The spy with no name

The air in the bar reeked of fatigue. The uncanny silence seemed to indicate that everyone present in the establishment was too tired to be merry on a Friday night. It was almost as if everyone had had the same long week all at once, and just wanted to quietly drink around fellow somber strangers. The band did not help out either. They played the same melancholic blues song all night long.

“Hey, Shaw. The usual?”, the bartender asked.

“Sure, Chris” Shaw replied.

“How’s life been?”

“Good.”

Chris left to go take some other orders. His habit of fulfilling multiple orders at once is one that always irritated Shaw. He believed it would be faster to serve one person at a time. Still, he had never been a bartender so maybe he was completely wrong.

After two minutes, Chris returned with his drink: an Irish Coffee. Shaw reached into his pocket to hand Chris some cash but Chris cut him off saying, “There’s no need for that.”

“It’s on the house?” Shaw was slightly puzzled.

“You wish. That guy over there paid it for you,” Chris pointed to a table by the bathroom. A man in a blue Hawaiian shirt and a black hat was seated there.

“I better go thank him then,” Shaw stood up, drink in hand, and ambled to the bathroom area. Once he got there, he put his drink on the table, methodically pulled the chair out, put his coat over it, and sat across from his unexpected patron.

“I see you still order the same drink,” the guy said.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same, handler.”

“Oh please! We are both retired. I think you can call me by my name now. I heard you go by Shaw nowadays?”

“Yeah,” Shaw took a sip of his drink.

As the two of them continued catching up, Shaw stole glances around the bar. Something felt off. It took a while for him to take in how different the atmosphere was compared to other nights at the bar.

Firstly, the bar was usually comprised of regulars but, on that night, it was full of mostly strangers. Even the band had new faces. Secondly, the lighting in the bar was a bit dimmer than usual, with the bathroom area he was currently in being conveniently darker than the rest of the bar. Lastly, Chris did not bother trying to get Shaw to try out a different drink as he was wont to.

The handler, almost as if reading Shaw’s mind, said, “Looks like you’re getting old, man.” He was right. The old Shaw would have sniffed out the possible danger quicker than a politician’s impulse to give a non-answer.

“Paul. After all that we’ve been through together, this is how it ends?” Shaw’s hurt seeped through the gruff in his voice.

“You got to know that they can’t let you just walk around. You know too much. What if the wrong people catch you?” Paul responded resolutely.

Shaw took his glass and downed its contents in one gulp. As he put it down, he glared into the soul of the man sitting across from him. He could see everything. All he needed to know about the current situation was written on Paul’s face.

“They threatened your family, huh?”

Paul remained silent. All this while, he had had a gun pointed at Shaw under the table but he just could not bring himself to do it.

“I can’t just let you kill me.”

“I know. That’s why I wanted to grab a drink with you one last time.”

Shaw stood up from his seat. He slowly put on his coat. After this, he reached out across the table and gently grabbed Paul’s hat from his head, putting it on his own. Paul offered no objection to this move.

“What’s the use of a gun if you don’t shoot it?” Shaw muttered. Deep down, he was hoping his old friend would do so. He did not want another weight to carry in his meaningless trudge of life.

“I’m gonna walk out the main door, and neither you nor your agents will ever see me again,” Shaw indirectly pleaded once more with Paul to do what he needed to do.

After a few seconds of nothing happening, Shaw slowly made his way to the exit. He stood still for a second right in front of the door, almost as if debating if he should walk out into the guilt that awaited him. He silently sighed and pushed open the door, hoping that he still had it in him to evade his pursuers one last time.