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“Hah? What do you mean you’re closed?”
Adachi looks over his shoulder toward the rude voice cutting over the mellow saxophone tune. There is no other customer besides him and the newcomers — two punks, barely old enough to drink, definitely old enough to stir trouble. The color to their cheeks suggests Survive isn’t their first stop tonight. And these kids are the future of this country, Adachi thinks and realizes that he really is old.
“I’m sorry,” the bartender repeats with the same cool composure, “but I must ask you to take your leave.”
“This says here open till 1 am — it’s barely past eleven!”
“The sign is outdated. We’re closing for tonight. Sorry.”
Adachi knows for a fact that he stays here all the time into well after midnight without getting thrown out. Huh. Every day learn something new.
“Hey, grandpa, would be an awful shame if, hypothetically, somebody broke a window, or a”—the youth kicks one chair from where it is neatly tucked under a table and plops down on it—“chair.”
“Would also be an awful shame gettin' arrested on a Friday night,” says Adachi as he turns on his bar stool and shows his badge with a lazy flick of the wrist. “Take this party someplace else, kid. Don’t trip on the way out.”
He gets two wide-eyed stares in return, then it seems to click and they scramble out of the door without a further word. Nobody wants to get wasted with a cop behind their back. Adachi sighs and puts the badge away.
“All bark, no bite.” He leans on the counter, picks up the glass with the remnant of his shochu. “A bit of a letdown, right, Master? Bet you could’ve handled ‘em on your own, if you wanted.”
The bartender smirks — it’s almost imperceptible, Adachi notices only because he knows what signs to look for — putting away clean glasses. He always does it so methodically, no unnecessary movement, hands handling each piece with the utmost care. This close, Adachi can see the drops of water staining the cuffs of his sleeves, because no matter how many dishes he washes, the bartender never rolls them up. While it is none of his business, it’s hard to suppress the old detective instinct and not want to uncover why exactly that is. “That wouldn’t be a good customer service.”
“Well, if you put it like that,” Adachi says scratching the back of his neck. “But I think no-one would hold it against you.”
There’s the smirk again, but this time it’s tighter, contained, not as easy as before. “Today wouldn’t be a good time,” the bartender says and starts wiping the counter. He does so with the same calculated efficiency as ever, but Adachi has seen him doing it enough times to notice that something isn’t quite right; there’s a strange kind of urgency to the routine, yet, at the same time, restraint.
Adachi changes the subject. “What’s up with the closing time? I didn’t mean to keep you here past working hours.”
“It’s not that.”
A moment passes. The damp towel is squeaking its way over the counter top. “Well?” Adachi bites after it’s clear no explanation will be offered. “What is it then?”
With a sigh, the bartender wrings the towel and hangs it. “I’m tired.”
“Your back giving you a hard time?”
He looks at him, expression carefully blank, but not enough for Adachi to not see the tug of his eyebrow and the flaring of his nostrils. Gotcha. “How do you know?”
Adachi shrugs. “Been a detective, once upon a time,” he says, nonchalant.
“You never said you were actually good.”
“Jeez, and here I was startin’ to feel sorry for you.” He throws back the rest of his drink. “How’s that tab standing?”
“9,860 yen.”
“No.”
“Yes. But you can save it for the next time.”
“It’s that bad, huh?”
The bartender clenches his jaw. He washes the final glass and leaves it in the drying rack. “I’ll live,” he simply says before disappearing in the back room.
Adachi stands up and stretches. He pats his pockets for his belongings — phone, wallet, not like there’s much in it anyway — and waits. It takes several minutes, but eventually the bartender reappears, keys in hand and wearing a coat. He turns off the lights save for the main switch by the entrance and pauses when he notices Adachi. “You’re still here?”
“Don’t worry, I’m going. You live far?”
The bartender is giving him the side eye all the way out into the cold street. “Not really, no.”
Adachi rolls his eyes. “Cagey. I’m walking you home, by the way.”
The key turns in the lock with a resounding click, once, twice, and then the bartender faces him again with the same unreadable expression as always. A more alert part of Adachi’s brain is telling him he’s being observed, measured, and assessed, not unlike way back when he had to deal with actual criminals and not with expired driver’s licenses, that he’s being dared to walk head-first into a trap. “I don’t need a chaperone.”
“Just humor me, then.”
The bartender’s visual inspection stretches into an awkward silence, interrupted only by the rattle of a passing train. Adachi figures he will be rejected for the second time — and it’s fine, really, it isn’t like he hasn’t experienced that before — when the bartender shakes his head with what could be both a sigh or a chuckle and starts walking in the direction of the residential quarter. “Fine.”
The journey is slow; Adachi can tell he isn’t in the best shape, avoiding any bumps in the sidewalk, holding his torso ramrod straight. He can relate — desk job has been doing a number on him, too. Nowadays, the only way he is keeping himself somewhat fit is thanks to his gardening exploits. “I imagine standing all day can’t be doing you any good, huh?”
The bartender’s jaw stiffens as he steps over a pothole. “Normally it isn’t that bad.”
“That’s what I say every time I roll out of bed in the morning.” He pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “A smoke?”
“Are you baiting me to break the law, officer?”
Adachi rolls his eyes. “Who do you take me for? I’m not gonna fine a sick man.”
The bartender glances in his direction. “You’re fresh out anyway.”
He takes a better look at the open box — empty. “Ah, sorry. That’s embarrassing.”
Behind the carefully blank mask hiding the pain, Adachi imagines a smile. “It’s the thought that counts.”
“Damn, Master, you’re really lettin’ me off the hook easy today,” he jokes. While crossing the street, he puts a steadying hand on the bartender’s back. Just in case. “Makes me think you’re on your death bed.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Nah — just tipsy, and you know it. You’ve been pouring drinks for me for, what, three years? I’m sure you know my tolerance better than I do.”
“You’ve been a very frequent customer, true.”
They’ve reached the other side of the road. Adachi pretends to have forgotten about his outstretched hand — he would never have done this while sober, and he has a gnawing suspicion that the bartender would never have allowed this while well.
Isn’t that stupid, he thinks. A streetlamp goes off and back on in a flash of light, winking at him from above.
“Despite that,” he begins, tongue clumsy with an urgent need to search for answers, “I don’t think I’ve once heard your name.”
Silence, save for the click of the bartender’s dress shoes on the asphalt. He’s walking slower now, be it due to pain or deep thought. “This isn’t anything against you,” he says after a while, “but there is a reason for that.”
“Is it the same reason why you never roll up your sleeves while doing dishes, or never unbutton your collar during summer?”
The bartender laughs — actually laughs — and that’s also something Adachi has not heard once before. “I keep forgetting you still are a cop.”
“Is that the issue? I swear I have better things to do than exposing shady pasts of local business owners.”
“No,” he says and looks at him fully, one corner of his mouth upturned, drawing an unusual laugh-line in his cheek. In this light, the crooked seam of his scar is barely visible, fading in favor of the crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes, the sharp cut cheekbones, and perhaps Adachi has misjudged the level of his inebriation because his stomach lurches. “Not at all.”
From that moment forward, Adachi stares dead ahead. “Alright, I’ll stop pushing,” he says, rubs a gentle circle into the bartender’s back and lets his arm fall back to his side.
He doesn’t expect for him to start talking then: “Before settling here, I didn’t lead anything that resembled a respectable life. Anything you can think of, I’ve done, and anything you don’t want to think of, I’ve had a hand in. I’m”—he pauses with his head down—“not proud of the man I was. When my deeds have caught up with me, I accepted it — this is it, I thought. The end. I’m by no means a religious person, but as I lay bleeding out on the floor, I thought it a kind of karmic reckoning, and I was glad. Did not even feel any pain.
“The next thing I knew I woke up in a hospital, wired with tubes and needles and whatever else that would stitch my body back together, high on analgesics that I couldn’t form a coherent thought, and a bone-deep ache that even drugs couldn’t dull. I felt robbed, the peace I made with myself still fresh in my memory. Only much later did I realize that this hopeless aftermath I was going through was something I was inflicting for decades upon others without as much as a second thought.” He laughs, and it tastes bitter. “That is the truth, and the reason why I didn’t tell you my name. For me, it is a source of shame.”
They come to a halt in front of an older apartment building. The bartender faces him; the street lights reflect off his glasses and Adachi cannot make out his expression. He feels 100% sober now.
Sighing, the bartender shakes his head and the reflection is gone. Without the veil of light, he looks exhausted. “I didn’t mean to dump all of this on you like that.”
“No, no,” Adachi hurries, fidgeting in a vain attempt to feel less out of place, “I just didn’t expect you to open up, after all these years. And I’m probably not the best person to talk to about this”—shit, he’s probably the worst—“but I do appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me.”
The bartender nods.
“Does it ever go away?” he asks, tapping his back. He takes a great care to keep the touch light and casual.
“Sometimes, it’s better. Today, it’s worse. At any rate, it’s always there.” Adachi might be imagining it, but they seem to be standing a lot closer now. “I’ve made peace with it.”
“Honestly, that doesn’t sound too bad.”
And that smile from before is back again, as if Adachi didn’t have enough to think about already. “You’re a good listener.”
“Am I, now.” The hand he has on the bartender’s back crawls up toward his shoulder blades at a languid pace. If he could, he would have pulled him in. As it is, he nods toward the building. “Need help gettin’ to your floor?”
“I can manage from here.”
Adachi steps back to the jingle of keys. “Don’t trip on the doorstep, old man.”
“You’re lucky I can’t move much right now.”
Adachi laughs. He turns to leave, takes the first step in the direction they came from, and discovers an idea. “By the way,” he says while turning back, “I respect your reasoning, and that you want to keep some things in the past, but a name is just a name.”
From the open doorway, the bartender gives him that measuring look again. “What do you mean?”
Adachi shrugs. “That conversations get really awkward when I know you just as ‘the Master’. It’s like you’re not even a person.” Well, isn’t that just like him to shove his entire foot in his mouth. “Forget that. I guess I just wanted to say I’d like to get to know you, personally.”
They stare at each other to the hum of the city; the metal scrape of train tracks, the gentle wail of a siren, the fading footsteps of a stranger vanishing into the night. With a sinking feeling, Adachi fears he may have pushed too far — perhaps it was insensitive to go fishing for a hard piece of information instead of being content with the nebulous substance of a tale the bartender has graced him with. He figures he’s too thick for hints and reading between the lines, or he thinks he’s good enough at it to pick it all apart. Or, maybe, he’s really as insensitive as his ex had suggested, once upon a time.
“It’s Osamu.”
Adachi blinks. “Pardon?”
“My name. But I’d rather if you used it just between the two of us, when no-one else is around.”
Or, maybe, he’s not dumb at all. A smirk is pulling at his mouth. “Like now?”
The bartender — Osamu — sighs. “Like now.”
Adachi grins. “Well, I won’t keep you,” he says with a hand raised in a greeting. “Goodnight, Osamu.”
Another sigh, but the last thing Adachi sees before heading off is the lopsided slant of a smile. “Goodnight, Adachi.”