Come back inside,” Father Paul insisted. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

Allen checked his wristwatch. “Already?”

“It’s nearly dinnertime,” Father Paul said.

Allen’s body was all screwed up. He couldn’t tell if it was morning or evening. While he was contemplating his jet lag, he found that Father Paul had him by the elbow and was gently guiding him back into the café.

Beyond the computer terminals, the café opened up to tables and a long bar. Artwork of various types hung on the stucco-brick walls, little price tags in the corner of each frame. Father Paul selected a table under a large painting of a block-headed three-breasted woman, the artwork a seeming cross between Picasso and Jack Kirby.

“Those pilsners look good. Hang on.” Father Paul went to the bar and came back with two beers. He set one in front of Allen. “These are brewed in the town of Plzen. Czech brewers have been perfecting their art for centuries, and Czech beer is counted as some of the best in the world.”

Allen sipped. “It is good.”

“Damn right. Oh, hey. Smokes. Be right back.”

Father Paul went to the bar again and returned with a pack of Pall Malls. He lit one, puffed. “There we go. That’s the stuff.”

“What are you doing in Prague?” Allen asked.

“I’m surprised Penny didn’t mention it.”

They drank two beers each, and Father Paul smoked five cigarettes while they exchanged stories. Allen explained he was here to do research for Dr. Evergreen, and Father Paul told Allen he was attending a conference on St. Augustine.

“All pretty boring religious stuff,” said the priest. “I’m hoping to sneak away and see the sights.”

Father Paul looked at his empty pint glass, pushed away from the table, and started to rise.

Allen motioned him to sit. “My turn.”

He took the empty glasses to the bar. Somehow the place had become crowded with a mix of bohemian expatriates, locals, older, younger, frat guys in Ping golf caps, art-fags and greasers, tweed academics, hipster throwbacks, a smelly Bulgarian, and an old, old man in a black beret, smoking a dark pipe. An eclectic crowd. Not quite as diverse as the cantina scene in Star Wars, but close. The place smelled of cloves and pipe tobacco and beer and sweat.

“What can I make for you?” asked the twenty-something girl behind the bar. She had a thick French accent. She had streaks of hot pink in her brown hair, numerous earrings, a flimsy black tank top. Too much eye makeup.

“Two more pilsners.” Allen set the glasses on the bar.

She took the glasses, filled them one at a time. “You’re new.”

“Just got in today.”

“You’re not a poet, are you? I do not think I could stand it if you were another poet.”

Allen laughed. “No.”

“I am Katrina.”

“Allen.”

“I’ll be seeing more of you in here, no? All Americans come to the Globe.”

“Sure.”

“Someone has taken an interest in you perhaps.” Katrina motioned with her chin as she topped off the beer.

Allen followed the gesture to the girls in a corner booth: three of them, looking straight at him, no attempt to conceal that they were openly observing his every move. The pale one with black, spiked hair, looked scary. She lounged with one combat boot up on the table, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, dark eye makeup making her look like a raccoon. Brutally pretty, the expression on her face said she resented the world.

The blonde would have looked at home at any sorority fund-raiser, but even among the Globe’s eclectic patrons, she seemed out of place. Pink, close-fitting T-shirt, white jeans, corn-silk hair in long braids. Very Reese Witherspoon-ish.

The third wore only black. She had an olive complexion, hair cut short like a boy’s. Hawkish nose. She smoked a thin cigar like she dared anyone to ask her to put it out.

All six eyes drilled into Allen.

He turned back to Katrina, still feeling the watchers at his back. “Maybe they’ve just never seen such a staggeringly handsome specimen before.”

Katrina snorted.

Allen carried the beer back to the priest.

“You talk to the barmaid?”

Allen nodded. “She’s French.”

“You gonna hit that?”

Allen sputtered beer, coughed. “What?”

“Hey, I may be a priest, but I know how it works, you know? Besides, I can’t indulge myself, so I like to hear about what everyone else is doing. Hearing confession is a big part of my week.”

“I only talked to her for a minute.”

Father Paul sucked hard on his cigarette, blew a big gray cloud over Allen’s head. “We should do some shots.”

Allen grinned. His face felt warm and numb. “No, we shouldn’t.”

Father Paul laughed.

They did shots.

Something amber that burned Allen’s throat and set fire to his belly. Allen grabbed Father Paul’s disposable lighter and lit one of the cigarettes.

The night, very slowly, began to blur.

The Globe became impossibly crowded. Allen was forced to squeeze in between people as he maneuvered to the bar and back or made trips to the restroom. Men and women pressed up against him, greeted him in a variety of languages. The place had become a United Nations of booze and musk and animated chatter.

It was during one of Allen’s claustrophobic treks to the men’s room that he felt the hand on his ass. He turned, saw the impish face of the blonde in the pink T-shirt as she melted in the other direction back into the crowd. Allen thought for a moment he’d been the victim of some petty crime, like maybe he’d been pick-pocketed. He checked. His wallet was still there.

In his other back pocket, he found a folded piece of paper.

In the men’s restroom, he folded himself into a narrow stall, sat, and read the note. It was written on hotel stationery in sloppy red ink.

In the next stall, another of the Globe’s patrons vomited violently, spewing chunks all over the next toilet and the floor of the stall. Allen flinched and lifted his feet. The acrid smell slapped him in the face like a fetid mackerel.

The note read:

Don’t trust the priest. You have to meet me in the alley right now. Your life depends on this.

The Three

Allen tried to read the note again, but the words went blurry. The guy in the next stall spewed more vomit. Allen closed one eye, and in this fashion was able to confirm the note’s message. It seemed like some outrageous prank, but he was feeling drunk and dizzy, and the puke stench in the small restroom was overwhelming. A short trip to the alley out back seemed like an opportunity to suck some clean air into his lungs.

He stepped carefully as he left the stall, slipped in some of the puke anyway.

“Hell.”

The café beyond the men’s room was still crowded and smoky. His face slick with sweat, Allen felt he might be sick now too. He pushed through the crowd and found a narrow hall, which lead to an old wooden door. He opened it, stepped out into the alley. The night air was cool relative to the interior of the Globe. Allen closed his eyes, breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth. He felt better. Slightly.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw the blonde with the braids at the end of the alley. There was just enough street light to see it was her. She held her hand up tentatively, a shy wave. Allen waved back.

She lowered her hand slowly, regarded him a moment, then gestured for him to follow as she disappeared around the corner. Allen stood a moment, baffled, then looked over his shoulder. It was still and silent in the cobblestone alley, the dim light casting lumpy shadows. The blonde in braids might almost have been some kind of ghost, except Allen doubted the tourists would tolerate a ghost that looked like a California sorority girl in a centuries-old city like Prague.

He headed toward the mouth of the alley, turned the corner.