Drinks List

“Nothing takes your fancy?”

“Well, but –“

“Are you sure? Please do read it through. Our researchers take the greatest care in making sure our drinks lists suit every guest.”

The grin on our host’s face was immovable. Jack shot me a piercing look. I did not appreciate mindgames. I was not some fucking newbie being sent to the shop to buy tartan paint.

Then I saw them. The more unusual beers.

Orangeboom, a beer that was perpetually on special offer during my student days. Desperados, a tequila-infused hangover-machine that my friends and I had bought by the case from our local corner shop in our early twenties. Asahi, a Japanese beer that I had drunk nearly daily during a business placement with the Asahi corporation.

These would be unusual choices to see on most beer lists, especially at the exclusion of far more likely suspects. But then I saw it.

Belikin beer.

This was impossible. I hadn’t drunk Belikin Beer since I was 15. It was a Belizean beer I’d drunk when I spent a month travelling there on a charity project. No one knew about Belikin Beer. I could barely have remembered it at gunpoint. How the fuck did this guy even get hold of Belikin beer? How did he know I’d drunk it? This was a few bottles of beer over a decade ago. How did he know? How was this even here? This drink menu was ripped from every major memory I had.

Our host saw my face, and simply narrowed his eyes, and smiled. The embers of the fire danced in his black eyes, the curvature of his corneas elongating the flames, turning them into furnaces. I half felt there was more heat coming from those eyes than there was the fire.

“Found something more to your taste?”

I remembered the salted steak. The glass of water. This was a test, though I had no idea what the answer could be.

“Where did you find Belikin Beer?”

I felt Jack bristle at the question.

“Very little is out of reach for our members.” Our host’s grin widened, before adding  ‘A Belikin is it?”

Jack’s face pleaded with me to comply, but fuck that. I don’t appreciate being second guessed, nor did I appreciate being researched without my knowledge. I thought I’d push a few buttons.

“No, I’ll have a Shochu”

“A what?” Said Jack.

“Oh, what, didn’t research that one? I’ll have a Shochu”.

“With hot water, or cold?” Asked our host, barely missing a beat. Though his smile had faded, and now his piercing gaze made me feel like a four year old who’d been caught drawing on his school desk.

Fuck. My bluff had been called. Shochu was a Japanese spirit that usually wrapped up the night whenever I was drinking with the executives as Asahi. I pulled one last card. I don’t know why, but it had impressed the guy I was drinking with at the time. It was worth a shot.

“Straight, on ice.”

The butler entered almost immediately, handing Jack a drink I didn’t even see him order; glass of Camel Valley Atlantic Dry white wine from an obscure Cornish vineyard. In front of me, he placed a crystal glass, with three blocks of cloudless ice and a green and black carton. A carton of Shochu. The same brand I’d bought for a little over £5 from my local convenience store in Tokyo.

How… How had he known?

“I’ve seen what I need to see, Jack. Please, stay and enjoy your drink. It’s a shame we couldn’t do further business”

With that, our host stood up and excited the room via the same fake panel he entered through.

Jack shot me a look of utter contempt, then stood up and left, leaving me stuck, alone in the sea of mahogany, with a carton of Shochu.

The next week of work was the worst of my life. A full audit was declared, and all kinds of issues came out. It was horrific. Signatures missed. Initials in the wrong place. Duplicates missing. Customer copies in place of bank copies. Incorrect rates. Unbinding contracts. Things I’d caught. Things I’d fixed. Things I’d fiddled. Didn’t matter, in all came out in the wash.

By Wednesday, I was on a final written warning. By Friday, I was unemployed.

Still, I bounced back. Got a job from friend in a rival company, but my record was discovered and I was quickly put in some dogshit customer service role. I was out of the company and for a good five years it was out of me. And then I saw the headlines.

‘Banker kills family in bizzare murder suicide’

It had happened on a Saturday. I still wonder what happened the previous night, in Jack’s final ‘standing appointment’. What had been said in that meeting with our host. What could have come out in the next audit.

I was a cocky kid, sure. Maybe sometimes you don’t dodge a bullet. Maybe, sometimes, the bullet dodges you.