The Hollow Man

Chapter 1: The Bell and Bone

The man sitting across from Mars had lied to her four times in the past minute. That wasn’t what offended her. People lied all the time about their jobs, their relationships, their fears, even about getting out of bed every morning because without some type of delusion they wouldn’t even have a reason for getting up. Mars didn’t hate lies. A well put-together lie could tell you more about a person than any truth they could tell.

Her problem was how bad at it he was.

Every time he lied, he gave a faint, nervous smirk. A slight twitch in his lip.

He said he hadn’t been inside the Bell and Bone the previous night.

Twitch.

He said he didn’t know a man named Merek Cole.

A laugh followed the twitch this time. Mars laughed with him.

He said he would never handle Void contraband.

Twitch.

Then he looked her in the face and told her he’d never seen her before.

Twitch.

That one was insulting, since Mars had been here a couple of nights ago while he sat complaining about the price of imported Void liquor, the weakness of modern men, and a woman named Seraphina who apparently ruined his life by not sleeping with him anymore.

He was thick in the shoulders with a soft belly and big, rough hands. His face said he’d been drinking his life away since Seraphina had left. Somewhere in his forties, particularly hairy, with a faded tattoo disappearing down his brown work sleeve. He looked like he might have been handsome ten or twenty years ago—not beautiful, but the kind of guy who let women enjoying him carrying heavy things go to his head. He just had a natural decline from comfortability and lack of discipline.

“You’ve really never seen me before?” she asked.

“Nope.”

Twitch.

Mars smiled. He misread it. Men usually did. Her smile opened doors for her since she was young; men were especially susceptible, but it worked on women as well. That gave her a dangerous realization: Pretty things make people think less. It made them careless, impatient, and when she used it correctly, it built loyalty and trust.

Mars was 23 now, five-foot-two on a generous morning, with warm brown skin, curly dark hair she usually had in a loose top knot, and dark brown eyes that made innocence surprisingly easy to counterfeit. She wasn’t delicate; that was the goal. She was short, compact, and curvy. Slim, but obviously had good genes—a balance between athletic and Rubenesque. The type of body that welcomed misunderstandings and broken hearts with open arms. People underestimated the amount of trouble that could fit into five feet and two inches. Mars excelled at making that their problem. Men usually remembered her mouth; women remembered her eyes. The smartest ones tended to remember how she used both.

“That’s comforting,” Mars said.

The man smiled at her again with a look of completion she rather enjoyed.

“What is?”

“Knowing you’re innocent.”

“Of course I am.”

“I’m starting to believe you.”

Mars leaned back in her chair and picked up the little black notebook she had been pretending to write in their entire conversation.

“Well, I guess this entire afternoon has been a waste of my time. I guess I’ll tell Captain Neris I was wrong about you.”

For the first time in this conversation, he started to question if they were playing the same game.

“Captain?” he asked. He practically blew the smell of alcohol in her face.

She gave him that same half-smile he’d given her before. “Did I not mention the Captain?” She scratched her head, waiting for a response.

“No… you didn’t.”

She flipped through a couple of pages and gave a dumb, almost petulant look. “Really? That’s so unlike me.”

The man glanced to the door. Mars didn’t follow his eyeline. That was one of the most common mistakes people made. The look isn’t the tell; it’s the confession. Thinking it will lead you somewhere lets your prey know you’re watching them. Mars preferred to use honey until she had the noose around her prey’s neck.

“Captain Neris is leading the warehouse raids,” Mars continued.

The man’s hand disappeared underneath the table, and he began tapping his leg.

“Warehouses?” he asked, tapping.

“Mm-hm.”

“Which ones?”

Mars let the silence stretch before looking up. “Why?”

“No reason.”

Lie number six.

Mars smiled at him pleasantly. “The ones by South Veil.”

The man’s leg stopped. He paid careful attention not to change his facial expression. Mars would’ve been impressed if even that wasn’t so glaringly obvious. She closed her notebook and quickly stood up.

“I have everything I need. Thank you.”

The man looked confused. “I didn’t say anything.”

Mars gave him a concerned look. “It says right here in my notes: Informant confirmed South Veil as the warehouses' location.”

The room seemed to disappear around them for a second. The only person that existed in the world to him was Mars. He furrowed his brow and shot at her, “YOU BITCH!”

Mars stepped to the side of his attack, just leaving her foot out to catch his ankle. The man went tumbling into an open table, the cheap wood cracking under his weight. Mars stepped back as the whole thing collapsed under him.

The bartender slammed both hands down on the bar, smoke practically coming out of her nose. “OH, FUCK NO! NOT ANOTHER TABLE!”