Ancil“A waffle?” Jenna seemed confused.
“Forget it.”
“Alright,” Jenna said, stretching her words.
There was a moment of silence as we walked then I said, “so what about you?”
“What about me?”
“What are you in for? You know, in the shelter.”
“You mean besides the fact that my father is in jail?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Nothing else really. My brother and I don’t have any family left that would take we in. I never meet my mother and-.”
“How is that even possible? If you’re older than John than you must have met your mother at some point in time.”
“I call John my brother but he’s actually my step brother; same father, different mother. I never really knew what happened to John’s mommy but I never bother to ask.”
“Ohh.”
“What you in for?” Jenna asked.
“You mean besides the fact that I’m broke,” I joked.
“Yeah,” Jenna laughed.
“Well, I killed a man,” I joked.
“Oh really,” Jenna said, playing along.
“Yes with my bare hands. He was coming at me all hungry and whatnot trying to eat my flesh with his rotted teeth but I grabbed him by his head and slammed it against a wall. You gotta aim for the brain, you know.”
“Sounding like a zombie,” Jenna said.
“A walker, to be exact.”
“What’s a walker?” Jenna asked.
“A walker is Rick and his pals’ term for the walking dead.”
“What, that’s like a TV show or something?”
“Something like that.”
Jenna stopped walking and I followed after, stopping almost too abruptly. “What?” I asked, confused as to why we suddenly stopped walking.
“This is the taxi stand.”
“Oh ok. Thanks,” I said.
“No problem.”
I went up to one of the taxis but before I got into it, Jenna called out, “wait!”
I stopped and turned back to her.
Jenna took out a couple dollars from her pocket and said, “Tanty Mavis tell me to give you this. Just in case.”
I told her thanks and then went into a taxi. She stood on the pavement and looked on as the taxi drove off towards the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
The hustle and bustle of the busy city of Port Of Spain was not unlike that of any other major city. There was stand still traffic, honking horns and hoards of people. The roads were much narrower in Trinidad so traffic became almost unbearable but I eventually got to the hotel; a towering building staring directly out into the ocean.
“My name is Ronald Baker. I checked in the other night with a girl named Kate Warren,” I said to the guy at the front desk at the Hyatt.
“You booked for three days right?” The man asked while staring at the computer screen in front of him.
“Yes.”
He grabbed a key card, gave me it then said, “Have a nice day sir.” He smiled at me but it wasn’t a normal smile. It was the kind of smile people gave you before they were about to stab you in the back.
I just let it slide, eyeing him down longer than I should have then said, “thank you.”
I headed towards the elevator but before I got to it he said, “oh wait!”
I stopped in my tracks a bit afraid of what he was going to say. “Yes.”
“Two guys had come here looking for you and Kate Warren last night,” he said.
“Two guys?” I repeated.
“Yeah. They say that there was friends of yours.”
“Any names?”
The guy typed a couple words into the computer in front of him then said, “they didn’t leave any names. Sorry.”
Without answering I just turned back to the elevator and my natural anxiety began acting up again. As I waited for it to descend, I felt both the chill of the air-conditioning unit of the lobby and the increasing worry slip through my pores in the form of sweat
I entered the elevator and right before the door closed a hand poked through causing it to reopen. Two men in black and white suits and shades walked in and stood right in front of me almost blocking the exit. To put how I felt lightly, I was terrified. I felt slightly relieved when the door opened and they let me pass but I still felt as though something was wrong.
While trying to open the hotel door, I looked around ensuring that no one was paying too much attention to me. Everyone seemed to be minding their own business unable to hurt a fly. I quickly entered the room, grabbed my bag and headed back out but before I got to the door the same two men in the black and white suits stood in front of it blocking me off. They just stood there without saying a word but between them I saw a face that was oh too familiar. It was Vince. But he wasn’t alone. Behind him, the tall figure of Tom Hiddens strolled up, through the men blocking the door. He wore a hoodie and a hat which basically blocked his face but I still recognized him.
“Well well well,” Vince snarled with a smirk. “What do we have here?”
