Did I feel like an idiot when I woke up in the middle of the street smelling like cigarette butts and soaking wet?
You bet I did.
My suit was stuck to me like an unwanted second layer of skin, which made waking up all the more embarassing and uncomfortable in the thin light of the early morning sun.
"Oh the laughs Krao would have if he saw this." I picked myself up, and much to my displeasure I realized grotesquely that my suit had actually hardened somewhat, making my every step accentuated with a sort of crackling noise. And I'm sure you can imagine my extreme displeasure when I heard that always customary greeting of a knuckle crack somewhere off in the distance. You can tell I'm the lucky sort of guy, can't you? "I bet you are trying so hard not to laugh right now." I grunted through well-placed grimace while trying to make an effort to turn around.
Krao stood not ten feet from me, grinning like a madman [and in my opinion he was one], cracking his knuckles in a "I'm not laughing on the outside, but in the inside I'm laughing so hard I'm peeing my pants" sort of fashion. And where was my gun when I needed it? On the ground, mocking me with it's cold glare in the city's hopeless light.
"Betrayer." I muttered towards the gun, and of course this just made me seem all the more crazy to this knuckle-cracking madman.
"Good morning, sweetheart. Sleep well?" Again, mocking. This time it wasn't coming from my mouth though, but I dearly wished I had the chair from the previous night to lug at his head. Dearly wished. And the fact that I was imagining Krao in an apron wasn't really helping either.
"I think the crackling of my suit can answer that question for you, dear." I sneezed, mentally noting to myself to bring an umbrella next time to avoid the unpleasantry of a cold. "Does it look like I slept well?"
I'm sure the reddish rings around my eyes and the sight of my nose dripping like a broken faucet accentuated my point, I like to fancy it did, but Krao broke out laughing like crazy and only deigned to talk to me after several continuous minutes of gutbusting fun. He had laughed at me so hard it had brought tears to his small squint-ish eye [He had an eyepatch on the other], so now as he finally stopped, he wiped it on the cuff of his dress jacket.
"Well I have to say, during the half of the night I watched you you seemed quite comfortable." This started another spurt of laughter, which ended when I gave Krao a deft punch in the shoulder.
"So anyway, why the hell were you watching me?" Wiping my nose on my black sleeve I slumped onto a nearby bench, red rimmed eyes peaking from behind a serious case of morning bedhead.
"The Ace sent me, of course. And I thought you were the smart one." Krao brushed off his suit smartly, shoving both hands into his coat pockets as he stood nearby me. "The better question is why the hell were you sleeping out here! Even the lowliest Diamond could have killed you out here in these condition. You're a Jack for crying out loud!" Number Six threw up his hands in an experated gesture, as if fed up by my insane antics.
"First you're my wife and now you're my mother. Fascinating." Which it was in truth not at all fascinating. Not in the least. Downright creepy was what it was. "And a Diamond would never come out on a rainy night like that, muscles-for-brains. We both know it." At least one of us did. And here's a clue: It wasn't Krao.
"You never know." Krao shrugged, looking much smarter than me at the moment with his spiky red gelled up hair and clean suit. The X shaped scar on his nose crinkled.
"You smell horrible."
"Yes, mother, I know." Standing up, I tried my best to curtly brush myself off and arrange my nest of black hair into something managable. "Let's go back to Headquarters."
"That's what I've been waiting for."
"Oh just shut up."
[ To be C O N T I N U E D in P A R T [ one ] D A Y [ two ] II ]
