Five minutes later, he turned down another street lined with more small shops and storefronts. It was quieter here, with only the occasional car or bicycle rolling by. The street disappeared on his right, curving around a stone wall and descending the side of the hill in a series of switchbacks before finding its terminus at a busy marina perched on the edge of the azure waters belonging to the most iconic ocean in the world.
The air was pleasant—warm but not hot. In the distance, a speedboat carved a white line across the water as it headed out of the bay to the open ocean.
Emmanuel crossed the street and passed up a florist and a bakery before pulling on the handle to a glass door. A bell jingled above his head as he stepped in. The walls were painted a light blue, and the ceiling tiles were stained a light brown from decades of cigar smoke. A man in a white barber’s coat was sitting in a folding chair watching the post soccer match coverage on a television the size of a toaster oven. The barber was as stocky as Emmanuel but had a good forty years on him. His hair and mustache were bright white.
“Emmanuel,” he said. “You did not watch the match? We won.” He grunted as he came to his feet.
Emmanuel shrugged. “I saw it.” He approached the large barber’s chair and sat down. The barber stood up and snatched a cape from the back of a chair. He flapped it out, slung it around Emmanuel’s neck, and looked at the younger man in the mirror.
“You look tired, Emmanuel.”
“Yes, I am, Dimitrius. It has been a long week.”
“Ah. I understand.” Dimitrius rubbed his fingertips across his own face as he examined Emmanuel’s. “You have a lot of stubble. I will shave you. A good shave always makes a man feel better.”
Dimitrius leaned the chair back and bent before a steel box. Opening it, he withdrew two wet, warm washcloths and set them over his client’s neck and cheeks. While they warmed his skin, he prepared the shaving cream, bringing it to a thick lather with a horsehair brush. He removed the washcloths, placed one over Emmanuel’s eyes, and rubbed the shaving cream into his skin with quick circular strokes. Once all the stubble was covered, he switched out the brush for his straight-edged razor. It opened with a quick flick of his wrist.
“Just relax. In ten minutes, I will have you feeling like a new man.”
Emmanuel sighed deeply, and his shoulders sagged back into the chair as he accepted his barber’s advice. He felt the blade run down the side of his cheek, come away as Dimitrius wiped it clean, and then heard a sound like metal dragging over sandpaper as Dimitrius cut away his stubble.
“Did you put down any money on the match?” Dimitrius asked.
Emmanuel waited for the blade to come off his skin before answering. “Yes. A little.”
“As did I. I was getting a little worried until Tasos scored that final goal.” He snickered. “I don’t like to lose money.”
Emmanuel fell silent for several minutes as his skin was scraped smooth and the heat from the washcloth warmed his eyes and forehead. He hadn’t realized how tense his body was until he began to relax. He needed a vacation. A very long vacation. Millions came to his native country every year for just that. But he needed the opposite—to get very, very far from here and leave the stress behind for a while. A barren desert or a humid rainforest would do just fine. It wouldn’t be here, and that was all that mattered.
The front door opened, and the bell jingled. “Hello, I will be right with you,” Dimitrius said.
Moments later, Emmanuel felt the blade leave his face. Dimitrius’s shoes squeaked softly on the tile and moved toward the front of the shop. The bell sounded again as the door opened, and everything fell silent. Emmanuel frowned underneath the washcloth still sitting over his eyes.
“Dimitrius? Is everything okay?”
The razor returned to his skin. But not to his cheeks. Now it was on his throat. He winced against the pain and grabbed onto the chair’s armrests. The menacing voice that answered was not that of his barber.
“No, Emmanuel. Everything is not good. Not good at all.”
The blade pressed hard into the flesh as I held it steady against Emmanuel Samaras’s throat. He swallowed nervously, and as his Adam’s apple bobbed against the blade, he stifled a painful yell and trembled in his seat.
“What do you want?” he said cautiously.
“I heard you’re the guy who can tell me where I can find The Recruit.”
“Who?”
A minor twist of the blade prompted a muffled squeal. “Unless you want to spend the final minute of your life watching me play Hacky Sack with your Adam’s apple, I’m going to need you to start talking.”
“The—The Recruit, you said?”
Beside me, Boomer was smirking. “That’s the one,” he said. “You did a job for him a while back and so we figure you know how to find him.”
“No—it does not work like that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He gets in touch with you. No one knows how to find him.”
That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. “Then how did you end up doing a job for him? And how did you get paid? Let’s start there.”
“Please… I will tell you. Just… The blade. Please.”
I pulled the blade off his skin, and the washcloth fell onto his lap as Emmanuel returned to a sitting position. He blinked into the light and swallowed hard as he examined Boomer and me in the mirror. “Who are you?”
Boomer nodded toward me. “He’s asking the questions. Not you.” He went over to a side table in the waiting area, picked
