Moonstrike 15: famously beautiful nimrod

Ji Min tossed her sweat towel into the plastic laundry bag on the bathroom floor and stripped out of her workout clothes where she stood. She peeled off her pedometer and absently checked the time again. It was just after 6:00.

Still plenty of time, then.

She took her time in the shower, enjoying the scents of her lemon soap and berry hair care set before she had to leave the steam. She gathered the rest of her dirty laundry after she dried her hair and dressed, thinking it might be a good time to go to a laundromat. There was one next door to a cafe a few blocks down. She could have a leisurely breakfast while the clothes ran.

She reconsidered those plans when she finally checked her phone. It was full of messages.

“Fuck me,” she muttered to herself. She sat on the one hotel chair and regretfully opened the high priority email from the insurance company first. “Ugh.” There was an urgent assessment needed for a high priority client who’d crashed his Porsche last night. It was a name even she knew, a famous beautiful idiot who lived in the same city where DM guy said there was a human trafficking ring. Ji Min checked the address and sent back a professional acceptance. “There goes my fucking day,” she grouched.

Forget the laundry. It looked like this was her first priority. She didn’t even look at what messages she had waiting from the other cat burglar, Issa, and Alex. Ji Min changed her outfit to something a little more professional, rubbed on sunscreen, and called the private number for a very expensive car rental on the way out the hotel.

They had something waiting for her by the time she arrived on foot 20 minutes later. It was just past 7 in the morning and she was on her way out of town, on her day off, away from the professional development seminar that she wanted to be in. Hell.

Her stomach growled. Ji Min took the time to swing through a drive-through and get a coffee, tea, and three different scones. The breakfast sandwich was tempting, but the thought of showing up to a billionaire’s home with sauce on her front did not appeal.

The drive sucked because she had to go through the entire city to the suburbs on the other side. She carefully toed the line of hurrying without doing anything that would get her pulled over. It was ten til 9 when she arrived at the ostentatious gate to the Castille family home. She hit the buzzer and someone let her in.

The beautiful idiot himself was nowhere to be seen. A middle-aged man in business casual was waiting instead with a slightly pinched expression under a shade roof. She could see a curtain move on a third floor window. She didn't catch who was behind it.

The man drew her attention to him with a little cough. “Good morning,” he said crisply. “We appreciate your promptness. Thank you so much for coming all the way out here at this hour.”

“Good morning,” Ji Min lied, making her eyes crinkle with her smile. She shut the car door and made sure there were no crumbs on her outfit. “It’s no trouble at all!”

“Quite.” He looked her over. His expression didn’t change. She felt judged anyway. “You would be Miss Ji Min Cain, correct?”

“That’s right.” She shook his hand. “Wonderful to meet you, Mr. Garcia.”

“This way, please.” He took her around the side of the building to a garage. When he opened it up Ji Min pretended not to even see the row of gleaming cars in the darkness and focused on the smashed blue Porche under the only light.

Ji Min was a professional. Her very expensive heels clacked as she walked a circle around the car for the briefest assessment. “Where did this happen?” She asked. She didn’t take her eyes off the hood of the car. Something the size of a street pole had been rammed through it. There were dents in the hood from what looked like fists.

“About 10 minutes away from here, I believe,” came the reply. “It’s a wonder that the car made it home.”

She hummed politely and nodded as if she believed that. “Am I interviewing you for the collision report?” At his nod, “Were you the driver or in the car at the time?”

“No, neither.” His voice was mildly apologetic. “I hope that will not be an issue.”

“We may need to clarify later with the policyholder, but I understand that you’re authorized,” Ji Min said blandly, professionally, as if this wasn’t a huge load of shit and a normal customer would get away with it. “What was the collision with? I see that there’s no police report?”

“Yes, Mr. Castille was quite affected by the scare,” the staff member responded. “He did not think to call.”

‘He can’t be that big of an idiot,’ she decided. ‘I don’t buy it. It’s just a convenient way to get away with shit.’

Ji Min responded with a polite smile. She didn’t trust herself to respond.

Mr. Garcia was a stone cold liar, absolutely unphased by his own bullshit. “The car hit a tree. I believe that he lost control while returning. He mentioned that it jumped out at him.”

A tree jumped out at him.

The bland delivery of the story nearly took her out.

“And these dents?” Ji Min gestured at the shapes that had obviously been made by a large human fist.

Mr. Garcia leaned in close as if he needed to examine the dents carefully. “Coconuts fell from the tree.”

She took a steadying breath. There were no fucking coconut trees in middle of the continental USA.

She looked Mr. Garcia in the eye. He looked back steadily.

There was no point. They both knew it was a lie. He wasn’t going to give her the truth.

‘This asshole is not getting my full efforts for calculating his returns.’

Her voice was a little tight when she said, “Thank you. Will you wait here, or should I call you when I’m finished up?”

Mr. Garcia elected to stay. He did not say why. It put her hackles up to be watched while she worked but she was used to it.

‘I wonder who is dealing with the property damage issue? There’s a fucked up streetlight in the city somewhere. Mr. Garcia can’t sweep up all the messes, can he?’

Maybe he could. As she forced the hood open to look at the engine block, Ji Min realized that Mr. Garcia had probably prioritized that. The car could be hidden and put off. The actual incident had probably been days ago, maybe even weeks. So they were just being assholes by putting a rush order on it.

…the car was heavily modified. She knew that the instant the light hit the engine block.

“Mr. Garcia,” Ji Min raised her voice slightly to carry. “Do you know who Mr. Castille's mechanic is?”

“Mechanic?” She mentally upgraded him from an employee to an accomplice of some sort when Garcia outright lied, “Mr. Castille isn’t very knowledgeable or interested in cars. The nearest Mom and Pop shop suffices.”

Ji Min looked at the extremely souped up engine. Millions of dollars had gone into the fucking thing, invisible from the outside but glaring once you looked at the inside of the car. “As you say.”

‘It’s unprofessional to tell a client that you know they’re lying,’ she reminded herself, and got to work cataloging the damage. ‘It wouldn’t do any good. What’s the point? They don’t care about the money, this is just a legal requirement.’

The worst part was that he was going to get away with it. Fighting the client would be a huge, dramatic shitstorm for no benefit. She felt a sudden surge of loyalty for her company, which she was going to see out by making sure they paid the absolute bare minimum to this asshat. Ji Min obfuscated in the report, giving her honest assessment of how functional the car was (very, due to the modifications), a bland description of the damage that didn’t contradict that asinine coconuts story, and an extremely lowballed judgment of what payout would be required for repairs.

Mr. Garcia’s eyebrow twitched when he saw the amount.

“I’m afraid that it’s a 6 year old car without much upkeep,” Ji Min apologized sweetly. Her smile was a little sharp if you were looking for it. “We can replace the engine and the body for this amount. Would you like to work with one of our mechanics, or will your little local mechanic take care of the vehicle?”

He finally seemed to see her with some grudging respect. “Our local will be fine,” he said, as if he didn’t know she was screwing them out of the worth of the actual, highly modified car as punishment for involving her in obvious bullshit. “Thank you so much for your time. I’ll see you back to your vehicle.”

She drove a few miles away, scowling at the deciduous trees that lined the road. “Fucking coconuts,” Ji Min bitched. She cranked the heat up in the car. “God, I hate rich people.”

Castille was probably into something fucking weird. Billionaire fight club? Luxury car racing?

“It’s better for my mental health not to think about these people,” Ji Min told herself. She took a deep breath and found a good place to pull over and finally look through her personal messages. She ended up going through another drive through for a coffee and sitting in the parking lot.

She checked the message from the cat burglar first. It was just reconfirming their meeting tomorrow. Ji Min wrote an affirmative response and flipped to what Issa had sent. It was a selfie with a grinning parking cop. There was no explanation. She liked the image and then asked if Issa knew anyone she could refer Ji Min to for some basic education that would help if she did go on a space mission.

Issa responded immediately with a screen full of exclamations and hearts. After a few seconds, headshots started rolling in with blocks of text Issa had clearly typed up on each of them. Ji Min let the messages come in without looking at them while she turned to what Alex had sent.

I think I’m in trouble with the federal government. 😔

Ji Min looked at that for a moment. “Dumbass,” she said, and hit the call button.

He picked up on the second ring. "I don't know what to do," Alex said conversationally. "They want to know why I have the information about Doctor." She could hear him pacing. "I didn't tell them that you raided his hotel room, I just said I had a contact that told me about the chemical weapons. But they don't believe me! They're opening an investigation into me."

He sounded hurt and surprised by this lack of trust. It was so mean of the US government. His life had never prepared him for this.

Ji Min pressed her fingers into her temple. She held her breath for a moment. Then she let out a controlled exhale. "Well, they'll be surprised when they don't find anything," she eventually said. "Since you're clean. You are clean, right? No criminal contacts, no big debt, nothing that'll cause concern?"

"Of course I am," Alex muttered. He sounded a little lighter. "Are you sure it'll blow over?"

"It will," Ji Min said confidently. She raked a hand through her hair. "And when you come up clean they'll trust you again. No worries, alright?"

Once she was finished calming him down, Ji Min hung up and took a moment to hold her face in her hands. "I should not have helped him," she said to the steering wheel. "He's clueless. He's got no discretion. This is a valuable lesson for me."

Thursday was a bust, honestly. There was no way she was going to drive hours back through morning traffic to go to the conference on a day when she wasn't particularly invested in a speaker.

She threw out all of her original plans as a bad deal and decided to make the most of her time in Rat City. Ji Min settled in at a café and read through the documents from the guy calling himself the Investigator. He'd provided her with an address for the suspected trafficking headquarters. She kept her camera running while she took a walk through the area, occasionally holding her phone up like she was messaging.

From the outside, it looked like a normal office building.

She made a note of entrances and security features. She wanted to see the roof, so she made her way to the top floor of a nearby shopping center and stood by the window with an ice cream to peer down.

Basic surveillance accomplished, she typed up a response to the Investigator and asked about a meeting.

They got back to her immediately.

"It's convenient that you're in town. I appreciate your time."

Ji Min ate the last of her ice cream cone as she read.

"How's Saturday? I have unavoidable obligations on weekdays. What time frame would you recommend for reconnaissance into the facility?"

Okay, they knew she was a cat burglar. That was the reason they'd contacted her and not someone else. Ji Min threw away the ice cream wrapper.

"Have you done surveillance?" She responded. "We should monitor coming and going for at least two weeks before attempting entry."

"Have camera records," came the response. "Traffic reflects that of an average 9-5 office. But it can't be trusted because there's an underground entry with irregular access about six blocks away."

When a pin point followed, Ji Min looked up the supposed entrance and made her way there on foot to have a look around.

A new message landed.

"Are you there now? Be careful."

Ji Min huffed and put the phone in her pocket. When it vibrated again she almost ignored it. She took it out absently, more interested in the parking garage than whatever the investigator had to say.

But it wasn't from him. The message was from Min Joon, and all it said was, "I need some help. I fucked up."