"Turn right and it should be right there," Mel informed me from her comfortably cushioned desk chair.
Granted, I couldn't currently see her figure, but that's the only image of her I could conjure up when I heard her voice send commands through my ear.
"Okay," I muttered out, barely over the soft purr of the mini motorcycle underneath my body.
I gritted my teeth and carefully guided the handlebars of my vehicle around the sharp corner of the empty street intersection in front of me.
"You know, Mae," Mel went on. "Just because you drive a souped-up moped doesn't mean you get to ignore stop signs whenever you feel like it."
"Oh, sorry," I spat out as I squeezed both of the levers underneath my palms, bringing myself to a slightly slower speed as I came up to a row of brick buildings and parallel parked cars, all on the right side of the road, under the black sky.
"Now, you should be able to park in a little parking lot near there, somewhere..." Mel told me.
I searched the area of the street ahead from behind my clear eye shield, although it was kind of annoying that I had to look past the reflection of the dim street lights as well the entire time.
I drove a little farther along, and then the scene of a young, bearded man conversing with three tall girls in short, tight multicolored dresses in front of one of the building's doorways caught my attention. The man was handing one of the women a container that was unmistakably shaped like a large, unlabeled pill bottle while she blew a puff of smoke into his face.
"Oh, please tell me I don't have to do that tonight..." I commented aloud.
"Do what?" Mel inquired.
I, of course, forgot that Mel couldn't also see what I saw, so I ignored her question and continued down the right side of the street until I came across a fenced, nearly full parking area with an open gate and a sign that said 'Parking for paying customers ONLY'. Whether or not I was a paying customer, I didn't really know, but also didn't really care at the moment; I just wanted to get off my bike before my luck with it ran out and caused me any broken bones.
So, slowly, I glided the motorcycle to the right and rolled onto a dirt path that led past the gate to the lot. After that, I drove to the back, past a number of full rows, and found a sliver of a parking spot open behind a dumpster.
I have to admit, it was kind of trashy, but it still worked.
After I braked the moped, I reached down, shut off its engine, slid my body down from its side, and kicked the metal resting stand out from in between the two wheels. I then removed my helmet, placed it on top of the seat in front of me, prayed no one would steal it by the end of the night, snatched the key from the ignition of the bike, turned around, and took off on foot down the dirt path I had come in on.
"Okay, Mel, I'm here," I declared as the brand-new heels of my black boots smacked the gravel underneath them.
Once I reached the entrance of the parking area, I brought myself down to a slow walk and turned around the corner of the building on my left.
"Okay, so, now, just go to the entrance and show your I.D. You still have that, don't you?" Mel spoke to my eardrum.
I halted.
"Um," I started, now patting each of the pockets placed on my dark blue skinny jeans. Soon enough, though, I was able to whip a tiny, white plastic card out from its containment near my right hip. "Yeah, I do, don't worry."
I looked down at the card and continued to walk forward as I read 'ILLINOIS DRIVER'S LICENSE', 'DOB 05/27/1995', and 'AMANDA N ROBERTS' as well as studied the picture of me sporting a facial expression similar to that of a serial killer printed next to all of the false information. After a few distracted steps, I glanced back upward and saw the same bearded man I had before standing in the middle of the sidewalk far ahead, this time talking to a casually dressed man of about his same age.
I took a deep breath and, apparently, Mel must have heard it.
"You can do this, Mae," she encouraged. "Don't back out, now; you'll be fine."
"Well, maybe," I whispered back to her.
She didn't reply after that, though, and I soon began to reach the backside of the man with the beard.
"Have a good one," he saluted to the other man beside him, who was now passing through the doorway of the windowless building on the left. I both watched and listened as the door he slipped past momentarily swung open to reveal a passage to seizure-inducing lights and stereo-bursting electronic music.
"Well, hello, little missy," the man left standing in front of me greeted, his voice in a state of disturbingly deep growling.
I whipped my wide eyes back to him and stared at his eerie smile a moment while he crossed his arms over his black skull tee shirt.
"Um," I started, my own voice probably as shaky as ever. "I-I'm m-meeting a, uh, a few friends in... in there, tonight, so, if you just, um, you know..."
He looked me over, a little too closely, before I threw the hand holding my identification card up to display in front of him.
"Ain't no way you're old enough to be roaming 'round here this late," he remarked, his eyes not once even glancing toward my card.
I moved my own eyes between his rough facial features and the piece of plastic for a few seconds.
"B-But..." I began to protest. "I am, though. Just look!"
"Don't need to; I already know it's faked," he stated.
He abruptly uncrossed his arms and stepped closer to me.
I took a step back and dropped my hand down to my side.
"I'd suggest you get out of here before somebody comes along and tries to take advantage on you," he grumbled.
"Mae," Mel piped up from my earpiece. "Walk away from him."
Then, suddenly, a hand gently touched my right shoulder.
Only, it wasn't his.
I looked to the right quickly, but no one was there. Then, I glanced to the left, where I noticed the appearance of a tall, slender man with a cigarette in his mouth and a fedora on his head. A mess of long, tangly brown locks fell onto his shoulders, which were covered by a leather jacket, and a pair of clearly unnecessary blue sunglasses shielded his eyes.
"Hey, hands away from my girl, dog," he spat out in some version of a British accent, his hand now actually grabbing onto my shoulder.
"What the hell?" I could hear Mel mutter.
My thoughts exactly.
"Oh, is she yours, now?" the untrimmed man in front of me questioned.
"Yeah, so back off, be-yotch," the other guy shot back, his voice oddly in a much, much higher tone than before. He stopped to take the cigarette away from his lips and blew a thin layer of smog directly into the man's beard. "I'll take the it from here, sí?"
Just then, he tugged on my shoulder a bit, and stepped to the side of the man.
Without much choice, I stepped forward, along with him.
"Don't either of you dare step into that club," the bearded man warned.
"Too bad for you, mister amigo!" the mess of a man pulling me alongside himself screamed out. Immediately after that, though, he pressed his mouth directly against the outside of my left ear and whispered to me. "You're a-have to gonna give me a little special something for this later, babe."
Eek.
I tilted my head over to the right after he spoke, forcing his lips off of me.
"Stop right there," I could hear the other man growl at us.
"What?" my holder actually whined out while he let go of me and turned around to face the other man.
I spun around in a similar suit and saw the man's black beard sway back and forth as he stomped into our direction. I stepped back a bit, sliding my I.D. back into my back pocket at the same time, and then watched as he lunged forward and grabbed at the other man's throat, forcing his hat to fly onto the ground below.
Both of them yelled out, surprisingly in similar tones, as the one man pushed the other against the brick wall close behind him.
I looked quickly from the two's beginning brawl to the closed door a few feet to their left.
"What going on? Are you okay, Mae?" Mel pressed.
Instantly, I jumped forward and slipped myself up to the door a few feet away. Hurriedly, then, I threw it open, stepped through, and then slammed it shut behind my back.
A pounding pulse of bass and stench of alcohol mixed with who knows what else filled the air around me. I glanced around as a numerous amount of people pushed past me and the exaggerated blinking of multicolored lights lit up the darkness that was everywhere.
"I'm... um, in," I stated.
Suddenly, a band of college-aged boys by my right side decided to let out the loudest chorus of laughs I had ever heard, and then two in the group stepped backward and simultaneously ran into me. I stepped quickly backward, also, and escaped their path. However, in the process of doing so, I found myself ramming my backside into a section of a nearby wall, which prevented me from stepping any further. After that, a quartet of young, screaming and giggling women flew past me, each holding a glass full of some type of beverage in either one or both of their shaky hands. Needless to say, as each of them ran past, the liquids they carried spilled frantically out of their containers and probably ninety-one percent of those lost fluids ended up splashing onto the front of my white and blue striped tank top.
"Okay, good job. Now, find the gambling room," Mel instructed of me soon after that.
I pursed my lips and slowly brushed the front of my shirt before softly responding to her.
"Copy that..."
I then stepped forward and pushed my way past a cluster of chattering people, a brown card table that was completely covered in blue solo cups, a tall man in an oversized peacoat taking a lengthy drag on something that definitely wasn't a cigarette, and an empty doorframe with ripped, purple paper streamers hanging from its upper edge. After that, I gazed around and saw that the room I had next stepped into was much less crowded and had absolutely no flashing lights in it. However, it did have a number of red tinted beams pointed at one corner, which happened to be sporting a mini stage area and three silver poles that stretched all the way from the floor to the ceiling.
Currently, a deeply tan woman with brown, pixie-cut hair and nothing but a red, lacy bikini bottom on was performing a dance in that very corner.
"Yeah, honey!" one man in the crowd standing in front of the stage area yelled out, immediately after another one had whistled.
"Oh my God," I mumbled, now turning quickly into the opposite direction.
I sped to the other corner of the room, where a tiny bar area and closed door sat. I first looked at the door, noticed that a little window was formed in the middle of it, although the room on the other side was just as dark as this one, so it didn't really help much, and then glanced over at the short bar countertop, where a young, slightly attractive man in a black suit and bow tie was sorting through a shelf of about a million different bottles of alcohol on the other side of it. A moment after I finished looking him slowly over, he spun around and glanced back at me.
"Well, hello," he greeted with a smile.
"H-Hi," I stuttered back, preparing to turn around and walk hurriedly away.
"How 'bout a drink?" he asked, before I even had the chance to move. "You look like you could really use one."
"Um, n-no, thanks," I paused to force a smile back. "I... I don't drink, really."
That was probably a pretty good observation, though.
"Well," he began, leaning one hand onto the counter in between us. "I've heard that one plenty times before..." He stopped to grab something from underneath the bar top. "But, don't worry, your secret's safe with me."
He flashed me a wink as he slammed onto the countertop an empty, red plastic cup and a tall, clear glass bottle with a label that read 'Absolut Vodka' on its frontside. He then tilted the cap-less bottle toward the cup and began to pour a hefty amount of liquid into it.
"Here," he went on, now placing the substance's container upright once more. "This one's on the house, straight up."
He grabbed the cup and stretched his hand into my direction.
"Uh... thanks?" I questioned, taking the cup cautiously from him.
"My pleasure," he responded.
I looked at the cup, then back to the man, smiled slightly, and turned around, just as a young couple was calmly entering the room from the closed door with the dark window not too far away. I then rushed over to them and took a hold on the door, afterward stepping through to enter a much quieter setting.
Once I had shut the door behind my back, I paced forward and saw that a few floor lamps were surrounding a large, black grand piano. No one else was currently in the small room, other than myself and a thin, dark-skinned man sitting at the instrument.
Abruptly, a long string of intricately interwound musical notes started to fill the air.
I walked over to the side of the piano and stared as the man playing it trickled his fingertips up and down the black and white keys that adorned it.
He went on for a good full thirty seconds, and then finished the short tune with five loud chords.
After he fell to silence, I stepped forward and spoke up to him.
"That was... that was so good!"
He turned his head to the side to look at me.
"You t'ink?" he asked, his voice heavily accented with something I really didn't recognize.
"Yeah, it was... great, yeah, really..." my voice trailed off. "I... I mean, I would, you know, put some money in your hat, or something..." I paused and motioned with one hand to the wool cap over his forehead. "But, I, um, don't exactly have any money, so..." I lowered my eyes downward. "Well, here."
I reached my red cup out to him.
He took it, smiling.
"T'ank you, my de'r," he thanked.
"Yeah," I replied, taking a step back. "Just keep on... doing... you know, that."
I smiled back at him, and then turned to walk to the next closed door.
"Making friends, tonight, Mae?" Mel questioned, catching me a bit off-guard.
I grabbed the handle of the door in front of me and swung it open after she had spoken.
A cloud of bitter smog struck me immediately.
"Well, uh," I began to reply to her, now stepping into the next room, which was partially quiet and slightly lighter than any other I had been in, while forcing back the urge to cough up a lung. "Aren't I... supposed to?"
I scanned the new wide area as I talked and noticed that a pool table with a crowd beside it was in one corner and a few card tables with a number of... well, card players sitting around each one were lining the rest of the room. Oh, and a young man and woman were both in the process of undressing on top of each other on a sofa in another corner.
"I think I'm there..." I mumbled.
"In the gambling room?" Mel questioned. She went on, though, before I could have even really answered. "Okay, good. Now, do you see him?"
I stepped a little more into the center of the semi-crowded room and glanced around.
"Um..." I muttered as I studied a number of unrecognizable faces in every direction that was close by. "N—"
Then, suddenly, a strong hand grabbed my left shoulder and forced me to turn completely around.
Of course.
"Hey, Jen, there you are!" a tall, bulky man in a red v-neck and dark skinny jeans, sporting a blue solo cup in his free hand, exclaimed from directly in front of my face.
I raised my eyebrows up at him.
"Uh, I-I," I started to stutter out. "I...I'm not... Jen, sorry..."
The man quickly took his hand off me and raised it up to cover his mouth, his eyes widening in the same moment.
"Oh, damn, I'm sorry," he apologized, now removing his hand to take a sip of his drink. "Hey, let me buy you a drink, though."
A warm smile crept across his face.
"Oh, I..." I began, pausing to force a smile back. "No, thanks, I don't drink."
He kept his smile firmly in position as he replied.
"Oh, don't worry, I won't tell anybody. What do you like? Beer? A martini?"
I looked him over for a second.
"I... I don't drink, so—"
"Oh, yeah," he suddenly shot back. "Right... I'll surprise you, then." He paused to put his one hand up in a 'stop' kind of gesture. "Just hang tight a second."
He then spun himself and took off toward a closed door on the opposite side of the room, one of which I had not come from.
I let out a little sigh as Mel piped up once again.
"Mae, you do know that you can still get a DUI while driving a moped, right?"
She let out a tiny laugh in my ear.
"Yeah, well..." I whispered back as my eyes wandered onto a significantly large group of people beside the left wall. I watched as a few of them stepped aside and revealed to me a short card table with a mound of poker chips lumped onto the top of it as well as a young, but balding, man sitting behind all of it.
I immediately reached up, touched the side of the earpiece in my ear, and took a half step backward.
"M-Mel," I breathed out. "I see him."
"You do?" she questioned, although she, unsurprisingly, continued instructing me without receiving an answer. "Okay, good. Now, is he drinking anything?"
I stepped to the side a little as a pair of women pushed past my side.
"Uh," I responded as I glanced back at the table and pulled my hand back down to my side. "I can't really tell... but he's smoking, like, a cigar, or something."
"Okay, well," Mel went on. "Try to get closer to him, then."
I gave a little nod, even though the person I was nodding toward wasn't really able to see it, and stepped a bit more into the direction of the table. I craned my neck as I stepped, so that I could glance past the few individuals standing in my way, and studied the area of the table that was placed in front of the man of interest. I saw that a small scotch glass was set out in that specific place, right next to a deck of cards. As soon as I picked up on this information, though, I also caught the image of a young woman dressed in tight black shorts and a dark navy tank top lean over the side of the table and swipe the empty glass away from him.
"Hey, 'Not-Jen'!" a voice yelled out from close by my right side.
I turned toward the sound and saw the same tall guy from just a few minutes ago approach me with a martini glass containing a bright red liquid that nearly spilled over its rim each time he took a step.
"I got you a cosmo," he went on, now holding the glass out to me. "You seemed like that kind of a girl."
I took the glass gently into the fingertips of my right hand and pushed a smile across my lips.
"Thanks," I muttered out.
"No problem," he shot back, along with the slightest wink in his left eye. "You're not here alone, are you? Because you can definitely come hang with us, if you want to."
"Oh, no," I hurriedly responded. "I'm, um, waiting for someone."
"You sure?" he pressed.
I looked from the drink in my hand to his still smiling expression.
"No... I mean, yeah, yes, I'm... I'm fine, thank you," I sputtered out.
I forged another smile back at him.
"Okay, well, have a good time!" he cheered on as he started to step away.
I turned to watch him walk away and disappear between two groups of chattering people that had suddenly appeared nearby, and then flickered my eyes back down the 'comso' in my one hand. After that, I gazed up a little and took my eyes over to an end table that sat next to the sofa with the couple that was intimately making out still on top of it.
"Now what's up, Mae?" I could hear Mel ask.
"I've got a plan; don't worry," I whispered.
I took a long stride forward and made my way over to the end table a few feet away. I then reached down, grabbed one of the many empty blue solo cups that were mounded atop it, and proceeded to pour the martini that I held into it. After that, I set the cocktail glass down in the cup's place and leisurely brought myself down to a crouching position. Then, I slid my right hand down the inside of my right boot and reached around until I felt the little hand-sewn pocket on the side of it.
I swiftly pulled a small sandwich bag out of the shoe, although, no, there was no sandwich inside of it, and opened it carefully. I glided a few of my fingers into it and grabbed at a tiny, oval-shaped white pill, afterward bringing it completely out.
I leaned back a little, dropped the capsule into the blue cup, and shoved the now empty bag back into the side of my boot.
I then stood back up and turned into the direction of the card table close by. After that, I walked up to the side of it, stepped around a pair of people, and looked down as I placed the cup onto the table in front of the balding man.
"Your drink, Mr. Hartford," I spoke out.
"Bourbon or scotch?" his grumbly voice interrogated, his eyes glued to the set of cards in his hands as he did so.
"Uh," I began as I leaned back a tad. "Scotch."
Whatever the difference was between scotch, bourbon, and a 'cosmo', I had no clue, but I was sure he probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference, either.
Then, without him speaking another word, I stepped quickly to the side and made my way back away from the table.
"I gave him the stuff," I mumbled to Mel.
"Already? Wow, good job," she responded. "Okay, so, now, remember what I told you... it won't kick in right away, but if he's been drinking already, then it's probably safe for you to go talk to him right away."
I twisted back toward the table and leaned to the left to see the man, Mr. Hartford, inhale pretty much his entire drink in just one swig.
I winced a little when I saw him slam the cup back onto the table and make a twisted sort of face.
"The hell was that?" he shouted out.
"A taste of Amnesia," Mel remarked in my ear, alongside a small laugh.
I smiled when I realized that she was referring to both me... well, my nickname, as well as the pill I had been instructed to give him.
After that, I watched him twist his head both left and right to glance around and search for the person responsible for giving him the drink. Of course, though, his short investigation was unsuccessful, so he quickly returned his annoyed focus to his playing cards.
"Okay," I murmured. "I'm going in... now."
I stepped forward and around the opposite side of the table he sat at, afterward pushing my way past a few people to make my way carefully up to the other side of him than before. I cleared my throat, quietly, and then leaned inward, toward his ear.
I wanted to whisper to him, but I had to speak up a little more than expected, because every one of the other three men at the table were beginning to chat vigorously.
"Mr. Corbin is here to see you, sir," I said, deepening my voice a tad as I did so. "He's waiting in the..." I trailed away a little and hurried myself to think of a way to conclude my statement. "In the... the piano room."
I snapped my back to a straight position and took a step back from his side.
"Mr. Corbin?" his head shot upward, but not toward me, as he questioned.
I looked the back of his head quickly over for a second, and then leaned forward once more.
"Y-Yes," I went on. "I wouldn't keep him waiting, either, sir."
I paused to hear his next comment, and then decided to step back, again.
"The hell..." he muttered.
He then threw his cards face up on the tabletop in front of himself and promptly stood, his chair squeaking back under him at the same time.
"You all can give me the money later," he ordered, glancing around at the others sitting around the table.
I looked down when he turned to the right and pushed past me, not glancing up until he had stepped away from my peripheral field of vision. I then watched him make his way through an incoming crowd of people by the pool table and began to follow after him shortly thereafter. I pushed past three men who were all in the process of tripping over their own shoes, two young women who were laughing at them, and four more random people who weren't doing anything other than standing still and sipping from drinks in their hands before I was able to catch glimpse of Mr. Hartford again. Once I actually could see him, though, I managed to watch his backside as he slipped through the doorway that led to the piano room I had been in earlier.
I stopped walking a moment, looked the now closed door over, and then proceeded to step completely up to it. After that, I reached out, grabbed at the door handle, and took a deep breath.
"Okay, Mel," I whispered, a little rush-like. "Here goes the hard part..."
"Okay," Mel promptly responded. "And I'm right here to help you remember what to say, so you'll be fine."
Hopefully.
I pursed my lips soon after her words left my ear and whipped the door open in front of myself.
I stepped into the small, silent, and surprisingly vacant room. I mean, vacant other than the appearance of the bald, shuffling man in the center of it, that is.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind me, he spun around, into my direction.
He squinted his eyes and studied me slowly, making no sound for a long few seconds.
I decided to open my mouth, but it took a number more moments before I, myself, could utter any words.
"M... M..." I started off. "M-Mr. Corbin couldn't actually make it, tonight. He... sent me, instead."
"You?" the man tilted his forehead forward and stepped toward me.
"Y... Yes, me." I attempted to shoot back at him.
Mr. Hartford smirked and let out a soft chuckle.
"Yeah, right," he mumbled, now walking over to my side.
Before he got there, though, I piped back up.
"No, wait... he... he did, though!"
"Tell him about the silver pipe deal," Mel suddenly instructed to me.
"I-If you don't believe me," I went on, stepping to the side and turning a little as he started to approach the door. "Then I guess you won't find out about the silver pipe deal."
The man halted.
He twisted toward me, and then spoke, again.
"Silver pipe?" he questioned.
I nodded.
"He sent me here to tell you about it," I stated.
He stared at me for a second, and then stepped to the side and threw his hands up.
"Alright, then tell," he commanded.
I watched him as he paced over to the unoccupied piano and took a seat at the bench in front of its keys. He glared back up at me, forcing me to open my mouth and talk once again.
"Well... it's..."
"At seven o'clock, next Thursday night," Mel prompted me.
"It's at seven o'clock, next Thursday night," I repeated.
"In the Fourth Hacks building," she continued.
"In the Fourth Hacks building," I said.
Mr. Hartford looked me over with lowered eyebrows.
"And who am I supposed to be bringing with me?" he asked.
I paused while I waited for Mel to give me the response I needed.
However... she didn't.
"Um, w-who," I started to stammer. "Are you... supposed to bring... with you?"
He raised one eyebrow and let a silence fall around us.
Mel was still unresponsive.
"Well..." I dragged on. "You know... just... the usual crowd..."
He eyed me for a moment longer.
"And who's that? Jeff? Ray? Derek?" he interrogated.
"Oh," I sputtered out. "Yeah, just... Jeff and Derek, yeah."
I leaned to the side a little and nodded.
Then, suddenly, a sharp, robotic beep rang out in my one ear. As a result of the disturbance, I jerked my body a tad and threw my hand up by the side of my head, although I restrained myself from continuing to touch the Bluetooth device that, I assume, made the sound. Instead, I took a slightly deep breath in and casually pushed my fingertips through a small section of my hair.
"Okay..." the man responded, a hint of question still lingering in his vocal cords. "And did Mr. Corbin mention anything about the specific material of this meeting?"
I glanced down to his feet, and then back up at his face.
"Uh," I began. "Well, you know, he didn't really say... to me, exactly. I'm just the messenger, you see, and I'm pretty sure I'm... not really supposed to know all the details, like that, so..."
He looked me over one more time, and then picked back up where I had trailed off.
"Alright, then. Thanks for wasting my time."
He forced out some sort of smirk, stood, and started to step toward the door once again.
I fell to quietness as he pushed his way past