Charlize Theron's first day of regained freedom was packed with things to do.
First of all, Henry had to sneak out of bed in the dead of night, moving as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the utterly exhausted girl. He needed to head to the docks district of Los Angeles and retrieve the Cadillac from the warehouse he had rented.
In the rush to save someone, he'd used a whole suite of super abilities and, naturally, hadn't had time to worry about the car, leaving it parked down at the docks. Fortunately, that very detour had led him to a taxi driver who pointed him in the right direction, allowing everything to be resolved smoothly.
If he was going to be running around all day with Charlize Theron today, he needed the car back in advance—otherwise he'd just be wasting her time.
Next came breakfast preparations, receiving the daily meat delivery for Katy from the butcher's delivery guy, and filling the feeding bowls.
The bowl set into the base was for the morning portion; the reserve bowl was for lunch. Only after that could the punctual, perpetually starving "tabby cat" be appeased.
: Roar. Let me go hunt for myself if you've got the guts. I'll bring back a few two-legged cubs for you to see.
With everything finally ready, Henry leaned in and kissed Sleeping Beauty awake.
And promptly got kissed back.
Who said only men were always the eager ones?
In short—after eating Henry… ahem, no, after eating breakfast, Charlize went back to her room to grab her ID headshots. First stop: the Screen Actors Guild, where she registered as an actor, while Henry registered as an agent.
Once that was done, the two of them signed an agency contract on the spot.
Next, they headed to Giovanni's photo studio.
This Italian-descended, massively built shop owner ran a photo studio that somehow sold everything. He was one of Henry's private suppliers, a man with uncanny connections who could always get his hands on rare goods.
But what Henry admired most was Giovanni's photography and photo-developing skills.
Don't assume photo development didn't require skill—just exposing what was on the film and calling it a day. In this pre-Photoshop era, developing photos was the chance to "Photoshop."
While it couldn't turn a sow into Diao Chan like future beauty apps, whether a photo looked good or bad depended fifty percent on development technique.
Most photo studios followed standard procedures and produced serviceable results. Giovanni, on the other hand, could make photos shine.
Retouching and color correction were just the basics. Giovanni could even overlay multiple negatives onto a single photo, or remove unsuitable elements without leaving awkward traces.
To reach that level, Henry himself still needed a lot of practice. So for Charlize Theron's audition photos, he brought her to Giovanni instead of doing it himself.
It was said Giovanni's studio specialized in fleecing tourists—half again the price for acquaintances! A textbook case of "three years without opening, one opening eats for three years."
Henry unleashed his terrifying bargaining skills and slashed the audition photo price to less than one-tenth of the original.
Charlize Theron almost lost confidence. Was this really America? Or some Third World country? Bargaining down to ten percent?
With those two errands done, it was just in time to drop Charlize off at her part-time job.
Henry didn't grandly declare that she should quit all her temp work and let him support her.
Whether a person is financially independent determines whether they can face problems with confidence. For a girl who'd just been burned by her former agent, how would it look if her new agent tried to seize total control over her life?
So as far as daily life went, unless Charlize Theron brought it up herself, Henry wouldn't interfere too much. On one hand, although their relationship had advanced to that of lovers, they weren't married—leaving each other some personal space was only reasonable.
After dropping Charlize off, Henry still had plenty to do.
The underwater server project at the docks warehouse could wait for now. To guide Charlize's acting, he needed to get hold of a video camera first.
But before that, he made a stop at the Continental Hotel.
What that suited man had mentioned yesterday—"tribute"—had been nagging at him ever since.
Unfortunately, this wasn't something he could ask the girls working the intelligence desk about. Internal hotel matters were strictly forbidden topics for them. Loose lips could very easily result in someone "disappearing."
Luck was on his side. In the hotel café, Henry spotted someone who should know: Charlie Fisher, uncle of hotel manager Mooney Fisher, and an old gunman who'd helped Henry a great deal when the black clinic was first set up.
"Charlie, is this seat taken?" Henry walked over, pointing at the empty chair across from him.
The old gunman glanced around the mostly empty café, then nodded for him to sit, adding, "You know the rules here. If you want information, you pay."
Henry didn't hesitate. He placed a gold coin on the table and slid it over.
Charlie waved over a waitress and handed her the coin. "Get this kid a coffee. What'll it be?"
"Double espresso."
The Black waitress pocketed the coin and went to prepare the order.
Charlie looked at the man who hadn't shown up in ages and chuckled. "I was starting to think you'd died in some corner somewhere. You've been gone a long time."
"Been busy with other things," Henry said lightly. Then his expression turned serious. "Charlie, do you know what 'tribute' means?"
"You don't know?" Charlie looked genuinely surprised. After taking a sip of coffee to wet his throat, he explained:
"Most people who provide services to the Continental are folks with trouble hanging over their heads.
"Normal people can live in ordinary society—they don't need to do these shady things. If they want the Continental to help them solve problems, there's a price to pay.
"That price is a monthly tribute paid to the hotel in gold coins. There's no fixed amount. You negotiate it with the manager yourself—could be a fixed sum, could be a percentage.
"If one day you stop paying, it means the hotel no longer provides protection. They won't announce it publicly, though, so your trouble won't come knocking the very next day.
"It's basically a buffer period, giving service providers time to scrape together coins. But if you're only finding out about this now… don't tell me you never talked to Mooney about it?"
Henry looked embarrassed. No wonder the FBI or police kept showing up at his door. All those problems had been avoided only because his super senses warned him early, letting him run before things hit.
"Looks like I really didn't."
But Henry could understand the system. It was essentially a coin-recycling mechanism.
If service providers no longer needed the hotel's special services, then the coins earned by gunmen would keep flowing into their hands and pile up.
Though the Continental's gold coins weren't currency in the strict economic sense, they shared a similar trait: money had to circulate, not stagnate in one place.
Service providers paying protection fees back to the hotel formed one link in that circulation.
Henry had previously thought the Continental was slacking off—turns out it was just his own ignorance.
As for why the manager never brought it up, Henry couldn't be bothered to think too deeply about it. It was probably about creating leverage through favors and negotiations.
What no one had expected was that Henry was as slippery as a loach. If the police or FBI were going to show up with bad intentions, he'd just avoid them before they ever arrived. Where was the trouble in that?
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