It was an easy stroll to the pub in question. Claire had long since come to accept that all the men she passed on the way would be extremely ugly. It didn't really seem to matter much anymore. She was beginning to suspect that they were only ugly when viewed from her own unique perspective, and so didn't hold it against them. They most likely had as little control over their lives as she did over hers. It all came together as part of the solution that she was beginning to discover in her mind, but was trying to avoid overtly thinking about, let along speak of. It seemed safer to keep her ideas as private as possible. There seemed to be a small place in the back of her mind where she could store the outline she was beginning to build safely.
The pub was definitely a dive. There was no other way to name it. You could only call it a pub because that was its name. Except that it was called pub in French, she assumed. She suddenly realised that she didn't actually know its name. This happened just as she was walking through the door, so she couldn't turn back to check. She shivered slightly at the thought that she has easily found a destination that she had never actually been given full directions to. More hints to be filed away in the back of her mind.
She noticed the bulletin board immediately. It was featured prominently on the left wall of the pub as she came in the door. There was quite a crowd of men around it, all akin to Anton the Alligator. Claire considered questioning them, but doubted she would get any useful information. It was clear that the people who read the board were only hired labour, useful to do a bit of dirty work, easily expendable and deniable if caught. The person she was after wouldn't be found anywhere near this place, that was one thing she was certain of. But perhaps his name and a means of contacting him would be. She moved over to the bar.
'What'll it be?' said the bar man in the universal bar mans greeting. There is in fact an international society of bar tending people that meets once a year to figure out this sort of thing. The decide on such matters as how to greet customers, what clothes are allowed, how to tell when a customer should not be served any more alcohol, and whether or not to allow certain senior government officials to know the real truth about aliens and the Loch Ness Monster. Bar tenders are slightly more important in the scale of things than garbage collectors, but they will never let on, not even if you torture them by forcing them to mix endless gin and tonics for hours on end. Bar tenders are very close lipped when it comes to letting out important secrets about the Loch Ness Monster. It is rather lucky that they are not so secretive when it comes to divulging personal information about the clients for whom they run a criminal bulletin board on which to advertise work available for thugs. This was one of the things they taught at detective school, and Claire had been an excellent pupil.
'Nothing to drink, I'm on duty,' said Claire, and as expected the bar man loosened his bribe collecting wallet in preparation. 'I'm after a bit of information.' She pulled a few notes out of her detective kit. They were especially designed to be used in these situations. They emitted pheromones that would get your average bar tender to divulge anything you wanted to know just for the chance of touching them. Of course, 'anything' here did not include information about aliens or the Loch Ness Monster. This is because no detective has ever discovered that bar tenders know about such things and so the research has not been done to make the pheromones sufficiently potent to reach that far into a bar tenders psyche.
The bar man raised an eyebrow in the universal, 'Sure I know what you want to know, but it'll cost you,' gesture. This is not worked out by the international society of bar tenders. Everybody knows this one. 'What information would that be then?' he asked.
'Do you know anything about Anton the Alligator? A job he did recently involving French words?' Claire was always one for the direct approach. It's nice to see that in a girl.
'Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Perhaps you could refresh my memory.' The bar man casually flipped open his bribe collecting wallet and aimed it and Claire. She dropped a bank note in to it. 'Happen I think I do recall something about that,' said the bar man. 'But happen that somebody stuck a door into Anton's face the other day. Happen I might need a bit extra to pay the medical bills like if something like that should happen to me.' Claire dropped in a second note. The bar man grinned absentmindedly and shook his wallet. She gave him a third note.
'I think that's enough to be going on with,' said Claire. 'What can you tell me about the bloke who ordered the French words job.'
'Well, it was an odd one that. Usually the punters come in and drop the jobs off for me to stick up on the board like. This one. I dunno. Suddenly it was just here in my hand. I don't remember how it got there. Shook me a bit, but there was a nice little present in the shape of a wad of cash in my other hand, so I stuck it up just like any other. Anton takes the job, and then suddenly I find the cash to pay him in an envelope in my pocket. Got his name on and all. Funny business. Like a ghost gave it to me. Funny business. Still, I got paid, Anton got paid. Just another job like.' The bar tender moved to serve another customer, but Claire thought she had enough to work out how the trick had been done. She had an idea that the man she was after would find it simplicity itself to get a job notice and cash into the possession of the bar tender without him seeing it given to him. Be just about as easy as making his hair blonde instead of the brown it currently was. No sooner had she thought this than the blonde bar tender gave her a wink. She hurriedly left the pub.