I needed to think. 

I woke up this morning feeling unsettled. And nothing would take the feeling away.  Nothing. 

Because all I could think about was Matt. Clearly he was thinking about me too, since he'd already messaged me this morning- twice. I didn't read them properly, but I did see enough to note it was something about  doing something tonight. That sounded like a date. That sounded very datey. I didn't reply to his messages. When I heard my phone ring I was just about to answer it and tell him to fuck off when...

It was an untraceable number. Only one person called me on a number like this.

"Yes." I answered. 

"Can you meet me now?"

"Where?"

"I'll send you directions." 

And then he hung up. I was glad for his call, I needed the distraction, get my head clear and back in the game.  I climbed into my car and my phone beeped once more. 

"Su Wong's Kitchen." I read out loudly, surprised by the public location. We hardly ever met in public. I shrugged and drove off towards Johannesburg's little Chinatown. It was always so busy here, that's probably why he chose it. The street was narrow and packed and parking was hard to find, inbetween all the cars and street vendors spilling out onto the road selling everything from fireworks to fish. But I finally found one.  

Su Wongs kitchen was a tiny restaurant at the bottom of a long dark alley. You had to step over puddles of dirty drain water and broken bottles just to get to it. Not exactly a touristy one, that's for sure. And when I went inside, I knew why he'd chosen it. It looked like the kind of place that the Chinese mafia would hang out in. Where hit men were hired and fired and people lost their lives. I walked in and a small bell that was attached to the door sounded, everyone turned around and looked at me. It was not a friendly look. At all. 

Hat Man stood up and said something to the room in Chines, everyone looked away as quickly as they possibly could. I'd always known that he wielded some weird power over people. I'd tried to follow him a few times, to figure out who he was. I'd run his face through illegal face recognition software, I even tried to lift prints off him once, he caught me. Since then he always wears gloves. So after all these years, I still didn't know who the hell he was. 

"Hope. Have a seat." he pulled the chair out for me and I sat. He was always so strangely gentlemanly- even though I was sure he was the furthest thing from a gentleman. 

"So...?" I asked. "What's up?"

"Can I order you something to drink?"

"Sure." I said. 

He waved a waiter down and spoke to him in Chinese again before the guy shuffled off and disappeared into the back.

"So, you had a good week." He eyed me from under the hat and I couldn't help my tiny smile. 

"Eddy." I nodded. 

"We'll drink to that." He said as a bottle of wine was brought to the table and two glasses were poured. I took the glass and sipped, it tasted bitter and I made a face. 

"Not your favorite?" he asked.

"No." I admitted. "So, why am I here?"

Hat Man reached into his suitcase. It was a brown leather one and I had never seen him without it. "I have some more decorations for your wall."

He slid the file over to me and I opened it momentarily. "Thanks." I started to stand. 

"Where you going?" he asked, stopping me with his hand. "When last did we have lunch together? Or, more to the point, when last did you have lunch?"

I thought about it, I hadn't eaten in days again. "Fuck." I sighed and sat back down. 

"They make the best crab here." He winked at me. 

"Fine." I said and tried to take another sip of the wine. It tasted better second time around.

"So?" he leaned back in his seat with his glass.  "What's new?"

"Uh...I got a cat. She's dying though. It's Eddy's cat."

"Sorry to hear that." He sounded sincere. He knew how much I loved animals. 

I shrugged. "Everything dies, doesn't it?" 

"Some things sooner than others." He held his glass up for me to click. I did. 

"Cheers." He said.

"Cheers."

**

I arrived at the old hospital a few hours later. I'd been coming here regularly since Hat Man had first introduced me to the place. I'd been drawn to it from the first moment I'd seen it. There was something calming and soothing about its brokenness.  Empty. Peaceful and quiet. In fact, I'd kind of carved myself out a little room in the back that doubled as my home away from home.  I walked down the damp corridor carrying the bags of food with me. A bunch of stray cats had decided to call this place home and I always arrived with a huge bag of food which I poured out along the hospital corridors as I walked. 

The place was a maze, if you didn't know it. I knew it like the back of my hand. I pulled out my keys and unlocked the first lock. I pulled the heavy metal door open, the door to the old operating room that I'd met hat man in and stepped in. I locked the door behind me and walked to the door at the other end of the room. It was where all the surgeons had scrubbed in before cutting people open. A long room lined with sinks, leading into a locker room with showers and changing facilities. 

I'd rigged up a small generator here for electricity, and just turned the water back on to this section of the building. I took the file out of my bag and pulled all the bits of paper out. There was a photo, and a name. Some bank statements, address, cell phone number and information of the website he hosted.  

I took his picture and moved over to my wall... 

Yes, Ok. I have a creepy serial killer wall. It's the one lame, cliched thing about me. But they are really very handy, they don't just look good on TV. Sometimes to understand the bigger picture, you have to stick all the little puzzle pieces up on a wall and stare at it for long enough so the full image finally comes into focus. 

For me, the image was starting to come into focus. I was starting to see the bigger picture and it was big. Huge. And it was closer than anyone thought, in fact, it was all around us. You just had to know what you are looking for.