Malediction

Pear

Everyone was under pressure the whole day but we kept it on the low. Andrea and Tim were already checking any signs of animosity from Jerry or Amanda, or their minions but it seems like they were oblivious. We were in a tight situation. If things went wrong, we were outnumbered and Jerry’s hands were not clean. All of our work would definitely go to waste once more, and so would be our lives.

From afar, I saw Amanda continued to enjoy her lavish life as the sun bathed her skin by the pool. She rolled over to lay down. Andrea was a few chaises away from her, observing and testing the waters. The time was perfect. Moments after, she stood up and disappeared. When she came back, she was already holding two martinis in her hands. Amanda noticed Andrea coming to her, she smiled. Andrea went for the target, smiling back at the crocodile stealing money from people’s taxes. They’ve become ‘acquaintances’.

Oddly enough, Sandra wasn’t there. What did Amanda tell her to do now?

As I rode by the land of Masfino as a guide for the last day as a seasonal staff member, I saw Jerry Gonzalez by the window. He was talking to someone on the phone, frantically moving around that small frame. He threw a wad of paper to the floor, as if it was the cause of his temper. I contacted Tim about it, but he said he was unable to check it out since his movements from the lovers’ floor were already noticed by the other staff as slacking off. If he persisted, he was going to get caught. Luckily, I was available after a few minutes. I dropped the new visitors to the lobby and walked my way round from the lobby, to the back of the building and as I was about to go to the stairs leading to the lovers’ floor until I was stopped by a fellow employee holding a full trash bag from above. His name was Ramon.

“Hey newbie! Bring this to the dumpster or burn it, special request by the people upstairs. I’ve gotta pee.” He called to me as he went down the stairs. A slither of cash showed on one of his pockets.

“I can’t, I’ve got something to do, I-.” I tried to get out of it, slightly interested. It seems he was paid to do this. Trash was not picked up from rooms in another hour or so.

“I saw you peeking at the guests from the long pool. Not good bro." He said seriously, cutting my excuse. Ramon then smiled saying, "Gotta go.” He semi-jog to the employee restroom near the building, dumping the half empty trash bag to me. I was about to make a run for it but the trash bag rustled. It was paper, just paper.

I brought it near the incinerator by the basement because it was closer than the dumpster. Alone in the basement, I opened the plastic bag. Curiosity was getting the better of me. Rummaging through the surprisingly clean trash, I was trying to find something I don’t know. I just felt there was something in there. Papers of no use turned up. None was of substantial evidence. I just thought I could find something that Jeremy threw on the floor earlier.

I opened the latch and threw it to the incinerator, dismayed.

I ran back to the ground floor, from the basement, hoping to still get something. Physical evidence was pretty solid, but knowing where and how they take tax money for themselves would widen our search and prove a point. Whatever Jerry says would be useful. I went straight to the elevator, pressed his floor and waited. I looked down at my shoes. If I can finish this, then Andrea could be back to the field, just after being chided by Boss Rick. I could focus on building my memories after this. Everything is still vague. Forgetting my relationship with Andrea before the island incident bothers me. Something just doesn’t add up.

The elevator chimed. As the door opened, I looked up. It was Jerry and his meaty guard. Jerry was as tall as I was with a retro fashion sense and he looked younger than his age of thirty-five. His jet black hair slid back his head. He stared at me through his tiny red sunglasses. I dismissed this and nodded in acknowledgement of their presence and stepped forward unsuspecting yet holding my breath. I just need to see if I can go inside his room and search.

"Where are you going, tour guide?" He asked, sardonically smiling now. My heart jumped.

Was I caught?

"The cleaner needs some help Sir. " I blurted out a lie, pointing to the hallway away from their room and glanced at them. The hallway was empty, but not. A shadow lingers at one of the unhinge doors. Can he see us? The guard was hiding something in his clothes. I tried to walk away slowly.

One of them took a grip of my shoulder and stopped me. The grip was strong that his fingers dug through my shirt. The other thing I felt was a small metal cylinder slid through my back side. It clicked. A gun was pointing at me. He poked it inside my shirt. I scanned for the CCTV cameras around. They were on but not focused on us and the shadow seemed to disappear. I was at a disadvantage.

How much does he know of our purpose here?

"In the elevator." He commanded. The cold feel of the gun remained on my back as I walked back. Inside, the large build of the guard blocked the vision of the elevator CCTV camera of my back where the gun stayed. I was pressed to one of the walls of the small space, face first. I felt my heart in my throat. Blood rushed in me as I was thinking of a way to get out of this situation. The elevator doors closed after he pressed for a new floor.

“Peek at the pool one more time, on those women, and you’re going to have holes in you. Are we clear?” He scowled in a low voice, indicating about my observation with Amanda and Andrea earlier. "Such a disgusting piece of s**t you are.” He chided while the elevator hummed. I nodded without saying a word. So, he didn’t know. I felt a sense of relief as the gun was pulled away after a chime. I stepped back from them, fixing my wrinkled clothes. The doors opened and it was the ground floor again. Jerry walked away with one last glare as a warning. I hadn’t taken it personally, my team was safe from the assumption of investigating his wrongdoings. His viewpoint of the situation was only surface-level. I was just a p*rvert peeking at his mature girlfriend, which is better than getting caught exposing a thief.

How ironic, I thought. It made me chuckle.

________

I packed my bags that night. It was the last day of the investigation and our fake jobs in the Masfino hotel. Pictures of the affair was enough to prove a point, but wouldn't suffice being held accountable for fund loss due to their selfishness. We needed to switch the recorders at some point while Andrea was making Amanda tell stories for her with another device.

My small suitcase had a little bulge on the side despite being completely empty. It was an inconspicuous protuberance near the right wheel that didn’t look like it came with the suitcase. I felt it. Who knows what was in there, and who put it? I felt anxious. I was complacent, not thinking that Jerry’s act earlier may only be an empty threat underlying a much greater evil motive. I searched for the pocket the bulge went into, but no pocket went deeper than the bulge near the edge of the suitcase. Was it inside the suitcase itself?

A tiny hole from tearing in the suit leather was visible in the light as I turned the suitcase sideways. I dropped the suitcase and took scissors to open it a little wider. The suitcase had three layers of fabric inside the hard plastic exterior and the object was between the second and third layer outwards the plastic. I dug my hands to the tear, my heart racing in anticipation to know what it was. I pulled it out. It wasn't a device because it had a string.

It was a necklace, and a peculiar one at that.

I sat on the side of the bed, staring at the necklace. The lace was an old yellowing hemp cord stained with dirt, it was almost brown. A braid of the same hemp cord surrounded the pendant. The flat pendant was a rough flat bone studded with black stones in the middle where the bone was of irregular shape. It's texture was with ridges along the groove, so I ran my finger over it. I had this strange feeling that it was familiar. The feeling of the grooves did not feel new to me, like I've held on to it before but cannot remember where or when. Upon closer inspection of the bone, I noticed a faint red to brown stain on it resembling a quarter of a palm with its lines and fingers surrounding the whole pendant to the back, as if it was gripped by someone. I was relieved to find out it was only a necklace, but I felt uneasy. How the hell did it come here and why hadn’t I noticed this before?

My phone rang. I jolted from the sudden eruption of sound that permeated the room. Upon receiving the call, I heard Andrea whisper in a slurred tone, “Pear. Pear…” I stood up, clutching the phone and immediately dropped the necklace. My uneasiness only increased along with an alarming sense of urgency. I ran out of the employee’s resting area and went to Andrea’s room, almost tripping. Andrea was asked to drink with Amanda earlier that night. The cunning woman probably persuaded her to drink too many. Damn it, I shouldn’t have left her alone. I ran a few hundred meters to reach the building, and a few more to her floor. I was losing my breath but still went on. The influx of people waiting in the elevator was surprisingly long so I took the stairs.

When I was still struggling to remember anything, I saw notes on my phone. They were unalarming short messages or innocent words with no sense to the situation. She said I created them for her before because she was a target of people trying to take advantage of her in many ways. Most of these people were creepy men rejected but simply didn’t take the hint. She told me it happened four times in her life, thrice with me and saved without letting the wrongdoer know firsthand.

Her cry was Pear, a little mess for the letters of r*pe.