Mir is standing in front of a large three-story frame house with faded and discolored paint and jigsaw scrollwork around the cornices, standing among a clump of trees beside the road. This is the address Bubble gave him.

It was an oblong three stories high, the back and sides of which were plain, unpainted stucco, broken by even rows of unadorned windows. The facade was the color of diluted mustard and it's windows, all double, were framed by pink Moorish columns which supported turnip-shaped lintels.

Smell of mildew, stale air, air thick with dust , light streaming through the gaps in the heavy velvet curtains, absolute silence. The grim and gloomy building was the worst excuse for a house he'd ever seen.

Upon some inquiry, Mir realised that Bubble's ex whose name is Piran recently moved out from this place. New tenants couldn’t offer much knowledge about his latest whereabouts.

After several heavy knocks at the cranky ramshackle door, a slightly paunchy, balding, middle-aged man with a lined, craggy face, unbolted the door.

The geezer is eyeballing Mir like he is some highly suspicious and unscrupulous prison escapee charged with theft, assault, resisting arrest and drug offenses .

Mir tries to give a charming smile to mitigate the tension of the situation but fails miserably. Mir is manufacturing his next strategy. There is a possibility that this fella is in good terms with Piran. If he reveals the truth about his identity that he is a detective, this fart may alert Piran.

Before the bloke says anything, Mir quickly introduces himself by uttering bogus bulldust information about him.

"Hello. I am Gerard Hemson. Are you the landlord? " says Mir.

" Yes, I am Salmon Beard. Call me Mr. Salmon. Are you here for rent? " asks Mr. Salmon

Mir replies

" No. I am here looking for an old friend. His name is Piran. It's been a while I have last seen him. "

"Oh, I see. Did you come here before? "

Mr Salmon asks this question while twitching his eyebrows and waiting for an answer with a curious look in his eyes.

" No. He once invited me in his place but I couldn’t arrive back then. It was because of some personal reasons I couldn’t come. So, recently, I found the address he gave me. Thought I should give him a visit. I followed the address he gave me back then. " Mir explains.

"Makes sense. Thought that would be the case."

Salmon pauses and gives a confirming grin thinking how smart he is while congratulating himself in his own mind.

He continues after that " Because if you really came here before, I would have seen you and remembered you."

His eyes gets brighter as if its thirst to fulfill the superior complexity parameter has been accomplished.

He thought he has tricked Mir by convincing him about his lies at the beginning that he didn’t know whether Mir came here before or not. He is thinking he has a firm psychological grip on Mir. It’s because even after knowing that Mir didn’t come here before, by intentionally asking whether Mir came here before or not, he displayed he can be very tricky and he thinks it perplexed Mir.

However, this illusion of his non-existent hallucinatory grip of the situation is operating like a snake that is coiling around him.

"From perusing and examining his micro expressions, I can deduce that he thinks he is under control of the situation. He is expressing an aura of superiority, assuming that he has tricked me to think he is clever and tricky. From this I can assume he is a narcissistic person who suffers from superior complexity. But, his delusions will be his own downfall." Thinking to himself, Mir quickly calculates all this and formulates his strategy.

"Alright. I will play along and let him think the situation is under his control." Mir thinks. "By underestimating me, his guard will be down and he will give away information easily. "

Mir acts like he is puzzled and shocked by this.

" Oh. So you knew." Mir gives an innocent laugh

"Looks like you have a keen eye, Sir. No wonder you are the landlord here. It’s not so easy to watch over such a huge property like this." says Mir with a fake facial expression that says "I acknowledge you."

" You think so? Not easy? I have no clue what you are talking about. It seems really easy to me." says Mr Salmon with an effort to hide his huge flattered grin which is clearly failing miserably.

"Yes, Sir. But, it’s easy for a smart folk like you." replies Mir.

Unable to hold his laughter, Salmon finally bursts out laughing and says with a big happy smile in his face " I like you, lad. Wanna go down for some booze? I have quality ones here."

Mir smiles and says "Thank you, but I am in a bit of a hurry. May be another day."

"So, where do you live?" casually asks Salmon.

Mir is already prepared for this inquiry. A ready-made false address has been waiting to be delivered. It's the address of one of his pals from the police department.

"It's in this town. Santora house, street no.7, Karas Vale." Quick response from Mir.

"Alright." Salmon says with a convinced tone. "Your pal Piran, the kid used to work in a hospital. And he was a part timer in a local butcher shop."

"Looks like he had a hell of a busy life here." Mir replies in genuine surprise.

"He was a busy bee. The lad was almost never home. Whenever I saw him home, there was always this pretty blondy with him." says Salmon.

Mir asks with a bland face "What happened to her?"

Salmon shrugs and says

"Hell would I know? All I know is that he always paid his rent on time."

Mir thinks to himself .... "Now is the time to cut to the chase and ask for main clues. Then, quickly leave. This clunker is no help for me anymore."

Mir asks "So, do you know anyone here who can give me some clues about his new whereabout?"

"Go to the butcher shop. Butcher Larris can give you some hints. They were bosom pals."

After receiving the address of the shop, Mir thanked Salmon and headed for the butchers shop. It's not too far away from Salmon's nest and within easy walking distance.

While walking, he starts to ponder about the new information he found. Piran was hardly home. Was he always busy with his jobs? What if he spent some amount of his time killing people? That would explain why he barely stayed at home. Also, part time job in butcher shop and the intimacy with butcher sound fishy. Who knows? What if the butcher and Piran work together where they kill people to get their flesh so that they can sell it to people? Or, maybe he stole human organs from the hospital he used to work in, and sell them to butcher for extra goods. Even if Piran is not the one who is using magic to kill the girls, it’s probable he can be a serial killer. Or, perhaps, he uses dark magic to kill his victims to collect flesh for butcher. He isn’t collecting the flesh from the club girls because he is killing them not for butcher, but because of his personal agenda. Maybe it’s to scare Bubble away to make her leave the profession.

However, there is a feasible chance that all of these ideas are false.

The excessive chill of the meat locker is strangled by the muggy summer air when he steps into the butcher shop’s front room. The air conditioner is broken. Mir dabs a violet handkerchief across his dampening brow.

The butcher conforms to Mir's thought too well. He stands with broad legs splayed and meaty arms crossed, proudly displaying great stains blotching the fabric over his pits and bulging gut. The stench is powerful, but Mir keeps his face straight and attention focused.

“Mr. Larris…” Mir begins.

“Garreth,” he interrupts.

“Mr. Larris,” Mir continues, ignoring his pursed lips, “you employed Piran Hellion for three years. Is that correct?”

A bestial snort rips from his nose. “Three years longer than he’s worth. Yeah.”

“Heard you seem to like him a lot.” Mir says.

“The kid was a god-awful clerk, a worse cutter, and he can’t clean any better than my wife, and she’s been dead for three years.” He blinked.

Mir thinks to himself "Why is he trying to hide the fact that they were good friends? "

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Larris. Do you have any kids?" asks Mir.

Butcher replied with an insecure face "Yeah...How is that any of your business? What do you want?"

Mir gives a smirk and says "Look. My business is simple. I am just here looking for my old pal."

Like an experienced magician who trained his tricks many times to perform it quickly and smoothly, Mir quickly pulls out 10 dollars cash and hands it out to Larris.

"Sorry that I'm in a hurry. Or else I would have bought some gifts for your kids. Buy them something and tell them it’s a gift from their uncle Gerard. " Mir winks. Larris the butcher gives a huge gummy smile. 100 percent of his central and lateral upper incisors and his canine teeth are visible.

"Kid lost his job in the hospital. He used to work as a nurse. Told me that he went back to his pops place to stay with his parents for some time." says Larris and gives away Piran's location to Mir.

Mir departs and progresses towards his next destination.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the fleeting colors of dusk began to fade away. The wind making noises.Trees moving and speaking to each other.

The sweet fragrance of the night blooming jasmine.The high rise palm trees.

The sunset was like a glorious conflagration, blazing with fabulous colors. It's the last gasp of beauty before the death of the day.