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I can feel the anxiety building more and more every day, the weight on my shoulders so fucking heavy that I’m exhausted from it.
A black van pulls up outside and I immediately straighten myself up. Mr. Rogers has already warned me about my customer service skills and I can’t afford to lose this job, even if the paycheck’s shit.
“Evenin’.” The middle-aged man who steps through the door tips his head at me, he’s followed closely by two others, both of them looking like trouble, especially the bald one who’s covered in ink.
“Can I help?” I flick out one of my headphones.
“Hope so.” The guy in front smiles darkly.
“We’re looking for someone.” He slams a photograph onto the desk in front of me. “You got anyone here looking like that, kid?”
“Sorry, ain’t allowed to disclose guest information.” I sit back in my seat and fold my arms.
“You hear that, boys? He ain’t allowed to disclose information.” The man looks over his shoulder and chuckles at the huge guy on his left, he’s even bigger and has a thick black beard. His hands are filthy, covered in grease, he must be the one who's making the office stink of oil.
He turns his stare back to me, and things suddenly turn serious. He watches my reaction as he pulls a wad of cash from his back pocket, then slams a fifty-dollar bill on the counter in front of me.
“That’s for the information… and this is for your silence.” He places down another two fifties.
I swallow back the urge to reach out and take it. These guys look dangerous, last thing I need is for shit to go down while Rodgers has left me in charge.
“Sorry, sir,” I tell him, resisting the temptation and hoping they’ll move on.
“Listen, kid, it’s been a real long assed night, and I ain’t in the mood for making negotiations.” Reaching around to the back of his pants he pulls out a pistol, cocks it, and aims it directly in front of my nose.
“So, you either tell me what room that guy’s staying in or, I blow off your face and search through every damn room myself.
I stare down the barrel of the gun, and surprisingly I don’t feel the fear I expect I should, instead I wonder how it would feel to be relieved of everything. At this range, death would be instant. There’d be no time to feel pain. The burden weighing me down would be lifted… but then she’d have no one.
“Room eleven.” I reach behind me, lifting the spare key off the hook and slam it on the counter for the silver-haired man.
He nods at me, letting me know I've made the right choice, then tucks away his gun, leaving the money on the counter and backing out of the office.
“You never saw us,” the bald one points his finger at me, before following the others out and pulling the door closed behind him.
The men aren’t in room eleven for long and they leave just as coolly as they arrived.
Something inside me is curious to find out what they wanted with the man, I assume that he’s dead, and this place will be crawling with cops come morning.
I wait for a couple more minutes before loading up the maintenance trolley and heading toward room five to clean up after the couple that checked out earlier.
Cleaning rooms is the only part of this job I excel at, Mr. Rogers says I’m the best he’s ever had. Shame the tight asshole can’t reflect that shit in my paycheck.
I strip off the beds, and just as I’m about to clean the bathroom I hear the sound of a vehicle pull up outside, followed by low voices and car doors slamming. I peel down the blind to check out who it is.
“All I’m saying, Screw, is that I’m fed up to shit of this. Us, cleaning shit up after they’ve had all the fun. That’s not what we signed up for,” one guy says to another as he starts unloading the trunk of the car.
There’s two of them, both big, and so alike that I can’t tell them apart. The other one shrugs his shoulders in response and pulls his hood up over his head as they both head toward room eleven.
I look at what they’re equipped with, a couple bottles of industrial-sized bleach, coveralls, and shoe protectors.
Amateurs.
What I’m looking at here is an opportunity, one I’d be an idiot not to act on. I’ve already made 150 dollars tonight. I’ll bet I could easily double it. Opening the door of room five, I step outside and release the brake on the trolley, pushing it along the decking toward the room I know they plan on entering. They both eyeball me cautiously as I pass them and, despite being desperate to get a peek inside the room, I do a good job of remaining cool.
“What you staring at?” the mouthy one of the two calls out, while the other nudges him, reminding him that they need to keep a low profile.
“I was just wondering what you think you're gonna achieve with that?” I look at the bleach container in his hand.
