Owen leaned against the wall next to the hotel’s big entrance. He inhaled the smoke of his cigarette with relish and blew it out of his nostrils.<br/>“You know, Bobby”, he told the liveried porter “you could go to fuckin’ hell for treating a priest like that. And Bobby, I’m not one of your indifferent Puritan ministers. I’m Catholic. You might have heard of us Bobby. We are those guys that molest children and burn witches and such. And goddammit, Bobby, we are vengeful. Vengeful, you hear me? Can you name one single reason why I shouldn’t ask the big guy above to send you straight to hell? He does that for us, you know?”<br/>The porter glanced at Owen with disparaging countenance. He looked a little bit like one of those little monkeys you see on fairs every now and then. Owen’s attention faded as the man began to speak. For this kind of conversation the priest didn’t need somebody who replied. Actually not even somebody who listened.<br/>“Sir as I have told you before, smoking isn’t allowed in our house. And stop calling me Bobby if you please, that’s not my… ”<br/>The priest’s coughing bout disrupted the man whose name wasn’t Bobby.<br/>Noisy Owen spat on the ground hardly missing the carpet leading to the entrance.<br/>“You know Bobby, smoking is a bad habit. You should quit.” he snarled in his sarcastic manner.<br/>“I do not smoke sir and my name…”<br/>“You know what? We’ll do it together, you and me. Yep, last cigarette. Ever!”<br/>Owen flicked the remains of his butt on the street trying to hit a cab.<br/>“Well, I’d like to keep company a little longer Bobby, but some Mr. Hatcher is waiting for me in there. Maybe she is Mr. Hatcher…”<br/>The priests nodded towards the rather curvy woman that had just entered the hotel with her luggage in tow. “Oh god, I hope she is Mr. Hatcher.<br/><br/>Hands in his pockets and accompanied by not-Bobby’s contemptuous head-shaking the priest entered the hotel lobby. It was warm and clean and Owen would have had chosen every dirty bar or sleazy strip club over this place at any time.<br/>Doing his black Italian suit - that would have suited him even better if he had been in Vegas and not a priest – he looked around for the lady from a moment ago.<br/>Before he could locate her his eyes met the lobby’s bar.<br/>“What do you say, the Irish embassy”, he mumbled smiling.<br/>One of his hands shot out of his pocket and into the inner pocket of his coat yanking out the old pocket watch of uncle Padraig. He already was late. What’s the difference!<br/>Whistling a little tune by the name of Flanagan's Ball he ambled to the bar.<br/>