Winter Drama: The Death of Antollini pt.4
January… 2042
The Blue Orchid – Aurora, Colorado
The Blue Orchid sat on a quiet stretch of road just outside downtown Aurora. The club was the kind of place that didn’t need neon to announce itself. The sign out front was simple; an elegant blue flower etched atop a black panel, simple yellow lettering, just an unspoken understanding that if you belonged, you already knew. The building was older, brick and mortar, naturally stained with time, the blue flower the only thing keeping it from looking forgotten.
Ortega parked their unmarked sedan across the street, killing the headlights. They sat for a moment, just watching. The cold Rocky Mountain air and snow settling in for the night, their breath fogging up the windshield. The place wasn’t loud from the outside, but it wasn’t dead either. A steady trickle of patrons came and went. Locals, drifters, men in expensive suits who didn’t want to be seen, and women who knew how to disappear when the time was right.
Kimble adjusted his coat. “Classy joint,” he muttered. “Looks like the kind of place where a guy can get himself into trouble without even trying.”
Ortega exhaled through his nose, still gripping the wheel. “Yeah. And if Antollini was here, he found the kind of trouble he couldn’t shake.”
The bloody matchbook sat in an evidence bag in Ortega’s coat pocket, a reminder of how they got here. Someone at the Blue Orchid knew something, they had to. Maybe Steve Hott. Maybe someone else. But one way or another, they weren’t leaving empty-handed this night.
They stepped out of the car, shoes crunching on the frost-bitten pavement. Kimble taking a drag from his freshly lit cigarette. Across the street, a bouncer stood by the entrance, built like a brick wall with snow collecting on his shoulders, hands in his pockets but posture stiff. His eyes tracked them as they crossed. He knew cops when he saw them.
Ortega and Kimble flashed their badges, taking a chance… “Looking for a guy named Steve Hott,” Ortega questioned, “That name mean anything to you?”
The bouncer didn’t blink. He gave a slow, almost amused smile, like he’d been expecting them. Then, without a word, he pulled open the heavy oak door, the bassline of a slow jazz tune spilling into the cold night.
“Go on in,” he said. “Someone’s been waitin’ for you.”
Ortega and Kimble exchanged a glance.
“Yeah,” Kimble muttered. “That’s not ominous at all.”
They stepped inside… the door shut behind them with a solid thump, sealing them into another world.
The Blue Orchid wasn’t some dive where guys went to nurse cheap beers under flickering lights. It was a place where the well-dressed and well-connected came to talk in whispers and make deals in the dark. The lighting was low, with extravagant chandeliers casting an almost underwater glow over polished mahogany and velvet booths. A jazz trio played on the stage, the double bass strumming its way through the murmuring conversations like smoke. The air was thick with whiskey, expensive perfume, and something unspoken, the weight of secrets…
Ortega and Kimble scanned the room, searching for a ghost. They were grasping at straws, hoping Steve Hott might be here. Hoping they’d gotten lucky. But luck wasn’t something either of them believed in anymore.
A woman in a maroon dress leaned against the bar, her glass catching the light as she swirled its contents absently. She was watching them, not in that curious, fleeting way most patrons did, but like she already knew what they wanted. Like she was waiting.
Next to her, seated at a table against the far wall, was a man who didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the room. Sharp suit, slicked-back hair, the kind of confidence that didn’t come from money alone. It came from knowing things other people didn’t. His posture was easy, but his eyes were sharp, tracking their movements as they approached the bar.
Kimble leaned in slightly, voice low. “That ain’t Hott.”
Ortega didn’t need the reminder. His gut had already told him they weren’t here to find Hott. They were here because someone wanted to find them. Manilla folders and testimony from a scared Yuman raced through Ortega’s mind.
Behind the bar, a grizzled man with a strong jaw, deep lines in his face, and cold eyes was drying a glass with a rag. His movements were practiced, efficient, but too controlled. Like a man who’d been in a life where control was the only thing keeping you from getting killed.
“You boys lookin’ for Steve Hott,” he said, barely sparing them a glance, his voice thick with a Lithuanian accent, the words dragging like smoke. “You are… how you say… out of luck.”
They were at a disadvantage here, it seemed like everyone knew who they were and why they were here. Trying to regain some control of the situation, Ortega set the bloody matchbook on the bar. It sat there between the three men like a challenge.
The bartender’s face barely flickered, but there was something, a half-second of recognition, gone too fast to be sure. Then he flicked the towel over his shoulder and nodded toward the back.
“But,” he continued, voice steady, measured, “it looks like someone has been looking… for you.”
Ortega and Kimble shared another glance, this was all too unsettling.
Not Hott. But someone who knew more than they did.
What Ortega and Kimble didn’t know at the time… was that the bartender was Mishe Sascheikov.
To them, he was just another bartender in another shady club… but he was a man with a past that reached deeper than either detective could imagine. Once, long, long ago, he’d been mixed up in something bigger. A tangled mess of stolen secrets, dangerous men, and private investigators who didn’t live long enough to tell their stories.
A name buried in an old cold case file, connected to the Personal Journal of Private Investigator Julian Nizinski. A story, for another time…
And now, he was here. At the Blue Orchid. Watching them. And waiting…
To be continued…
