"Eh...? What do you mean?" I asked as I raised my eyebrows at Pailong. "What do you mean by guilty?" I inquired again as I looked across the table at Pailong.
"Where's HaiLoong and why should I be here in this interview room. You should know that a HaiLoong has no parents or siblings listed and why do you ask in the first place?"
"Wrong set of the script. It is that the Director had it changed or I made a slip of my tongue." Pailong replied as he adjusted his skinny tie over his shirt and took a lump of sugar and placed it inside his cup.
I took two lumps and stirred the cup while I hoard the bowl of sugary gems biscuits on my side. No way I'm going to share with you these cute gems biscuits.
"Look, tell me straight off. Why am I being holed up here and why don't you bring out HaiLoong?"
"*Ahem*... How shall I say this and how shall I begin? Hmm... Let me get the reports from other guys here so I could briefly explain to you."
Pailong left the room once more and returned with some documents with him and he placed it on his side. It was all blank pieces of paper and we pretended that it was full of elaborate details on those pieces of paper.
"Alright... HaiLoong is now missing in action and considered as off the grid." he started with the suspense during the initial explanation of his.
"What the fuck? You go in and out of the door a few times and you started off with this statement? What the fuck happen and how the fuck he went missing and considered off the grid?"
"*Ahem*... No vulgarities, Cheche... It is all being recorded..."
"OK, let me rephrase it one more time. WHAT IN THE COPULATED TWISTED MIND HAPPEN? Would that be alright this time?" The light in the opposite side of the two may mirror lit up and the offscreen crews gave thumbs and the light switched off again.
"HaiLoong went off for an undisclosed mission on an undisclosed location with an undisclosed number of men on an undisclosed date and time. He went to an undisclosed location to do an undisclosed matter and some undisclosed number of men jumped him as an undisclosed number of locations and he put up an undisclosed number of struggles before a number of undisclosed team members knew what happen at that undisclosed time and place."
"Haiyoo...the Director made you say this or what, to confuse the readers?" I shook my head and rubbed my forehead as I popped a sugar gem biscuit in my mouth, regarding it as aspirin.
"We are not at liberty to disclose such information and that's there to it. What we know is that HaiLoong had been so-called manhandled and taken away by some aliens and had his head drilled for more information. You might call in for Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to assist you in case you need to dig up more information."
"You gonna hand these over to the Feds and classify this case as the X-Files or what? Just like that. No one to actually form a SAR team to scourge the area for clues and stuff? How about the CSI, were they informed too?"
"In fact, we do too... Atlanta CSI is looking into this matter soon. Actually, it's been more than 72 hours since he went missing and as more minutes and hours ticked by, the less chance we might be finding him... Alive?"
I slammed my two hands on the table, spilling the coffee and some of the sugary gems biscuit to fall out from their bowl. Pailong jumped in surprise too because the room was so quiet that you would hear a wet fart being squeezed through tighten butt cheeks... Not only a pin drop. So cliché.
"Did he use his bike or service transport?"
"Undisclosed..."
"Can I go check his locker or something? Did he bring his mobile?"
"Undisclosed..."
"Haiya....so useless... Just say 'I don't know' is better right? At least being ignorant is better than faking through and said 'undisclosed' several times... Baaahhh..... Fuck this place, I'm outta here..."
"Fuck this place too... I'm out of here..."
"Ehh...? I thought you are his supervisor? What makes you suddenly want to leave?"
"Cheche... Look at the time la... It is already 505 pm... No one's paying overtime and there will be an extra dollar to pay if we're late in exiting the car park. Cabut Liao... Go and seek Mulder and Scully if you wanna find out more....."
His voice trailed off as he bounded for the exit heading towards the basement carpark to retrieve his car and leave the building.
"A bunch of idiots, if anything happens to their comrades... They sure know how to play 'Taichi' and 'Siem' these responsibilities rather than helping to solve the case. It seems that I have to way but return back to my former place and gather my stuff. I hope HaiLoong had left something behind so I could sniff ad trace his whereabouts.
I went to the parking lot and straddled my bike and vroomed off towards Coal Mountain where the rest of my equipment had been left behind. My GPS showed me I should arrive in 37 minutes so I was in a rush and arrived at the parking lot of my former place in 45.
There's still daylight and my place was quite quiet since a lot of people knocked off work by 530 and should be home after 6 after riding through an endless stream of slow-moving traffic.
I checked my areas and there was no smell of Weres or Night Crawlers and I saw that the telltale coin on my door was still there. I slipped in my key and opened the door and caught the coin falling from the top. Sometimes, we would monitor the ones we place our attention most, but we would miss certain attention such as the sliding window that had been tampered with and boot prints on the wall underneath it.
The moment I entered, I was met with a huge wall of stink that rushed to me as soon as the door opened. That unmistakable stink can only come from the kitchen and the pile of unwashed laundry. It usually permeated unwashed dishes and uncleared rubbish from the bins as well... Luckily there weren't any buzzing sounds from the pile of rubbish in the bin. It was as though someone had ransacked the place and left all the leftovers in the bin and plates in the sink without even a single consideration for the tenant that was staying there.
DAMN GIRL....!!!
I had forgotten to clean up the house before I left for New Orleans...!!!
Beast and Spotty were covering their faces and snout with their paws as the looked at me in dismay as I quickly aired the studio apartment and took a trash bag and cleaned up the place...it literally looked like a pigsty that some kids had just thrown an overnight bachelorette party or something.
I picked up all the rubbish and tossed the rubbish bag outside. Then I rummage through and found one piece of sock and boxers belonging to HaiLoong while the rest I threw it in the washer.
Better than nothing to start tracing where Hailoong is right now. Whether he is dead or alive is another question. Most importantly I should be able to track his whereabouts with this old mouldy sock and his boxers.
I held up the sock and boxers and give a good whiff while Beast and Spotty were laying down, paws in the air and tongues sticking out limply at their sides of their jaws...
"Not a good idea... Not good at all" as I looked at both Beast and Spotty antics after I had sniffed the mouldy smell of Hailoong's personal items.