I once saw a Russian doll. Each strip, reveals a new page of Alice in Wonderland, and the pictures are linked together from head to toe like an ouroboros mural. Despite the differences in context, running around the market on the fourth floor underground and you'll find striking similarities.
The space of Stynx stretches and concentrates. Plastic seats spread on the rounded route, benches link together till some selfish bastard takes the corner space for himself and decorated the end of the east and north walls with merchandise of ambiguous quality. And for some reason, each got at least two drapes of red and white tarpaulin covering the back of their stand.
The lights in here are dimmer than the other end of the hallway. It consists purely of lightbulbs hanging in the air from railing they added or lamps set on tables for the window shoppers and counting coins.
What are they selling?
Well shit, take a wild guess. Hinges the answer at last second and you'd still get it right.
A pre-war Soviet riffle and gears, jackets with extra pockets, half a gallon's worth of AB plus blood bag, fingers and toes shipped straight from the local clinics this morning kept in small freezers (heard they struck a deal with the Norwegian doc downstairs for a package price) cheap-ass suits and cheap-ass trusses the Qins fancy, cricket's stories about his last three wives, re-boiled chicken breast from Piu Jie dinners, the law prohibited knives, self-made boosters in alarming visual clarity, two 30ish looking Chinese prostitutes at the entrance of the corridor behind corner where lights projecting from within are changing by the minute. Where Stynx would have its private booths, here they got mattresses and free-of-charge voyeurism and a nasty madam chewing Areca nut with one of the vendors.
Vera's No.73s were bought here before handling tweaks somewhere else. My inhaler was the work of cricket and Uncle. As I said, you can find pretty much everything here. It's a junkyard full of tossed-aways in great conditions. Even if the place got a certain musk in the air, years of sweat, mold on fruit and cheap perfume, scented lotion from the whore house on top of the knotted circulation in the basement. They infuse a stench, some hate it, some get a hard-on by the whiff of it.
A kid at 12 or younger squeezes between me and the left wall as I step through the small corridor. I saw a quick grin on his cheek before disappearing faster than I could turn my head. Thankfully, my wallet's in the right pocket, but the skinny Malaysian tripping over someone else's bench just to limp towards the gate would think very differently...
Fuck me, is that cricket?
Narrow nose even under the disadvantaged lighting could not stretch its shadow across his winded cheek, thin and petty lips, skin as slippery as if someone's pulling his hide backward. Sports jacket over a polo shirt, a notch shorter than me...... shit, he lost enough weight to make two more kids.
With his face a shade of red and purple and a slender arm in willowy sleeve supporting the ground, he raises his head to me crouching right in front of him.
"Bad day or bad week?"
***
"I'd say it's Wednesday....." He grunts as his chin's finally above the ground and his arms push himself up. "Wednesday in the middle of the month."
Cricket is nothing special in the grand scheme of colorful assholes in this city, hell he might as well pass as a nicer guy than the rest. The most intriguing thing about him is that his little shop's always open, and he's always somewhere between the fourth and fifth floors underground. He told me a lot about himself, which I reduced in half and watered down ten times first since most of his 'history' is told when we're bickering about prices. Though I do believe he has kids and had a wife, once saw two wedding rings on him, a gold one on his finger and a silver one stringed as a necklace inside his shirt.
"Middle of the month means the waves are calmer no?" Cricket drags three layers out of his cheek in a smirk as he cock his head towards me while dusting off the stent on his trousers.
"Ah, you're a true sea waver Mr. Lee." His head cocks to the opposite side, the waggling gap between a wall of fridge under boxes with duck tapes all over them and a small stand run by a 16-year-old Chinese girl selling charms and singular bullets of .45 and .38
"Mister! Three rows for one! Six shooter specials picked last week, great condition!" The girl leans a bit closer to the table and calls in my general direction. Cricket kicks the plastic bench that tripped him, the short chair bumps straight into a leg of the folding table causing the girl's stand to rack a little.
She retorts in some of the worst Minnan slurs of the last generation while I take a quick gander at her merchandise that consists of bulk cartridges and shells in finer condition to be reused mixed with some trinkets here and there and torch lighters...
Blood-soaked luck.
Cricket pays her continuous cusses little mind with four fingers lazily flicking her the other way as an apology and to fuck off. The girl's shop got it bad at the worst spot in the B4 market. The north wall, horizontal to the guy with a batch of half-assed gems from some poor bastard at Via Martinase. She's at the sole of the food chain over here and she knows it.
"Oi." I stop her exceeding volume of swear and sweat-covered face growing reddish. The girl slides her pupil in my direction like a cleaver across her neck before squinting her eyes and changing back to above-average English.
"Yes, mister? What are you looking for?" A twitch at the edge of her mouth sunk her acting.
"An air circulator. But since you don't have one. Instead," I give Cricket a quick tilt of eyes and brows as in what that hand gesture meant to the girl. He shrugs and steps through a seam between two dart machines and into another row of stalls. "Let's switch up a role a bit, you looking for a tip?"
The girl sits back down abruptly. Her head slightly, unconsciously falling to the left as her eyes locked onto nothing for three seconds.
"Second mattress is closer to my......"
"There was a raid at east within five maybe six blocks close to the fishing store with the hideouts tuna sign." The girl's eyes relocated mine with a glint in them.
"When was it?"
"16 minutes prior....." I let out a mouth click at her obvious disproving. "I'm not going to tell you who did it since you won't believe me, but I know you can tell some of the fellas got a quick shift on topics." I let that moment sink in for a breath.
"Already saw a couple brats running towards the scene...." I pick up the black lighter that shapes like a padlock and flick its torch to make sure its chimney isn't plastic. Adequate.
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"Place's swarming with aftercare units and blockade. But tell your friend up there to look for the alleyway two shops away across the fishing store. There ought to be something." I wave the torchlight in front of the kid before sliding it into my pocket.
As I walk towards the most crowded end of the market where Cricket's shop and the whore house reside, I can hear a quick dialing on the phone pad from behind.
***
Between the thin wall screaming for help and abhorrent chitters of 30 bucks for half an hour. Between the occasional lanterns by camping polls and shacks under parasols. Cricket's shop stuck uncomfortably and fittingly there by the entrance of the whore house consists of few mattresses on the floor.
The space looks like a small shrine of some prehistoric barbaric god or a drive-thru. Trinkets of malicious and inscrutable intents filled the little gift boxes and wedding boxes, they pilled up two pillars by the petty Mahjong table with its folding legs locked by bricks. Countless bills and notes and receipts by his shit scribble taped all over the table and the two pillars like some failed exorcism. A hook hanging from the top left connects a chain of rosaries with rings intertwined, in display.
A lamp rests on the bottom of the table confining the light between the boxes of merchandise and the table itself, and another one on the right corner of the table which faintly illustrates the notes and bills on it. A string of lightbulbs drape down from the neighboring stand on the left and hang its other end at the poll in between.
The place ain't always as run down and barebone as it is now. The light tubes half a meter above were busted far before three months ago. Heard it was at midnight when the lights suddenly got killed off.
Now, there ain't no official claim to this cesspool of wonders, just a bunch of downtrodden peddlers who knew their way or people around the border. But it had become increasingly obvious over the past few years that the Qins are paying extra care and excessive visits to this place for it is right above their enterprise.
And when the initial shock and disarray of the sudden darkness are gone, the Qins and some of the vendors gather around the elevator light, with lighters in hand. And they all agree on the speculation that it was the Russikis that cut the separated cable to this floor since they've been
coming downstairs jabbing the owners and warning them about the repercussions of selling or making ghost guns.
Plus, their lights are still on (completely disregarding the opium dem's lights are still running too). The incident quickly escalated into a small brawl which considering the fellas upstairs have riffles sitting right next to fucking everywhere, ended rather free of bloodshed.
But the discontent and speculations of them cutting off their livelihood for petty reasons fuels off control, some sellers start pilling shit on the stairs up, the custom grows until, today the way up by stairs is completely inaccessible.
They did check the cables eventually but the separated cables are not just cut off, they're gone. Pulled from the root up on the surface. It would take a generator to shine the floor again, and it would take more than rats and roaches to make an entire system of cable disappear.
The Russians denied the blame half-heartily, although the last time I asked some fellas admitted the idea crossed their minds.
I was bewildered, to say the least when the next time I came around the lights were off and the lanterns were up. Then I was impressed when, three weeks later the vendors and dealers stayed and the business was unharmed save some inconveniences.
***
Cricket's shooting the shit with those two long-staying chicks in their 30s. Clock hasn't strike six yet, only the ones in high demand or their own desperate group are busy. Bystanders don't count. So instead of leaning on the low groans and moans of someone younger, they might as well make a quick buck watching the shop for him.
His eyes tilt violently in my direction while still keeping the conversation going with those two lazy-eyed covers in furs and traditional makeup (heavy on the red). I carefully step through the cable lines and boxes on the ground to greet them three.
"Christ on a spike. Bad weeks ain't exclusive to you cricket." I step through a couple of pals in my line of work to the right of his 'service window'. "Jin, may..." I nod at the two ladies of the evening by the corner, a moment of uncertainty later I tilt my head at the 45 or above standing at the entrance to the disco lights, in a khaki blazer. "Madam."
The first two threw me a puzzled smile as their eyes jump between me and...lower half of me before giving me a smile that showed just how many layers of powder's on. They pressed a giggle behind them smile and push the other off the crickets stall while giving me side glances.
Right....
"Fuck is up with those two?" I snort while the Malaysian sorts out the stuffed board boxes in the back. He shrugs and brings the lantern on the table to a small hook by the left pillars. It shakes with the movements of the top like a chandelier.
"You've been gone for a while. Crazy things about you pop off here and there. And the ladies take gossip as tips." My sides of mouth curve downwards. I'm getting real sick of this. Cricket tilts his eyes above the table before giving another, more apologetic shrug.
"Figure as much...You said you have a new batch right? Got my usuals?"
"Sure do." The little man brings the box his been messing with up under his armpit and drops it on top of the ledgers and notes on the table, narrowing down the space between to only his head and shoulder. He then pulls out three cartons of black and red. On the packaging, ribbons with abbreviations on them around a mansion on a heap.
"Wonder how you survived without these Mr. Lee." He grins while placing them on the table before diving his arm inside the board box full of exotic contrabands.
"Same as everyone else. Grocery store Marlboros." He whistles an antic note.
"Good for a change don't you think? For your lungs I mean." He raises his head at the last sentence with a frown.
"Made me a calmer man with lesser sleep. Can't wait to forfeit that." He cackles and brings another batch of ribbon and mansion to the table.
"I got four rows of special, five packs of black.....Reds are kind of off-trend now, they only shipped 2 this time." I hum a little, thinking why every 'special edition' of a product is always the most mass-produced.
"Give me a pack of black and red each and a row of special." He throws back the extra black and pulls out a carton of 8 from god knows how many discontinued cigars and cigarettes in that board box before carrying it down by his feet.
"Two and a half from last......" He murmurs as he comes back from under the table with a pen and a new piece of paper. "That. Would be," His left hand drew two lines of Illiterate sketches before signing my name at the bottom at a speed that'll put type writers in shame. "...236 bucks."
Oh fuck off.
"Did a nuke dropped when I was gone or was the canal shut down?" Cricket raises both of his hands and plead innocence.
"Congress has been pressing down on import laws and tobacco tax. You know 'For a cleaner street, for a cleaner city' and all that piss. It affects more than traditional import, times are hard Mr. Lee." He shrugs again and brings his empty palms around.
"For you or me?" Cricket took an actual second at the question before responding.
"...Both?"
I roll my eyes and hand over half of my wallet. The Malaysian vendor snatched it away before I could extend it across the table. With a flick of finger he counted the tens and coins and held the bills between his ringed finger and pinky while pressing the portrait of a medieval knight in armor on the lanterns.
When it's done, he rolls the cash up like a tube and slips them randomly into one of the air holes on boxes. And very enthusiastically tears off the aluminum foil in the red and black pack before handing them to me with the gold carton.
"Trustworthy as ever." He sings while crossing a line under my name on the newly made receipt and pierces it on the hook. "Anything else?"
The lantern behind reveals its shallowing yellow and dims the already insufficient light. I contribute a little by pulling out a red one, lighting it with the windproof lighter. The brown filter with images of white swallows across like worn-out furniture. The torch incinerates half a cm tip in a blink.
Breathe in, breathe out. The light in the air just got worse. The spice inclines the sweet into a luring trap, what hits the last few teeth will hurt when it reaches your throat. The aftertone's smooth and can choke a newborn to death if you let it linger too long.
The weird combination of earth and nicotine made a few fellas window shopping turn their heads. I take a longer drag to the edge of a cough before letting it off my lips.
Something's it makes you feel like John Wayne, sometimes it kicks you in the nuts. Three months without this did wonders to my tamper.
"Since I'm here you wouldn't happen to have a ma..." The face of cricket got my attention first. Years crawling in this damp hell got his eyes train to distinguish customers, regulars, doubters, shitheels and troubles. And those eyes of his scream trouble after darting to my left.
"Binzai! Two packs of limousine and bring the order around." A high-pitched male voice came behind me with the kicks of leather shoes audible from a mile away. And a set of heavier ones behind him.
A young man in a black suit. Couple years younger than me stands. The tip of his feet clacking long after he stopped next to me.