Contractbound

Graham had contacted his client earlier through a payphone nearby, informing her about his findings. She requested that he do a stakeout with the promise of extra payment. That was why he gladly accepted. However, after doing it for hours he got very bored. His body became stiff.

"Val, this is very boring. I"ll wait one more hour and if nothing happens I"ll just go," he complained.

He had already done divination by burning a piece of his notebook, and his question was whether his target would make a move. The paper burned entirely, indicating a positive answer. It didn"t show him the time, however, and he couldn"t keep repeating the process because of the headache. He could only wait.

Not long after, he saw the door of the house being opened, and a man came out. From his angle now, he could clearly see the person behind the door: it was a beautiful woman with a slender figure. She was rather tall with a thin face. Her hair, curly and red, fell on her back. Her fair skin complemented her floral dress. Her eyes were soft, like the first layer of snow in winter, her lips, the color of a red apple. Her small, thin nose added more character to her face. Graham could understand how all the men around fell for her.

"Val, she is a beauty," he muttered.

He could only saw her at a glance because the door was quickly closed again, but his eyes could perfectly capture her whole figure. Graham came back to his senses when the door was closed and turned his attention to the man; Bram Bakker. He walked up to the side of the street and stopped a public motor carriage.

Graham quickly stopped one for himself. Lucky for him, there was one not far behind the one Mr. Bakker took. He quickly got in and said to the driver, "Follow that carriage in front of us. Quick!"

"It"s you again!" said the driver in surprise. It was the same driver that Graham had got a lot of times. The driver started driving and followed the other carriage at a distance by Graham"s request.

The carriage at the front drove at a normal speed; the pa.s.senger didn"t seem to be in a hurry. Judging from the route they were taking, Graham could already guess where his target was going.

"We"re now on Raadhuislaan, aren"t we?" he confirmed with the driver.

"Yes. That carriage is stopping," he pointed at the carriage ahead of them, "Do you want to stop here too?"

"Yes, please. How much? Can I get a discount? I take your carriage a lot." Graham asked the driver, smiling hopefully.

"I don"t think so, sir. I need to feed my wife and kid. Five pennings, please." Graham gave the money to the driver disappointedly. He got out of the carriage and started following Mr. Bakker again.

The situation on Raadhuislaan was very busy since it was a big avenue. A lot of people around were wearing professional-looking clothing: the men in suit and the woman in formal wear. The Town Hall, at a square in the heart of the avenue, was where most people were going. It was a huge grey building with a cla.s.sic architectural style. It had a single minaret with a giant bell inside. The bell used to be rung if there was a disaster or enemy attack. Nowadays, they used a very loud siren instead.

Graham followed Mr. Bakker to the Town Hall, but since he didn"t have any business there, he didn"t enter the building. He went to a café nearby, from which he could still see the Town Hall. He sat outside at the coffee and ordered a cup of hot chocolate and a b.u.t.tered toast. Not long after, his orders came. He took a sip of his hot chocolate and he smiled in delight.

"Hmm... this hot chocolate is very good, Val. It"s sweet and very rich; just how I like it. This is even better than Don"s."

Graham then dipped his b.u.t.tered toast in his hot chocolate. He ate it and again, it made him smile. He was very satisfied with the exquisite food experience he was having. After finishing his toast, he took a piece of paper and wrote something on it.

"Will Mr. Bakker go anywhere but home after work today?"

It was a question he was going divine about. He lit the paper on fire from the bottom right corner. The paper burned halfway, indicating a negative response. Mr. Bakker would go straight home today. Graham felt a slight headache.

"Val, judging from the rate of the headache, I think ten times should be the upper limit of divination per day for now, and I"ve already done seven-- eight, if it includes palmistry." he hypothesized.

Graham decided to still follow Mr. Bakker. Him going home after work didn"t mean he wouldn"t meet anyone on the way, and if nothing else, he could learn where his client lived. It could come in handy.

He had been sitting at the café, observing people when he suddenly saw a familiar face. It was Mirjam, the waitress at Don"t Pancake House.

"Mirjam! Hey!" Graham shouted her name while waving his hand. Mirjam was surprised at first and when she saw who it was, she came over to him.

"Hey, Mr. Famous Detective." she smiled while teasing Graham.

"I"m not famous or anything. Are you done with your shift?" he asked while observing her.

She was wearing a floral knee-long dress and a denim jacket on top. Her flaxen hair was tied in a ponytail. Her round face was decorated with freckles and beautiful thin lips. Her blue eyes looked rather tired. She must have had a lot of customers at work.

She brought her slim body to sit in front of Graham. "May I?" she asked while taking the seat.

"Sure." Graham nodded, giving her permission, "Do you want to order anything?"

She shook her head and said, "I"m done with today. There were so many people at Don"s today. It felt never-ending. I wonder why a lot of people came today; including you. I haven"t seen you in days." she looked at Graham in the eyes. "Not that I"m complaining," she continued, "It means business is good. But I"m still tired."

"I"ve been busy with cases lately. It"s difficult to be me," he jokingly said.

A smile surfaced on Mirjam"s face.

"In fact, I"m here on a case. You came at the right time. With you here, it will look more natural." he explained casually.

"That"s not just an excuse to ask me on a date, is it?" she said teasingly.

"No, no, it"s not. I swear." Graham blushed a little.

"Just joking." she laughed. Her laugh was much more pleasant than Paim"s laugh in Graham"s ears. "Anyway," she added, "Why have I never seen you with a girl? You"re not bad looking, I can say."

"I don"t have time for relationships." he said nonchalantly, and then whispered, "Val, I"m just really bad at dealing with women, but I can"t tell her that, can I?"

"Were you talking to yourself again?" she said with accusation.

"It"s just my habit to make mental notes. It is needed in my line of work." he came up with an excuse, and whispered again, more quietly, "Val, it is clear that she controls the flow of this conversation. We need to do something."

Mirjam ignored his muttering and asked, "So what kind of case is it? Don"t tell me you"re actually stalking a woman?"

"I"m not that kind of person, mind you," he answered, slightly pained by the accusation. "It"s confidential. What you don"t know can"t hurt you," he added, speaking like a wise man.

"Yeah, yeah." she brushed it off.

"By the way, can I read your palms? Just for fun. I have only learned that recently."

"You"re a fortune-telling detective now? Sure! I like fortune-telling." she smiled excitedly and gave him her right hand.

"Both, please." he requested.

Mirjam gave him both of her hands with palm side up. Graham observed her palms and ran his finger across it. Her palms were square and firm, showing signs of hard work. Her fingers are short and slender.

"You need to rest more," he said seriously.

"That one should be obvious enough from my tired eyes." she rolled her eyes.

"Haha. Okay, what about this: a man will come to you and change your life," he said mysteriously.

"That sounds interesting. Is he handsome and rich?" she asked with wide eyes.

"I cannot see that detail." he shrugged.

"Well, that"s good enough then. I want to get married soon and have many children. I don"t want to die alone and single and old and all wrinkly." she said half-jokingly. Her smile showed a hint of loneliness.

Graham only smiled.

"Do I have to pay for this?" she asked.

"No, you don"t. Just treat me to a meal the next time I come over to Don"s."

"Deal!" she smiled happily.

The two of them continued chatting for a while. After some time, Graham had a nagging feeling in his heart, the same as what he felt earlier. He concentrated to activate his eye and he saw his target walking out of the City Hall. He deactivated his eye again before Mirjam noticed anything.

"I need to go now. My target has made a move." he stood up and took some money out of his wallet. "Can you pay for me? The waiter can keep the change," he gave Mirjam five penning coins and left in a hurry.

Mirjam was dumbfounded for a second and called the waiter asking for the bill.

"The total would be seven pennings." the waiter said.

Her face went red and took out two penning coins from her purse. She paid the waiter and left while grunting, "No wonder that man is single!"

Graham had been long gone when she said that.

"Val, we should buy contact lenses. It would have been difficult to explain if she had seen my eye color changing." he made a mental note while dashing across the avenue.

He watched Mr. Bakker stop a public motor carriage and got in. He did the same and asked the driver to follow his target. Their motor carriages drove across Vecht River and headed south towards Hoogstraat South. It seemed that Mr. Bakker was going straight home.

When the motor carriage in front of them stopped, his driver also stopped his. Graham paid the driver five pennings and got off. He followed Mr. Bakker to a two-story house with a beautiful garden. He took keys out of his pocket and entered the house. It was house number twenty-two. He then looked around to find a payphone and when he found one, he entered it and inserted a penning coin. He took out a slip of paper from his wallet and dialed the number.

"h.e.l.lo." said the woman"s voice from the phone.

"h.e.l.lo. Is this Mrs. Bakker? This is Graham Hymes speaking." he spoke with a low voice.

"Oh, Mr. Detective. Yes, this is Naomi Bakker speaking. Is there any news?"

"Is your house number twenty-two? Is your husband home right now?" he asked, confirming the facts.

"Yes, and yes. He is home right now."

"Then that means he went straight home from work. After he left that woman"s house, he went to work and didn"t leave until five. After that, I followed him home. He did nothing else in between." he told her matter-of-factly.

"I see. I will ask him about the woman tonight. Thank you for your help, Detective Hymes. I"ll stop by tomorrow to give you your payment" she said.

"Oh yes. About that..." Graham told her the total commission fee based on the difficulty of the task. "Thank you. Have a good one." he hung up the phone.

He then thought out loud, "I guess the job is done? But I haven"t encountered any danger. Was my divination wrong?"

He brushed the thought aside for now and took a public motor carriage to Grotemarktstraat and stopped at the shopping center. He went to an eyewear store there and bought a pair of dark brown contact lenses. They would last him three months and required some adaptation before he could not feel discomfort in his eyes anymore while wearing them.

He walked home and had dinner on the way. It was a simple dinner of noodle soup and grilled pork. He arrived home at seven and went straight to the shower. He really hated sleeping with a sweaty body, so he always cleaned himself before that.

It was still early, so he practiced meditation, something he came up with while brainstorming for ideas to better control his power. He did it for an hour before deciding to go to sleep. He was exhausted from the previous night"s lack of sleep and the boredom of doing a stakeout. He lied down in his bed and reviewed his day.

"So, Val, today we got a new case, and I guess we finished the job. But something still feels off. We will ask Mrs. Bakker tomorrow about her husband; she should be confronting him as we speak."

"And that Mirjam. When I read her palms, I saw something about a man coming into her life. I hope it is a good sign. She is a good person." he smiled, thinking about his conversation with her.

"She can be pushy and straightforward. I hope that man can bear with her."

"Next, about my power. I have used divination a total of nine times today. If my theory is correct, I should be able to do it one more time. I guess we should try it, Val."

He got back up and grabbed a piece of paper. He wrote a statement on it.

"Tomorrow I will encounter danger."

He lit the paper as usual and waited for the answer. The flame spread slowly and consumed the entire paper.

"It means yes. There will be danger tomorrow. But the paper burned slowly, meaning it is not mortal." he rubbed his chin, thinking. "So what will happen if I try it one more time?"

He took another piece of paper and wrote on it.

"Tomorrow I will get a lot of money."

He lit the paper on fire and just as his lighter touched the paper, the flame went out and Graham got a painful sting around his nose. He touched it and there was a lot of blood.

"So, Val, that"s my limit," he said in pain. He went to the bathroom to wipe the blood off and cleaned the table in his bedroom from the ashes. He then went to bed.

That night, he didn"t have any nightmare. He woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and energized. It was eight in the morning. He washed his face and tried out his new contact lenses.

"Dammit, these don"t feel comfortable at all," he cursed. He felt like there were lumps on his pupils. He had to get used to it to hide his changing eye colors, however. His eyes now were deep, dark brown in color.

Ding... dong...

The sound of the front bell rang. He had a guess of who it was. He got changed quickly and opened the door.

"Good morning, Mrs. Bakker." he greeted her with a smile.

Naomi Bakker entered his office. She was wearing a white blouse with a black skirt today. Her expression looked cold. She took a seat and Graham sat opposite her. She took out an envelope from her handbag and handed it over to him.

He opened the envelope and counted the money inside. There were a total of sixteen guilder bills, including the extra payment for the stakeout.

"How did it go with your husband?" he asked.

Naomi smiled, but her smile was not genuine. It was an automated smile, like that of a salesperson. She said, "Everything is fine now. My old, loving husband is back." her eyes didn"t even move even though she was smiling.

"Are you sure? You can tell me anything. Everything will be kept confidential here." he a.s.sured her gently.

"No, no, nothing, really. Everything worked out well. That woman turned out to be his co-worker who has been sick for a while, so he"s been helping her out. Isn"t my husband a kind man?" she kept smiling.

"Okay, if you say so." Graham didn"t really believe her, but he had no other way to confirm.

"In that case, I"ll take my leave now. Have a good one, Mr. Hymes." she got up from her chair and left the office.

"Val, something seems off about all of this," Graham said and paused.

"We need to investigate."