A little after midnight, Yixing rose and pulled on his shoes and jacket. Just as he had every night before, he stuffed his room key in his pocket, turned out the light and stepped out into the brisk night air.

                His hip had eased up some after the rest, so the walk to Momo’s wasn’t the grinding impossibility it might have become. Indeed, he was surprised when he glanced at his watch. He’d made it in record time. Five minutes early. He took in the scents of the night and the way the town had quieted at this late hour. It was almost as if the world had frozen into suspended animation, to be awakened only by the warmth of the rising sun.

                “Evenin’,” Kyungsoo said, sliding Yixing a bowl of pretzels and his now customary shot of rye, neat.

                “Evenin’ and thanks,” Yixing replied. He sipped his drink, watching nearby seats, waiting to see a man leave. Then he realised that Kyungsoo had not only made him feel like a welcome regular, but seemed to have given him more than a single shot. Yixing put ₩10,000.00 on the table. “It’s perfect.”

                Kyungsoo nodded and grinned as he picked up the bills. “So’s this.”

                “Yup,” Yixing said, forcing himself to make small talk. “I left the counterfeit ones back at the hotel.”

                “Thank God,” Kyungsoo said. “They’ve been getting mixed in with the ones I print up in the back, and that’s killing my quality control standards.”

                “Life is tough.”

                “True that, as my grandma would say.”

                Yixing usually enjoyed their repartee, but tonight was not the night for it. He smiled and nodded in a way that said thanks, I’m done, and sipped his drink again. Kyungsoo returned the nod and moved down the bar. Apparently not much slipped past him. It was a knack shared by most good bartenders. Tonight, Yixing thought, looking down the bar at the empty stool two seats away. He’ll come tonight. He’ll order a drink, a shot of liquid courage, then he’ll glance up at the clock. At ten before one, he’ll leave. And Yixing would follow him and then. . . ?

                Well, that was the big question, wasn’t it?

                And one for which Yixing had no ready answer. He had to follow the guy, just to be sure it wasn’t someone who happened to wander into a café for a nightcap, having not the slightest intention of harming Lu Han. But once he’d done that, and once he was sure. . .what? It’s not as if Yixing was a trained bodyguard or even a former soldier. Even if he had been, he was cripple. And unarmed. And the other guy would be a trained killer, a pro, doubtless carrying a weapon he knew how to use.

                It was, Yixing thought, a recipe for disaster. But it was the only recipe he had. And as he’d learned back in college, sometimes you just take a recipe and riff until something good comes out. E pluribus wing it.

                It struck him, as he glanced at the empty stool again, that there was a lot of truth to Einstein’s quip when asked to explain time being relative: “A two-second kiss is much shorter than two seconds with your hand on a hot stove.” The hours he’d spent with Lu  Han today had flown by. The few minutes he’d spent here at Momo’s tonight were crawling.

                He glanced up at the clock over the bar: 12:50 a.m. Anytime now. The scientist in him could almost track the up-tick in adrenaline. His fingers did not quite quiver, but he realised his palm felt sick against the glass. He knew it was the opening pores, releasing sweat, part of the fight-or-flight response, a cascading of set physiological adjustments crafted by millennia of evolution to optimise physical performance in dire danger. It had happened on the plane in those awful moments after he realised he and his family, and the rest of the passengers, were locked in the death spiral of his vision. Then he had been unable to do anything. But tonight, once he saw the man, he could at least try.

The man should be here now. He should already have walked up and sat down, ordered his drink. It had to be tonight. Yixing could feel it. But where was he? Yixing looked at the empty stool again, and again at the clock over the bar: 12:50 a.m.

                The clock’s second hand wasn’t moving.

               “Oh, God,” Kyungsoo said, apparently having seen Yixing stiffen as he looked from his watch to the clock. “Oh, God. The clock stopped this afternoon. He left before you got here.”

                “Who left?” Yixing asked, looking at his watch – 12:52 a.m.