aftereffect | THE HANGOVER | p. w

| chapter twenty |

"Now what?" Phil asks as we sit in the car, looking at the SUV, but no one moves from our vehicle or theirs.

Alan leans towards the front seat as he and Phil go back and forth about a signal. "Of course, it's on. We just drove 30 miles into the desert. He knows it's on."

"Phil, just do something," Stu screams in a high pitch, making me laugh at his hysterical tone. Phil does as he's told, and weirdly enough, the petite guy and his goons start to exit their vehicle.

"All right, let's go." Phil opens the car door and moves the chair as he helps me out, too. Stu climbs out the window of his broken door, and Alan tries to follow but gets stuck and falls out.

The Asian guy and his goons immediately start laughing at Alan, "Funny fat guy, fall on face." Alan gets up quickly, looking embarrassed, as Stu goes to check on him.

"At least he wasn't naked in the trunk of someone's car like a chump," I grumble as they look at me. Phil grabs my arm, pulling me close to his side with a sigh.

"All right, we got the money. Eighty grand, cash." He tells the Asian man who was now dressed like an 80's mafia character or someone from a bad retro porn.

The small mob boss clicks his finger at us with his hip cocked. "Throw it over. Then I give you Doug."

"Um, I'm sorry. First of all, good morning, and we didn't catch your name last night." Stu steps forward a little hesitantly and awkwardly.

The Asian man looks at him momentarily, but with a small nod, he introduces himself as "Mr. Chow. Leslie Chow."

"Mr. Chow, it is a pleasure. My name is Stu, and we would very much appreciate an opportunity to see Doug ...before we give you the money just to verify that he's okay. If that's cool?"

I pat him on the shoulder, whispering to him, "Good idea."

"Of course, Stu. That is cool." Chow removes his sunglasses and then claps his hands, speaking in a foreign language. One of the goons opens the door and pulls Doug out.

"Oh, thank God." Stu breathes a sigh of relief, seeing that Doug is still alive.

"Wow, time apart truly does change perspectives... Is it me, or did Doug grow?" I say, confused, as Stu nudges me as I scrutinize Doug from afar. Something seems wrong.

"See, he fine. Now give me money, or I shoot him, and I shoot all you motherfuckers, and then we take it along with your woman. Your choice, bitches." Chow says, adding the part about me clearly for intimidation.

I let out a laugh. "You wish...I've seen what you're packing, peanuts..." Glancing at the cute goon next to him, I smile flirtatiously. "Him, on the other hand..."

Phil once again pulls me close as I run my mouth. "Give him the money, Stu." He tells him, and Stu does as he's told. He throws the bag towards Chow, who squeals, and the cute goon catches it.

"It's all there." The cute good says.

"Let him go," Chow calls out with a flourish of his hand as the other goon drags Doug forward roughly as he gives muffled screams and moans under the bag.

"All right, take it easy. Take it easy," Phil says, holding his hand up as if he wants to step forward and grab Doug.

"Ta-da," Chow chirps as his goon takes the bag away, revealing a tall black man, not the short white man we had expected. Stu lets out a shout as he backs away.

"I knew it! Doug is not that tall and would never wear that outfit. No offense, dude," I say to the guy who just gives me a deadpan expression behind the tape covering his mouth.

"Is this some kind of joke? Who the hell is this?" Phil demands, glaring at Chow. Once again, everything is back to square one. Just when we thought we were home free, the other shoe dropped.

"That is not Doug," Stu states, pointing at the black guy.

"What you talking about, Willis? That him," Chow tells us, motioning to the man who is very clearly not the man we were looking for or had paid money to get back.

Stu lets out a hesitant but still polite laugh. "No, I'm sorry, Mr. Chow. That's not our friend. He... That's..."

"The Doug we're looking for is white," Alan says straight-forwardly, as Stu stutters, struggling to explain that our friend wasn't black.

The goon rips the tape off the man's mouth. "Ah! I told you you had the wrong guy, little boy." He turns to look at Alan. "Damn, Alan, what the fuck you got me into?"

Phil, Stu, and I all look at Alan in surprise. The guy knows him by name and seems to know him personally. "You know him?"

"This is the guy that sold me the bad drugs," Alan explains with a simplicity that it was difficult to argue with him. "How you doing?"

"We just bought a drug dealer for 82 grand, and a bad drug dealer at that?!" I exclaim in annoyance. My money was reserved for strippers and tipping bartenders.

"I didn't sell you no fucking bad drugs." The guy seems offended that we would even accuse him of that.

"Wait. He sold you the Ruphylin?" Stu shouts, pointing at the guy who still had his hands tied behind his back.

"Ruphylin? I sold you that Ru...? Wha...?" The black guy seems confused by the name of the drug he sold Alan... almost as if he was a bad drug dealer...

"Who gives a shit?" Phil screams at the guy before looking back at Chow, a little frantic now. "Where is Doug?"

"I am Doug." The guy tells us, annoyed.

"Your name's Doug?" Alan laughs, amused by the two Dougs' mix-up, but he is the only one.

"Yeah-..Yes, I'm Doug." Doug seems put out by the fact that Alan didn't know his name.

"His name's Doug, too. Ha. Classic mix-up." We all give Alan an unimpressed expression in reply to his amusement with the situation as the 'other' Doug now laughs along.

"Come on." Chow waves his goons to move along; obviously, over this, now he's got his money.

"Hey, Chow. You gave us the wrong Doug." Phil yells at the Asian gangster, who doesn't care, but I flinch at the tone of his growled shout. I don't think I've ever heard him this angry.

"Not my problem." Chow retorts with a smug grin as he shrugs.

"No, fuck that shit. Now, you give us our 80 grand back and take him with you!" I wince as Phil almost screams at Chow, but I get why he's so upset; we're back to trying to find Doug.

"No. Come on. I'll be your Doug," the black Doug says, stepping closer to us and sounding desperate as he grabs my arm.

"Sorry, we're kind of attached to the Doug we have. Maybe you can find your forever home someplace else." I sass, moving his hand off my arm as Chow laughs.

"Oh, yeah, okay. Oh, I take him back. Right after you suck on these little Chinese nuts." Chow grabs at his crotch, giving me a look probably from the peanuts comment I made before. "Mmm. How that sound? Unh, pshh.".

I frown at the vulgar motions Chow is making; it looks so wrong coming from him. "So long, gay boys and girl."

"Wait a second," Phil says, but Chow and his goons get into their SUV, turning the car around and kicking up dust as they speed away. "Goddamn it!"

"Gosh darn it!" Alan copies Phil but leaves out the 'swear.'

I put my hand on my forehead, feeling lost as I tried not to panic; we were officially out of time. We had no leads nor any memories of last night. We were so fucked.

"Shit!" Phil kicks up the sand from the desert floor as Alan copies him once again.

"Shoot!"