Page 13 of The Hotel Manager


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Griffin: She works in a grocery store five days a week and at a dive bar on the weekends. She gets around by bus usually. No car. She doesn’t even have a driver’s license.

Her life is so boring, it would make my accountant yawn. Yet I can’t seem to stop reading about her insignificant, simple existence.

Griffin: According to her Facebook status, she is single and has been for a while.

Me: Good work.

I shove my phone into my jacket, but my mind is still hung up on what happened yesterday. I have to do something to get this situation out of my head. Digging in my pocket for my key card, I make my way back inside and through my suite. I’ll blow off some rounds. That usually makes me feel better. I grab my earbuds and head toward the elevator.

Stepping inside, I place my card on the reader. It beeps green and a screen pops out with hidden selections that aren’t on the wall. I press the Sub-Basement for the gun range and lean back. The elevator starts to move silently toward our destination.

The opposite door opens into a huge indoor gun range. Stepping out, I nearly knock Pete, our range master, over.

“Fuck, Mason, you nearly spilled my coffee.”

“You’ll live, Pete. Got anything interesting today?”

A brightness comes to Pete’s eyes, and I know he has something for me. Pete was a SEAL in the ’80s “When men were men!” as Pete likes to say.

“I’ve got something just for you, Mason. I figured if you want to walk around all jacked and shit, you might as well have a handgun that matches.”

My eyes close, and I exhale. Pete tries to sell me on a different gun every week. Some oddity he finds in the dark corners of the internet. I brace for whatever he’s going to bring out this time.

His hand reaches into his bag, and all I can see is chrome and a black handle.

“Pete, I’ve told you a hundred times, I don’t want some huge piece of metal I have to lug around.” I grunt, irritated.

“Just wait a second, Mason. This isn’t just some piece of metal.”

“Fine. What is it? I came here to shoot.”

Pete looks at me sideways. Almost to say, who the fuck are you? My response is I’m the one who pays your fucking salary. He must have come to the same conclusion because he moves on.

I take hold of the gun and look it over as he gives me a rundown of the specs. “This is called a Raging Judge. It shoots a shotgun round or a .454 Casull round.”

“A .454? Isn’t that a bear round?” My mouth opens.

“Hell yes, it is. Go right through a grizzly. But I have had one installed in all your vehicles, and I’m about to have one in your office.”

Walking away from him, I keep the gun in my hand. “Hey, bring more ammo for it to my lane,” I say over my shoulder.

“No problem.”

He’s probably grinning like an idiot that he finally found one that interests me. A broken clock is right twice a day.

As I get situated in my booth, Pete’s assistant, Ginger, brings over my rounds. She is a short, skinny thing, who looks more like a college freshman but knows her way around guns almost as well as Pete.

I pick up the revolver and open the cylinder. I pause and exhale, catching the girl out of the corner of my eye, still standing there.

“Is there something you want?” I’m already irritated.

“I wanted to make sure you have everything you need. Is there anything I can do or bring you to help you relax?”

“Do?” I raise an eyebrow.

She gets close enough that I feel her tits against my arm. “You name it.”

I actually consider it for a moment. This woman seems like she could handle an unattached fuck, but if I’m wrong, I’d have to deal with her constantly.

I lean down to her face. “You can go get me a beer.”

Her shoulders drop, and her customer service face comes back on.

“Of course, Mr. Grant.”

I don’t bother watching her scurry away. Going back to the weapon in my hand, I take one of the bear rounds and load it. This range was equipped with the best tech to simulate real human anatomy.

I aim the hand cannon at the head of a dummy and press the trigger. The resulting fireball leaves my ears ringing and the head of the dummy completely gone. I vaguely hear Pete yell, “Hell yeah!”

That’s when the pain hits my hand. It’s that feeling when you hit metal against metal. The vibration spreads through my hand like a wildfire. I love it.

“Pete, this fucking thing is awesome.”

Opening the cylinder, I tip the gun up to let the empty casing fall out. I grab one of the shotgun rounds off the table and load it in.

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