THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM, PT 2

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There was a man with a tattered brown shirt, ripped black trousers and muddied dark sneakers laying by the curb not a great distance away from Jonny’s; a straw hat resting on his face, masking it from view.

Next to him was a small silver bowl; a handful of coins in it. Dang placed ten dollars in the bowl as he went past; he hadn’t gone very far when he heard the man groan. He halted and looked at the homeless dude.

“Uh, are you good?” he asked.

He got a groan in response. The man ran a hand along his stomach.

An expression of pity formed on Dang’s face. He looked at the half-eaten sandwich in his hand and felt a little repulsed, his appetite started fading away completely. “Hey, look, it’s not much,” he began as he set the sandwich down on the man’s chest. “But I’m throwing in a few more dollars so you can get some more grub, alright?”

He rolled up a hundred dollars and slid it perfectly into the man’s hands. “There you go.”

He straightened to his feet, turned around and started to walk away. He’d only taken a few steps when he heard the man move suddenly and quickly too. He looked back to find that the homeless dude had sat up now, and the hat that had been sitting on his face was now on his head, the shadows from it obscuring much of his facial features.

The homeless guy was staring at the money in his hand. “You’re serious?” he asked, as if unable to comprehend such a gesture.

“Yeah, man. You look like you could use a few meals. If you need a place to stay, there’s a shelter I could–,”

“Thank you,” the homeless dude cut him off, his tone genuine, sincere. “I, uh, I wish I could repay you with something but uh…maybe some other time, eh? I promise to find a way to return the favor.”

“Nah,” Dang shook his head and smiled. “Won’t be necessary. Just watch after yourself, alright?”

“Yeah,” the man murmured.

Dang gave him a final nod and continued on his way. Further down the block, he came across a few familiar faces.

They were outside a costume shop, seated on a bench, clad in baggy flannel jackets and beanies on their heads. All three of them were of darker skin. Tyler, the largest and tallest of the three, had round glasses on and was currently stuffing down a burrito, some of the sauce getting onto his thick beard. He was the first to see Dang and he whistled upon seeing him, nudging the two sitting on either side of him–Caleb and Mikey.

Both of them erupted into cheer when they saw Dang. Mikey stood from the bench, bounding toward Dang with a wide grin on his face.

“Dang, my man!” Mikey exclaimed, before exchanging a handshake with Dang, the two of them bumping shoulders and exchanging back pats during the hug. “Dude, you haven’t hopped by the court in a minute, what the hell is you been getting up to?”

“Man, I’ve just been busy,” Dang responded, shrugging. “Had a lot on my plate past couple days.”

“Man, you’ve always got some shit going on,” Caleb snorted, bumping Dang in the shoulder playfully. “I swear to God, sometimes I forget you’re just a teenager in high school the way you be moving around, acting like you’re up to saving the world and shit like that. Look kid, these are your best years, you gotta blow off some steam, lay back and have some fun! Otherwise, you’re going to grow to be like those grumpy, boring billionaires who run big, information-stealing companies.”

Dang frowned and cocked his head to the side. “I don’t know, man, I’m not sure being a billionaire is such a bad thing.”

“Would you rather sit behind a desk for eight hours a day or come shoot hoops with the homies and make some little boys cry and whine like, well, fuck, I don’t know, like some little boys?”

Tyler spoke then, rising off the bench too, throwing a scrunched-up burrito wrapper into a trashcan ten feet away. He didn’t miss. Once the wrapper went into the trashcan, he grinned in Dang’s direction. “Think you could make a shot like that? All the sessions you’ve missed lately, boy, you gotta be rusty.”

“I could do that in my sleep,” Dang snorted.

Naturally, they requested that he prove it. Thus began a little curbside competition where they tossed folded pieces of paper at the trashcan from varying distances. Dang was the only one who made every shot and once the little game came to a close, he had a smug expression on his face.

He smirked at Tyler. “Lay off the burritos, old man or you’re not gonna be able to catch up anymore.”

“Whoaaa,” Caleb and Mikey exclaimed, grinning and bumping each other’s shoulders in reaction to the diss.

“Wow,” Tyler said, placing a hand over his chest. “Straight to the heart, that one.”

“The diss or the burrito?”

Caleb and Mikey burst into laughter then, doubling over and clapping each other on the back. Tyler shook his head, a small smile on his face. “You’ve got a mouth on you, eh?” he snorted. “You better put some hoop behind that mouth when you’re back on the court.”

“Sure thing,” Dang nodded. “Try to make it a real game, I’m tired of the walkovers.”

“You just keeping digging your own grave,” Tyler shook his head. “Run off and go save the world or whatever it is you kids these days try to do with your time, before I drag yo ass to the court for a real whoopin’.”

“Alright, man,” Dang exchanged handshakes with all of them once more. “Gotta run now but I promise I’ll try to drop by the court one of these days. I might even turn up with my cousin, he just moved into town.”

“Is he good?” Tyler asked.

“Well, he’s gotta be better than you, that’s for sure,” Dang grinned. “That count as good?”

“Well, shit, now I gotta see him hoop,” Tyler chuckled. “Bring him by next time you turn up, alright?”

“Sure thing, man.”

“Alright, now run along now, lil buddy,” Tyler gave Dang a friendly nod and that was the end of their interaction.

Dang walked off in one direction while the three of them headed off in another, laughing as they went, Caleb and Mikey poking fun at Tyler for the burrito comment Dang had made. Dang made a couple more stops along his way, ensuring to drop by the shelter and was there for quite a bit, watching the twins whoop people in chess. He got invited to play but upon glancing at his watch, realized he only had a few minutes to get to his client and get started on the new assignment so he told them some other time and left.

His client was a Paul Ryker, a thirty-seven-year-old who’d amassed the bulk of his wealth in the span of three years after his tech startup had gone global only a few months after its launch. For a while, he’d been a media saint–charities in Africa, donations to struggling countries, shelter establishments for refugees. The world had loved him, the talk of media outlets round the clock and the display image of thousands of fangirls and fanboys on the internet. He’d been dubbed: The man who would change the world.

Until the allegations had come out. A string of them over a six-month period, each one worse and more damning than the previous. Then the lawsuits had come in too, and a suspended prison sentence. All of this had been in the past year, a year that had seen him black out all his social media pages and become a rather reclusive figure. A board of directors had replaced him as the CEO of his own company but Dang knew that was only for the papers. Ryker’s net worth had still steadily increased over the year, at the same rate it had when he’d been CEO.

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Someone else might have taken on the mantle but it was clear he still ran things from the comfort of his mountain-located eight-bedroom mansion with a sprawling football field out back.

Considering lately that Ryker was one of his least-likeable clients, Dang wanted this gig out of the way as soon as possible. In his rush, he’d hastily scaled the front gate of Ryker’s home–although, he’d pretty much more leaped over it than scaled. It took him twenty seconds to sprint from the front gate to the front entrance of the mansion.

He rang the doorbell once, which deployed a flashing blue light that scanned him. There was a moment of silence, and then the door clicked before swinging open inwards all on its own.

Chilly air blasted out of Ryker’s home, hitting Dang right in the face, soothing him. He wondered what the electricity bills in a place like this would cost. He was met by a girl who looked a year or two younger than him as soon as he walked in. She wore a baggy flannel shirt with folded sleeves over even baggier sweatpants and fluffy sandals. She had on thick headphones that she pulled off when she regarded Dang with her light brown eyes. Her brown hair was streaked with strands of blue.

“You’re a kid,” she scoffed. “Why’s your hair white?”

“It just is,” Dang shrugged in response, adjusting his sunglasses. “You’re Samantha Ryker, aren’t you? The–,”

“Yes, the daughter,” Samantha rolled her eyes as though she were tired of being addressed like that. “My father’s a shithead, I’m well aware. Are there any judgmental opinions you’d like to get off your chest before we get down to discussing business?”

“Discussing business?” Dang asked, tilting his head to show he was, not quite following.

“Yes, try to keep up,” she sighed and folded her arms. “I’m the one who hired you. The arrogant prick doesn’t think the threats are real.”

“Threats?”

“Did you not get briefed about anything?” Samantha sighed. “Follow me then, I suppose it’ll be better to show you the letters. I hope you’ve got a solid stomach for this stuff, couple of them are rather graphic.”

“Right,” Dang nodded, making up his mind with each statement she made that he didn’t like her all that much.

She led him to a library downstairs, shut the door behind them, then walked toward a tall, mahogany bookshelf. She pulled out a thick leather-bound book that turned out to be a case and not a book. She opened it and pulled out a series of cards and letters that she handed over to him.

“Have a look.”

A lot of the letters were creepy, vulgar threats. The oldest ones were targeted primarily at Paul himself, and Dang noticed the letters had started coming in at about the same time as his public controversies had gone into full swing. But as he flipped through the letters, they got more disturbing and soon, images started to pop up, images that had been stapled to the letters. Images of Paul on a run, images of Samantha at school, at a movie, on a rollercoaster, and in a pool. Then there was one of Samantha and Paul heading into their home, altered in such a way that it looked like there was a target on them. It was the most recent one, having come in only a day prior.

“Are you hiring me to protect your dad or to protect you?” Dang asked, shooting Samantha a look. Though she tried her best to look like she didn’t have a single care in the world, he could see the slight fear in her eyes, in the way they wavered slightly when he asked the question, and in the way her shoulders relaxed and somewhat slumped.

“They’re going to make a move on us,” Samantha said, sounding absolutely certain of it. “Tonight. I’ve been looking out the windows a lot and maybe it’s paranoia but I swear there’s people in the hedges, the hedges are always rustling, moving, even when there’s no breeze.”

“And your dad?”

“Playing Call of Duty in his room,” Samantha answered, shaking her head as she said it. “He’s a moron.”

“My briefing said I was supposed to protect your dad at an event.”

“He is at an event,” Samantha snorted. “It’s a streaming event. Bunch of nutjobs playing Call of Duty through the night for some award that was only just made up a week ago. You’ll have to forgive me for making the event sound more elegant than it really is, I just needed this to be taken seriously. With everything that’s been in the media about him recently, I needed someone to think this is important.”

“And you’re offering four hundred thousand for this?” Dang asked while furrowing his brows. “Do you even have that kind of money?”

“I’m a multi-billionaire’s daughter,” Samantha responded indignantly. “I’ve got a pretty significant trust fund; I’ll be paying you if we make it through the night.”

“Couldn’t you have gone to the authorities?” Dang asked. “Proper protection and all that?”

“It’s the kind of stuff the media would feast on,” Samantha shook her head and sighed. “I want this quiet…off the papers and off the internet. No authorities involved.”

“Well, that makes things tricky, but I’ll see what I can do,” Dang said. “I’m going to need your dad downstairs though. Or for the both of us to be upstairs with him. Everyone being in one place makes it easier to do the protecting and lures the attackers into one central location.”

“And you’re not worried about that leaving you with too many people to deal with?”

“No,” Dang shook his head and grinned. “I actually enjoy this job a lot more with odds like that.”

“Alright,” Samantha shrugged. “He doesn’t like being disturbed but we can stay in his game room, unlikely to notice us, really.”

“Right,” Dang nodded. “Draw open the curtains and blinds on our way up, please.”

Samantha looked at him like he’d gone mad. “Are you nuts? That’ll just make it easier for anyone who wants to kill us! It’s like inviting them in.”

“We are inviting them in,” Dang said. “Leave the front door unlocked and the back one cracked slightly open too, let’s let them think we’re being sloppy.”

“You’re out of your–,”

“Don’t worry,” Dang gave her a reassuring smile, his eyes gleaming. “I’m stronger than them.”

That seemed to reassure her somewhat, if only a little. They made their way upstairs, drawing blinds and curtains and feigning conversation there so it looked perfectly natural. Finally, by the time they were in the LED light-lit gaming room of Paul Ryker, much of the house had been made properly inviting to anyone who might have harbored sinister intentions.

Paul was at a desk in the room, headphones on, eyes fully focused on the computer as he mashed buttons on his controller, yelling orders and instructions at his teammates, speaking in a forged accent–perhaps so his teammates weren’t aware he was a notorious billionaire. For what it was worth, his impression of a Canadian accent was very impressive.

“Mr. Ryker,” Dang said but before he could say any further, Samantha hushed him.

“Leave him in his world,” she said. “He’ll act like a complete wackadoodle if his game is interrupted.”

“Alright,” Dang nodded, wondering if it’d be possible to deal with all of this without bothering the video game-immersed billionaire. Samantha sat on a couch in a corner of the room, she curled up and slipped her headphones back on. She rotated her phone horizontally and resumed watching an episode of Friends on Netflix.

Dang stood some distance from the entrance to the game room, hands in his pockets, listening for any sounds, although it was hard to identify sounds with Paul’s constant yelling and angry cursing. Every now and then, Samantha would fidget in the couch and glance up warily before quickly looking away so her concern wouldn’t be very visible. The entire time, not once did Paul glance back to notice there were others in the room with him.

He reached for a water bottle on the ground next to his desk, drank and set it back down, all without taking off his headphones or looking back over his shoulder. Dang moved closer to the billionaire and brushed his chair lightly. No response.

He understood Samantha’s worry now. If there was anyone who wanted her dad dead, it would be far too easy to get it done. Even then, it was tempting for Dang to see just how much he could disrupt the room before Paul would notice he had company but he remembered he was on duty and he had to leave a good impression so more business came in.

Finally, after about thirty minutes of waiting around and pacing, Dang finally picked up on the sound of creaking floorboards downstairs. He halted as soon as he heard and turned his head to the side, focusing, trying to confirm what he’d just heard.

Samantha noticed the manner in which he’d suddenly tensed and she pulled off her headphones at once. “Are–,”

Dang raised a finger to his lips before she could finish, hushing her. He pressed himself against the wall just beside the door so he would be masked from view if anyone barged into the room. There came more creaking sounds from outside the room, louder this time, and then he heard voices, deep and gruff.

The thud of boots against wood followed. And then doors started to be opened. They were searching rooms and from the crashing sounds that followed, they were clearly helping themselves to some good stuff too while slowly making their way to the game room. The crashing sounds were loud such that if Dang heard that in the middle of his sleep, he’d have bolted awake at once. And yet, Paul heard nothing at all.

Not even when the aspiring assassins finally barged into the game room, kicking the door open and pouring in, all ten of them. Even when Samantha yelped and rolled out of her couch to the ground, remaining low with her hands over her head while the crooks marched in, guns in hand, toward Paul.

“Yippee kai yay, asshole,” one of the masked thugs hissed, aiming his gun at the back of Paul’s head. The gun clicked threateningly.

The thug’s finger inched toward the trigger and just when he was about to pull, Dang cleared his throat, drawing all ten thugs’ attentions toward him. They all spun around, eyes wide with fear beneath their masks, a little shocked to see someone standing so carefreely even in the face of loaded guns, arms folded and a bored expression.

“Are anyone of you strong?” Dang queried, observing all ten thugs, doing some guesswork as to which of them was likely to be the most entertaining to deal with.

“What the hell is this?!” a thug demanded. “Who’s the kid?”

“Who cares?! Shoot him!” another yelled.

Instantly, all guns in the room were trained at Dang, all ten weapons clicking. Dang sighed and unfolded his arms.

“Alright then,” he nodded. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”