Ch. 71 – Fight Club

Derrick bit at the cold, stale piece of bread, which tasted more like a block of plywood. A sad breakfast, but wasting food would be reckless for their budget. Despite cupping his hand under his mouth to keep from making a mess, a few crumbs dropped onto his mattress, which was nearly fully occupied by Tony.

The two of them were huddled in Derrick’s room, the only area in Hack Alley that Derrick had fully checked for cameras, just in case they were being monitored. Tony was lying down sideways, holding Derrick’s phone between two of his fingers, squinting, and still rubbing the grit out of his eyes.

“There’s no doubt that this here’s a map,” Tony said. “But I can’t make heads nor tails of what it’s mapping out.” He clutched his head and took another sip of water, holding Derick’s smartphone out towards Derrick. “But thank you for showing me, my boy. You sure you can’t tell me more about this picture? —Ugh, my head.”

Derrick grabbed the dripping bag of ice from the tray on his nightstand, and wiped some of the condensation on his shirt before he handed it to Tony, who smacked it straight on his forehead. “Yeah, sorry Tony. I don’t know any more about it than what I’ve told you. My contact didn’t explain anything to me, and I can’t give you details on how I got the thing, since I have to respect my contact’s privacy, you know?” Of course, the truth was that Maxine hadn’t explained anything about the diagram, because Derrick had snapped a picture of it without her consent.

“You really take this whole no-knowledge thing seriously, don’t you?” Tony asked, smirking.

“Well yeah. I expose my self to legal risk by contacting them, so that you don’t have. I’ve got a fake face and a fake name, after all; the risk doesn’t matter to me. You’ll thank me if you ever get around to renewing your license—“

“Alright, I get it,” Tony said, speaking into his ice bag. “Wish you could tell me why the damn thing’s so blurry though.”

Derrick clenched his teeth, for fear of accidentally hinting that he’d snapped a picture of the diagram on a fucking printer camera. “I think we have to work with what we’ve got, Tony.”

Tony laughed. “You’re doing a helluva good job sticking to your guns my boy. Well then, any ideas on how to decipher the darned thing?”

“Maybe one,” Derrick said. “I don’t know where we would find such a person, but a computer vision expert might be able to give us the tools to clear up those text labels some more, and maybe some of these arrow shapes. It might not be one hundred percent accurate, but it’s worth a shot I think.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Tony said. “It ain’t my expertise, though, and it ain’t yours, neither, unless you’ve been practicing in secret.”

“No. I’ve been here with you, just struggling to keep the shop open.”

“What about your contact?” Tony asked. “I don’t know if they’re a renaissance man, but . . . .”

“I don’t think they can help with this,” Derrick said, shaking his head. Maxine might actually know a thing or two about computer vision, but she was AWOL. “Maybe we can think about some possible letters, and try to guess at what they are? No, but we could get that wrong in so many ways—”

“HOLD YOUR HORSES, DERRICK,” Tony said, brightening up. “Xian might know a guy.” His face was so self-satisfied that the palm of Derrick’s smacking hand itched in anticipation. Not this Xian guy again.

“How? He runs a barbershop in Chinatown.” Derrick asked, his own voice going high with incredulity.

“Like Xian said last night, he keeps in touch with a lot of out-of-towners. If we’re lucky, one of them might work with computer vision, or know someone who does. I think he also mentioned something about a summer camp for computer whiz kids, or something like that.”

“Is that so.” Derrick bit his lip, holding back a retort with some line about how Xian might try to charge them for the introduction to a computer vision expert. But if Tony wanted to try getting the guy’s help, then Derrick couldn’t complain.

“That’s that, then,” Tony said, pushing himself off the mattress. “Now, on to the next pickle: our little spy recorder infestation in the shop. We did the first sweep, but maybe we need another?”

“Yeah. You found that weird looking camera thing, and who knows, there might be more.”

“Why don’t we gear up a bit this time around,” Tony said, cracking his knuckles. “We’ve got some equipment that’ll make the search easier, but they’re also hiding. Before we search for spy gizmos, let’s pull out own tools. Derrick, you go grab the signal capture device again. I’ll start looking for some other tools.

Derrick went to the cabinet and pulled out the bulky, rectangular box that was the signal capture device, and hefted it up, taking a few steps over to a cart to set the device down on. The hand-held scanner was attached via a cord, but it could reach far enough from the box to scan the walls.

They spent the next few hours combing over the shop, with Derrick waving the scanner up and down across the walls and furniture. There was an unintended benefit to this, as they were forced to drag dusty old boxes out into the middle of the shop, inspect them, and stack them in neat piles, to avoid searching an area twice, and ensure that they could spot any hidden recording devices. It turned out that many of the boxes were empty or full of trash, which meant they could toss those out and free up some much-needed space in the shop.

After a few hours of searching, they found a handful of devices that neither of them remembered bringing back to the shop, and quarantined them in a trash bag, which they the placed inside two boxes. Tony glanced at Derrick—he looked as sweaty as Derrick felt—and they both glanced at the clock. It was late.

Tony jerked his head towards Derrick’s room, and Derrick set down the box where they had quarantined the suspect devices, before following Tony. The air in Derrick’s room was cool because it had been empty for a while, but it started feeling stuffy right away once both Derrick and Tony entered it again, and Tony closed the door behind them. “Well, we found a few strange gizmos,” Tony said. “But at this point I’m not sure if they were really strange or if I’m as skittish as a alley cat. This whole stalker situation has got me on edge. Makes me wonder if we should just throw all our scraps out.”

Derrick’s throat itched as he coughed into his sleeve. The dust from all those old boxes had really dried him out. “I know what you mean, Tony. At least we can just throw the devices away, since we have no idea what they do in the first place,” Derrick said.

“Right you are,” Tony said, frowning and tapping his crossed arm. “What do you say we meet in here again whenever we want to talk about this little issue?”

“Yeah, I was about to suggest the same. We should search through your room and the bathroom too, at some point. They’re smaller areas, so they’ll be easier to clear,” Derrick said. “That should keep us safe—”. Derrick frowned right after the words came out. Even if he and Tony were safe from surveillance, they wouldn’t be safe out there on the streets. “Say, Tony. Do you think we need some sort of protection?”

“From this stalker?” Tony asked, frowning.

“Yeah, exactly. Chinatown’s always been a dangerous place, especially with the Leopards, but this feels different, you know? Like someone really has it out for us in particular.”

“I know you’re going somewhere with this, my boy,” Tony said. “Spit it out already.”

“Well, I’m thinking about what I could do, if this stalker, or even a Leopard, pulled a gun on me, or something. What should I do? I know your gun is to protect the shop. But maybe I could carry some protection of my own? I guess I’d gotten used to the violence around Chinatown until now, so I never considered it. But now . . . .”

“You could carry a weapon, yeah. Are you gonna?” Tony asked.

“I think . . . maybe I should. It’s better to be ready for trouble, rather than just hoping I don’t get attacked, right?”

Tony shrugged his great shoulders. “That’s sad but true. But make sure you only pull the darned thing when you need to. A weapon will make people nervous, and you never know what a nervous person will do.”

“But . . . what if I need to scare off some Leopards?” Leopards were simple predators. They picked on the weak, and Derrick had looked plenty weak, to try and stay out of trouble. But look at where that got him. “I don’t want to kill them, but they get too pushy. Maybe if they knew I was dangerous, they would stay away.”

“Derrick, don’t go looking for trouble, alright? I’m not a role model, since my fuse is shorter than most, but I’m the only one who can hold you accountable. You listening to me, Derrick?”

“Okay, Tony. I’m listening.”

Tony plucked an old flashlight from a pile of dirty clothing on the floor. It was a small one, and the plastic was worn and scratched, but it was otherwise built sturdy. “Let’s say this is a piece,” he said, standing and slipping the flashlight into his pocket. “You can tell real easily when someone’s packing heat. It’ll make their clothes bulge out, or drape differently. And they’ve usually got that look in their eyes, because they’re on edge.” Tony squinted at Derrick, and the hairs on the back of Derrick’s neck stood up. It was the same man and mentor he’d been taking care of for years, but he looked different.

“Geez, that’s really scary,” Derrick said.

“See? That’s what I mean,” Tony said. “And when you get nervous”—Tony’s hand went to his pocket—“you’ll reach for your weapon out of instinct. You wanna make sure it’s still there, because your head gets so wrapped up in the weapon that it’s all you can think about.”

Derrick heart was pounding, and he found his heels pressed up against the nightstand, him having backed away from Tony subconsciously.

Tony continued. “If you walk around looking for a chance to pull out your piece, it gets really obvious. Gangsters and feds can spot someone who’s nervous: someone who’s got danger in their pocket. Even if they’re just passing you by, they’ll remember. And when their buddy shows up dead the next day, they’ll know who to look for.”

Tony took the flashlight out of his pocket, and dropped it back on the top of the same pile of clothing he took it from. “Some people can learn to hide their weapons, so that no one ever suspects a thing. They’re such slick operators, that by the time their mark notices, he’s already bleeding out on the pavement. But I don’t think you’re that sort of person, my boy. Not today, at least.”

Derrick dry swallowed. Maybe he was becoming that sort of person. Derrick thought of the dead body he had left in that alley: the one he’d stabbed all over with the sharp end of a broken glass bottle. It had been more than a week since he had killed the Leopard. Was he going to get away with it? The Leopards were still searching for the murderer, but they hadn’t come to Hack Alley yet. They had probably started searching from that end of town where the murder happened, so it might only be a matter of time.

“Yeah, don’t worry, Tony. I just want to protect myself. I don’t want trouble.”

“Good. And there’s one more thing you shouldn’t forget. The cops don’t patrol Chinatown, but the Leopards have turned people into the cops before.”

“Really? I thought the cops avoided Chinatown because of the White Leopards.”

“Yeah. I remember this happened a long time ago. The Leopards couldn’t find this man who’d nicked one of their guns, so they chased him out of Chinatown and into New Shore City proper, and had the cops stick him in jail on some charges that were exaggerated a good ten times over. If you kill a Leopard, and run away to the city proper, you might spend the rest of your life in the slammer.”

“I get it. I’m not going to go looking for trouble,” Derrick said, groaning.

How bad would life in prison be? Three square meals a day, a rent-free home. But it was still hell, because there were prison gangs, too.

“So what sorta weapon are you thinking of?” Tony asked.

“I’m not sure. Something that’s easy to pull out, in case I get ambushed, maybe.”

“Pepper spray’s nice and cheap, works well, and doesn’t kill,” Tony said. “Course, it ain’t foolproof, and if the wind is blowing the wrong way, you’ll get a face full of it too.”

“What about something more intimidating?” Derrick asked.

“As much as it hurts to think about it”—Tony pointed to his side, where Alan had stabbed him.—“you want a knife then, my boy. Comes out quick, and kills quick too.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Derrick said. How would it have felt to stab Raymond with a knife, instead of a glass bottle? A knife would’ve been sharper, and would’ve gone in easier. Derrick’s room was silent, as their whispering ended. “Wait, Tony. What about you? Do you think you’re going to start carrying your gun around?”

“I’ve thought about it, but it’d be too dangerous. Funnily enough, I’m not the best at taking my own advice. You know this, Derrick. I’ll get all pissed off by the White Leopards for almost no reason at all, and they really know how to push my buttons. If we hit each other a few times, we can all go home safely. But if I have a gun, more than one person’s going to kick the bucket.”

Derrick shuddered. If Tony got heated enough, he really might pull a gun on someone, especially if it was a White Leopard. “Do you want a knife too, then?”

“Nah, still too tempting. If I get in a fight, I guess I’ll stick to good old fisticuffs, like I always have.”