Chapter 2: One
Shawn Roday didn't much care for the two men standing in front of him while he was outside at the back of the hotel on his smoke break. In fact, if he had known that two Russian mobsters were out back waiting for him, he probably would have put off smoking for say, another week.
As it was, there they were. Two of Dimitri Vetrov's most feared men, both bald and wearing leather jackets with their menacing expressions staring down at Shawn who up until then, was sitting down on some steps, pondering about how little his job as a bellboy paid him at the Marriott Marquis Hotel.
As Baldy 1 and Baldy 2 approached him, Shawn's first thought was why such men had to wear leather jackets and if it was a prerequisite for them to be in a mob. For Christ's sake, it was 86 degrees out he thought to himself. Then he wondered how this could be his first thought with these guys standing right there in front of him.
Slowly, he rose, putting out his cigarette before one of the bald men used his skin to do it.
"Hey… fellas. What are you doing here? It's not collection date yet is it?" Shawn asked but he knew the answer. Yeah, it was the day.
Baldy 1 moved closer to Shawn and smirked. "So this means you don't have the cash yet," he said, his thick Russian accent exuding. "Our boss won't be very happy to hear this. You told Dimitri you can handle the supply."
"I—I can! It's just… I didn't expect it to be this slow. You know I push very well and you know I've never let Dimitri down before—"
"All I know is that it is very easy to punch you in the mouth with all this bullshit coming out of it. Can you see my fist tweaking?"
That was Baldy 2 speaking.
"Tweaking? I—I think you mean…" Shawn trailed off as Baldy 2 glared at him and inched closer, his fists clenched. "Look, just give me a few more days. Or a week! One more week. Please! I'll get Dimitri his money," Shawn implored of Baldy 1 and 2.
Baldy 1 looked at Shawn appraisingly while Shawn held his breath, waiting for Baldy 2's mouth punch which never came. Finally—
"Ok. We got no orders from Dimitri to kill you yet so we gonna let you off. But we'll be back in one week hopefully, with orders to kill you if you don't got the money so you better have it. Personally, I really hope you don't. Vladimir hasn't strangled anyone in a long time," Baldy 1 said, pointing to Baldy 2 who smirked and cracked his neck muscles.
So, Shawn thought, Baldy 2's got a real name. He wondered if Baldy 1's name was also as Russian as names could get. He also wondered if now was a great time to light his second cigarette. Christ knows he needed it but Baldy 1 and 2 were still there, not budging and still glaring at him.
Shawn had no desire to have his neck snapped by Vladimir's thick, gorilla-like hands so defeated, he trudged up the stairs, back into the lobby of the Marriott. His smoke break had come to such an abrupt end.
***
He quickly settled back into his rhythm as a Marriott bellboy after his disrupted break but the monotony of his chores gave him time to think about what he had to do now.
So while Shawn was lifting luggage out of guests' cars and bringing them up to their respective rooms, he was musing over how he could increase his second revenue.
The drugs revenue.
He sighed, wishing he had never become involved in all of this. It had seemed like such a good idea at first. Dealing drugs because nowadays, kids were really into that kind of stuff. Especially his fellow schoolmates over at New York University. Those rich kids had so much money that they didn't know what else to do with it but party every night at every elite club.
And these elite parties involved a certain amount of drugs. Not cocaine or heroin but the ones that make a party really good. Crystal meth, LSD and ecstasy were the really popular choices these days and Shawn was the go-to guy for these drugs.
At first, when he had just ventured into the drug business, Shawn was given very small amounts of each type of drug to get his NYU dorm mates excited that they had a dealer amongst them. But then, word got out and Shawn's small group of users started growing within months and well, demand must meet supply so a month ago, Dimitri supplied Shawn with a huge amount of LSD, trusting that this loyal dealer could handle the huge increase in drug supply, which is where Shawn's predicament now lay.
Problem was, it was exam time in NYU and now, very few could afford to go to parties, let alone use drugs. When Shawn said 'afford', he didn't mean it financially. Most kids here were rich as hell and were real pricks about it. What Shawn meant was that as kids of CEOs and company presidents and vice-presidents and politicians and businessmen and…you get the idea, they had to maintain their grades to make their parents look good in society because when the question, "So kid, what's your GPA like?" was asked, those kids could not say anything below three point eight or their trust funds would be seized from them indefinitely. So the kids at NYU did party really hard but only when there were no exams. But Shawn did at least manage to make a little money from this supply from those who really could not give a damn if they failed tests. Who cared as long as they had fun right?
Shawn needed more of these kids right now and was sweating bullets in his bellboy uniform just thinking about it. He was seated on the couch in one of his guest's rooms with their bags, waiting for them to show up when one of his mangers found him first.
"Shawn! What the hell do you think you are doing? There are more guests downstairs waiting for their bags to be brought up and here you are, what is it these kids are calling it these days, 'chillaxing?'" questioned his manager, Lucia Gomez.
Usually, Shawn would wait for his guests to show up to get tipped by them for his effort. For a scrawny guy like him, it was a real wonder how much energy and strength he really possessed to handle such labor-intensive tasks. And he could really use all the tips he could get.
But today, Shawn was just really out of things. He wasn't feeling up to performing his duties as a Bellboy. What he really wanted to do was to go back to his dorm, knock back some aspirin and play the latest zombie game on his PlayStation.
He told Lucia about how he was feeling, though he held back on the "playing PlayStation" bit.
Gomez put her hand on her hips and made a "pfft" sound, all the while starting down at Shawn. He really did look peaky and she did not want to get sued for overworking this skinny boy. Where she came from in Argentina, you worked till you were dragging yourself on all fours and then worked some more but here in America, especially Manhattan, everyone was so soft.
"OK, tell you what, querido. I don't want you carrying bags. But I can't release you right now. There's still a lot of work to be done. We have a very special guest who will be arriving in two days and he always requests to stay on the top floor. So, go to Room 1942 and start cleaning it. That room gives the best view of Times Square because you can see all those huge Broadway billboards," Gomez said, a huge smile on her face, thinking about how pleased her guest will be with her choice of room for him. "Está bien?"
"OK," Shawn mumbled and got off the couch. He really didn't want to do any work but if that meant that maybe he could slack off the rest of his day in some room, that was fine. I'll just move stuff around and tell Lucia I cleaned, he thought as he took the elevator to the 19th floor.
***
While Shawn rode the elevator, he recalled the previous two times that he had been up to the 19th storey. The first time he had ventured to this floor, he was taken in by its spectacular view. Sure, he'd been living in Manhattan for a year and a half since he started at NYU but he had never treated himself to the bird's eye view of Times Square until he landed his job at the Marriott Marquis right on Broadway. And from the 19th floor, Lucia Gomez was not wrong. But billboards were not all that could be seen from that height.
Shawn had loved staring out of the glass windows that showed the entire Times Square and all its people who looked as tiny as bugs scattered all over the square. He had seen the red steps outlining the TKTS booth, Starbucks logos, the huge M&M and Reese's tower and the Toshiba tower with the famous ball drop to celebrate the New Year. Not to miss out the huge Forever 21 and the McDonald's outlet that for some reason, had to appear in every Smash episode, Shawn mused. But well, Mcphee looked hot.
The elevator made a "dng" sound as it reached the 19th floor and snapped Shawn out of his reverie. He walked in the direction of Room 1942 and sighed as he thought that this third time he was up here was going to be more like his second time; cleaning some goddamn room for his entire shift. He put in his staff keycard into the catch in 1942's door and heard the click sound. He braced himself for all the work he was going to do.
But Shawn never got to that "work" part. In fact, he had no idea just how wrong he was about his job here.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone