| Fan Fiction |
by DTLCT
After Gallen left. Jacky yelled after him although Gallen had gone far already. His outburst had alerted those sitting in surrounding tables. To complete the act, he went a bit further.
“What are you all looking at?” He yelled out. “Go drink your fruit loops!”
A waiter came by at that time.
“Sir, please sit down,” The waiter requested in a polite yet firm voice. “You’re disturbing the customers.”
“Mind your own business or I’ll get you fire!”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you disturb our customers further.”
A man in a suit, possibly the manager, came into the scene at that time.
“Sir, please leave at once,” The man said. “We already asked you nicely twice.”
What’s the harm in asking a third time? He thought to himself. These people don’t have any patience. But he knew it was not a time for joking around since hew as supposed to be mad. His hostile expression still on, he blurted out, “What? You’re saying that I’m causing trouble?” He raised one eyebrow for effect.
“Sir,” The man repeated.
“I had enough of your rude customer service.”
He stormed off after that, not forgetting to kick the table upside down, which caused both drinks – his and Gallen’s – to spill on the pavement. Of course it had landed on the manager, the waiter, and some people’s clothes before spilling the rest of the contents onto the pavement.
Jacky hurried out of the parking lot, hoping that he was convincing enough.
He waited about 5 minutes in the parking lot, thinking that he failed but heard footsteps coming after him so he pretended to be looking for his car – still. One of the two guys walked up to Jacky and tapped him on the shoulder as he was mumbling something and was still trying to locate his car.
“What?!?” Jacky yelled out, startled – or in a fake startled voice.
“You need a ride, fella?” The first guy asked.
“None of your business!” Jacky lashed out angrily.
By this time, the other guy had walked up to them.
“You might as well let us help you since we already paid for your drink,” The second guy said.
“I can pay you back,” Jacky said, looking at the second guy. He jingled his keys at that time, signaling his impatience. “As soon as I can locate my car in this…” His voice rising with his face’s intensity. “…DAMN parking lot.” Jacky continued to walk to the next line pushing his alarm button to see if it responded. No such luck. Since he was at the second last row by now, it was quite convincing that he couldn’t find it at all. “Damn bastard took my car! I’m going to get him good!”
The two guys were still following Jacky closely.
“I told you already,” The first guy said, smiling brightly. “You need our help.”
“What’s the big deal here?” Jacky asked, pretending to remain calm and was suddenly interest in the guys’ offer.
“You need money, don’t you?” The second guy asked.
“Who doesn’t?” Jacky snapped.
“Well, we can help you. Since we overhead you arguing with your buddy over some meeting. Someone must have bailed out on you, right?”
“So what? I’ll get a better deal next time.”
“Yes,” The first guy said. “And that next deal is through us.”
“What have you guys got then?”
The first guy looked around to see if anyone was around. “We’re busting Constant Comfort tonight. You can help us and you’ll get your share of it.”
Jacky laughed loudly, not believing the idiots for telling him of such secret at the first meeting. However, the two guys thought that he didn’t believe them of such an easy opportunity.
“Trust us,” The second guy persuaded. “We know you live there, that’s why we need you to be the inside man. We’d been observing you real hard. And see that you’re up to something when you were moving in and socializing with the people in 7th floor. I know you’re trying to get information from that Cheng kid. After all, what better ways to know this place than through the owner’s nephew, right?” He clapped Jacky on the shoulder.
Jacky had stopped laughing by then. “You’re right. But how could you guys trust me?”
“We’re the same kind of people,” The first guy said. “I know you. Always knowing the opportunity. Once you’re done with them, they’ll be begging you on their knees for mercy.”
“This is on short notice,” The second guy took over again. “But we’re really doing it tonight and you’re our only hope.”
“Just wait until you have enough people.”
“We already got five,” The first guy said. “You’re the sixth person. If we get anymore, we need to split the money further, okay? Are you getting dumb, man? Think about the split.”
“Okay. I get it. So far, who do you have?”
The two guys took turns telling Jacky how they got the elevators fixed and how they scared the world out of those people. They recruited two along the way by accident. They only need a watcher left to make sure they would be out safely after the “bust”.
Jacky was laughing so hard inside he almost blew it since it was way too good to be true. Does he look like a crook so much that crooks recruit him without checking out his background or at least take precautions?
“Guys!” Jacky called out “Are you done yet? This is serious stuffs. I heard they have security cameras everywhere.”
The first guy cracked up at that time.
The second guy took over since his buddy was busy laughing. “He got it all fixed. That’s why they didn’t even know what’s going on with the elevators and what’s with the lights either.”
The first guy finally stopped laughing. “So are you in or are you out?”
“Of course, man!” Jacky exclaimed out. “If you got it all set up, I might as well go along with it since it’s a piece of cake now.” He paused. “But….”
“What?” The first guy asked. “You want more money? You can’t because we already got most of it taken care of already. And you’re just our watchman.”
“No. I meant I want to call someone else to join.”
“We just told you about the split,” The second guy reminded Jacky. “Where is your brain, man?”
“I already paid him before. It’s more than enough. We shouldn’t have to pay him anymore since I was getting him ready for…” He stopped to gesture toward the restaurant area. “…that new job.”
“Wait, who’s he then?”.
“Security guard.”
“Whoa!” The first guy yelled out. “How did you get him to cooperate? I heard that Stan is very loyal to Old Lady Yeung.”
“I guess that’s just a myth then.”
“Okay,” The second guy said. “Since you already paid him, we might as well use him.”
“I’ll call him now to confirm.”
“Yea,” The first guy agreed. “But don’t tell him this new skit. He might want more money.”
“Got it. I’ll just tell him we changed the time.” Jacky got his phone out and called Gallen.
“You’re coming?” Gallen asked. “There was an accident on the shortcut so I had to double around.”
“Stan, this is Wilson here,” Jacky said, tapping the cell phone with his fingers.
“Okay, go ahead.”
“There’s a slight change for the job. I told you…” He tapped his fingers on the phone again. “…that it’ll be the end of this week.” He tapped some more. “But we’re moving it forward to tonight.” He paused as if to listen. “I know it’s short notice but we should be doing this as soon as possible.” He resumed the tapping. “Before anyone finds out.” His tapping became a bit irregular before ending. “Then we’ll get off your back.”
“What’s with your tapping so hard on the phone, man?” The first guy pondered in background.
Jacky turned toward the guys, signaling for them to shush. He paused for little, pretending to get a respond. “Yea. Okay. Just do your thing and then we’re done. And…” He paused for emphasis. “I warned you already. If you pull any funny businesses, say goodbye to your niece.” He paused again to get a respond. “Good then.” Jacky shut off his phone after that. He turned to the guys, giving them a cold stare. “Thanks a lot! You almost blew it!”
“What?” The first guy asked.
“I’m trying to pretend I’m in the warehouse.”
“All right. I didn’t know, okay?”
“Do you think I have a habit of tapping?”
“Calm down, man,” The second guy interfered upon seeing Jacky’s menacing look. “He didn’t mean to.”
“Okay. I’ll forget it since we’re supposed to be focusing on the bust here.”
“Okay,” The first guy said. “We’d been observing a lot the whole time and you seemed believable enough, I’m Bryan.” He pointed to the other guy. “This is Derrick.”
Jacky nodded toward them, still with a cold stare. “With your carelessness, I hope you two don’t screw it up for the rest of us tonight or we’ll be all busted by the cops.”
Bryan and Derrick looked at each other and then Bryan spoke up.
“Of course not,” Bryan reassured Jacky. “We’d been planning this thing out real good.”
“Let’s get out of here before someone sees us,” Derrick said.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to go around together,” Jacky said. “Others might suspect it. Don’t you read the paper or actually watch that building lately? Those cops are having their people watch the whole building.”
“Right,” Bryan said. “Okay then. We’ll see you later then.”
Jacky walked off into the street area without saying anything. He looked at his watch and knew that he’s dead meat with Miss Meng. He hauled a Taxi and got in. With his luck, there was the traffic Gallen was talking about since the driver had decided to impress him by taking “a short cut”.
© Thursday, June 7th, 2007
Re-posted: Sunday, October 11th, 2009