2019-11-02 - May Every Empty Parking Space You See In The Distance Actually Contain a Motorcycle

An order was put in about twenty minutes ago for two orders of egg rolls, red curry with steamed rice and chicken satay. The name given was simply Javier, with a phone number to reach him at.

The hotel's vacancy sign is lit tonight, as per usual. Most of it, anyway. Vacan y. The guy at the front desk is a balding man in grungy clothes reading a book and looking supremely bored. Classic rock's playing on the radio sitting atop the desk, and there's a bucket set up to catch the water dripping from a leak in the roof. Plink plink plink.

The whine of a Vespa motor that's seen better days sounds in the lot not too long after the last text, and No Duchannes pulls into the Murder Motel far after most local restaurants have closed. The Vespa is probably missing a gear. It sounds a little funny. There's a scrape up the side and a pumpkin still strapped to the back with bungees. She parks it, kicks the kickstand, and hops off, unloading a bag of food, paper bag inside plastic bag, and jams a couple pair of choppy sticks down the container before she makes her way over to kick open the back door and wander through the halls.

She peers down at her phone it klaxons again, and rolls her eyes at the screen. "That's why you stir the spit in." She jams a fresh piece of watermelon-strawberry scented gum into her mouth and hoofs it down to Room 14. She slides her phone into her pocket, chomps her gum, and blows a huge bubble right as she reaches up to pound on the door, side-fist just like a cop knock. It probably wakes up two rooms in either direction. If they were sleeping, or even occupied rooms. The gum bubble is still growing.

It's a minute or so before whoever's inside deigns to get their ass up and open the door. The thunk of the deadbolt being slid out of the way is heard first, followed by the door being swung open. The guy on the other side is in his mid-40s, Hispanic, tallish and sturdily built; tee shirt and jeans and ink for days down both arms. Looks done with yesterday's shit, today's shit, and the shit that hasn't yet happened, but he's bound to have to deal with tomorrow. "Hi," could probably have come out less friendly if he really put some effort into it.

The gum bubble is watched, wordlessly, and he waits for it to pop while digging in his jeans pocket for his wallet.

No is looking at her imaginary watch when the door opens, having popped and blown an enormous, sickeningly sweet scented bubble. She says around it, huge pink bubble bouncing, "Hi." She sucks in sharply, and the bubble snaps like a shot. She slurps it back into her face, then tries to tongue a piece stuck to her lip to no avail. She's giving him the hairy eyeball in the meantime, particularly the ink and watching where exactly it is that his hands go.

No is wearing vintage hip-hugger jeans, knees ripped out, shredded bits down the thigh, a deconstructed NIRVANA tee (vintage, duh), and an old green army jacket, clearly not hers, which is embroidered DUCHANNES across the velcro patch. Her wavy blonde hair is cut into a fashionably long lob, and her lipstick is fire engine red. She looks pretty done with today too, in particular done with cranky's instructions and delay in opening up his door.

No kidding, between the ratty ass tee shirt, murder motel room that looks oddly well lived-in, the disassembled guns sitting on the kitchen table and the ex-convict style full sleeve tattoos, he might have a few bodies hidden in the bathroom behind that closed door. Maybe that's why he took so long to get his ass over here. "Fuck. Come in, I'll uh. I think I left it over there." He tugs the door open wider, gaze dropping briefly to skim the girl from top to bottom, then back up again. Pauses on the DUCHANNES. "Just in case you forget your name?" he queries, with a flicker at the corners of his eyes that isn't quite a smile.

No gives Ruiz a seriously AYFKM side-eye, and blows another bubble, this one smaller, which she cracks LOUDLY while he's fumbling for his cash. The blonde steps in, but not very far. "Uh... huh." The second half of her erudite response is a little delayed in coming, because that's right about the time she makes note of all the gun parts laying around. Her gaze flicks back to the Latino. "Yeah, I hear they do that in the armed forces because IQs are kinda on the lowish side, because how else could you convince somebody to hold the line at the price of their life." Crack goes another bubble. She perfumes the room with her strawberry-waterlemon scent.

He waits, patiently, for Noelle to inch her way inside, then shoves the door shut. At least he doesn't throw the deadbolt, which would probably up the creepy factor by a bit. His pockets are patted down one more time as he drags his gaze over her, then turns and ambles off to retrieve his wallet. The room isn't precisely a mess; there's order in the disorder, like he has some kind of organisational scheme in mind. It's clean, too, and the bed's reasonably neatly made. Barefoot, the guy pads over to the nightstand and rifles about there for a moment. Another gun, this one looks government-issued. Unloaded magazine, too. No wallet.

"You're probably right." He goes to dig through a neat stack of paperwork on the table, instead. "Smart people get sucked in too, though. You make a good enough promise to someone in a bad enough place.." His eyes flick up to her, then back to his search.

No seems nonplussed by this revelation, though the number of weapons in the room do prompt a, "Are you expecting an invasion for your dumplings, which were hot when I got here?" She has no idea if they still are, and she subtly implies the liability is no longer hers. Since he's taking eighteen years to find his money. She scoots over toward the table to set the bag down amid the scattered weaponry. Rustle, rustle.

"You got a bug up your butt in general, or having a shitty day?" This is her best attempt at small talk while in a room surrounded by weaponry.

Shitty day, shitty week, shitty ever-since-he-moved-to-gray-harbour? "Yes," is his murmured reply, and he finally finds the damned wallet on top of the microwave. Obvious, right? A couple of crumpled bills are pulled out with a soft snap, and passed over. "Here you go. Thanks." The tip's decent, but could be better. As for the man? Close up, it's pretty clear he's been using recently. Red-rimmed eyes that don't quite meet Noelle's, looks like he's trying to come down off some kind of stimulant. Probably doesn't have a knife on him.

Noelle eyes Ruiz for a moment, taking the cash, flipping through it briefly before she shoves it into her pocket. Only once the cash is in her pocket does she say, "For $10 bucks extra, I'll deliver from other places too. You need some sugar hits, you let me know. Stay off the heroin man, they been lacing that shit with fentanyl and that will drop your ass. Housekeeping doesn't get paid enough to scrape you out of the mattress when you putrify." She takes a big step back toward the door. Still watching him though.

"I'll keep it in mind." He doesn't move. Just stands there and watches her as his food gets colder and colder. There's a flickered smile when she mentions the heroin. She's likely not gotten close enough to spot the faded track marks up his arms, but at least they're faded. Nothing recent is apparent. "Thanks again." By which he means, GTFO.

No gives Ruiz one more look over. She chomps her gum for a few beats before she blows another bubble. She snaps it turns and heads for the door. "Thanks for choosing Thai Table." That sounds genuine. Ruiz doesn't even have to say get out, and she definitely isn't going to chill in this space any longer than she has to, says her body language. "We look forward to your business in the future." She reaches for the door to pull it open.

He's a shifty, paranoid looking fucker, so he keeps his eye on her until she's fully out the door. Zero smile, zero friendliness, zero polite fibs about how he hopes she has a lovely rest of her day. He simply waits for her to go, shuts the door after her, and throws the deadbolt.

50/50 chance that she spit in his food, and he'll never fucking know it.

"This town's gonna eat you alive, mister," is what Ruiz may hear Noelle say as she makes her way down from room 14. She says it mostly to herself, but her self-voice isn't quiet. She pulls her hair back into a short tail, secures it with an elastic, and ignored the murdery sounds she hears coming from room 16 as she passes by. Not her circus, not her monkeys.

When she passes the ice machine, it makes a huuurrrooooophh chunk-chunk noise, but she just side-eyes it and keeps on movin'. Her phone rings, she pulls it out of her pocket. "Yeah. What. No. Ok. Keep your panties on." And then she's mounting up on the Vespa and puttering off into the night.