Presently Teige removed the cloth he'd had pinched over his cut ear and looked at it. "Stopped bleeding already," he remarked.

"Musta been a sharp blade," Hawk said, squinting at the label on a bottle. "It looked kinda like th' ones cops carry, din't it. Like a machete."

He let the thought hang. Teige turned away from the mirror, leaving the cloth on the edge of the sink, and moved to sit down on a low reed bench that sat parallel to the sink. As he sat, something crinkled in his back pocket. He pulled out the red envelope, now very slightly crinkled after being in his pocket all night.

"Hey, good damn thing ya ducked when ya did, huh," Hawk said, still occupied at the sink. "Cuz I think they were goin' for yer head. An' good damn thing we were so close t' this place..."

Teige didn't respond; he stared at the envelope in his hand, at his name on it in block letters. There was more, smaller text,  but his hand shook, and everything blurred a little. Hawk looked around at him, realizing he hadn't answered.