What happened yesterday was a whole lotta mess. Too much of a mess for him to really figure out if it were reality or a dream. It felt too vivid yet too dream-like for him to acknowledge it in either dream or experience. Just that what he knows now was that he awoke in his usual room.
That trash ridden room of his with those cans of bear piling by the hundreds, and those stacks of clothes hanging out and awaiting a laundry.
But, he was wearing the suit he was wearing (presumably) the day before. And... "Ah! My head's a mess, did I drink last night? What the fuck..." he was seeing the world in a daze in his eyes.
He made his way casually out of his room and into the bathroom, opening the electric lights awaking him from his groggy state. Grabbing the toothbrush and toothpaste, poruing the paste in his mouth whilst he began scrubbing his pearly whites.
Spitting it out, gathering water in his mouth and gargling. He splashed his face with water to waken himself up. Looking up at the mirror.
A face?
A face!? "Who the hell are you!" He screamed at the person at the doorstep.
"Relax man, it's me."
It was the black guy from the elevator yesterday. "Ah... So it was real." His heart was still beating fast, but his face was fast calm. "Broke me into my apartment? Thanks for that, I think drank four tons'a beer yesterday. Though, I apologize. Shits'a mess."
"Ease bout' it man. I get the struggle."
"So..." He cleaned up his face and turned to him, "what's gonna happen now?"
"The miss told er' parents that she likes you and they agree you're staying. Even if you made her a ton' late."
"Thank Jesus." He chuckled.
"But after that... You celebrated a little too hard, so I had to deliver you to your manhole."
"Ah, sorry bout' that."
"Just like I said, ease up. It's alright." The man smiled. "Anywho, your miss needs you, since it's a saturday, she's got to go do some diplomatic mission up in someone else's business."
"Gotcha."
"And also, the MV Beetle downstairs. Glad you're reparing it, but atleast seven other people have been coming to it to try and steal it. And frankly, if I were you, I would be keeping it in someplace safe."
"Got a house with a garage?" James moved pass him to walk to his bedroom, the black man followed.
"I do, and I can loan you the garage, ain't much'a car guy anyway so I've no need for it."
"Thanks uh...?"
"Mitchell."
"Right, Mitchell, thank you."
"No problem, I'll be waitin' downstairs."
"Sure, won't take long."
Mitchell waded through the mountains of trash and exited his condo, letting the door shut by itself rather than slamming it.
He found himself a uniform hung up on the curtain pole, Mitchell had padded it and sprayed it with light men's cologne. With a smile, James grabbed it and immidiately put it on. It was swell with his body, and perfectly fit. There was a hat along with it, but he decided against putting it on.
He checked for messages on his flip-phone. There was one missed call, it was from his landlord. "Jesus, just hold on. The eviction ain't due till the end of next week." He promptly closed the phone right up. He hurriedly made his way out, not to waste Mitchell's time.
---
11:25 pm
James entered the garage, bowing slightly to the officer guarding it. "I forgot to ask," the beetle churred slowly into the main hall of cars, "but aren't you the elevator tender or something?"
"No, am not." Mitchell slid into his cushioned seat. "I'm sure the miss told you, I'm her informant. Just her private investigator of sorts. Though I do a range'a other jobs in the building. I'll show you around after you fulfil the miss' job."
"Right on, thanks." James pulled into the Beetle's spot.
The both of them getting out, he caught a glimpse of his Honda still parked over yonder there. "I'll be back, just need to do something."
"Where's she at?" James turned to Mitchell to question.
"Fourieth-floor, room 03. Make sure not to confuse the rooms, there's a (3) and an (03). The 03's the correct one, got it?"
"Aye that." Into the main lobby, (with the still-loud music of the orchestra), sharply walking the grand staircase; finally to the elevator, still open as no one attended it.
Mitchell left him to his whims as he himself took another route. James waved adieu as the elevators closed. Looking at the buttons, it was cumbersome, but he found the floor-40. Oddly, the floors weren't numbered... Well... Numerically. He found fourty at the very bottom, and found fifty at the very top.
A jingle played.
Arriving, James stepped out.
Being immidiately greeted by a huge hall of nothingness. It was sleek in that it was minimalistic. Literally no furniture (barring the ceiling lights which were decked with great chandeliers). "As a person's income raises, their sense of taste just goes down the gutter. What in the shit is this."
His footsteps sent echoes along it's walls.
There were six doors, their number plates barely visible from where he stood. Walking to the one right and nearest him, he ran to it to check it's number. The number was four. The next one over should be three. So if he went the other side, it should be (03).
Running over the other side, he panted and gasped as he catched the numberplate. "Three?" He groaned irritated. "Don't tell me I overthought it."
Running to the opposite door of the one labeled 'three,' he sighed in exhasperation.
Labeled (03), he knocked three times, hearing nothing from the other side, he opened the great cedar door.
"You overthought it." Ami chortled, "you loud horse."
"Ah, you heard me?"
"Anybody would in that echoey chamber."
"W-why would anyone make something like that in a place where you sleep? What if someone dropped something?" He chuckled in the thought of it. "That's some idiotic planning."
"I had thought of it..." Her face was dead serious.
A nervous laugh, "isn't that inventive for a young age."
"Hm." She turned around, walking into the lobby of her room.
The whole place didn't scream girl. It screamed corporate and dead. The walls were asylum white, though the wood plank flooring brought life with it's oak-coloredness. There was little furniture throughout. And a single tatami mat decked the middle of the large lobby of the room. Like the entrance of a hotel penthouse. Just four times less decorated and enamoured in marble.
"Sit."
James nodded.
"So what'd you need me for?"
"Your driving was better than I thought, even if it costed an expensive bumper." He looked into his eyes, cooly. "I'm sure my informant has told you that you're still in? The uniforms explains such."
"Yes."
"And that I was the reason."
"Yes..."
"But you have yet to understand the stretch of your roles. Yes, with an -s." She laid down on the tatami mat, her head facing the ceiling. "As my Chaffeur, you're not just going to drive, you're also going to do as I wish."
"So a butler tha-"
"-That can drive." She intervened. "So I hope we'll be together long as my partner."
"Girl, partner?" James chuckled by the mere thought of it. "Don't know what your mission is, with those shooter guys from yesterday. Who were they even? I haven't gotten the answer to that question."
"And never will." She half-smiled, looking at him. "As you should have probably put together. I'm not the average Joe, in your terms. I'm basically your Roosevelt."
"So you're the president of what?"
"A mafia." She put boldy, examining her hands and fingers in boredom.
"Ah. I see." James had mixed feelings, "except I don't."
"You don't need to see. In all sense, you just need to understand what you can't see. Like how a blind man doesn't know what someone's dong looks like though understands the concept of it."
"Girl, who taught that to you?" He said, almost in a scolding-father mode.
"Ami, and I taught it by random happenstance." She looked at him once more, "besides that, you and I'll be going somewhere for the afternoon."
"Are we gonna' be gunned down like before?" He asked with a hint of fear, a drop of sweat dribbling out.
"No, maybe. But I don't think so."
"Where'll we be going?"
"The Philippines."
( * )
Welcome to Manila
James watched as their private jet pulled up into this private air-strip in a busy airport. Just some moments ago, he was watching the Manila metropolitan landscape. It didn't look as modern-looking as the Tokyo's buildings. But the urban sprawl was uniquely nostalgic, and he could not place his finger on it.
"What're we doing in the Philippines again?"
She remained silent as the butlers grabbed her bags for her. James intervened, helping out to escort her bags out. A T-shirt and a pair of jeans, she would blend-in in a normal crowd. She didn't look rich, but with James behind her afore her every step, everyone was turning heads and eyes at her direction.
"A cab will be waiting for us at the front entrance." She murmured near him (and near enough to hear), "as the driver exits, pack me in with my bags, and replace his seat. Got it?"
"Yes, ma'am." He put a sarcastic tone.
"Good."
Exiting the cold of the airport terminal and into the heat of the blazing sun. It was in the middle of April so everything was all undoubtfully hot as is. But, unlike Japan. James was having heat strokes every five seconds. "What in the shit is this heat! I get we're in the tropics, but God; how do these guys live?"
"They live like we do." A blank expression, "they adapted to the heat. Kind-of."
As she had said, there was a cab parked at the front of the gate they passed. The driver exited, but before James could get in. Ami had given the man a tip.
"Five thousand?" James said as the man walked away.
"Five thousand." She opened the yellow cab door, "nothing more, and nothing less."
James got inside, he instantly noted the fact that there was a map sitting on the middle island. Comfortable, he grabbed it. A red circle enveloped an area north of Manila.
Ami snatched it, "hmm..."
James was a little angered, "you could've asked me to hand it over to ya' you'd be breakin' the map before I (the driver) read it."
"Hmp." She replied with an upward swell in her voice, throwing it on his lap.
"What's this to you?"
"It's a mission for me."
"Right... Since you're the leader of a mafia. Or something of that gist; girl."
A car honking behind them, he sped away. Well not before pulling a fast one and throwing up the finger.
James turned the aircon all the way to it's maximum. Turned the radio off, and tried listening to just the hum of the cab. It was too poor in quality, and it drove like (as he says); "shit." And also, it was an automatic.
"I'm aware you know what I'm going to do." Ami mentioned, looking out from her window.
"No," James swiftly answered, "I actually don't."
She groaned a little, "it'll involve us doing some careful work up in someone else's business. We'll be stuck here for a few days, I say even a week. That place's a hotel. Pretty shabby and neat, though nothing too grand as to satisfy me."
"And then what?"
"We're going to make mincemeat with a pain-in-the-ass."
"Sharp words, girl." James chuckled, "pain in the ass ain't descriptive nuff' for a girl like you to be frustrated over something- ah, someone."
"A girl like me?" He questioned, "what'd that mean? You know who I am?"
"I know that you're unlike me."
"And?"
"I know that you're not the average seventh grader."
"And."
"And I think that you don't seem like the type of person who would get angry over something."
"That's..." Ami tapped the glass, "that's a whole lotta' hoopla you're spouting geezer. Maybe even sixty years of life wasn't able to educate you on human emotion."
He grimaced, "well fuck me then."
"Can't."
James heard a few silent giggles from his seat.
James shut himself rightly up. Turning a right, James found the hotel. It (as she said) wasn't fancy. The four storey building was raw in that it was just pure cement, brutalistic in-nature, with only a few bushes and trees sprawled about to lighten the place in the urban madness of Manila.
Parking, he turned off the engine.
"We're here."
"As if that wasn't obvious enough."
James got out, walked to her door and opened it.
"Wow, how gentleman-ly of you." Her sarcastic grin made him cringe in irritation.
James made his way to the back of the cab, grabbing her bags. As he was closing it, he saw her waiting under the shade of the overhang of the building's front door. Smoking a cigarette.
"Hey!" James angrily ran to her, snatched the cigarette she was smoking and stamped it out. "What the hell was that!? Smokin's a death wish for a child like you!"
"I was just interested, I found a pack of them yesterday in your pocket while you were flat-out drunk, laying down on the piano in the library while singing the worst version of Beethoven's ninth. Ode to Joy was it...?"
The man's face burned red with embarrassment, steam whishing out of his nose and ears. "That's what I did yesterday!? Holy shit! Mitchell made it seem like I was just passed out drunk on a bar table or somethin,' Jesus, I'm such a fool!" He paced around the entrance in a fit of embarrassed delusion.
People were looking at them, the scene rapidly evolving at every second of James' vexation over... Himself.
"Ah, my mind didn't record it so I won't try to visualize it." James tried to calm himself down. "But, you. Girl. Catch you one more time with a cigarette in yo' mouth and I'll be telling that to your parents."
She clicked her tongue, "right on, chief." She snatched the small handbag from the lot of stuff he was carrying, stomping into the building, intentionally making her footsteps louder.
James felt proud in that moment.
Checking the cab again to see if anything was left, the doors were locked, and if he had the keys in his pockets. Thankfully, yes.
The inside was mundane at best, the lighting made the room dimmer rather than making it more bright; and the absence of any people in the lobby made it look deserted and unloved.
Ami was at the front desk, conversing with the clerk. Nearing, he overheard; "five hundred a night, with amenities included mam." The clerk's voice was so uniquely filipino. In that it was rough and that her 'U's' were booming and her intonation comedic.
"Alright." Ami said, "thank you."
She looked at James, her face still brimming with irritation. "She didn't try to upper-cut the prices right? The place-look's too... Ass. For five hundred bones." James used Japanese, hiding his intentions with the receptionist.
"Five hundred bones is twenty-four dollars." She said with an almost teasing-manner, in English. "And that is normal in this city, since it's also the Philippine's most biggest, and where the rich live. Low prices are a Godsend."
James nodded appreciating the fact that she wasn't showing her privilege and rich-thinking. "What room did you get?"
"A room 401, the view's the greatest in the whole building I presumed, it overlooks a majority of the city, and should be a great view in the night-time."
"That's some good thinking." James smiled.
Ami's irritation seemed to die down inside her. "Let's go."
As the elevator was out of service, Ami begrudgingly took the stairs up, and as the property itself was narrow, the steps were a little bit too high from step-to-step. Reaching the second floor, she was already panting and catching air. "Aren't you a spy or something, girl? That was just one staircase ahead'a three."
"Am not a spy." Ami cried, "I'm something better than that in all cases, words, and examples. I'm... I'm..." -She took a second, catching herself on one of the walls- "I'm better t-than that."
"Right," James kneeled, "get on my back, you don't look heavy so I'll carry you up."
"Thank you." Her expression rightly changed, just not to how James thought her expression would change, her face was now just as cool and listless as the day before.
James sagged his weight and the stuff he carried on his back, making it more comfortable to hold her.
One foot up, one foot, "dow- Wait, Jesus!" James struggled to hold her entire body, "w-why you so heavy! Gad' damn! Seventh grader my ass, you're the same weight class as Arnold Swartznegge!"
"That's because I work out, at times." She replied, all smug-like.
"D-don't you lose... Weight when workin' out?" James retorted, exerting all his energy in his every step.
"A-" she couldn't come up with a reason.