… his eyes sting … there’s thick smoke everywhere … he rubs them with the heels of his hands … a girl rubs her bare breasts against his neck in the purple fug … he lifts his ouzo and drains the glass at a single draught … and nods the queer barman to bring another … the music is loud … the place is sadly near empty … his left hand holds the perennial cigarette a few millimeters above an almost empty ashtray… a new girl on the stage, bottle blonde, big tits, stretch marks and a caesar scar … a man in black has entered the club … Kollas watches him intently … the beat drives up through his seat … the air is moving from the cold air let in by the newcomer … the girl on stage gyrates around the pole … Kollas has placed the newcomer … his gaze is cold now, colder than the fresh air … and there is Eleni … to the left of the stage … but his eyes cannot linger – he has to watch Mark whom the stranger is approaching … no menacing … his mouth dries … his heart freezes … he is off the stool and moving … his shout fills the air and drowns the music … the world is frozen … all save the stranger’s hand which is moving frame by frame toward his pocket … Kollas’s cigarette spirals down to the floor and is behind him … his hand reaches into his inside breast pocket … the stranger has a gun in his hand … Mark’s back is still toward them both … Kollas howls Mark’s name … and leaps forward … the stiletto drives up under the stranger’s scapula and stops at the hilt … the world stops … completely … nothing moves … a total deafening silence reigns … they are both on the floor … warm and sticky blood trickles on his hand and the stink of metal fills his nose as the world spins back up to speed …
