Chapter 150

Standing in front of the glass case Mike looked at every gun. The glass case was four cabinets pushed together, end to end, well lit, with at least a hundred handguns inside.

At the far left end were the 22's. Target pistols, six round revolvers and clip fed guns. One had a barrel less than two inches long and one had a barrel a foot long. Mike thought about the damage that tiny piece of lead could do. He moved to his right.

Three 25 caliber shiny guns, all in a row. One chrome, one stainless steel and one blued. All three small enough to be carried in a pocket. All three used a clip and held five rounds. His evaluation was that the 25 couldn't do the damage he wanted unless it was very close to the target. He stepped to his right.

He looked at the 32's and then the 38's. At the 38's he thought he was finally at some guns that would and could do what he wanted. He remembered that police used to carry 38's. They must be good at killing, if that was the intent.

Fifteen different 9mm pistols were displayed next. Revolvers and clip fed and even a single shot. Bigger than the 38's. Harder to conceal. On a lower shelf, holsters. Brown leather waist holsters and both brown and black shoulder holsters. The stopping power was implied in the size and shape of these weapons. Some were chrome, most were blue and two were black. Flat black. The last time Mike had fired a gun was when he was in the Air Force stationed in Germany. In the last month he had spent some time reading and getting familiar with them again.

Mike stopped. He glanced to his right and saw the Dirty Harry long barreled 44 Magnum, a 357 Magnum and an old west style 40 caliber six-gun. These would be for show, intimidation, not for getting the job done. 9mm was what he wanted.

Ten minutes later he was back in the Lexus. The gun would be able to be picked up on Friday. He had paid with a credit card. It had the same name on it as the driver's license he had shown. They had cost him two hundred from a man in East L.A.. The 9mm was $850, but he would never get the bill. The guy who's name and address were on the license would get the bill, after.

The rented Lexus took him to a Hilton, downtown. He registered and used a different credit card and name. He asked for, and got room 921. He was more interested in the people with reservations in room 821 in the other Hilton in town, the next day.

As he approached the door to 921 he pulled on some latex gloves. Inside the room he was careful not to leave any fingerprints. He knew, from watching CSI on television, that he would leave epithelial skin cells, in the room. He also knew his DNA was on them. He believed it didn't matter.

He rested for a while in the room and then went downstairs for dinner. He had a four day growth of beard and two rubber devices tucked into his cheeks to help modify how his face looked. His hair was a little longer than his usual businessman's haircut and it was much grayer.

At dinner he watched most of a basketball game he didn't care about and then went to a house phone and called room 821. No one answered. He went back to his room and set up his test. A vacuum and a drill came out of his suitcase and he drilled a hole through the floor in his room and through the ceiling in the room below. Room 821. The hole was small, 9mm to be exact. He had positioned the hole based on the floor plan of the room he was in, and believing the room below would be the same.

When he looked through the hole with the tiny video camera he saw that the room was exactly as he figured. The hole was right where he wanted it to be, twelve inches back from the edge of the sink in the bathroom. Anyone standing at the sink would be right under the hole. The miniscule amount of dust that fell when he drilled the hole landed on the rug and if his timing was good would be thrown away by the room cleaning woman hours before the room was used again.

He shut off the light in the bathroom and left the camera on. On the monitor he could watch the bathroom below and he would not be seen.

He had a motion sensor on the monitor and when someone downstairs entered the bathroom a red light flashed in the bathroom above. Mike went quietly into his bathroom and watched. The man standing at the sink shaved and brushed his teeth. A woman came in and kissed the man. Both were naked. They were in front of the sink for three and a half minutes.

"Plenty of time," Mike thought.

He shut off the camera and went to bed. In the bed he thought about his brother and Monica. They had met in Orlando three years before, at a convention. Monica was there as a product rep for a company that sold specialized software. Shane, Mike's brother, had met her and by the time the conference was over she worked for Shane instead of the software company. A year later they were married. In the two years since she had her breasts done, her face done and was seen in public hanging on Shane's arm whenever the PR people said it would be good for business. Mike reviewed the events of two weekends ago.

He had gone to The La Quinta Inn in Orange County for a business meeting. While he sat in the lobby waiting for his appointment he noticed Monica enter the hotel. Less than a minute later Paul, Shane's business partner, walked into the same lobby and Monica took his arm. She walked with him to the desk and they registered. Mike watched as they went to the elevators and went up to the sixth floor.

During the business appointment Mike was given access to the reservations computer system which had two minor problems. While he fixed them he looked at the reservations for rooms on the sixth floor. Paul Samuels didn't have a room there, but Monica Samuels did. He did a search and found that Monica Samuels had been in the hotel four times in two months. Jack Samuels had been there twice. Monica and Shane's partner were having an affair! Over the next ten days he had found they were meeting in various hotels two or three times a week! Computers are wonderful when you know how to use them.

Mike wondered if he should tell Shane. He had dinner with Shane and touched the subject lightly. There had been a news story about a rich guy who's wife was sleeping around. When the guy found out he divorced her but lost millions in the settlement. Shane said he wouldn't want a divorce from a bitch like that, he'd want her dead! Mike didn't tell Shane what he knew.

He finally fell asleep, slept well and was up before nine the next day. He packed and covered his activities before he left the hotel for the day. He spread a small packet of powder in the room. Skin cells from at least twenty different people. He dropped ten sets of small hairs in the room as well. Amazing the things one can gather from discarded vacuum bags from a medical building or three.

When Mike was in the elevator he took the gloves off and pocketed them. He returned the Lexus later that day, at the airport. He slept part of that night in terminal one, Southwest, and the rest of the night in terminal seven, United. He changed clothes in bathrooms in both terminals.

On Friday he rented a car and went back to the gun shop and picked up the 9mm purchased with the credit card of Jack Williams of Canoga Park. The gun shop was eighty miles from the Hilton.

He checked into the Hilton, room 921, early. He knew the rooms on the eighth floor were cleaned during the one o'clock hour every day. The crew doing the ninth floor was done at noon. He checked in and as soon as he was in the room drilled the hole just like the test hole he had done the day before. An hour later he watched the maid collect the rugs and wash down all the surfaces where dust might have landed. He smiled.

He positioned himself in the hotel lobby, where he could see the registration desk and not easily be seen. He was behind some plants and using a video camera in the plant pot hooked to his lap top to monitor the desk. He also had a spread sheet on the computer in case someone looked. At five ten he watched as his brother's business partner and his brother's wife checked in. She was holding his arm like she was his trophy wife. Together they had one small suitcase.

After they got into the elevator Mike packed up the laptop and went to his room.

He called his brother's office. Naturally, he answered.

"Shane Mitchell."

"Hi Shane."

"Hey! What's going?"