door.

Since it was unusual for someone to leave a café-bar when it was time to sell alcohol, one of them looked in my direction with a laughing sound similar to a mocking cry.

“What’s a dry guy doing at a bar? Are you a cop? Not the angel kind, the human kind.”

“Dry” was a blanket term for people who truly didn’t drink alcohol in this Prohibition era.

With those words and a chuckling cry, the gnoll’s hand seemed about to grab my collar, but a larger one who had entered with him grabbed that wrist and twisted it. Gnolls had quite clear hierarchies.

“Don’t touch the bartender’s guests, Tomaso. If you try to cut open the belly of a goose that lays golden eggs, your belly will be split first. Got it?”

At least the mafia had clear hierarchies, making them less vicious than local thugs. They were still thugs, of course, but these gnolls seemed to try hard to ignore that fact.

Still, it’s a happy thing to meet someone trying to apologize for rudeness in this day and age.

“I apologize on his behalf. He’s an idiot who gets carried away with enthusiasm.”

“I didn’t expect an apology.”

Leaving those words behind, I opened the door and went out. I hailed another taxi and headed to another regular bar.

“To Arachne on 17th Avenue. I have an invitation and I’m familiar enough with the doorman, so don’t worry.”

In fact, I was a regular at most of the speakeasies in New York. In this Prohibition era, I was essentially doing the same thing as those I despised—trying to fill my soul with alcohol.

Arachne was a bar that sold homemade liquor rather than smuggled goods, but unlike most moonshine, the quality was quite good. The tingling taste created by spider venom that had mostly broken down during the aging process was exquisite.

“Yes, sir,” said a young ogre with slightly awkward pronunciation before starting to drive. The scenery around us flashed by.

We passed through the downtown area. Large theaters advertising silent films and jazz music mixing from unknown sources created nothing but noise.

Still, I preferred the city landscape to be flashy. The theater billboards and the happy sparkle of nearby buildings were as effective at hiding the terrible face of the era as they were at attracting people.

Shortly after, we arrived in front of the Arachne tavern with its small swinging sign depicting a spider web. Since I was in a decent mood, I tossed the taxi driver the one-dollar bill I couldn’t give to the bartender before getting out.

I approached the door of the speakeasy, whose presence was evident even through the small sign-covered window.

The doorman standing in front of the Greek-style decorated door recognized me and waved.

“Mr. Michael, you’re here again. Are you here to get drunk on spider venom or alcohol?”

I chuckled and patted his shoulder. From my wallet, I showed him a small paper with a butterfly caught in a spider web. It was mostly a formality since the doorman knew my face.

“Is this a place where you can choose between the two? When you get drunk here, it’s both.”

“Haha! That’s true. Come in. The Madam will be pleased.”

The door opened. Elaborately decorated lights and hammocks made of spider webs woven by Arachne hung from pillars instead of chairs. Servers with human upper bodies on giant spider lower bodies moved across the webs, delivering drinks.

That night, I drank until I could barely control my body.

And… somehow I made it back to my apartment by the next morning. At least I think so. No money missing from my wallet, no signs of having fired my gun. If these two things remained intact, whatever happened at night was probably nothing serious.