Ink Portals

Chong

9

The next morning Pierre was the first to wake up, dressed in a hotel robe, emerging from his hole-in-the-wall like some kind of long-haired mammal that had hibernated through the winter. The others were still asleep.

The only accommodation they could find at such short notice was at a capsule hotel. The place catered to travelers who wanted a space to sleep and nothing more; no room to stand up, just a bed inside a wall where you could crawl inside and sleep, undisturbed, for the night - like the wall compartments at a morgue, but a little more up-beat.

The place was dark, silent, and clinically clean. Pierre, who was still very groggy at that time of the morning, climbed down the rungs outside his capsule and went along the dimmed hallway, lit only by a strip of light at foot-level to guide guests. He made his way to the lobby where sunlight poured in through the glass doors of the entrance. Pierre used the keys they gave him at reception to retrieve his shoes from a locker next to the check-in counter. A young Japanese girl, dressed in hotel uniform and exhibiting excellent posture, smiled eagerly at him from behind the reception desk. The clerk's smile turned to disgust when she saw Pierre absently scratching at his crotch. His hair was disheveled on the side of his face from his pillow.

"Konnichiwa," Pierre said, sleepily passing by the reception area.

He got some coffee from the machine and went outside to have a cigarette.

Pierre stood in the sunlight and closed his eyes, relishing the early morning sun on his face. He took a puff from his cigarette and sipped his coffee without opening his eyes.

"Where are you, Annie?" he said aloud. "Oh, how I miss you."

Pierre opened his eyes and focused on a man sitting alone on a bench, looking at him from the other side of the street. When they made eye contact the man got up and crossed the road towards him.

"Mr. Chong wishes to see you," the man said, offering no greetings or introductions.

"Of course he does," Pierre said, taking a moment to finish off the rest of his coffee.

"There is a car waiting to take you to him," the man said, motioning to an SUV with tinted windows parked a few yards away from the hotel entrance.

"Cheers," Pierre said, handing the man his empty paper cup. He flicked his cigarette into the gutter and went inside to wake up the others.

*

Chong's chauffeur dropped them off at the entrance of a large skyscraper in uptown Tokyo. The driver got out and ushered Jack and company into the lobby where a doorman took their bags and led them to the elevator.

"Jeez," Arthur said, helping Abby with her bag. "This is a fancy place for a mobster to have his clubhouse."

The elevator started moving smoothly as it wafted them upwards.

"Yeah," Jack said, scanning the mirrors and wood finishing with brass hand-rails inside the elevator. "Chong has moved up in the world since the last time we saw him. He used to run his operations out of an old shipping container on the Tokyo dockyard."

"And they say crime doesn't pay," Pierre said, smirking.

There was a discreet ping and the doors slid open, revealing a sprawling, double story penthouse. Arthur's gaze was pulled upwards, tracing the serpentine bodies of golden dragons, coiling up around marble pillars that stretched up to an impossibly-high ceiling. The walls were decorated with Japanese paintings depicting geishas, koi fish and dragons in beautifully articulated brushstrokes.