Three
..I stopped at a local gentleman’s clothing store, firmly intent on getting my extra pay even if it had to be immediately squandered on a hat. The joke was on Setzer; I had wanted to purchase some kind of gentleman’s hat for quite some time.
..The inside of the store was well kept. The suits and pants were neatly lined in rows on racks that stretched the distance of the little store, and the far wall had a vast selection of gentleman’s hats. In particular I noted the fedoras, as they’ve always been my favorite style. There were many to choose from in all manner of colors that would go nicely on a dress hat, as well as one or two colors that just seemed out of place, including a lime green and a stomach medicine pink.
..There was a girl behind the counter of the store. She had lightly curled, shoulder-length mohagany hair and dark, wide eyes covered with a pair of square spectacles with only the slightest of frames. She wore lipstick that was only a half a shade too dark over rich, full lips that looked fairly pouty as she lightly drummed the side of her face with her fingers, which were long and delicate and had the nails painted crimson. Her gaze occasionally shifted to the counter-top, where she was reading the local paper. She looked about twenty-five.
..When I reached the back of the store where the hats were, I idly lifted one off of the shelf and turned it about in my hands. It was lighter than I thought a hat would be, and the material was firm, yet soft. The clerk asked, “May I help you?” from behind her counter. Her voice was soft and rich, and only partly nasally from her glasses.
.. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m looking for a hat.”
..She said, “I’ll bet you are,” in a way that only gave hint of the slightest chuckle. She wasn’t going to get away with that.
..I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Boy, what’s happened to the service in the world these days? You seemed like such a nice girl, and then you gotta go and pick on a man’s hair. Well, so much for that really big tip I was going to give you.”
..She may have chuckled a little, but I kept my back turned to her the entire time. I was more interested in the two hats that I’d been fiddling with. One was a nice black hat that had a daring red band wrapped around the dome, and the other was a slate gray with a black band. Both looked rather nice, as most hats in the store did, but I figured that these were the two that’d be bound to clash less with what I was going to be wearing during my short stay in Kohlingen. I decided I’d ask what my new friend thought.
.. “Excuse me,” I said, interrupting her from her paper. “Which of these do you prefer?” I held up my two favorite hats and shifted them a little.
..After some deliberation over the tops of her glasses, she announced, “The black one. Definitely.” She also nodded sagely and moved her glasses back up.
..I put the slate gray hat on top of my head and moved the other one to the shelf. Her jaw about hit the floor, and she reeled back a little. I nodded at her and made my way to the counter. By way of explanation, I offered, “I’ve got work to do. I can’t be distracted by every sales clerk who throws herself at me and my perfect fashion sense.” Her jaw didn’t go back up. “I’ll wear it out, thanks.”
..I reached into my jacket and got money out to pay for the hat. I casually flung some at her while glancing at her newspaper. She huffily opened the register and rang up my purchase.
.. “That’s supposed to be a gentleman’s hat, you know.” She’d about got things taken care of, and was busy counting change in her head.
.. “I’ve played one at costume parties.” I wasn’t paying too much attention to her or the conversation. My eyes were focused on her paper, which had all of my attention at the moment.
..The paper was called the “Kohlingen Post-Times,” which I only noted because it sounded like a paper that always got to your house a day late. The bit that caught my eye was a small article that was accompanied by a stock photo of a rather handsome young man with blonde hair and a nice suit. The article was titled “President Shinra to Speak about Recent Land Purchase”. I found that interesting. That at least verified that Shinra wasn’t wasting any time about going to work on this factory they had written Setzer about. It didn’t tell me how they got the land, but at least now I could rule out the letters Setzer had received being fakes.
.. “Hey,” I said. “Is this right, here? Rufus Shinra is going to visit this small town?”
..She gave me a puzzled look. “Boy, you’re really not from around here, are you?” I shook my head. “Yeah. It’s the only news story that’s been printed, lately. Apparently, Shinra up and bought a big chunk of land nearby. They plan to build a factory on it and have local boys do a lot of the work.” She paused. “I don’t really like it. The added jobs could really improve the city, but putting up a big factory feels like it could damage the recovering land around here. We need everything as clean as we can make it.”
..I didn’t really care much about that last bit, so I didn’t really respond. After making sure that the article didn’t have anything else that might or might not be pertinent information, I tilted my head to the side, and told the clerk, “You’re going to do me a favor.”
..She moved her head back, again. Eventually she smiled, which means that I won. “Oh, I am, am I?”
.. “Yup.”
.. “And just what might this favor be?” She said, leaning in a good ways over the counter to look at me.
.. “For the next few days, when you get your morning paper, you’re going to pick up a second one for me. I’ll stop by here every day to pick them up.”
..She didn’t seem to like that idea much. “Why on earth would I do something like that?”
.. “Well…” I said, trying to look like she beat it out of me. “If you do, I might just give you that really big tip I told you about earlier.” I got up and moved to the door, not waiting for a formal answer. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Until then.”
..I wondered what she was saying about that, but not all too much. I was more focused on the next building of the morning, which I entered after crossing town for a few minutes.
..This was a government building. Zoning, or something like that. I was never really good with the names of these stuffy office places. I’ll spare you the details, because no one really wants to know just how boring these places can be, but anyways I was eventually directed to someone who may be helpful in supplying the information I had been seeking.
..She was an older woman, perhaps fifty. She had a tired face, and a perpetual bored expression etched onto a set of features that were as craggy and solid as any mountain chain. Her hair was fastidiously made into a bun. She looked up at me, and asked me why I was there.
..I showed her a small tab of paper with a number on it. It was a property lot number that contained this “Daryl’s Tomb” that Setzer seemed to find so important. I asked, “Yeah. Can you ring up any info on who owns this piece of land?”
.. “Sure,” she said. After thumbing through a few files, she eventually said, “Looks like that’s one of the sections bought up by Shinra recently. Sorry, buddy. Doesn’t look like you’re going to be able to get a hold of that plot anytime soon.” She must have thought I was going to put a house on it. She looked at me expectantly.
.. “Could you please tell me who sold the land?”
.. “Sure,” she said again. I was surprised she wasn’t asking any questions. She looked through her little land file a bit more and eventually said “Looks like it was sold by one ‘M. Aiden’”
.. “Interesting,” I said, not knowing yet if it really was or not. I thanked her for her time, and she grunted at me. I took my new information with me and went out into the street intent on reaching Setzer.



Veryslightlymad