Ch. 61 – Searching at Night

‘Don’t let them leave Chinatown. Track them if they try,’ the text file said. The photo thumbnails of Derrick, Tony, and their shop’s storefront were open next to the text file.

Derrick’s heart dropped. Who in the world had taken these pictures, and kept this log file?

The pictures were all taken at different times of day, and, if Derrick remembered right, on different days altogether. This wasn’t some fanciful ‘life in Chinatown’ candid photo album. It was intentional surveillance, as if the name of the folder left any room for doubt.

He opened each other pictures in the folder and flipped through them. There was another one of Derrick in the shop’s car, driving on what seemed to be the highway near the sea wall. And then several pictures of other people Derrick didn’t recognize. Some of those images had hints of landmarks in the background that hinted that they were taken in Chinatown.

There weren’t any pictures of the inside of Hack Alley, but if someone had gotten that close to the shop to take a picture of the storefront . . . they might’ve been able to slip inside while Derrick and Tony were out, and install surveillance equipment.

Was he being watched right now? Derrick shut the laptop screen, and whirled around in his room. He hadn’t been prepared for this possibility. His room was definitely messy enough to hide a camera or recording device in. And if there was a camera, the surveillant would’ve seen that Derrick had seen the pictures. But, there was still a chance that the recording devices needed to be physically retrieved. Okay, first things first, he needed a room that was safe from surveillance, so he could investigate in privacy, and show Tony the pictures without any surveillant knowing that Tony had seen them.

Derrick crept out of his room and went over to the sink, filling a glass of water, and then meandered over to the shop, where he lingered by the wireless router, sipping water, and leaning his hand on the router. After downing half the cup, he raised his hand as if to wipe off his mouth, but hit the router’s power button on the way up. The router’s lights shut off.

Alright. If there were surveillance devices that had been connecting to the internet via his router, they were now no longer able to send data. It didn’t help him deal with devices that had their own data connection, via cell tower or satellite, but at least it was something. Derrick yawned and shuffled back to his room and closed the door, set the cup down, and then started rooting around. He divided the room into quadrants, and worked his way around the first quadrant, peeking around the corners of furniture, and under dirty clothes, to see if there were hidden cameras anywhere. He shook each shirt and pair of pants before folding them neatly in a pile in a cleaned out spot of the first quadrant. After clearing out most of his clothes—it was strange seeing so much bare floor in his room—it was time to start looking in the drawers and other storage areas. He started another pile of clean clothing on his bed. By the time he had gone through all four quadrants, there wasn’t a single hidden camera to show for it. He wiped his forehead, and the sweat trickled down his arm. He hadn’t cleaned his room this vigorously since he’d been a kid. It was a nostalgic feeling, except that the back pain was even worse now that he was older.

But his work wasn’t done yet. He had learned the trick from Maxine sometime ago. He flicked the flashlight on his cell phone on, and swept the beam across his wall in a snaking pattern, making sure to cover every inch of wall. If there was a device cleverly implanted in the wall, then there was a chance he’d be able to catch it glimmering in the flashlight’s beam. But even this yielded nothing.

Derrick stretched his stiff fingers out and cricked his neck. After the stress of meeting with the Kims and searching for the Drifter, he was tempted to fall onto his bed, still dripping sweat onto his clean clothes, and shut his eyes for the night.

But. But.

But, if someone was watching him and Tony over that long of a time frame—judging by the pictures—then it was completely plausible that they’d found a chance to sneak into Hack Alley and plant a recording device of some time, even just a simple sound recording. The device didn’t even need to have network capabilities, as long as the owner could retrieve it later.

Just the thought of someone hearing him breathe through the night sent a chill down Derrick’s spine. He slapped his own face for spirit, and the rough texture of his calluses on his cheeks woke him up.

He was going to at least clear out his room tonight. Derrick got both hands on either side of his dresser and strained, as he pulled it away from the wall.

#

Whatever was under Derrick’s head was very uncomfortable. He tugged it to one side, trying to smooth it out, but the wrinkle on the cloth kept pressing into the side of his head. His eyes opened, and Derrick jerked awake, pushing himself up from the pile of previously clean clothes on his bed. He checked his phone. It was around 10 AM. He must have overslept his alarms.

The door to his room was still closed, and the room was much more organized than he felt it should be, although some furniture was still in disarray . . . Had he finished scanning the entire area for hidden devices, and started moving some furniture back? The memories from last night were hazy, but gradually took shape. Yes, he had started moving things back, but he was so tired that he was going to just ‘sit on the edge of his mattress and rest for a bit.’ But obviously, sitting became lying, and he must have drifted away to sleep shortly after.

So his room was supposedly now a safe space—as far as Derrick could tell, anyway. It was time to tell Tony about the pictures. The laptop sat on the side of his mattress. It was still plugged into the wall, and was almost hot to the touch, despite being in sleep mode. He cleared off his dresser, and set the laptop on it, finagling the power cord so it wouldn’t catch on anything. Okay, it was in place, and not visible if you cracked the door open, so if there was a hidden camera looking into his doorway, it wouldn’t see the laptop.

Derrick walked up to his door and took a deep breath as his hand hovered over the doorknob. Usually, Derrick would have waited for the fresh air of the shop to breathe in so deeply. The taste of the air in his room—stale, and like old laundry—reached the back of his throat, and he almost gagged on reflex, as he had had no time to steel himself. But Derrick held it down, instead breathing the air out slowly, and letting the tension flow out of his arms, and into his finger tips. He would open the door like normal, and head into Tony’s room like normal. If someone was watching him, he didn’t want to tip them off.

Derrick swung the door open and trudged out of his room like he’d been up all night—which he had, so that part was easy. He knocked on Tony’s door. “TONYYY. IT’S TIME TO GET UP.”

Tony groaned, and there was some bumping around in his room, but no hint of the louder mattress creaks that signified him getting up out of bed.

Derrick braced himself and opened the door, letting the stench inside waft out into the room a bit before he entered. “Come on now, it’s time to get up, Tony.” He shook Tony’s meaty shoulder, and Tony’s substantial gut shook a bit as well.

Tony stirred, eyes narrowed and squinting up at Derrick. “Wha time izzit?” he asked.

“It’s around ten. Honestly, you could’ve slept in a bit more, but I need your help categorizing some of our finances. Can you come over to my room to take a look at them?”

Tony grumbled and scratched himself all over as he sat up on the mattress, and then pushed himself up. “Yeah, sure. Lemme clean myself up first.”

“Okay, just stop by when you’re ready,” Derrick said. He walked back to his own room, and shut the door again. He scanned the walls with his phone’s flash light once more just in case, but couldn’t spot any recording devices. Tony knocked on his door a few minutes later, and Derrick let him inside, closing the door behind the both of them.

Tony squinted again and rubbed at his eyes. “What’s going on, my boy? Am I imagining things, or are you antsier than a . . . anthill?” He shook his own head at the horrible simile.

Shoot, had it really looked that obvious? Hopefully it was just Tony picking up on the little quirks of Derrick’s behavior, and not something that anyone could tell from watching Derrick through a hidden camera. “Well,” Derrick whispered, cupping his hand and speaking toward Tony’s ear. “There is something going on, and I ask that we remain very quiet while I show you what it is.”

Tony blinked twice, opened his mouth as if to speak, and then shut it again. “Damn,” Tony whispered. “As if we weren’t already in a lot of trouble. Alright, out with it then. What’s the problem?” His gaze wandered towards Derrick’s nightstand, and then locked onto the old laptop. “Wait a second. That isn’t the shop laptop. What’re you doing with that old junker?”

Derrick put a finger to his lips, and then unlocked the laptop. “I’ll show you. I can’t tell if we’re being monitored, so please keep quiet. I’ll be blunt: it’s shocking.”

Derrick pulled up the images of Tony, Derrick, and some other Chinatown residents. Tony made to move, but ultimately didn’t. But when Derrick pulled up the note, and Tony leaned in to read the text, Tony’s face went red, and his cheeks shook, as if he were about to explode.

“Now, I don’t know who this data card originally belonged to,” Derrick whispered. “But I figured anything that has candid pics of the shop, and us, is dangerous enough to warrant the precautions. And the laptop we’re viewing it on has a busted wireless module, so it should be safe to use.”

Tony stood in silence, stroking his chin and flipping through the pictures on the laptop. “What in the world is going on,” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Derrick said. “But I knew I had to show you. This is either a really unfunny prank, or someone really is tailing us.”

Tony looked up at the ceiling, and then scanned through the rest of the room, his gaze sweeping in wide arcs.

“I searched this room for bugs before you got here,” Derrick whispered. “I can’t guarantee that it’s clean, but the rest of the shop is a total unknown—and that’s why I wanted to meet in my room—but it’s good to check it again anyway: two pairs of eyes are better than one.

Tony’s scrunched up shoulders relaxed, but he kept scanning the room, “Good, good. You’re a sharp one, Derrick.” His gaze settled back on Derrick, and something stirred in his eyes, cutting past the hangover that he’d been breaking out of since Derrick woke him up. Tony said nothing, but pursed his lips, and looked back down at the laptop again. “You think this is a lousy joke? Some sorta new age humor?”

“I know some people get their kicks like this,” Derrick said. He’d browsed through forums full of those types. “But this shows real dedication. Many of these pictures were taken days apart, so that means it’s either a very dedicated joke, or it’s not a joke at all. And I found the data card completely by chance, so it’s not like someone meant for me to pick it up—“

“Where’d you find this thing, anyways?” Tony asked.

Something caught in Derrick’s throat. “Uh, I—I was dumpster diving, and I found it on the ground.” This was technically true. Derrick cleared his throat, and continued with the confidence that he was only lying by omission. “It was out of sight, wedged between the ground and the wall, so there was a good chance that I might’ve missed it.”

Tony squinted harder at the pictures, rubbed his chin, and then rubbed his eyes as if trying to see past this mystery. “Fuck. Who the hell did we piss off? It can’t be the Leopards: they would’ve just snatched us up straight away if they had questions and didn’t want us to leave town. Rats. Don’t tell me it was those Dixies that you stirred up?” His brow furrowed in frustration.

Hm. Derrick hadn’t considered that. But . . . “I don’t think so . . . . The Dixies don’t have any contacts in Chinatown, I imagine. And a white guy snooping around Chinatown would stick out, especially if he wasn’t a drifter.”

“Ah, no you’re right,” Tony said. The two of them rubbed their chins in silence.

“What do you think we should do, Tony?” Derrick asked.

“Beats me,” Tony said, rubbing his hair and inhaling through his teeth. “I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t trying to leave town anyways.”

“Yeah . . . .” Derrick said. “But Tony.” He put a hand on Tony’s meaty shoulder. “I want to say something; and I’m speaking from the heart here.”

Tony nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Should we leave town once we figure out who this belongs to? The Leopards are getting hungrier and hungrier, and now we’ve got some sort of . . . stalker, and they don’t seem friendly. I get the feeling that things in Chinatown are going to go downhill.”

“That depends on who the mystery cameraman is, my boy,” Tony said. “You know what I think? We need a professional. Someone who can pull all the clues out of this data disk. But who to send it to . . . .”

Maxine! She didn’t specialize in digital forensics, but she surely knew a thing or two, and—most importantly—was discreet. Unless she was in cahoots with the stalker, she’d be able to get them started at least. “One of my contacts might be able to help. We’ve used them for other jobs in the past, and they’ve always done good work and been discrete,” Derrick said. “The problem is,” he said, glancing back down at the laptop, “they don’t exactly live in Chinatown. If I leave Chinatown to see them, do you think it’ll trigger . . . whatever consequences the stalker wrote about in their notes?”

Tony shook his head. “I doubt it. I bet this stalker’d only perk up if we moved for good, or were out of town for more than a day. You’ve made trips to New Shore City and back, and even picked me up from a hospital, right? Nothing’s happened since then, besides you finding this card.”

“That’s true,” Derrick said. “Shit, we better unplug this data card then. I don’t want anything to get accidentally deleted before my contact can look at it.” Derrick took the data card out of the laptop, and laid it on top of the laptop.

“We’ve got our plan of attack then,” Tony said. “Let’s keep our mouths zipped shut until this contact can get us started.”

“Agreed,” Derrick said.

They both breathed at the same time, and the room was quiet again.