Moonstrike 12: Worm Optional

TUESDAY pt 2

She left the room at speed before Hammer could come over to bother her again. That meant leaving Alex in the dust as well. She checked her phone in a corner and found a plaintive message from him asking where she was. Once they coordinated a meet-up, they walked off to get lunch together just outside of the conference center.

She was ravenous after the morning workout. They wound up at a window seat at a bustling Korean restaurant.

“I saw that laser guy again.” Alex was lost in thought, poking at his pickled vegetables with chopsticks.

Ji Min took a big bite of bibimbap.

“He’s so sketchy. I just know that he’s going to hurt someone, and soon.” Alex poked through a piece of radish without appearing to notice. She winced at the vegetable savaging.

“I just don’t know what to do about it,” he continued miserably. “He’s eager to talk about that, but nothing personal. I’ve got no idea what his name is.” His brow wrinkled. “Maybe I should ask for help. But do you think we’ll get in trouble for being here and not reporting anything else?” He knocked some kimchi onto the table without noticing.

Ji Min sighed and put down her chopsticks. She pointed at him with a hand. “If I help you, will you shut up forever about Hammer?”

Alex opened his mouth and then closed it. “That seems like an unreasonable deal,” he pointed out. “One-time help in exchange for eternal amnesty about the most embarrassing thing I know about you? It would be really short-sighted and silly of me to agree.”

He was going to agree. She could feel it.

Ji Min shrugged, smiling a little meanly. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it. Do you have any reason to believe that you can find and toss his hotel room?” She arched an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t it bother you so much to not know? He clearly needs to be arrested. He’s dangerous and irresponsible,” she wheedled.

“Don’t you care about justice for justice’s sake?” Alex begged. His eyes watered. “He’s a bad man, Miss Strike.”

She was unmoved.

“Fine.” He gave up the puppydog act and rolled his eyes. “If you get me enough information to find his house, then I will forever drop the topic of Hammer except in purely necessary logistical aspects.” He made a childish ‘cross my heart’ gesture.

“Pleasure doing business with you.” Ji Min felt her face break into a smirk. Alex looked disturbed but she was already turning to the problem at hand. She thought it through while they finished eating and paid the check. “Keep your phone on you, load up a message to me,” she decided. She propped her face onto a palm and pursed her lips. “Something innocuous. Say, a dinner invitation. I want you to stay there and keep an eye on him. If he goes back to his hotel or is out of your view for more than two minutes, send it.”

She probably wouldn't need it, but it would make him feel useful.

"Don't expect to see me for a while," she decided. "Maybe this evening."

He stood when she did, frowning. “How are you going to find him?” He hovered. “What if someone finds you? Is this really okay?”

She sighed heavily. “Just let me do what I’m good at, alright?”

Alex frowned. “I thought that what you were good at was brawling,” he admitted. “That’s not your strength?”

She snorted. “No.” She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I’ll take you back to the center.”

“That makes me sound like a little kid,” Alex sulked. He followed her. “Being dropped off at daycare. Or the sitter’s.”

Ji Min reached back to pat at his face. “Be good for the nice lady, darling.”

Alex made an offended sound and jerked away, face flushing red. “Rude,’ he said. “So mean.” He pushed ahead of her.

She laughed and tucked hair behind her ear as they walked past a gleaming store window. Something colorful in the display caught her eye and she absently turned her face to see that it was a blue high heel. That was fine, except that she caught sight of a face watching her in the glass.

Her heart jumped.

She didn’t alter her walking at all, but she hadn’t managed to keep her face still. She plastered the smirk back on and tried to be subtle about using the next store window to look at the man walking behind them.

He was gone.

Ji Min stopped walking and turned all the way around, giving up on subtlety. If he knew he’d been seen, there was no point in pretending.

Alex went a few steps without noticing that she’d stopped. He turned over his shoulder to frown at her. “Is something wrong?”

Ji Min shook her head. She started walking again. “Nothing.”

‘Was he actually following us? Where’d he go that fast?’

Unhappy, she was a lot more aware for the rest of the walk back. The practical advice from previous training gradually came back to her- how to subtly check, how to dodge a follower, how to backtrack. She was itching to try more of the evasive maneuvers but she resisted because she didn’t know how to communicate with Alex.

‘I need to find out if he has any of those skills. Probably not.’

He didn't even notice her tension. She signed them back into the building complex and glanced at the schedule.

If laser guy was staying on brand, he'd be in the second meeting hall now. They went there to see.

'Bingo, there's the dingo.'

There were only a few people milling around. There were more than 10 minutes until the panel started.

Ji Min patted Alex's arm. He nodded at her and settled casually against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

She left. But she didn't go far. She found a plausible loitering spot with good visibility one floor above. He'd probably be in there until the panel ended in an hour, but she wasn't willing to bet on it.

A few people looked at her with interest. She rebuffed it by looking at her phone, leaning against the glass panel that overlooked the first floor. Not much happened.

'Alex is lucky that there's nothing I really want to do today,' she thought idly. Ji Min bit her bottom lip. 'If he'd waited til tomorrow to ask for help, I'd have told him it was tough luck. I'm not missing that evasive driving practical.'

It would have been a good day to meet with Barry to pick up her money, or to sell off the contraband she'd brought with her. She could probably do that Thursday, though. It'd work out. She chewed her lip and wished she had a drink in hand.

It was tempting to leave and get one. There was a vending machine not far. Could she risk it?

She decided yeah, she could. Alex would send that text if the guy left the room.

She got a cold bottle of jasmine tea and brought it back to her stakeout point without incident.

The hour passed. She rationed her drink and had half of it left when the door opened and the group streamed out.

She watched casually to see which way her guy went. Left. To the hotel connected to the center? That would be a lucky break. She waited a moment before following at a leisurely pace.

The guy was annoying. He stopped and started, moved in a swaying line that meant he bumped into people on both sides of the walkway, and stopped for ten minutes to look at a display of keychains in the gift shop in front of the hotel. She ended up stopping and finishing her drink just so that she didn't look like a lunatic for copying him.

He took long enough in the store that she cut her losses and decided to come into the shop with him, in case he'd actually left out a back door.

"Yeah, we can do custom," the clerk was saying. She glanced over to see that her guy was standing in front of the counter. "It does take a while, though. Can you wait, or would you like to arrange a pickup?"

She dunked her empty bottle in the recycling bin and beelined towards the cold drink cases.

"Pickup," he said, way too loudly for the space. Ji Min frowned at her reflection in the glass of the drink case. She compared coffees and then looked at the relative prices of individual sized water and 2L bottles.

'I hate the markup,' she kvetched internally. 'It's too distinctive to carry around a 2L bottle though.'

She took a 600ml bottle and a pack of gum to the register. Her target was currently spelling out what he wanted on the keychain.

"Splodo," the clerk read off. There was no judgment in his tone. Ji Min assumed that was a professional skill and not his genuine reaction. "In all caps, with a space between the L and the O?"

"Yeah. It's cool, isn't it?" He ruffled his own hair. It fell back down sweatily, nearly touching the collar of his shiny red jacket.

'He does need to go to jail,' Ji Min thought ruefully. 'He sucks. My brother in crime, what are you doing? Are you actually 12? That's not a good name.'

She stole another glance at him. A fraternity ring glinted on his finger. She made a note of the shape. That was something to look up later to track him down with if she needed.

"I can help you over here," said another clerk, only halfway out of the entrance to what must be their back room.

Ji Min smiled faintly and nodded. She answered the clerk with quiet yeses and nos. Ideally SPL ODO wouldn't really notice her. She left the gift shop well before he did and hedged her bets by going about 200 ft down, towards the hotel. Either he'd go that way and she'd slip in behind him, or he'd go the other and she'd have a bit of following distance to make up.

He came to the hotel. She fell in line close enough behind him to slip into the same elevator. He pressed the button for the 5th floor and sniffled. She pretended not to see him wipe his runny nose on his hand and she selected the 6th floor. That was when he noticed her.

She caught him looking at her in her peripheral vision. She looked at her phone. There was a message from Alex suggesting that they get margaritas.

"Ooo, margs," said SPL ODO over her shoulder.

'What the actual fuck is wrong with him? Margs?'

Ji Min had to look at him at that point. It involved taking a step to the side and twisting to look at him because he was way into her personal space.

He took a step closer. "If you don't wanna get margs with him, I have shampaggknee." He was close enough for her to notice his smoky cologne.

She took a moment to parse that. He meant champagne.

"I could get you some tequila rose," he offered.  He must have realized she wasn't jumping at the chance for shampaggknee.

'There's so much more wrong with him than I thought.' She marveled.

From the context that he'd made the suggestion, there had to be something really wrong with tequila rose. Ji Min took a guess at what it was. "Is that the alcohol with the worm in it?" She guessed.

He shrugged. "It can have a worm in it if you want it to."

She stared.

Was that an innuendo or was he going to go dig for an actual worm? What was he going to try to put into tequila?

"Yes," she said. She needed to know where this was going. "What's your room number?"

He told her. "I'm just stopping in now, I'll be gone for about an hour, though," he apologized. "I'll come back at 16:00ish and we can have aaaaalllll night."

"Thanks," Ji Min said, mentally scheduling a lazy hour for ransacking his room. But maybe she didn't need to. Maybe she should just ask him his legal name and address. It kind of seemed like he'd give it to her.

He was such a fuckup that she was kinda into it. Not sexually, of course. God no. But if he was in a zoo she would go to see the exhibit.

He gave her a schmoozy grin. Unfortunately, he was kind of hot, so it probably worked on some people. "See you then, babe." He gave her double fingerguns and then shot them at the ceiling with a "pwew pwew pwew" sound effect.

She looked at him, troubled by everything about him. The elevator dinged.

"That's my stop," he said cheerfully, and barged off without turning around. He nearly knocked into the old man getting on. He didn't notice the grandfather giving him the middle finger.

Ji Min looked up at the light showing they were only on the 4th floor. She looked at SPL ODO, shooting pwew pwew pwew at the ceiling as he walked away backwards.

She pressed the close doors button.

The grandfather eyed her when they were safely away from SPL ODO. "You could do better," he said. "A lot better."

"Thank you," Ji Min agreed politely. The elevator stopped on the 5th floor. She hit the button to close the doors again immediately. She wasn't sure if SPL ODO realized he was on the wrong floor yet.

She got off at the 6th floor and wandered over to the window, pulling on her gloves absently. She waited until she saw SPL ODO tromp away in his brown combat boots before she went into the hallway and tried his door on the off chance that he'd left it halfway open.

She was almost proud of him when she saw that it was latched shut. She went back to the stairwell, forced open a window, and leapt to the adjoining windowsill. She walked herself hand over hand to the end, swung to the next, and repeated the process.

His window was totally open. The curtains were shut. He'd probably forgotten the window was open.

"No," Ji Min said, dismayed. "You were doing so well by closing the door." That didn't stop her from hoisting herself into his room.

It was louder than she would have expected. The heater whirred furiously, losing a fight against an open window in January.

She surveyed his space. He traveled with two large suitcases. One of them was open on the floor. She pawed through it carefully. Gym shorts, tube socks, muscle tees, one suit (not stored safely in a bag), and an array of hair and skincare materials.

The second suitcase was full of spaghetti stained Tupperware. She frowned as she picked the first one up. Written on the lid in black marker was "plutonium".

She zipped the suitcase back up.

"That's not MY business," Ji Min mumbled.

She stood a few steps away from it and then looked over the desktop. "No," she said, dismayed. "Buddy." She felt bad for him as she leaned over what he'd left out. Next to the hotel notepad and the phone was a credit card. She rubbed at her temple as she snapped a picture of the card.

His real name was Doctor Davidson.

"...Did he change his first name to Doctor?" She wondered, sickly fascinated with this man. He was exquisite. "Or did someone name a baby Doctor- I want to meet his mother." She shook her head in disbelief. "This is one of the best encounters of my life." She flipped over his card to take a photo of the code, just in case she needed it.

It was hard to imagine she'd need much more information, but she went through the rest of the room anyway. He was the type of guy who hung up his towels so that the staff didn't waste water washing them after one use. The trash can had a neatly folded pizza box in it. He'd forgotten a pen under his pillow.

She used it and a piece of paper from the hotel notepad to write him an apology, claiming that she couldn't make it. She taped it to his door on the way out.

She left the hotel out of the actual exit onto the street rather than getting redirected to the conference center, already palming her phone out. Ji Min was typing out a yes to the margaritas when she noticed a man on the ground down the side street. She stopped mid step, eyes wide.

Doctor was using his hands to pull up grass. He apparently didn't know that he needed to pull it up by the roots. He was just snapping the grass off and piling it up.

Ji Min put a hand over her mouth and watched.

He got the grass up and started scrabbling through the roots. A middle aged woman walking an elderly Chihuahua went around him in a wide loop on her way past, recording on her phone and scowling. He didn't seem to notice.

He'd reached the dirt now. He started sifting through it with his hands.

"Yes!" Doctor hooted. He held a worm up in the air. Some dirt fell on his face. "We're going to dinner, little buddy!" With a boyish grin on his face he knelt back down and tried to put the grass back.

"He's going to make someone such a happy wife," Ji Min mused. "Not me. God no." She squinted at him where he was crouched in the dirt. He was using the tequila to rinse off his worm now. "Not sure who. I hope they're up on their vaccinations."

For one moment, she considered his offer seriously. She could go and take the note off his door and see where the night led her. Who could judge her, Alex? He had no moral high ground. First off, he was obsessed with Doctor already. Plus he'd fuck the panty lines guy if he had a chance. That had to be worse. How many chances did you really get to enjoy champagne with a man who'd apparently never heard the word said aloud before?

She wanted to make him talk and drink in the way he interpreted the world. How did he think airplanes stayed in the air, for example? Did he actually even know what a laser was? Why did he keep putting spaghetti into new containers rather than reusing the one?

'But if I go there, I'm at least going to make out with him, and the worm would know what I'd done. I can't live with that.'

Ji Min left and had a margarita with Alex. She passed on the name and made fun of Alex for being obsessed with Doctor and his plutonium jumbo laser plans.

Alex left at first light to find a way to get dangerous materials away from Doctor, leaving her alone for the rest of the conference.