God willing. Lord above. If this man isn’t Qin afflicted, let me be struck down by a rod of iron.
That polyester black suit with sewing line by the sleeve, armpit, ankle to fit his statue. The shirt collar upright and stretched like two pointing guidance to the face that had never seen someone's body covered in yellow cloth, look only a man younger than you can channel. Snake-like nose, skin tone a step under wheat, narrow lips, emaciate cheeks, he's got a small cut under his right ear and temple.
Green eyes with petrifying energy that can only come from someone who's unstable. Walk with the back of palm towards the front. Now he stands very fucking close to my left with a hand in his pocket, another as a fist on the folding table full of ledgers.
I don't judge a book by its cover, or pin a man by his first impression. Even so, I believe in his inability to live till the end of year with his attitude at the lanes.
The fella behind him on the other hand, is the reason I haven't broke the fuckboy's arm for shits and giggles.
The cigarette in my mouth burns nonetheless for an inhale. The lousy thug's urging the owner to hurry the fuck up in Chinese coats in a thicker accent than my own. Cricket opens his mouth but not a word came out as I saw him visibly swallow back whatever was on his mind, and close his eyes for a single blink before nodding numbly.
As he bent down under the numerous boxes at the back with a thumb pressing against his temple and before I decide if I intend to instigate, a shift in the air change the trajectory of the thick line of gray smoke. Maybe it's one of the pigs gasping in the second mattress by the entrance, maybe it's cricket's silent venting or maybe it's a butterfly flopped its wings one more time at a Brazil rainforest.
The whiff brushes off Qin's eyes, instantly making his right eye water as he recoils by closing it and pressing two fingers on the eyelids to stop the soreness.
As someone who had been on the receiving side before. I feel for him in that one second before tensing up my muscles and tugging the cig with my tongue.
"Cao!" Leather shoes banging on the floor as he turns entirely to me. Ignoring his red and green eyes on and off and all over me, another man in a black suit strides over in well-placed steps and reluctant spirit. Some fellas recognized the small incitement and throw their heads the other way when they see the black suits.
"You got any idea how hard it is to wash the stench off this shirt?" The man scorns in broken English. His voice is.... it's not nasally, not gruffly, it's high but not as a pitch. It sounds like a tenor with a reconstructed pipe and it works hilariously bad with the demeaning tone he carries. But for whatever it's worth, the aberrant crux in his eyes are legit.
Those two fingers under his eyelid drag down to his nose as he snorts and pats on his shoulder pad like it would do anything. I screamed some blasphemy in my head and piled up a thin smirk as I take the smoke out of my mouth with my left hand while the right slide into my pocket.
"Dear apologies, my eyes must be blind to miss you." My gaze sways down to his black shoes and back to his slightly dicey face while I respond in Chinese.
Half a step away, his palms are now agitating by his sides, on and off in a fist. Considering what I'm ought to do, now seems to be a very bad time for trouble with these fellas, but that doesn't change the spite for them in somewhere south of my heart.
"If I may suggest," I put my right hand in my pocket, each of my fingers found its lock on the steel as I grip it. "Supermarket vodka works wonders for cig stench on polyester, old leather, patched suits and other cheap as shit outfits." Heavy lidded eyes. The edge of both his green eyes draw longer as if smiling without a stretch of cheek. The clacking of the leather shoes stopped, cricket appeared and immediately disappeared behind the counter.
"I don't mind the smell. Problem's it came out of your mouth." A long slurping came behind his mouth, like a loach being pulled out of a tube. A purely white sputum drills down his lower lip and takes a long second while he tilt his face closer before it falls between my sneakers. "You know who I am?" Thin lips sucked in and out glistening.
Someone failing his job. I thought the big one behind him was his bodyguard or pal, but considering he's just watching it unfold. The kid in front of me really don't worth shit.
I smile. And it turned into a grin as the adrenaline kicked in. Three days without a puff slips me closer to my old compulsions.
It's been a while, but I'm feeling lucky today. Fuck, after all the bullshit happening to me in the last few days it's about time I get lucky. I tweak the burning cigarette in my left index and clock them behind my thumb.
Left before right. Might racked cricket's place in the process. Oh well, what the fuck.
"Paotang zi."
I flick the cigarette a second too late, aiming directly at his right eye when a palm comes out of the blind spot between him and me. Its movement doesn't agree with ergonomics as it flips at the man's right at an adequate speed but accelerates faster than the flick of my cigarette.
The relaxed palm at the end of the third person's arm retracts into a fist at the brink and the momentum slings it like a hammer.
It sounded like a whiplash. The cigarette flew past the trim of his side as he takes a step back and bumps into Cricket's counter, knocking off the lantern under the table and making the unknowing owner jump back to hold those two stacks of boxes in place while tilting at the scene.
Funny, he's the only one with the full view of this ridiculous commotion. From his angle, the glint of my brass knuckle half out of pocket while I dash my head at the big guy standing two steps away with his right arm hinges downward in the air, a flash of red at the back of his palm resembles the singular drop of blood on the edge of the skinny guy’s right eye socket. And that cigarette butt is still spinning in the air before it reaches nothing.
What couldn't be seen from his perspective, is who the big guy is.
And in that instant. It genuinely escapes my mind as I stare at the burly man in a fitting black suit without cuts and lining. Then I remembered.
He's the poor son of a bitch still on guard duty when the rest of them went inside the Jiu Lou. He's the doormen I asked a light with.
***
The doorman doesn't say anything, his eyes are still on the thug covering his forehand and a hand holding on the table for support. A second later, the big guy takes a wide step forward closing in on the thug still in shock of the situation and hooks his right arm on the man's neck, like tagging shoulder in the wrong way.
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He drags him forward as if a sweep brushing through ash-covered floor as the thug struggles to walk backward and his leather shoes kicks and stumbles and make every noise noticeable through a path cleared by doorman's cold stare till about four meters away. There, the man lean his head to the thug's ear for a moment before releasing his iron rod of an arm and banging his left palm on the thug's side of head.
The folks around got their attention distributed half on maintaining whatever they were doing and the other half at the burly man walking back at me.
I have to hand it to him, the guy's movements are immaculate. Proper placements only someone who's not only trained but zealously so in boxing or other forms of aggression can unwittingly do. He moves like a matador without the extravagant, just the right postures and pacing with almost no tilt at the tip of his shoes while walking.
His boots have dirts on the side and brown splatters of crushed areca tree seeds by the sole, the black suit sure as hell wasn't tailored but it fits his slate of a build.
I inhale slowly, dragging the breath longer as I let go of the brass knuckle in my right pocket, it ain't going to work on him. In the time of two paces, I concluded he's half a head shorter than Ivan, but his reach is further and has a touch more resentment in his eyes.
Let's see how this plays out. I swing my wrist to get the numbness off my knuckles and pull out the pack of red again. By the last four paces, I had lit another one and the figure of the other man in black suit had disappeared in the resuming flow of the crowd.
The doorman’s steps sound way louder up close with an extra weight behind it despite no slugs while walking and the sway of his blazer's way too rigid. Two nights ago I thought he knew better not to pull a gun at breathing distance, the assumption he was carrying one still stands now.
"One pack of limo, the six craters need to be on the way before next week. Are we clear?" He states in Chinese and a plain tone towards Cricket who's looking like he could finally taste air again and immediately gauge out a pack of purely red-wrapped cigarettes from where he was rummaging through. The big man pulls out two bills behind his suit lapel and throws them on the table before taking the pack off cricket's hand.
He tabs the bottom of the pack couple times to make sure it wasn't cut short before raising and tilting it in the vendor's direction as acknowledgement or appreciation. Cricket smiles like a wax figure.
The man slides the pack inside his blazer and finally turns to my direction. Loaves of smoke flow a crooked way to the starless sky made of concrete ceiling without illumination. I lean my shoulder on the tower of boxes on the right, waiting for him to make up his mind. Which is taking a while as he stares at me like two nights ago, sizing me up and down.
Another drag and I take the smoke out so I can see his face better. And turns out, he might be older than initially estimated, around the late 30s perhaps. With two black and heavy brows upon tired but vigilant brown eyes, and the hiding vain on his forehead where the stretch of his frown points at the neatly kept hair without wax unlike so many others in his company, by a knuckle's length. The rest of his face contradicts the irritation and fatigue in those eyes. Broad jawline, weather beaten cheeks that plumps his face into an oval. Under a sunken and reformed nose bridge faintly resembles Enzo, its lips that purse constantly.
And only after my line of sight had wonder long enough do that gold chain behind wrinkled dress shirt and collar rustle against the second loose button. I've seen my fair share of folks like him, shoot a marble into a random window at Piao Jie and hear the sound of pachinko ring. They're like rusted nails on a board of blank white wall.
He might actually work me up in front of the Jiu Lou.
"Did you meet your employer?" He asks in English with not the worst accent I've heard, the 'you' sounded more like a flat whistle.
I take the cigarette out and let it fall between my fingertips and nod. The same trick won't work with the same audience. "I did."
"Nan took you there." The question in tone of a statement came while his lips are sucked in as if hiding teeth, thin and lacking pink.
"He did." With another nod, I keep my eyes on him for any signs of insidiousness but all I found is the moving of the crowd beside us doesn't match where their eyes are turning and the madam by her whore house has been listening for quite some time now. "....And I saw some of your boys by the lift as well, pretty sure they saw me too." The powder lag of a man in front finally let out a smile, as hollow as his brown eyes.
"What do they call you?"
"Broad question, usually Lee." He stops whatever's going on in his head for a second and cock his head and squint his eyes. I shrug with my open arms and extend them like a person to be crucifix or avoiding further inquiries.
"Lee," The man slips his right hand in pocket and pronounced my name in Chinese. "You work for her, you're not a merc.....Not anymore." It feels like he's almost struggling to put those words together to the point I thought about dropping the act.
Just when I was about to dig some out of him opening up. The burly man pops his neck and shoulder and crooks his head at Cricket who's trying to be invisible throughout the rest of the conversation by pretending to sort out his stock and crouching at the corner like he's taking a shit.
"Lao xi jing! Four days, got that?" Cricket visibly froze for a second before spinning back to the counter with a full smile nodding. The man in suit tab the receipt at the corner with his callous plagued hand, his first knuckles are twice the size of a normal person's. The index finger reaches and drums forcibly on the piece of paper on the top left corner of the table among tens of others and I feel my brows knitting. That one's clearly written in Chinese, unlike the others.
...six craters need to be on the way before next week.
An unwelcome answer forms in my mind while I watch the burly man wipe off the printed bloodstain on the back of his palm on his trouser and stretch his sleeves before turning in my direction again.
"They call me Lin Zi.....Kirin." Wait.
With that behind him, the man in black strides off towards the exit down south. With the terrible lighting and increasing flow of people my eyes lost track of him at the first corner.
Where did I hear that name before?
***
"Please quit that bullshit smile before it turns to a grin." I slowly turn my head back to cricket and put my hands back on the table while giving the other vendors and bystanders a quick glance.
"Wednesday in the middle of the fucking month....." Cricket massages the side of his cheek under the earlobe and signs deeply with his mouth closed. He mutters and tears off that piece of paper Kirin points out and squishes it into rubbish in his fist.
"Had those two been bothering you for a while?" I ask without much hope for a different answer than his exclamation in obvious frustration.
"The small punk? No no no..... first time I saw him. But the big guy, yes! It's been almost a month." I hum a groan that suffice as a sympathy in my ear.
"What do they want? They've done peeing on every concrete block on this floor already." The small man grins a pretentious smirk at my comment.
"Mr. Lee. Did you forgot we're still at the Lanes? Nobody owns anything here...." He cross his arms in front and a twitch of lip stretches his skin making it look more waxy. I let out a genuine smile of myself at his blind confidence. The Qins been lurking in this district long enough, longer than the Russkis. Since Saint Christoper neighborhood developed a system of their own, everybody wants to dip a toe in but no one wants to make it too apparent.
"Too true. Though, I got to remind you. That hunky poker face....uh," I open my mouth and stop abruptly, licking my last few teeth like it would bring my memory back. "...What did he call himself again?" Cricket's face develops in a small instant of confusion while his dirty pupils dart to the left.
"You mean Kirin?" Who the hell else.
"Aye, I remember he said 'four crates'. And by that receipt in your hand." I close four fingers in a fist lazily and point the last one at it. "Cricket…. you do know I can read Chinese right?" The same reaction, he nods slowly as the confusion on his face clears out to a faint smile and the lines of his jaw press his shining cheeks. Under the strange lighting of lanterns and lamps in the dark his expression looks homicidal.
"Times are hard Mr. Lee.......Not everyone can enjoy your freedom." Cricket states in clear pronunciations. His right fist let go and the rubbish fell under the table along with thousands of items he had lying around behind.
The man upstairs's humor works in mysterious ways. I asked for luck as in chances and he gave me this.
"That it is." I let out a smile, this one to myself. "No worries. I wouldn't go talking to the fellas in Noch if they don't know it already. I'm not bored out of my mind." Cricket remains silent for a duration still comfortable till his mouth opens with a click.
"I surely hope not. And is there anything else you need?" Unlikely of me, I actually thought about the question this time and thankfully remembered what I was asking for just before that confrontation.
"I need a mask." Cricket raises a side of his eyebrow."
"For......parties?"
"In a way."
"For....those kind of parties?" His eyes wander off and squint for a second.
"It's a masquerade." Both brows are raised now as he tilts his head down while keeping eye contact.
"And isn't it..."
"No." The Malaysian's mouth opens and closes and blink long enough for me to fall asleep.
"Well. I have some for those themes but I'll have to warn you. Most of them were used in one of those parties."
***
12 minutes later I left with a mask that looked leeast resembling 'those parties' in my plumped inner pocket. On the short alley by the wall, the young vendor I tipped off smiles with a missing teeth on the bottom row. I give her a nod and slip through the narrow entrance of this deliberately noisier place of trouble.
And amidst them behind me, I could almost hear the sound of chime in distorted qualities play through a speaker.