32 Today of All Days

A few minutes later…

Ting ding!

"Of course I forgot my phone!"

After leaving with Bernie, Jade had realized that she had left her phone somewhere in the cafe. Bernie had offered to come back and help her look, but conscious of his age and the fact that he had been at the cafe that day even longer than her, she insisted that he go home and rest.

"Ergh, today of all days…"

…

'Why did I run?'

Crouch against a wall in an alley, Frank rubbed his arms as he tried to warm up.

'I could have blamed it on anything else. At the very least, I could have sent them away first. By the time the time they got a warrant, I could have been long gone.'

After Frank hurled the brick through Night Cafe's window, he had panicked. His Dutch courage had worn off as he quickly sobered up, and fear had set in.

The smart course of action would have been to return home, pack a travel case, and wait it out. When the police came to question him, he could have pretended to cooperate and run if it looked like they were going to make an arrest. However, he was relatively confident they wouldn't since he had been wearing a mask, so no witnesses could be certain it was him.

Yet, fear and panic make people do stupid things. When he returned home, instead of thinking it through, he opened another bottle of whisky to calm his nerves.

'When the police came to came to question me—presumably because that b*tch blamed me—why did I run?'

The police had soon knocked on his door, and rather than speaking to them like an innocent would, he escaped through the window. Undoubtedly, someone would have seen him and told the police, which would have confirmed their suspicions.

'Damn, it's so cold.'

He shivered once more as he thought back on the series of events and berated himself internally.

'I should move about to warm up—I don't think they'll just spot me walking around on the street. It's not like I killed anyone, so it's not a man hunt; they'll just have put out an APB.'

In a moment of clarity, Frank realized that the police would not exactly be sending out the whole force to apprehend him, so he stood up and started jogging back and forth in the alley.

'Hmm… I might go see if I can scrounge some food…'

After hiding for a whole afternoon, his stomach was empty, so Frank briskly walked out the alley to head toward a late night ramen stall that he would occasionally visit.

Miraculously, even after escaping through his window and hiding in alleyways, Frank still held that bottle of whisky in hand. As he walked, he grabbed a brown paper bag that was rolling along the street due to the wind, placed the bottle in it, and took a swing.

'Imagine being arrested for drinking openly in public… now that would have been stupid.'

Before he reached the food stall, Frank happened to pass a TV store. The news was playing, and he saw a familiar cafe on the screen.