Room 819 (a short story)

Dear readers,

I haven't published a short story on my blog since November 2020. However, that doesn't mean that I wasn't working on some interesting new ideas. As a matter of fact, I will be publishing four quite different short stories over the next few months. Room 819 is the first of these short stories. This one here is a mixture of a corporate spy thriller and a personal drama. My short story has been inspired by different cold cases I have been reading about throughout the past two years. No victim ever remains forgotten, and the truth will always come out. This short story is a little bit longer than usual since the story has quite a few twists and turns. I hope you will enjoy reading this short story on a cold autumn or winter night. Don't hesitate to leave a comment or write me a message for feedback! Let's discover the mysteries of Room 819!

 

Room 819

 

Zheng Fang would have never thought that this ordinary rainy November evening would lead to such drastic changes in his life. The young man who had been born and raised in Taipeh was working as a security guard in a new luxurious hotel that was only a short drive away from the airport. He had been having this job for only half a year while continuing his studies to eventually work for the police. His idol was his brother-in-law Xiuying, a tough homicide detective who had dedicated his life to his job and had been living alone in a small downtown two-room apartment for over a decade. Sometimes, the two men took Xiuying’s old silver Toyota Corolla to get to work together. Both men often worked night shifts that offered better salaries and Xiuying’s police station was only a few minutes away from Fang’s hotel.

Xiuying had lowered the window of his shabby Corolla and was nervously smoking a cheap cigarette while being stuck in slow-moving traffic on this rainy night. He had been honking his horn several times but that didn’t make much of a difference. Xiuying took a look at the sophisticated watch he had inherited from his father who had died last summer.

‘’We will both arrive late at our shift if we keep being stuck in this traffic.’’, mumbled the grumpy police officer and flicked his cigarette out of the window and into the rain.

‘’The traffic will get better once we get across the bridge. There are a lot of people going to and coming from the airport. The last few flights arrive around ten o’clock.’’, calmly answered Fang but he also kept watching his sports watch his wife had offered him for their first wedding anniversary last week.

‘’You will be quite busy at the hotel, then. In my case, there might only be a few isolated cases of mugging and stabbing in the downtown area at best. Wednesdays are usually rather quiet however. Thursday to Saturdays are much worse. This week might however beat a new record’’, elaborated Xiuying while putting a piece of cherry gum into his mouth. He was nervously scratching his slowly greying beard that he hadn’t shaved in a week.

Fang observed his brother-in-law with a worrisome face. Xiuying was taking less and less care of himself. He didn’t only forget to shave but also started to wear clothes with holes in them and rarely cleaned his chaotic apartment. Fang agreed with his wife Liling that Xiuying needed to have a girlfriend. He was actually thinking of introducing him to the new receptionist Baozhai. She had only been working at the hotel for two weeks but Fang thought that she was charming, elegant and polite. He had actually realized that he felt somewhat attracted to the well-mannered woman in her early twenties but he kept reminding himself that he was already married and only getting closer to his colleague to introduce her to his brother-in-law.

Xiuying turned his head towards Fang as if he had been reading his thoughts. Fang quickly turned his head away and chuckled quietly.

The two men made it through the heavy traffic and arrived in front of the Grand Plaza Hotel only five minutes before Fang’s shift was about to start. He grabbed his umbrella and the lunchbox his wife had prepared for him. He gave a second lunchbox to Xiuying who shook his head with a sigh.

‘’Tell my sister that she doesn’t need to prepare meals for me. I’m not a high school student anymore.’’, complained Xiuying half-heartedly.

‘’You can’t deny that her meals are better than anything you or I would ever be able to prepare ourselves. You’ve got to be grateful!’’, said Fang with a cheerful smile.

‘’Yeah, I guess you’re right. Anyway, have a great shift. I will pick you up in eight hours. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’’, mentioned Xiuying with an ironic smile and drove swiftly away in the rain.

Fang entered the hotel and already saw Baozhai behind the reception. Her shift started at the same time as his but she often arrived thirty minutes to one hour in advance and didn’t mind staying longer at the end of her shift either. Her dedication and preparation were excellent and Fang didn’t doubt for one second that she would make her dream to one day become the manager of her own hotel come true.

‘’You’ve only just made it on time.’’, whispered Baozhai with a smile on her face that indicated that she was rather amused than upset when Fang finally showed up behind her and couldn’t help but smiling at her.

‘’I will come earlier tomorrow, so we can spend more quality time together.’’, replied Fang cheerfully and made the receptionist laugh.

She then went on to inform him about the things that had been going on in the hotel since his last shift.

‘’Alright, so there was a loud argument between the couple from room 216 who are on their honeymoon. Your colleague had to check on them about two hours ago and managed to calm them down. Apparently, the husband had been flirting a little bit too much with the waitress in our restaurant.’’, explained Baozhai with a little smile.

‘’Oh, do you mean Daiyu? He wouldn’t be the first guest to try. Her smooth skin, long legs and silky hair are certainly quite a sight.’’, commented Fang joyfully.

‘’I see that you are as observant as your brother-in-law. Anyway, a new guest from room 417 smashed his television earlier today when his baseball team lost. We had to bring him a new television and charged him with a fine that he has to pay on checkout. From what I have heard, he had put a lot of money on his team and certainly didn’t expect to lose so much.’’, continued Baozhai while Fang was shaking his head in disbelief.

‘’There you have it. Betting money only leads to trouble. My father’s gambling addiction was so bad that he lost his job and my mother kicked him out of our home when I was in elementary school. He had to do a therapy and eventually moved back in but he was never the same again.’’, added Fang while reminiscing on his troublesome upbringing.

‘’Every man needs a strong woman to guide him. Anyway, the last noteworthy incident was a microwave that exploded in room 707. The guest tried to heat a soup but the bowl somehow reversed and it made quite a mess. Room service had quite a few things to fix there.’’, concluded Baozhai cheerfully.

‘’It’s quite strange to stay at one of Taipeh’s most expensive hotels and then to heat some cheap soup in a microwave.’’, remarked Fang with a weird look upon his face.

‘’In my opinion, we should get rid of those cheap mainland microwaves and replace them with some decent ones from Japan.’’, admitted Baozhai whose father was the owner of a hardware store and who was quite interested in the concept of home improvement herself.

‘’Well, let’s see what strange cast of characters might be checking in tonight.’’, mumbled Fang as he could see a group of flight attendants entering the hall.

‘’They are certainly not stranger than a guy who can’t afford his own car and is driven to work by a homicide detective.’’, replied Baozhai with a bright smile.

Fang really appreciated her bittersweet humour and realized that the last five minutes had passed in a heartbeat. He couldn’t help but feeling attracted to the charming receptionist. He tried to chase that thought away but he had to admit that he had been thinking about her more and more regularly. Fang sighed with sorrow and tried to focus strictly on the new guests instead.

Four flight attendants who had just arrived from a flight from Tokyo checked in. They were regulars and were chatting cheerfully with Baozhai. They were asking her if she could recommend a cocktail bar downtown and the receptionist was quite eager to share her favourite spots with the new guests. Fang’s thoughts shifted away as he realized that he had rarely been going out lately and that it might be a nice change to go drink a few cocktails with Baozhai when they had their next day off.

Up next, two pilots checked in who had been on the same flight. The elderly pilot looked quite serious and severe and was asking for the quietest room in the hotel since he had another flight to Bangkok the next day. The co-pilot was quite the opposite and asked the receptionist with a quirky smile what cocktail bar the flight attendants were planning on going to. Fang listened to the meaningless conversation from afar and couldn’t help but admiring how casual, joyful and sociable Baozhai was with all the guests.

The next guest who entered the hotel was quite remarkable. She was dressed completely in black from her high heels over her tights and her skirt to her shaded sunglasses that seemed out of place on a dark and rainy November night. Even her medical mask was as black as night. The guest looked nervously around as if she were afraid to be followed or observed by someone. She anxiously fumbled with her purse and looked inside several times without taking anything out. It took her quite some time to actually walk towards the reception with fragile steps.

‘’Good evening and welcome to Grand Plaza Hotel. How may I help you today?’’, asked Baozhai friendly and put a big smile upon her face to make the strange guest feel welcome.

The woman in black didn’t react at first and continued to look around before she smiled nervously and nodded hectically.

‘’Good… good evening. I called yesterday to reserve a room for two nights. It was a room for one person. But there is a little problem. There has been a change. Could I book a room for two persons for two nights?’’, asked the mysterious lady in broken English.

A group of young women dressed in colourful clothes made quite some noise when they entered the lobby. They were laughing a lot and possibly quite drunk. Fang suspected that they were celebrating a bachelor party. The party group seemed to make the strange guest even more nervous and Baozhai was trying to check her in as quickly as possible.

‘’That’s no problem at all. Could you please fill out these documents?’’, asked the receptionist and handed over two sheets of paper and a black pen. The first document included a series of personal questions while the second document asked questions related to the ongoing pandemic.

Fang tried to figure the mysterious guest out. Her skin was clean, elegant and almost shining. She certainly cared a great deal about her physical appearance. Her clothing looked expensive and seemed to come from abroad. She was about five feet four tall and so slim that she could almost be considered skinny. Her pitch-black hair was only a few inches long and combed towards the back with much hair gel. Fang didn’t consider her attractive personally but had to admit that she certainly had a unique style that might appeal to some people. She was however obviously socially awkward. She kept looking around but often lowered her head to avoid direct eye contact. Her accent seemed to indicate that she might have been Japanese. Fang suspected that she could have been on the same flight from Tokyo as the four flight attendants and two pilots. The mysterious lady slowly filled out the two documents while the bachelor party was waiting in line behind her and already complaining about the long wait. Baozhai waited patiently and with a radiant smile upon her face but her stiff body language indicated to Fang that she was all but comfortable in the presence of the awkward new guest. It seemed to take an eternity until the mysterious woman shakingly pushed the documents across the counter. She stressfully dropped the pen, hectically bent down to pick it up and nervously put it onto the desk.

‘’Alright, Miss Shimada Haruka. I would just need your credit card for the payment of two nights plus an additional deposit of five hundred New Taiwan dollars.’’, asked Baozhai politely.

The new guest shook her head several times, looked at the receptionist and then at the security guard before looking back at the bachelor party.

‘’I want to pay cash.’’, said the woman in a throaty voice, pulled a gigantic black wallet out of her purse, took out several bills and put them on the shiny counter.

‘’I’m sorry, Miss Shimada, but we usually only accept credit card payments.’’, explained Baozhai in a regretful tone but the new guest nervously moved her hands as if she tried to chase away some flies.

‘’You will make an exception for me.’’, replied the impatient guest.

Fang almost wanted to intervene due to the guest’s impolite and unusual behaviour but the guest had more to say.

‘’You can keep the change.’’, added the nervous guest.

Baozhai shook her head and smiled nervously while she was thinking about a way to ask for her weird guest to follow the customary rules.

‘’Please!’’, continued the guest with a big fake smile.

Baozhai was stunned and had her mouth wide open as she didn’t exactly know what to say. She was lost for words while the guests of the bachelor party kept complaining louder and louder. Fang moved around the counter and walked towards the loud guests to calm them down a little bit.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a tall man all dressed in black standing in a side entrance and observing the scene. He was wearing pitch-black sunglasses and had lowered his black medical mask to smoke a cigarette with an arrogant smile upon his face. The mysterious man was wearing black leather gloves despite the humid weather. He had a scar of about two inches on his left cheek that had the form of a half moon and that his little beard couldn’t hide. When the mysterious man realized that Fang was looking at him, he turned around, threw his cigarette into the rain and slowly stepped out into the darkness.

Fang couldn’t help but notice that the man was looking similar in style to the new guest and that his behaviour was almost as awkward as hers. Before Fang could think about it any longer however, he had to shift his attention towards the bachelor party. Some of the ladies were making him compliments. Fang certainly felt flattered, asked the new guests a few questions and shifted their attention away from the unusually long wait time.

Meanwhile, Baozhai was trying to keep the unusual situation with the new guest under control. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to accept that hotel guests paid in cash but the bachelor party was getting impatient, the mysterious lady had offered a big sum of money and Baozhai just wanted the situation to be over.

‘’Miss Shimada, you have almost given me twice the fee for the hotel room and the deposit.’’, protested Baozhai in confusion.

‘’It’s all good, my dear.’’, replied the new guest quickly and made Baozhai think of her rich grandmother when she was offering her an exaggerated gift for her birthday.

The receptionist sighed, took the documents on the counter and handed over two key cards.

‘’All right, Miss Shimada, here are your cards. You will be staying in room 819. The password for…’’, began Baozhai but her guest had already grabbed the cards, turned around and moved towards the closest elevators.

‘’Thank you!’’, tweeted the guest who suddenly sounded cheerful and almost sang the words rather than speaking them.

Before Baozhai could reply anything at all, the bachelor party guests came to the counter and were asking for four rooms. Fang kept looking at the mysterious guest who was pushing the button for the elevator multiple times as if that routine could make the wait time shorter. The new guest ran out of patience after only a few seconds, kept looking around and decided to use the staircase right next to the elevator.

Fang shook his head in surprise. He had come across quite a few strange guests but that one certainly took the cake. As he turned around to help Baozhai with her noisy guests, he saw how the man dressed in black had sneaked back into the lobby. He had rolled up the sleeves of his black shirt as if he were going to perform some hard manual labour. Fang could see that both arms were covered in colourful tattoos of dragons and fish all the way to the wrists. The security guard immediately made the association to a member of organized crime. Before Fang could even react, the shady man smoothly moved towards the elevator that had now arrived. He sneaked in noiselessly as the doors closed behind him and then went down to the hotel garage.

The security guard couldn’t quite explain what was going on but he had shivers all over his body and his gut feeling told him that something was very wrong.

*

            Xiuying looked dreadfully tired as he picked up Fang at the end of his shift. As a matter of fact, the homicide detective had arrived almost an hour later than expected. Fang was aware of the fact that his brother-in-law wasn’t always exactly on time but he usually tended to only be five to fifteen minutes late. The security guard could tell right away that his brother-in-law was under much pressure and didn’t dare to ask any questions.

            The homicide detective smoked his cigarette even quicker than he usually would and burnt it down to the very bottom before nervously lowering the window and throwing out the rest onto the busy downtown street. The short moment of fresh air entering the uncomfortable car seemed like a heavenly gift for Fang who finally felt like being able to breathe again.

            As his brother-in-law moved the window up again and sheepishly looked at Fang, he finally decided to open up and speak to him.

            ‘’I’m sorry for having arrived so late.’’, started the guilty homicide detective.

            ‘’No trouble, I’m sure you have had your reasons.’’, replied Fang diplomatically.

            ‘’I have had my reasons indeed.’’, confirmed Xiuying grimly as he lit another smelly cigarette and made Zhang cough quietly.

            ‘’What’s going on?’’, asked the security guard politely.

            ‘’There is going to be an important meeting of leaders of national and international pharmaceutical companies in downtown Taipeh this upcoming weekend. There have been important demonstrations against this conference today. The police needs to make sure that everyone stays safe. Even my colleagues and I from the homicide department have been tasked to take care of the situation. I don’t like it one bit.’’, mumbled Xiuying grimly.

            ‘’Why is this meeting such a big event?’’, asked Fang innocently.

            ‘’Well, we are still going through an important pandemic. Pharmaceutical companies are getting more attention than ever before. Some people are criticizing them for taking advantage of terrible circumstances while others would like to get their hands on the newest vaccines to sell or reproduce them for incredible amounts of money.’’, explained the homicide detective eagerly.

            ‘’So, you believe that some people might want to steal formulas and prototypes. Corporate espionage sounds like something from an outdated spy novel.’’, remarked Fang skeptically.

            ‘’Well, recent events have shown that we aren’t as advanced as we often would like to believe. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to witness something that could come from a Hitchcock thriller from the fifties.’’, replied Xiuying seriously as he left the main street and slowly drove towards the suburb where the two men were only living three blocks apart from each other.

            Fang didn’t insist on asking any further questions but couldn’t help wondering whether some of the members of these pharmaceutical companies, or worse, some of the potential spies, were currently staying at the hotel where he was working at.

*

            Two days later, Fang had a double shift at the hotel and was working sixteen hours in a row. His colleague’s wife was expecting her first child and they were at the hospital together. Fang didn’t actually mind spending more time at the job. His wife had criticized him for taking less care of her these days. His brother-in-law also kept asking annoying questions to figure out whether everything was going well. Coincidentally, Baozhai also had a double shift because her colleague had caught the coronavirus and Fang somehow thought that spending more time with his dear colleague would help him change his mind.

            ‘’Our shifts might be long but at least we get to spend more time together.’’, mentioned Fang awkwardly when Baozhai was yawning while preparing a hot cup of tea behind the receptionist’s counter.

            ‘’You know, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you should be spending more time with your wife than wasting your time with me.’’, replied Baozhai in a firm and serious tone that took Fang completely by surprise.

            ‘’What do you mean?’’, asked the confused security guard nervously but Baozhai only gave him a cold glance and nodded at the lady who had just arrived at the reception.

            It was the woman from two nights earlier. She was once again dressed elegantly all in black, was wearing her impenetrable sunglasses and faked a nervous smile.

            Fang somehow wanted to impress Baozhai after their awkward conversation. He decided to speak to the guest before Baozhai could. Fang had learned Japanese at college and wanted to show off his skills with the guest.

            ‘’Good morning, Miss Shimada. Are you ready to check out?’’, asked Fang politely and got a confused look from the guest and an angry look from Baozhai.

            ‘’Hello… hello, I wanted to know if I could extend my stay here for two more nights.’’, spoke the guest in broken English and was already about to take some money out of her big wallet.

            Fang wondered why the guest had not answered him or at least tried to speak Japanese. Her demeanor was as strange as two days earlier and made him think of an android that was trying to but failing to imitate accurate human behaviour. The mysterious lady made him think of some eccentric actress and he thought to himself that his thought might not be far off from the truth since she seemed to be particularly wealthy.

            A group of self-absorbed Chinese businessmen wandered towards the reception. Three of them were chatting about an important meeting that was going to be taking place downtown while the fourth man called a taxi and asked for it to be right at the hotel entrance in five minutes. Everybody seemed to be stressed out these days.

            Fang looked at the spot reserved for cabs outside but could see that an expensive black Mercedes was parked there instead. The driver was dressed all in black and as he turned his head to look towards the lobby, Fang had a jolt as he recognized the mysterious man from two nights ago.

            While Baozhai accepted her guest’s generous payment and recharged her key cards, Fang went around the counter and walked slowly towards the elegant car parked outside. The driver decided to look to the other side and ignore the security guard. Fang knocked on the window of the brand-new car and it took quite some time until the driver lowered the window just a little bit. Even though the driver was wearing shaded sunglasses, Fang felt that his eyes were cold, hostile and piercing. The driver didn’t speak one single word.

            ‘’Excuse me, sir, but this spot here is reserved for cabs. Could I please ask you to move your car. You can park on the western side of the building, right next to the side entrance.’’, explained Fang in English as he grew more nervous with every moment that he looked at the silent driver.

            The man in black didn’t react in any way. Fang wasn’t sure whether he was defying him or simply not understanding his words. He nervously decided to switch to Japanese and repeated his instructions.

            Once more, the driver didn’t react while the cab for the four businessmen rolled up behind the elegant Mercedes. The cab driver rose his hands in frustration and honked his horn impatiently.

            Fang momentarily stepped away from the elegant car and approached the cab driver who was now lowering his window and started complaining. As the security guard tried to calm the cab driver down, he saw how the mysterious woman stepped out of the lobby with heavy and slow steps. She was constantly looking down and Fang couldn’t help but being reminded of someone attending a funeral. The mysterious lady opened the door of the elegant car and turned her head towards Fang as she let herself sink into the seat. The security guard briefly thought to read an expression of regret and terror on her face but the lady had already closed the door before Fang could make any sense of the situation.

            The elegant car smoothly but swiftly drove away and Fang looked at it with a dizzy head as sweat ran down his face until the cab driver’s noisy complaints got his entire attention again.

*

            The next evening, Fang was supposed to be back for his regular shift. Xiuying was driving him to work more nervously and quickly than usually. He was taking some weird side roads in order to avoid the traffic on the main road. His brother-in-law seemed to be stressed out. His face looked pale, his eyes seemed to be tired and he had already smoked three cigarettes in ten minutes. The tense silence in the car was getting too much for Fang who felt the need to break it.

            ‘’Xiuying, you seem to be quite nervous today. What’s even going on?’’, asked Fang calmly but his inquiry made his already tense brother-in-law exaggeratedly furious.

            ‘’Mind your own business and start taking care of my sister instead of flirting with every woman that crosses your path!’’, snapped Xiuying impatiently.

            ‘’Xiuying, I only love your sister…’’, began Fang who was baffled by those harsh accusations. He started to feel desperate. First, his wife had criticized him for not taking care of her. Then, his colleague Baozhai had made the remark that he should spend more time with his wife than talking to her. Now even his brother-in-law accused him of being irresponsible. Fang started feeling a deep rage welling up inside of him. He certainly didn’t deserve to be treated this way. He was working hard to make ends meet and was polite with everyone around him but all he got in return were arrogant remarks and dreadful accusations.

            ‘’Look, the chief executive officer of a pharmaceutical company was poisoned last night and some important documents have been stolen. As it turns out, he was with an unknown prostitute who might either be our only witness or even the perpetrator. My colleagues have been talking to prostitutes all around the city, we have increased security measures in all airports, bus terminals and train stations. We are checking out every single motel and hotel to find out where this woman is. So far, we really haven’t got much to go with. We only know that she was dressed all in black, that she has short hair and that she was seen entering a black Mercedes.’’, exclaimed Xiuying emotionally.

            ‘’I know where she is.’’, answered Fang calmly and Xiuying immediately hit the brakes which led to some nervous honking right behind them.

            ‘’What have you just said?’’, answered Xiuying with his eyes wide open as his cigarette fell out of his mouth.

            ‘’You have heard me. Let’s drive to the hotel.’’, replied Fang grimly. He felt a mixture of contempt and triumph. His brother-in-law who had just been insulting him now desperately needed his help.

            Xiuying parked the car at the spot reserved for cabs right in front of the hotel and was about to get out of the car. Fang put his hand on his arm and gently pulled him back. Xiuying looked at him in surprise.

            ‘’Look, you can’t just storm into the hotel and scare everyone to death. You should call for backup. I will knock on the door of the lady and tell her that there has been an issue with her payment. I will then take her downstairs to the reception where your colleagues and you can arrest her. She won’t even see it coming.’’, explained Fang calmly.

            ‘’That’s way too dangerous! You know that this is against protocol!’’, protested Xiuying aggressively.

            ‘’No, it’s not. The woman knows that I’m working at the hotel. She knows that I’m the security guard. That lady won’t suspect a thing. Plus, let’s not forget that I’m aspiring to become a police officer just like you. Trust me on this one.’’, said Fang reassuringly but firmly.

            Xiuying looked at him intensely and was heavily breathing in and out. Fang didn’t even blink his eyes and certainly didn’t look away. He tried to showcase confidence and responsibility. Eventually, Xiuying was giving in and nodding grimly.

            ‘’I will call for backup. Don’t do anything stupid!’’, explained Xiuying as Fang was already exiting the car and not listening anymore.

            Fang stepped into the lobby and saw Baozhai who seemed to feel less and less comfortable to work with him these days. Her uneasiness shifted to surprise as she saw Fang striding straight towards the elevators rather than the reception desk. Before she could ask any questions, Fang had already entered the elevator and was going up to the eighth floor.

            The eighth floor was completely empty as the doors of the elevator opened. There was an uncomfortable silence. Fang felt shivers running down his spine.

            He shook the feeling off and stepped out of the elevator.

            Room 801, room 803, room 805…

            Fang breathed in and out and wiped the sweat from of his brows. He cleared his throat as he felt warm phlegm rising up. His heart was beating so fast that he thought that the guests in the rooms might actually hear it.

            Room 807, room 809, room 811…

            He was going to prove everyone wrong. Fang wanted to show his wife that he was a good husband and that he was going to be a perfect father for their children. He was going to prove Baozhai that he was a professional security guard who would soon become a police officer and wouldn’t need to work at this terrible hotel any longer. Fang also wanted to prove his brother-in-law that he was professional, reliable and quick-witted. He felt that he deserved admiration, empathy and respect.

            Room 813, room 815, room 817…

            Fang could already see the headlines on newspapers and television in front of his eyes. ‘’Security Guard Arrests Dangerous Murderer’’, ‘’Brave Hotel Employee Helps Arresting Murderous Prostitute’’ or ‘’Courageous Civilian Delivers Hitwoman to the Police’’. Fang’s eyes were shining brightly as he was walking down the hallway with growing confidence and extasy.

            Room 819.

            Fang breathed in, wiped away the sweat and smiled happily in anticipation of his triumph. Then, he knocked on the door, firmly but politely. Fang waited for a few seconds.

            No sound was heard at all. Fang put his ear on the door to the room. He thought that he heard a rustling as if someone were moving things around in a hurry. Fang smiled confidently. Now he knew that someone was indeed inside the room.

            Fang knocked on the door again. This time, he knocked a little bit harder, longer and louder. The mysterious lady couldn’t possibly ignore the knocking any further.

            And yet, no steps were made towards the door. No voice answering the knocking was heard. Perhaps the strange guest tried to pretend that she wasn’t there at all. But Fang had one final element to increase the pressure on the dangerous guest.

            Fang knocked on the door with dynamic, heavy and swinging movements. The solid door seemed almost to be shaking. This time Fang decided to speak to the mysterious guest.

            ‘’Miss Shimada, this is hotel security. There is a problem with your payment. We need you to come downstairs to the reception to fix the problem.’’, shouted Fang in English. He refused to speak Japanese this time since the strange guest had not even answered him when he had attempted to speak to her yesterday morning. Fang felt that she didn’t need to pretend not to understand him now.

            As there was still no audible reaction, Fang decided to use his final triumph. He grabbed the general key card out of his pocket and attempted to open the door to the hotel room. The mechanism unlocked and a green light blinked right in front of his face. Fang pushed the door open but it almost immediately came to a halt as the door was chain-locked from the inside.

            Fang noted a weird smell that was sour and sweet at the same time that he couldn’t quite identify. He decided to knock on the door and speak to the strange guest one last time. The ambitious security guard was about to open his mouth when something completely unexpected happened.

            There was a loud bang coming from the room!

            Fang stressfully moved backwards, stumbled nervously and fell awkwardly onto the carpet floor. He looked at the door in disbelief and terror. Fang knew that he had just heard a gunshot.

            The security guard panicked. He rose to his feet, turned around and raced back towards the elevator. The other doors were rushing by in a blur.

            Room 819, room 817, room 815, room 813, room 811…

            Fang couldn’t understand why none of the other guests reacted to the gunshot. No door was opened. No guest was asking nervous questions. No panicked screams were heard. Fang seemed to be the only one to suffer through this immense terror.

            Room 809, room 807, room 805, room 803, room 801…

            The security guard was out of breath as he hammered his fists against the red button to call the elevator. Her nervously looked behind him to see whether anybody was following him, menacing him or trying to kill him. The hallway looked dark and empty and grim.

            Fang startled as a loud sound indicated the arrival of the elevator. The door opened painfully slowly as Zhang squeezed inside. He turned around in a state of frantic panic and looked down the sinister hallway once more.

            Just as the elevator doors were about to close, the door to room 819 opened and a tall black figure carrying a suitcase sneaked out of the room. Fang froze and felt as if his heart were about to explode as the dark figure slowly turned towards him.

            There was no doubt! The man in black had tattooed arms, was wearing sunglasses and had a half-moon-shaped scar on his left cheek. The mysterious man smiled madly as the elevator doors were closing in front of the security guard’s eyes.

            The elevator went down painfully slowly. It stopped on the sixth floor as a young couple and their daughter came in and looked at the exhausted security guard in confused surprise.

The elevator stopped once more on the fourth floor. A retired couple came in and almost froze when they saw the profusely sweating security guard whose eyes were madly moving from side to side.

As if that weren’t enough, the elevator made one last stop on the second floor. A plumber with his heavy toolbox squeezed into the elevator and wiped the sweat from his brows with the sleeves of his dirty, holey and old shirt. The tired working man didn’t seem to care about the stressful vibes in the elevator. He only sighed when his toolbox prevented the door from closing and moved so close towards Fang that his toolbox pushed roughly into his stomach. The working man didn’t excuse himself and only scratched his head with his greyish fingers.

The door closed again and it seemed to last an eternity until the seven people made it to the lobby. As the door opened, Fang gently pushed the plumber aside and squeezed by the confused guests as he walked towards the reception with heavy strides.

Xiuying was standing next to an uncomfortably looking Baozhai and was yelling orders into his cell phone. As he saw his brother-in-law arrive, Xiuying rose his hands in impatient anger. Baozhai’s eyes opened wide and were filled with fear. Fang understood now definitely that the receptionist and the homicide detective were everything but compatible. The security guard realized with a painful feeling is his stomach that fantasy and reality seemed to be light years away from each other once the mirage had fallen apart.

‘’Where is the lady you have talked about?’’, asked Xiuying in a harsh, hectical and hoarse voice that sent shivers down the security guard’s spine.

‘’There has been a shot in her room. The guy who was with her came out of the room with a suitcase.’’, mumbled the exhausted security guard who was completely out of breath and realized now that he had overestimated his capacities.

‘’Who is this guy and where did he go?’’, asked Xiuying as he grabbed Fang’s shoulders and shook him like a rag doll.

‘’I don’t know.’’, whispered Fang helplessly and saw the bleak disappointment in the homicide detective’s eyes. Fang understood then and there that he would never be able to gain back his respect or achieve to get a job like his.

Xiuyang let go of his brother-in-law as backup arrived. His brother-in-law rudely asked Fang for the room number of the mysterious guest and then shouted orders to the police officers. Two of them took the elevator to go upstairs while the other two decided to use the staircase to make sure to intercept the man in black.

As everybody in the lobby was busy focusing on the police officers, an elegant black Mercedes drove by the entrance, left the hotel parking lot and drove towards the nearest highway never to be seen again.

*

            Fang still had issues dealing with the frenzy events eight hours later as his brother-in-law was driving him back home. Xiuying looked tired, sinister and desperate. He was so upset that he had even forgotten about lighting a cigarette. Fang had never seen his brother-in-law like this before.

            After ten minutes of glacial silence, the security guard attempted to talk to the homicide detective who was still visibly furious at him. Fang knew that his brother-in-law wasn’t the only one who kept criticizing him since Baozhai had looked at him with bleak disappointment before ignoring him entirely while his boss had criticized him for not letting the police officers do their jobs.

            ‘’So, what do we know about the victim?’’, asked the security guard timidly and saw how the homicide detective’s veins started to swell as his head was getting an unhealthy red shade.

            ‘’We don’t know a single thing! The victim has a single bullet hole on the right side of her head and was still holding the weapon in her hand as we found her lying on her bed. Everything seems to indicate that this was a suicide if it weren’t for your observations.’’, explained Xiuying angrily.

            ‘’What about this mysterious man? I mean someone must have seen him. Cameras must have filmed him. Someone must have noticed him leaving the hotel.’’, detailed Fang nervously.

            ‘’Nobody has seen him. Nobody has heard him. There are no cameras in the hallways and the staircase. There are only cameras in the elevator and in the lobby but he obviously didn’t take the elevator and never came to the lobby. There was no black Mercedes in the hotel garage. Your mysterious man has disappeared as if he had never existed in the first place.’’, expressed Xiuying as his destructive anger slowly transformed into hopeless disappointment.

            ‘’What do we know about the victim?’’, asked Fang calmly.

            ‘’Well, that’s the worst thing. We don’t know anything about her at all. Shimada Haruka is probably a fake name. She had no identification papers on her at all. She has never shown an identity card at the reception. She has paid in cash instead of using a credit card. There was nothing noteworthy in her hotel room either. Her suitcase has disappeared and so have her toiletries and clothing. She was lying naked on her bed and since there were no blood splatters on her body, we can assume that she was undressed after she had died. We can’t even be sure whether she committed suicide or whether she was killed.’’, summarized Xiuying desperately.

            ‘’What about the weapon? Doesn’t it have a serial number?’’, asked Fang who was still hoping to redeem himself by asking the right questions and offering a possibility the police officers had not yet been thinking about.

            ‘’That weapon isn’t a normal weapon. Our weapon’s specialist says that the weapon consists of parts of at least three different weapons. There was a serial number but it was removed with acid. Every possible clue has been removed. I have a really bad feeling about that case. It could be the kind of case we might never be able to solve.’’, announced Xiuying gloomily.

            Fang had a thousand questions he wanted to ask but as he saw the somber expression of his brother-in-law who was fighting to hold back his tears, he decided to remain quiet. The two broken men kept silent communion as they drove back to the places that didn’t quite feel like home anymore.

*

            Fang was looking at his shot in bleak despair. While enthusiastic young party people were chatting, dancing and flirting all around him, Fang seemed like an oasis of depression, isolation and regret that nobody even dared to approach.

            His life had taken a turn for the worse in the past six months and counting. His boss had fired him the day after the dramatic events at the hotel for disrespecting his job protocol. Baozhai had not stayed in touch with him but he had heard that she had been transferred to a bigger hotel in Hongkong. Fang had not been able to find a new job and was soon dealing with severe depression. His wife had decided to leave him and kicked him out of their home. Fang had been living in a filthy downtown apartment for six months now that looked even worse than Xiuying’s home. Speaking of the latter, he been degraded to a boring desk job and had committed suicide three months after the terrible events. Needless to say that his entire family blamed Fang for his tragic demise. Fang had been feeling suicidal himself as of late but hadn’t mustered the courage to see it through. He spent much time crying himself to sleep at night and was ashamed of the spineless coward he had become.

            Fang’s eyes were blurred with tears as he aimlessly looked around. A young guy with suit and tie was passionately kissing a provocatively dressed drunk female teenager who made a desperate effort to look older than she actually was. A sharp-dressed man was flirting with the joyful waitress who was preparing a colourful cocktail. A group of energetic youngsters were watching a baseball game on television and cheering as their team hit a homerun. A man dressed in black who was wearing sunglasses and leather gloves was sitting on the exact opposite side of the bar. He was doing the exact same thing the former security guard was doing as he was carefully looking around and was now staring directly at Fang with a cold but triumphant smile upon his scarred face.

            The former security guard’s heart missed a beat. The clothes! The sunglasses! The tattoos! The demeanor! The smile! The scar! Fang immediately recognized the stranger as the man who had stepped out of the hotel room of the dead Jane Doe six months earlier!

            Fang rose his hand nervously to show the waitress that he wanted to pay. He ignored her friendly chattering, gave her an exaggerated tip and left the lively bar as if he were hunted by the devil.

            On his way back to his apartment, he looked around and saw that he man in black had also left the bar. Fang quickened up the pace but the dangerous man followed him with heavy, firm and determined strides. The former security guard quickly turned around the corner and ran towards the entrance of his apartment block. His hands were shaking as he pushed the doors open and he almost fell as he took the stairs to the second floor. Fang heard the squeaking noise of the entrance door opening again before he could reach his floor. He almost jumped up the remaining stairs and nervously took the apartment keys out of his pockets. His fingers were shaking so much that he suddenly let the keys drop to the dirty ground. Fang grabbed them from the floor as his heavy chest was moving up and down shakily from profound breathing. He tried to push the first key into the keyhole and realized with a freezing shiver that it was the wrong key. That one actually opened the door to the basement compartments. It was time to try again and again!

            As Fang finally selected the correct key to his apartment door, he could feel the push of cold metal against his neck. That uncomfortable feeling was followed by controlled and low breathing. Fang rose his hands helplessly and moved slowly towards the door to his disgusting apartment.

            ‘’Make no noise and open the door or you will be a dead man.’’, whispered the man behind him so firmly that Fang didn’t even dare to think about screaming for help or trying to escape.

            He opened the door with shaky fingers, nervously shuffled into his apartment and was brutally pushed forward by the man in black who closed the door swiftly but quietly. His rapid but calm movements showed that he had been practising martial arts for a long period of time. Fang had no doubt that this man was a dangerous assassin.

            The man in black pushed him towards his very own living room, sat on a leather chair right next to a small table and the television and pointed towards the kitchen.

            ‘’Please serve us something to drink.’’, mentioned the man in black and his voice sounded so determined that Fang knew that it was an order rather than a request.

            Fang hobbled towards the kitchen, nervously grabbed two glasses from the cupboard and poured two glasses of Caribbean dark rum. He opened the small refrigerator and put one ice cube into each glass. He then moved back to the living room where the man in black was waiting patiently but attentively. Zhang sat right across him on the couch and looked nervously at the floor.

            The mysterious man raised the glass of rum, took a sip and nodded approvingly. He then leaned back and put the pistol he had been holding onto the small table in front of him. The weapon wasn’t far away from Fang but he knew that the dangerous man would grab it much faster than he ever could.

            ‘’You know, I have been doing this job for a decade now and there have never been any eyewitnesses until I met you.’’, explained the man in black and Fang noticed a subtle accent in his voice. He thought to himself that his initial idea that the woman at the hotel was Japanese was probably correct.

            ‘’The lady in the hotel room had to die because she had messed up her assignment. She was supposed to steal a formula and leave without a trace. Instead, she murdered the man who had the formula but never found the data that was required. The lady tried to plead her case in a dozen different ways but the police was already on her trail. This is why I had to eliminate her and make every clue to her identity disappear. I was almost entirely done until you showed up. I remained quiet inside the room but you had to bang on the door, you had to shout and you had to even open the door. I needed a quick way to get rid of you and that’s why I fired a shot through a pillow into the bed.’’, explained the man in black calmly and chronologically.

            Fang didn’t like hearing all these details despite his tense curiosity. He just wanted to sink into the ground and disappear. Every further second he spent in presence of this mysterious man increased his already insufferable anxiety. The former security guard nervously grabbed his drink and emptied the glass in a matter of seconds. He hectically put it back on the table which made a nerve-firing clinging sound. Fang’s eyes met the sunglasses of his unwelcome visitor. He imagined detecting amusement, disdain and relentlessness in his cold eyes.

            ‘’I have been looking for you for a while. Obviously, I had to go into hiding at first and then I started investigating. However, you had lost your job, you had separated from your wife and you had moved someplace else. I went from one place to another in downtown Taipeh until the cheerful waitress happily told me that you had become a regular at her bar. She described you as antisocial, arrogant and awkward. I must say that it’s a pity that a courageous, flexible and smart guy like you is now being described this way. Her judgement seems a little bit harsh. I guess under different circumstances, you and I could have been colleagues.’’, explained the sinister visitor and didn’t open his mouth again.

            Fang instinctively knew what this meant. He swallowed his phlegm, breathed in heavily and stared nervously upon the weapon on the desk. The former security guard knew that this weapon would either be his only chance or his ultimate demise. Fang looked at his visitor whose face had become completely emotionless. The former security guard was now unable to read his opponent.

            The visitor had only been waiting for a reaction. As Fang suddenly leaned forward to grab the weapon, the man in black kicked the table against the former security guard’s knees. As Fang screamed in surprise, the man in black grabbed the weapon with the silencer and shot his opponent in the head.

            The pain in Fang’s knees became meaningless as the piercing agony in his head pushed him so brutally against his couch that he rolled over it and fell violently onto the floor. Blood was quickly obscuring the young man’s sight while all his senses were screaming with pain.

            Fang barely noticed how noiselessly his visitor rushed around the table and the couch, bent over him with a serious look on his face and fired a second bullet right into Fang’s bursting heart.

            The former security guard felt another piercing pain that quickly disappeared as his consciousness left his suffering body and seemed to drift upwards. The last thing he saw was himself lying dying on the floor of his apartment with his visitor retreating swiftly towards the entrance to disappear once again without a trace.

            Then, everything around him turned to impenetrable eternal darkness.