The Heinrich Maneuver
Crammed, dark, smelly, and rather scary. The subway was not exactly a comfortable place to be.
She was blonde, of average height, clad in a Chanel suit and three-inch-heeled black pumps, expensive perfume floating around her like a battle aura. She stood out in a way that snazzy locals would stand out (for instance, aren't Chanel suits a thing of the not-so-distant past?), but she wasn't exactly out-of-place either. Just another slightly eccentric, latte-in-paper-cup-type fashion devotee, waiting for the train to come.
She stood by the ticket booth, as if she were waiting for somebody. Every now and then, she looked at her metal wristwatch, took out her cell phone, tapped one foot in mild annoyance, impatient as if she was probably stood up by some unfortunate Joe. But if one only looked at her more closely, it would be apparent that she's not waiting for Joe to arrive so they could ride the train together, no! So what was she making a show of waiting for?
It's not apparent of course, what with her dark sunglasses and all, but she was watching two people out of the corner of her eye: two dark-haired individuals, a man and a woman. The perfect adjective to describe the woman would be 'dignified'—distinct because of her Asian features, clad in black leather pants and jacket set, she gave a small, uneasy smile to the other person.
The man, in sharp contrast, was somebody one would say 'odd'? Wearing a simple white shirt, jeans, his bare feet haphazardly crammed into scruffy black Chuck Taylors, his overall messy appearance screamed 'irresponsible student'. He was the type who would seem creepy, but harmless if he didn't do anything.
But, as the blonde watched him, for some reason or the other he tried toattack the Asian woman. So, yeah, back then he looked like a pretty harmful guy…
Bam! Bam! Asian woman dodges, flips, and with her two feet, lands on the guy's stomach.
It wasn't rush hour, but a good number of people stopped mid-rush and looked at the amazing display of martial arts. Chanel woman, though trying to be discreet, couldn't help but flinch at that scene.
Even the Asian woman was surprised at what she did, so imagine how the poor creep looked on the floor. His facial expression could very well be that of a hapless cockroach under the mighty flip-flop of an angry housewife. However, with all civility, the Asian woman helped him up on his feet. They shook hands, exchanged a few words in another language, and for some reason, the guy just walked away.
The Asian woman looked a bit lost for a while. But since the guy just disappeared up overground, she shrugged and went up towards the ticket booth.
She stopped when she saw Chanel woman. Her eyes widened in the way that eyes widen when they recognize someone.
"Excuse me," she began. Her English seemed fluent, but it had a slight accent to it.
Chanel woman feigned 'stranger curiosity' and asked, "Yes?"
The Asian woman opened her mouth. Some broken sound came out of her throat. She closed her mouth again, as if she changed her mind, and just merely asked, "Are you in line?"
Chanel woman smiled at her, shook her head, and said, "No, my date just told me to meet somewhere else." She then gave her a charming smile before she strutted away from the ticket booth.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the Asian woman glanced at her one more time before turning to buy her tickets.
Oh well. This identity concealing business can sure be a load on your shoulders, huh…
Up overground, Chanel woman looked around. There were scruffy-looking people all around, but the creep from the subway was nowhere to be found.
"Tch." Why she was so intent on watching the creep was quite a mystery. Maybe he was a suspect, or maybe she was simply assigned to trail the guy. But now that he was nowhere in sight, she felt like she just failed something.
Nevertheless, with all grace and style and sexiness, she shrugged her shoulders, threw her coffee paper cup in the garbage, and strutted off towards the nearest Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf branch (considering it was LA, it wasn't exactly a difficult thing to do.)
"Your name for the cup?"
"It'sMerrie."
The barista swiftly wrote Mary on the side of the paper cup, took out the receipt from the register, muttered some thanks to her, and hurriedly greeted the next customer.
Chanel woman, whom the public now knew was named Mary, strutted her way towards an isolated corner in the coffee shop. She would sit on the big, green, and ugly armchair there, half-heartedly reading a light, no-brainer chick lit paperback novel, until her name was called and she had to retrieve whatever it was that she ordered, which was:
"One low-fat soy milk no cream latte and banana nut muffin for Mary?"
Okay. She tossed the worthless book on the low table and went over, got the tray, and walked back to her table.
She wasn't paying attention, really, when she sat down, got her fork and took some of her muffin and threw it in her mouth. So imagine her surprise when some guy sitting on the other sofa in front of her smiled and cheerfully said, "Hi there!"
The guy, of course, by himself looked rather surprising. Maybe it's not necessary anymore to say that he had dark messy hair, black eyes with equally black eye-bags, white-shirt-and-jeans, and bare feet. Rather than sitting in the usual, 'civilized' way in the Western world, he was squatting on the sofa. And he was happily sipping an iced coffee, which looked suffocated from the big mountain of whipped cream and chocolate sauce piled on top.
Needless to say, the only possible reaction for Mary was to choke on her muffin.
Seeing her hack and cough in a not-so-glamourous, stylish, or sexy manner, the guy said, "Oh, dear." Annoyingly enough, he didn't looked at all that panicked.
Merrie tried hard to get out of the choking fit, of course, but she found it harder than she thought. Her eyes watered, and while she momentarily worried about her mascara smearing, she was more worried about the fact that she couldn't breathe as freely as she wanted.
"Um, anyone? Does anybody know the Heinrich Maneuver? The Heinrich, the Heinrich!" His voice strangely nonchalant, the creepy guy waved to the rather stunned public for help.
Merrie wanted to say, "It's Heimlich, not Heinrich! I'll die before you find someone who knows the Heinrich Maneuver!" But of course, this was impossible to do within coughs and gags.
"Fine, then, I'll do it myself!" With a frighteningly determined look in his eyes, the guy jumped nimbly on the table and spread out his hands in front of him, much in the same way that he did for the frightened Asian woman from before. Before Merrie could hesitate, he turned her around, put his arms around her, and pounded on her diaphragm with the undersides of his clammy hands.
A piece of muffin flew out from her mouth. She slumped over and gasped for breath.
Stunned, the rest of the masses in the coffee shop watched this strange scene with bated breath.
Taking a few more gasps for breath, she turned around and saw the guy smiling at her rather victoriously. Even though he was squatting on the table, the muffin and the cup of steaming latte stood peacefully next to his feet. "Wow, I guess I knew the Heinrich after all."
She swallowed some air and said, "It's Heimlich Maneuver, actually."
"Oh, really?" He tilted his head in a funny way and said, "I'm sorry. I guess I'm not too bright, am I?"
You liar! She smiled at him, though. After all, now that she was focused on him, she realized that this was the guy she was looking for. She extended her hand out to him and said, "Thank you for saving me back there, sugar."
He took her hand and shook it. "So does this mean that you owe me one?"
"Maybe."
He smiled. "Then I'll just call on you, then, if things come to that. It's a pleasure meeting you, Mary." With that, he hopped off the table. He stood a little bit straighter and began his odyssey towards the exit.
As he left, she caught a glimpse of him looking back with a satisfied grin. She mimicked this smile and thought to herself, "It's been a pleasure working with you too, L."
- end -
Author's notes: L and Wedy, if you hadn't figured it out yet. This was set directly after the ending of Another Note, so you can also guess that the Asian woman was Naomi Misora. No further spoilers from my part, though. Please read the novel if some things seem unclear.
The Heinrich Maneuver is also a song performed by Interpol. Watch the video, it's a lot of fun!