"Boss, two of the people you asked to keep an eye on have appeared."
Carrying the chill from the docks, Gin climbed into the car, while Su Ming held a glass and rested with his eyes closed.
"Let me guess, Rogers and Barnes?"
"As expected of you, Boss. It's just as you said."
"Very well, note down their home addresses. We'll pay them a visit in a few days." Su Ming finished the drink in his glass and turned to look outside the window. "Any news from Africa?"
"Nothing yet, boss. The country you mentioned, Wakanda, seems to not exist. No one has heard of it, let alone knows where it is..."
Gin felt guilty for not handling matters well, but his subordinates had indeed done their best.
"It's okay, take it slow. As long as it exists, we'll find it with patience."
..............
Young Steve was awakened by hunger. In his dream, he was eating a cake, beautifully decorated with cream and fruits, but for some reason, the more he ate, the hungrier he became.
The emptiness in his stomach caused him pain, the burning stomach acid churning finally woke him from his dream.
There was no cake, nor any food at all. He was just biting his own pillow, which was covered with teeth marks and saliva.
Like his father, today he had only eaten a slice of bread. Their household food consisted of just a bit of flour and a few potatoes, which had to be rationed carefully.
It was midnight now, frost covered the window glass, and it was cold outside. Even inside his small room, there was no warmth.
His family wasn't well-off. His mother used to be a nurse, but now she was also unemployed. She occasionally did sewing and washing for people to earn some change, and was particularly busy.
In the current times, even children knew how difficult it was to make money.
He and his little friend Baki had stopped attending school. During the day, they would go to the streets to sell newspapers. If they were lucky, they could only earn a few US cents, and more often they wished they could eat the newspapers to fill their stomachs.
They had seen people eat newspapers. A few streets away, there was an old beggar. Baki and he saw him eat a wad of newspapers, and the next day, the police dragged him away covered with a white cloth.
They didn't know whether he died of hunger or from eating the newspapers, but both he and Baki were so scared that they could only hope the papers could be exchanged for real food.
Baki's home situation was slightly better. His father was more resourceful than his own father and could occasionally find temporary work. So their life was a bit better, but only slightly.
To avoid feeling hungry, Steve wrapped his stomach tightly with the quilt and began to daydream, imagining maybe his father or himself finding a good job.
But his mind seemed uncontrollable, constantly drifting back to the cake in his dream, even just to be able to eat a single cherry on top would be wonderful.
Just then, he heard a noise at the door; his father was back. Their apartment building was very simple, with no soundproofing whatsoever.
When the door opened in the middle of the night, it could be heard by all the neighbors.
He heard Uncle Tom speaking with his father, their voices low, but both speaking quickly and sounding quite delighted.
"See you tomorrow, Tom."
"Ha, see you tomorrow."
His father closed the door and turned around with things in his arms, but in the dim moonlight, Steve saw him walking out of his room wrapped in the blanket.
"Why aren't you asleep yet?"
His father began to take out the things from his coat. There were dozens of brown paper wrapped blocks; these were the food distributed by the corporation, hamburgers and sandwiches.
Tom was quick-witted; when he heard the manager say to help themselves, he and his father unbuttoned the shirts inside their coats, using them like large pockets to stuff in food continuously.
Even though these foods were cold, making them shiver all over, their hearts were warm; this was hope.
The only strange thing was, though they had worked at the docks, they weren't dockworkers, so why were they assigned to work in the shipyard office?
But this nagging doubt vanished before the mountain of food brought in by several large trucks; the starving men couldn't think of anything else.
All they could think about was how to take more home.
"I... I just woke up when I heard the noise."
Steve looked at those paper packages, puzzled as to why his father returned at midnight with so many things.
"Oh, you're hungry, aren't you? Well, I've brought back food." Joseph smiled, picked up several packages and handed them to him. "Add some coal to the stove, heat these up before eating, or you'll get a stomachache."
Steve took the packages; these huge paper packages were almost as big as his head. He had been seriously ill when he was young, and though he was better now, he was still slimmer than other kids his age.
Through the paper bags, he smelled the food, possibly beef, cheese sauce, and tomato.
"Dad... where did this come from? Did you do something... not good?"
These foods were too good, especially in this year's winter. He was well aware, even as a child, that the people who jumped off buildings last month didn't avoid him.
"Why do you think that?" Joseph took the food out from his coat, hung the coat on the hook behind the door, and squatted down, cold hands caressing Steve's head. "I told you, always be an honest person, especially in tough times."
"Then what about this food?"
"Haha, it's a gift from the new boss to us employees. Not just me, your Uncle Tom and many other uncles you know brought food home, too, so you don't need to save these for Baki. Eat to your heart's content."
"You found a job? That's great!"
Steve settled down, quickly tossed his quilt on the sofa, and, still in pajamas, stoked and added coal to the stove. Not only to heat the food but also to boil a pot of hot water.
"Yes, I found a job." Joseph edged closer to the stove, warming his hands beside it. Having walked nearly ten kilometers back home from the docks with food in his arms, his hands were frostbitten white, but his smile remained unchanged: "A good job at the shipyard."
"So we'll always have food to eat from now on, right?" Steve looked at his father with expectant eyes.
Joseph opened one of the paper packages, revealing a hamburger inside, with thick bread enclosing a large hamburger patty. He placed these burgers on a tray, leaning them by the stove to warm while the firelight illuminated their similar faces.
"We'll always have food to eat, and in a few days, when my salary comes in, you and Baki can go back to school."
"I can work too since Mother isn't well." Steve shook his head; he didn't want to go to school anymore, as many kids his age didn't go to school.
He had grown up and could earn money for the family now.
"No, my new job pays well; we can buy lots of food." His father turned his head to him, seriously saying, "I've discussed it with Tom. He wasn't happy because that day Baki picked up a pocket watch from the dead man's body, so in a few days, we'll send you back to school. In the meantime, you two mustn't run around but stay home and study."
"That man jumped down from the building, almost hit us, and scared us to death. The pocket watch just rolled over to us. At that time, we weren't thinking about anything else, and Baki just picked it up on impulse. We didn't touch the body..."
Joseph rubbed his brows. Whether or not it was rummaging through a body, it wasn't a scene children should witness.
And it wasn't just about their sons; even he and Tom, walking down the street, would feel sick if suddenly a body fell in front of them, with red and white everywhere. They both couldn't help but feel nauseous.
Yet the two kids were fine at the time and could run right away. Was it because the harsh reality cast a shadow over them? This truly wasn't an era good for children's growth.
"Listen to me, Steve, you need to become a capable person, someone useful to the country and society. There are many more impoverished families than ours. You need to go to school to learn knowledge that will let everyone live a happy life. This is what you should do at your age."
"Okay, Dad." Steve nodded. Though he didn't understand much, he understood that he should keep studying.
"Very good. You keep an eye on the food while I go get your mother."
Joseph pushed off his knees to stand and walked to the bedroom in the back, while Steve's gaze shifted from the oily burgers to their wrapping paper.
In the flickering red flames of the stove, the brown paper appeared orange, with a large black 'W' letter in the middle.
He picked up the paper, smoothed it in his hand, and under the firelight, saw a line of small letters below the symbol.
"Wilson Enterprises..."