Page 96 of Stay Awake
I’m about to tell him that’s not possible, since I’ve never been here before, when he turns around and takes a bottle of vodka off a shelf. He pours a generous amount into a cocktail shaker before adding vermouth and other ingredients I can’t identify in the murky light.
I stare into the swirling colors reflected on the stainless steel of the cocktail maker as he shakes it and pours the icy mixture into a frosted martini glass. He tosses on a couple of roasted coffee beans as decoration before sliding the glass across the bar to me.
“I know this is a weird question,” I say, after paying him and taking a tentative sip. “I wanted to ask you if…”
“You’ve been here before?”
“How did you know I was going to ask you that?”
“Because every time you come here, you ask me the same question.”
“I don’t remember ever coming here before.”
“That’s because you have a problem with your memory.” He gestures toward the writing on the backs of my hands. “That’s why you write reminders on your hands.”
The bartender abandons me midsentence to serve a customer farther along the bar. My eyes dart toward a large-screen television broadcasting the news.
When he’s back, the bartender takes something from a drawer under the bar and hands it to me. It’s a cell phone with a cracked screen.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“It’s your phone. Someone found it last night and handed it in to the cloakroom attendant. It eventually found its way to me.”
“This phone isn’t mine.” I hold out the phone so he can take it back. “I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
“Trust me, Liv. It’s your phone. You just don’t remember,” the bartender says, making no effort to take it.
A silver-haired man gestures to the bartender that he wants a drink. “Turn it on. You’ll see it’s your phone. You use your thumbprint to unlock it instead of a code,” the bartender says, moving away to pour the man a single malt.
I fiddle with the phone button to turn it on. As I do, my eyes catch sight of the TV again. A grainy photo of a woman is on the screen. I blink, certain I imagined it. When I look again, I know it’s real. The woman on the TV screen is me.
Chapter
Fifty-Four
Wednesday 9:48P.M.
I stare in astonishment at my face plastered on the evening news. “Police searching for woman suspected of murdering magazine executive,” says a graphic below my photo.
I’m convincing myself the vodka must have been spiked to induce this hallucination when I glance in the mirror behind the bar and see the reflection of a patrol cop pushing open the art deco glass doors at the entrance. My stomach free-falls as more cops enter.
“Is there a nearby exit?” I ask the bartender, who has just finished serving his customer. I fan my hand in front of my face as if I’m about to faint. “I’m feeling claustrophobic. I need fresh air.”
“I’ll let you out through the back. Come with me.”
I slip off the barstool and join the bartender at aSTAFF ONLYdoor at the end of the timber counter. He pushes open the door with his shoulder and we enter a narrow dimly-lit corridor. It’s much quieter than the bar, but I can still feel the vibrations of the music. The bartender unlocks a storeroom with a key from his pocket. He swings the door open to a small windowless room filled with supply boxes.
The door slams shut behind us after we enter. I swallow nervously as I realize that I’m trapped in here with him. The bartender rummages around in a metal locker, seemingly unaware of my sudden trepidation. He turns and throws something in my direction. I catch it in midair. It’s a black leather jacket infused with men’s aftershave.
“It’s freezing outside. Put it on. You can give it back to me some other time,” he tells me.
He unlocks another door, which he pushes wide open, letting in a cold draft of air. I step out into the night chill, shoving my hands in the pockets of the borrowed jacket to stay warm as he closes the door behind me.
Parked near the rear door is a white van with a navy Nocturnal logo on its side. I walk past the van and come out onto a street around the block from the bar. Curious to see what’s happening with the police, I backtrack to the entrance.
Three police squad cars are parked on the curb; their siren lights rotate. I merge into a crowd of drinkers who are talking loudly on the sidewalk, speculating about why the police are there. The prevailing theory appears to be a drug bust.
“What’s going on?” I ask someone who’s just finished talking to a cop near the entrance.
