Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers - Chapters 61-65

DISCLAIMER: This title contains coarse language and mature content. It is not suitable for readers 18 years of age or younger.

 

Chapter 61
Welcome to Amsterdam

Amsterdam, The Netherlands - The Band Wagon
Friday, September 16, 2005, 5:12 p.m.

Jason was soaked from the torrential storm battering Amsterdam. He threw his sopping clothes onto the floor next to his bed, the bottom of a pair of bunks, in a room full of bunks, on the second floor of The Band Wagon.

            While feeling awkward and anxious upon arriving at each of his previous destinations, Jason felt oddly relaxed now, as if he had found a way to commune with the gods of ritual. Pack, unpack. Train stations, hostels. Indeed he was in a new city in new quarters with new people, but he found comfort in the consistency of it all, feeling that his surroundings were familiar somehow. And in a way, they were.

            His immediate concerns were a hot shower, dry clothes and a hot meal-and extracting the soggy boxers wedged in his butt crack.

            Jackie Pellington, or John Pellington III, sat on the next bed. He was the twenty-four-year-old son and only heir to John Pellington II, the owner and CEO of Pellington Airlifts Inc., the third-largest private helicopter service in the United States.

            Sporting an odd, disaffected smirk, Jackie wore black jeans and a maroon jacket with white frilly ruffles extending past his wrists. His arms were draped across his chest in a quasi-hug. His fingernails were painted black. His long, bony fingers pet his sides.

            "Sweetie, I don't mean to state the obvious, but a rain slicker is supposed to keep you dry." He peeked at Jason's exposed navel. "Not that I'm complaining."

            "Thanks. I'll make a note of it." Jason's fingers were shriveled and pruned. "It's got a rip in the back."

            While his level of map reading had improved, Jason's skill was still hovering just a notch below sock puppet. He somehow managed to stretch a ten-minute walk from the train station into an hour-long scramble in a thunderstorm.

            Jason had had an otherwise uneventful journey from Salzburg, with the exception that an old woman-for reasons he never ascertained-yelled at him incessantly in French on the leg between Paris and Brussels.

            "Not to worry," said Jackie's top bunkmate, Omar. "This should warm you up." A short business student from Puerto Rico with a well-groomed goatee, Omar was huggable like a human Smurf. He handed Jason a fat, burning joint.

            "Uh," Jason said. "I don't think you can smoke up here."

            The dormitory-style room, filled with an international gathering of backpackers-and a lingering cloud of pot smoke-let out a collective roar.

            "You're so cute." Jackie crinkled his button nose. "You'll be okay."

            Jason nodded, and then laughed at himself. He mimed putting on a dunce cap, the lit joint between his fingers. "Uh, der-der. I'm in Am-stuh-damn. I wunduh if dey got duh weed heeya."

            His fellow bunkmates laughed, which got Jason laughing so hard until he finally clapped his hands once, dipping his head. He looked up, and saw a collection of smiles. He took a long, deep drag, and with the joint between his fingers, held it up, toasting his hosts.