The sound of a gun being cocked close to Joey’s ears is loud in the quiet room, and brings him rudely to his senses. He immediately registers the firearm: nine millimetre, 13 shot, semi-automatic Parabellum. Joey knows guns.

“Let the boy go,” rasps the gunman, nodding at the youth.

“Hey!” the mean-eyed detective blurts out, his eyes glued to the gun in the gunman’s hands. The cop behind the counter stares, mesmerized, at the scenario unfolding before him. Green-eyes sucks the air around her deeply and holds the weed-filled oxygen in. The drunk sleeps on.

“Tell that mapoesa in the corner to come out here,” the gunman orders, jerking his head at the cop sitting at a desk behind the counter. The cop stands up and steps into view, close to Joey.

Joey’s heart pounds as someone steps up behind him. The person’s breath is heavy with Bell’s whisky. Joey knows his whisky.

“What’s this?” a man’s voice asks, almost apologetically, before he hits Joey with a hammered fist against the head.

Joey’s head explodes, his glasses shatter on the floor as he staggers off the stool and into the gunman and finds himself hanging onto the man’s gun arm. The arm swings in an upwards arc, almost lifting Joey from his feet and the gun fires, knocking the detective down.

Joey battles with the muscular arm. He is suddenly craving nicotine. He slams the man’s belly with the swing of an arm. Joey almost chokes on the vile mixture of samoosas, Bell’s whisky and marijuana that blasts from the man’s mouth into his face.

A wild shriek emanates from Joey’s throat as the gun blasts again. The gunman staggers back, his left arm hanging limply at his side, blood everywhere.

Joey moves towards the door, half bent in pain and fear. The gunman fires at Joey, but hits the door jamb. Green-eyes screams. The drunk sits up bewildered as Joey careens against the pillar outside the entrance, stumbles, almost falls, then staggers on into the dark.

***

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