RESEARCH ( barry berkman.. ) ✔

o23. a spiritual approach..

Some spiritual sort of people, up to date with the trending waves of popularity, have decreed the theory in which hair was an extension of the nervous system. In their view, the curlier, the longer the hair, the more spiritual the person was, attuned to feelings, accepting and embracing all emotions without any sort of judgement towards them whatsoever. Similarly, a person who cuts their hair severs this connection between them and the Higher source of life. Tying the hair up is some sort of deliberate metaphor from not wanting to feel.

Adelaide's hair had no ties in it. The weather outside was cold in the night lights and sounds of a city as busy as it gets during a non-seasonal period; no tourists too curious about the raging, cold ocean, but rather just locals, cursing their existence. There was nothing but comfort in the atmosphere of the diner which started it all, a cheap pizza place making Adelaide nervous in all the right ways even to that fall.

The perfect plan has plotted and put into motion. With distinct casual sense, she waited in the booth positioned in the front corner, back against one of the two tall windows meeting at that corner. Outside, the parking lot was hardly lit, perhaps only in broken neon, flashing red and purple, otherwise rather empty, for few still came here for pizza.

In the summer, they had clients, but with the season change, they came by less often, hence, though she sat in the place where she had a good look over all entrances and exits, there was no one else there to look at. Adelaide took a sip from her banana smoothie.

Behind the counter, the only employee on duty that day, about to handle both serving and cooking, was hidden down in his seat, headphones loudly covering his ears with music, while he indulged in an entertaining Playboy magazine. Disgusting as it was, this teenager's habits were going to save them all of a lot of trouble. The key to the plan was that he had to remain clueless about all that was happening in that diner.

Adelaide's seat had one more strategic perk: she was in the blind spot of all working security cameras.

It was impressive what a week of planning out of personal initiative with the experience of a vague writer and the strategy talent of a hitman could mean to their usual bad luck. The employee of the diner did not even notice when the entrance bell rang and three solid man finally entered the place, thirty minutes late. Adelaide was halfway through her second smoothie, but even so, she greeted them with the charming smile of someone whose only distraction for a week was the imminent action of this meeting.

One week of research proved another interesting fact about the diner: their cameras had no sound.

"Batir," she nodded towards the heavy man, dressed up in formal wear, taking his hat off while he approached the booth. He smacked the hat into the chest of his bodyguard to the left. Both that one and the other to the right were the reason why Barry was not sitting beside her, but rather somewhere else, as a backup.

The key to negotiation was being civilized. There was no reason to provoke the Chechens, but there were plenty reasons to doubt they would follow the terms of their invitation.

"Not many people have the balls to send me a personal invitation when they know I don't like them," Batir followed rules of mannerism in public and bowed before taking a seat across the table from Adelaide. His two bodyguards did not claim a seat, preferring to keep the contrast going.

Batir seemed pulled out of a James Bond movie, exaggerating in his dream job attire, while his men wore a chichi street style, attempting to look frightening, but rather just having a stupid feeling they were big men who could not afford bigger clothes. Adelaide was the classic civilian who left the fancy clothes back home in order to feel comfortable in a pair of jeans and oversized shirt.