On one fateful Thursday night, one of Leonid's men, the quiet one of the three who were roaming through the bar, slid a brown envelope across my counter. He did not say anything, he did not need to.
He just looked at me the way people look when they know you don't have any choice but to do their bidding. He then walked away, laughing, trying to distract the customer who had seen him slide me something.
I opened the envelope under the counter, and inside the envelope was a name, Jamen Rolv.
The envelope also included a photograph, and a time stating 12:30 pm.
This was all, I looked back at the guy who gave me this envelope, I could not find him anymore, it seemed like his final job of the day was to pass me this envelope.
The first thought that came to my head was to call Leonid. He said not do anything on my own, I inform him and leave him to decide.
It then occurred to me that I did not have Leonid's contact and his assistant's own was not going through.
I looked again at the photograph. If the man in this had the name Jamen Rolv, he would be in his late forties, with a heavy-set, trimmed grey beard, and eyes that seem lost. He does not look like an innocent face, not a criminal face either.
I waited and at exactly 12:30, he walked in and I instantly recognized him. He was alone, dressed normally, the way you dress when you don't want to be looked at twice.
We had booths at the bar but he took a seat at the far end of the bar. Doesn't he need privacy of some sort?
I summoned courage, left the counter, and walked over to him.
"What can I get you, sir" I asked.
He looked up at me with a strange straight face and said, "Scotch. Neat."
I rushed over to fetch his drink, still thinking about what I am supposed to do now that he is here.
I poured his drink gently. I noticed him looking at my face like he was trying to place it somewhere.
"You are the new manager" He said. His statement did not feel like a question but I decided to take it as one.
"I am" I said.
He had one shot of the whiskey and tapped the cup twice on the table showing he wanted more. He then said "too young for it".
I was shaken for a bit, "too young?…people say that" I said back at him.
"Then they are all wiser than you" He said nonchalantly, tapping the cup on the table again.
"I used to come here when the previous manager owned this place, good establishment don't you think?"He said.
"It still is, sir" I said.
He then asked if I knew who had the bar now with a grin on his face.
"I work for him, that's all I know" I said.
He smirked and said, "Tell him that Jamen came. He will know what that means".
"I will" I said back at him, leaving him and the bottle of scotch whiskey.
That man finished the whole bottle, paid, over-tipped, and left at exactly 1 a.m.
I memorized everything. What he wore, the time, his countenance, the way he held his drink, everything he said to me, the manner in which he paid for the whole bottle he finished, the direction he walked when he left. I contemplated writing it all down but I decided not to because writing things down creates a form of evidence and in these past few weeks I understood that this world I had gotten myself into runs on core memory, so I stack every one of these details into the back of my mind and held it there like it is precious information.
I then went back into managing the bar peacefully with no thoughts of side quests, as nothing had happened at all.
Two days later, I was called back to the corporation. Leonid's assistant greeted me with a warm smile and I walked into Leonid's office. There were three men in the office when I entered. I remember them,they had been at the bar. They just stared at me. I just looked forward to Leonid who was standing behind his table this time, with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a sheet of paper.
"Tell me about Thursday" Leonid said.
He did not even tell me to sit down, so I stood beside the other three angry looking men and I tell him everything, word for word, detail for detail, the way his man slid me the brown envelope, how confused I was, the exact content of the brown envelope, the time Jamen came and the direction he walked in from, what he ordered, every word he said to me, the amount of money he paid, and the direction he left the bar, I left nothing out.
When I finished, the office was still quiet, then one of the men, I'm assuming, the one who slid me the letter, because I looked closely, he looked older than the other two, broad shoulders, with a scar that ran from his finger to his exposed wrist, I realized he had only four fingers, whispered something to the man who stood at his left side. The one whispered nodded twice.
Leonid looked at me for a moment with an expression between the lines of disappointment and expectation.
He then said, "Good."
"Good?? Good???" I thought.
It was so plain, painfully, I would have preferred to be beaten by the three fierce angry-looking men for being bad at my job.
I felt like saying something, something probably embarrassing and unnecessary but the man with the scar and four fingers, intruded on my thoughts by speaking, "He does not know."
Leonids eyes went to me. "No" He agreed with the man.
"He does not."
"Know what" I asked, not just directly to Leonid but to every other person in the office.
Another one of the men standing said, "Jamen is not a customer "
"He is a man who works for people who decide whether the establishment is an asset or a liability, he works for people who would prefer it to be neither…We needed to know if he would come, what he would say, how he would say it, and whether whoever he met there would crack"
The word "whoever" stung my chest and my heart beat increased by the second.
"You sent him to test me" I say looking at Leonid.
Leonid sat down, eyes on me, with no expression.
My blood boiled fast, so fast, I never thought I would get that angry so fast.
I had grown up in unfortunate circumstances, and I knew what it felt like to be set up to fail, to be used. I had spent most of my life like that, even without knowing.
"You set me up," I said again. My voice came out quieter than the feeling behind it, which I was grateful for. "You gave me a name and a face and no instructions and you sent someone to sit across from me and measure me like I was maybe, a criminal or whatever"
"Yes," Leo said. Plainly.
"And if I had failed?"
He held my gaze. "You didn't."
The man with the scar shifted in his seat. One of the others crossed his arms. The atmosphere in the room adjusted slightly the way it does when someone has said something that could go wrong in several directions. But Leo did not look away from me, and I did not look away from him.
"If you had failed," Leo said finally, with the same measured calmness he applied to everything, "you would have been removed from the position."
"Removed," I repeated.
"From the position," he said again, with a particular weight on the last two words that I understood as him being generous with clarifying.
I looked at him for a moment. This was the most disappointed I had felt in a while.
"Then I will see myself out," I said, and I walked to the door. The three men tried to stop me but they gave way in seconds. I guess he told them to.