Randomers

by Alexis Dogman

  This is not the first time Richard undercut Gros Biotechnology of its potential clients and profits. He has done it so well that Melid has actually grown significantly together with his wife's efforts. Richard started off by taking in orders deemed too small for Gros. Melid would take in these clients and repackage bulk products he ordered from Gros and then delivering it to their customers naming Melid as the manufacturer. Gradually, Melid has become big enough to undercut the larger, anchor customers. This is going to be their big break. Richard can finally quit from Gros and focus on growing Melid, but Gros must not find out or a lawsuit will definitely ensue this corporate espionage. Richard can't wait to get home to break the good news to his wife.

  Richard squeezes his six feet tall, beefy frame into the back of a taxi and closes the door. Midway home, his phone lets out a beep. Someone's sent him a message. Thinking it might be his wife Hillary, he excitedly checks the message only to find what he feared most. It is a picture of Melid's company registration document with his wife's name circled in red and at the bottom, the caption 'I know what you two have done. Am sure Gros will love to know'. He immediately taps onto the picture to view better, at the same time engaging himself as sub-randomer 2.

  Richard immediately looks for the sender but the virus that he has just downloaded onto his phone has already taken care of erasing all traceable leads. The picture is now nothing but a picture file in his gallery with no sender whatsoever.

  Knowing that this might be the beginning of a terrible ordeal, Richard's forehead creases into waves of deep frown lines that goes up to his receding hairline. His left hand starts scratching his short brown hair in frustration as his face wrinkles into that of a sad bulldog's. The phone's screen dims out and Richard could only stare out the window, his heart filled with uncertainty and weariness. He can only wait for the blackmailers to contact him again for what they want. All he can do right now is to stay calm and cooperate. Reporting to the police is out of the question; any risk of loosing Melid must be eliminated.

  Chapter 9

  Malaysia: Friday, 14th November 10:25 p.m.

  "You have arrived at your destination," the GPS app on Mei's phone announces.

  Yuna looks out her side window, up at the huge, colorful flashing signboard with a large, blue neon shark leaping over the yellow words 'Shark Palace'. A group of man around their sixties push the tinted door open to enter and Yuna catches a glimpse of the sexy pole dancers swinging on their poles. It is definitely more than just a nightclub.

  Yuna drives around surveying the area she is in. She is at the red light district in Kuala Lumpur and the street is just starting to come to life. Yuna finally finds a parking space at the corner of the street. She parks her car in the dimly lit corner under a leafless tree and exits her white Kancil, a tiny compact car her parents had bought for her before they died. She has been using the car ever since until two years ago when she left it to Mei before leaving for Australia. It is a well maintained old car; though unmatching to what her assets are worth, the car is precious to Yuna. To her, the value of the car is not important; it's the memories that come along with it that's precious.

  Yuna makes her way towards the three stories building painted in dark blue, wedged in the center of the row of differently themed but equally distasteful and low class nightclubs. As she hurries uncomfortably over to the building, Yuna is glad she is clad in a pair of long jeans and loosely fit black T-shirt belonging to Mei, keeping the prying eyes and wolf calls of lusty men off her. Along the way, skimpily dressed women, mostly of Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese origin stand leaning on the walls next to nightclub entrances flagging for potential customers.

  Yuna is about to push the tinted glass door open when the two Thai women standing by the entrance stop her. The woman on the right, with long straight hair and peacock colors on her face holds out her arm to bar Yuna from entering.

  "Woman no en-ta," the skinny woman around her early twenties, dressed in a cheap studded bra top, leopard print super mini skirt and neon stilettos warn.

  "I'm looking for someone," Yuna says, pushing the woman's stick of an arm away.

  "Your man not hi-e," the woman continues to snarl.

  "I'm looking for a woman!" Yuna hisses angrily as she grabs the woman's arm and pulls her away from the door.

  Seeing things about to get out of control, the other curly haired Thai woman, in her mid twenties, sporting a short acid green tube dress with cut outs on her waists and matching boots quickly pokes her head in through the doors and shouts for reinforcement. A few seconds later three actual bouncers covered in tattoo are out the door. Two of them are Thai men and another one, who seems to be the one with a say is an Indian man. Finally someone who understands what she has to say.

  "Please, I'm looking for a woman," Yuna pleads to the bald Indian bouncer with a large mustache, knowing that forcing her way through is not going to work.

  "That's what they all say," he growls at her.

  "No, it's true!" Yuna begs.

  "Man or woman, it's none of my business," he gnarls at her and with a swing of his head he signals the other two bouncers to get rid of her.

  The two other men, grabs her by her arms and throws her away from the entrance, out onto the street. Yuna manages to save herself from falling onto the road as passersby watch intently and the women laugh at her.

  Yuna gathers herself and walks back towards her car, thinking of another way in. She's sure she's at the right place, seeing the number of Thai nationals there. The answer to her sister's death might lie in that place. Instead of entering her car, Yuna walks toward the filthy back alley.

  There are almost no lights and the alley stinks, with rats running wild. The only light that illuminates the back alley is the lamp post at the far end of the alley. Yuna counts as she walks into the alley.

  One, two, three, four, five, six. The Shark Palace is the sixth shop in the row. The black metal door has got no handles or knobs. It is locked from the inside. There is no way in. Yuna is about to turn away to leave when she hears a click on the metal door. The first thing she instinctively does is to hide behind the metal door as it opens. A man comes out with two large bags of garbage and throws them into the huge garbage bin against the wall opposite the door. He then lights a cigarette, removes his cellphone from his pocket and starts dialing. The man, in a stained white T-shirt, three quarter pants and slippers paces back and forth as he starts talking on the phone with an impatient note in his voice. The man, as he speaks on, begins turning his back towards the opened door. Yuna knows that's her chance. She takes a deep breath and makes a run for it. Slipping out from behind the door she sprints into the back entrance, without the man noticing.

  Inside the brightly lit entrance, a few feet before her is a sliding tinted glass door which leads back out to the nightclub and she can make the shadow of a big man coming towards the door. It is the Indian man. To her left is a small kitchen where a group of two men are busy bending over their work on the chopping board and stove. On her right is a brown wooden door. Yuna immediately turns the knob and barges into the room without caring to look at what or who's inside and closes the door behind her.

  Yuna turns around and is stunned as she realizes where she is. She draws an adrenaline pumping deep breath, not knowing what to do. Cramped in the tiny room furnished with nothing but a wardrobe and dresser on plain cement flooring are about fifteen Thai women, staring back at her in shock and menace, all skimpily dressed, waiting for their turn on the poles. Yuna, reminding herself of her task there, immediately locks the door behind her and raises her hands in surrender motion.

  "I am looking for a woman with a dragon tat-," she quickly explains but stops abruptly when there is a loud bang on the door. It is the Indian man and he wants in to check on the girls. Before Yuna can gather her thoughts together at what to do next, a hand pulls Yuna so hard she nearly falls to the floor. Yuna looks up to see a small framed Thai woman looking back at her with large, bewildered ey
es as the banging on the door continues. She looks down at the icy cold hand on her arm and sees it - the delicate green and red dragon tattoo around her wrist. Yuna follows her to the back of the crowd and crouches behind them. The rest of the women close their backs on Yuna as the front most woman opens the door. The Indian man angrily marches in.

  "Who told you to lock the door??" he demands as the women stay quiet.

  "You!" he points at the woman with the dragon tattoo and shouts, drowning her face pale.

  "Customer wants you on the pole now!" he continues and she lets out a breath of relief.

  "Ok bos, I weh shoe" she says in her Thai slang and quickly bents down to pretend fixing her heels as she whispers firmly to Yuna, "10am. Hi-e," as she points her index finger to the floor.

  "Now!" he shouts one more time and the woman jumps up onto her feet like a jack in the box, springing to the front and leaving with the grumpy Indian man.

  Once the door closes, the rest of the women turn around to stare at Yuna who is still crouching on the floor, but this time without the menace. Yuna gets up, standing a lot taller on her sneakers than most of the high heeled women looking up at her. The one standing right before her breaks the dead stares in the room when she points at the door, indicating for Yuna to leave as the rest move back to form an open passage for her.

  Yuna nods and hurries to the door, opening it slightly. The two men are still busy hovering over their business in the kitchen and the back door is still open.

  Yuna slips away with hope. There is hope for an answer to her sister's death. She knows that this is just the beginning of her quest for the truth but she is ready for whatever it takes to get to the bottom of it, even if it means risking her life for it.

  Chapter 10

  Canada: Friday, 14th November 7:20 p.m.

  Samantha has been having sleepless nights since Wednesday. Her brain is running wild with thoughts of all the ‘what ifs’. Was everything just a sick joke? Samantha now knows that waiting can be very painful when you don't know what and when to expect something to happen.

  She doesn’t have the appetite to eat at all or the interest to go about her bi-daily saloon and manicure trips. Samantha hasn't even taken her bath or changed her clothes. All she does is to check at her phone but two tearful, horrible days had since passed without any contact from the blackmailer. She has become overly reactive to every single sound her phone makes, her heart pumping with fear at every gurgle or vibration her phone let's out.

  Frustrated with the inactivity of the blackmailer, she had even thrown her phone onto the carpeted floor once, only to rush over and cradle it back into her arms like an injured child. Then she shut down the phone once only to find it turning back on by itself the next second.

  The skies are already dark and Samantha now sits on one of the two gray, high back rattan armchairs in the balcony of her luxury home in one of the most expensive urban high rises overlooking the beautiful, brightly lit city of Vancouver. With no lights on and her back to the opened sliding glass door to her home on the twenty sixth floor and a bottle of Johnnie Walker next to her phone on the small rattan table beside her. There has never been a time she felt lonelier than this. Even Tim has abandoned her. Like her home right now, her heart is dark without any lights in her life. She usually doesn't do much thinking but this blackmailing has got her mind wondering over the darker parts of her life.

  Samantha raises the bottle and gulps down three mouthfuls of the hard liquor as icy cold wind blows against her from the side, throwing her beautiful orange hair wildly over her face like an unstoppable forest fire. She places the bottle back down onto the table and pulls the hood of her purple Juicy Couture jacket over her head before pulling the warm fleece blanket already wrapping around her, even higher and tighter over her ears as she hauls her legs up the armchair, turning herself into a ball of thick, white fleece; but nothing can warm a bitter and empty heart.

  Just when she tries to admire the serene scenery and forget about everything, the phone mounted to the wall in her open kitchen starts ringing. Samantha turns around to stare into the pitch dark house, an eerie feeling crawling up her spine as the phone continues to ring. Nobody ever calls that phone but since she has no idea what to expect, Samantha jumps from her armchair to answer it, tripping over an empty beer bottle she had left lying on the plywood flooring of her living room. She catches herself from falling and makes it just in time to answer the phone.

  "H...hello..." she stutters into the phone, hoping for it to be the blackmailer.

  "Good evening, can I speak to Ms. Samantha Wilde?" greets the cheerful voice of a young man.

  "What do you want?" she breathes into the phone, confused at the formality and politeness in the blackmailer's speech.

  "Sorry to bother you Ms. Samantha, I'm calling from the reception down at the lobby. There is a hand delivered package for you," the voice apologizes.

  "Oh..." Samantha utters with disappointment.

  "Would you prefer to collect it from the lobby or have us send it up to you?" the young man continues to ask.

  "Send it up please," Samantha answers softly, feeling her heart drop.

  "Okay, the concierge will be coming up right now," the voice says and hangs up.

  Samantha hangs the phone up and turns on the lights in the house. She narrows her eyes from the sudden glaring brightness and the door bell rings almost right away. Feeling heavy with exasperation, Samantha drags herself to the door and pulls it open. In front of her stands an unfamiliar face instead of their usual concierge. It is a young and athletic looking young man barely in his twenties, smartly dressed in his neatly pressed uniform of a navy blue button up jacket over a white shirt with a grey bow-tie and matching navy blue pants. In his hands is a two inch thick, pink A4 size box tied in a cross with a two inches wide purple satin ribbon ending with a large bow where the ribbons cross on top of the lid.

  "Good evening, Ms. Samantha Wilde. Here's your package," the young man says with a big smile over his face. He politely hands her the box and she takes it hesitatingly. It is rather light in her hands.

  Samantha stares at the package awkwardly. What she had in mind when she answered the phone was maybe something packed in a courier box, not this valentine package. There isn't a single writing or card on it. She's now afraid of what's going to be inside it.

  The package is not posted or couriered to her, so if it is hand delivered the person must have first registered himself at the security post by the gates. She might just be able to trace who sent this package to her and what do they want from her.

  "Do you know who delivered this?" Samantha asks.

  "A very polite lady," the concierge answers.

  "Did she leave her name?" Samantha probes.

  "I'm so sorry. We didn't manage to get her name. She wasn't carrying any personal ID on her for registration and so we couldn't allow her inside. She only left the package by the security post," the concierge explains.

  "It's okay," she sighs.

  "The sender must really adore you," he adds.

  Samantha can only stare at the package, the color in her face draining away.

  "Ms. Samantha, are you alright?" the concierge asks politely, seeing how her face is turning from pale to white.

  "I... I'm okay," she answers meekly.

  "Are you sure, you look pale. I can help you call for our in house doctor if you-" he offers but Samantha immediately stops him.

  "No, no. I'm really fine," Samantha reassures him.

  "So is there anything else I can do for you?" he asks politely.

  "No, no. That's all," Samantha shakes her head.

  Instead of leaving the concierge stays put, flashing a wide grin at her, his fingers laced together behind his back. She looks at him for a second before it finally crosses her mind that she has forgotten to tip him.

  "Hold on, will you?" Samantha mutters as she goes over to the coffee table in the living room. Placing the package onto the glass tabletop, she
fetches a ten dollar note from her clutch.

  She makes her way back to the open front door and the concierge is still there, grinning.

  "Thank you," Samantha says as she hands him the note to which the concierge immediately accepts and slips it into the pocket of his pants. He bows slightly and turns to leave.

  Samantha closes the door and hurries back to the living room. She seats herself down onto the edge of the beige leather chaise lounge facing the side of the rectangular glass coffee table with gold trimmings and sleek metal legs. With her fingers weaved together and elbows resting on her thighs, Samantha's tired eyes look down at the rosy pink box and the pretty ribbon tying it, contemplating what could be inside. Maybe it is from Edward - sexy lingerie or a box of chocolate from Switzerland? She takes a deep breath and reaches her delicate fingers to pull the purple ribbon off. The smooth satin ribbon slips off immediately and she lets it fall onto the floor. Samantha then carefully lifts the lid off. To her delight it is an air ticket placed on top of a dense grey sponge that fitted the whole box snugly.