The drive to Miami was nice. Sartre chattered the whole time, indignant about having to leave the trailer behind in Orlando. It was like a giant playpen for her. But I needed to be in the chichi hotel where my vic stayed in order to make it work, and I didn’t want to leave her with someone else. Besides, I liked the companionship, even if the conversation was a bit one-sided.
Sartre calmed down when I gave her some fresh spinach leaves to munch on. I only wished women were that easy.
The Miami Del Rey was located on prime beachfront property. The pink Art Deco building stood out among the more modern high-rises. A five-star hotel, the Del Rey was known for its obliging staff, which catered to the wealthy and spoiled. I loved these places-you know the type-where they didn’t have a reservation desk because that would be too gauche. Instead, there was a woman sitting at a small table in an obscure corner of the lobby. She gave me my room key and made arrangements to have my luggage transferred to my room. She also slipped me her phone number. Sigh.
I reached the door to my room with no problem. Sartre was obediently quiet in my satchel and raised no alarms. She’d been through this drill before. Once inside the room, I unpacked my things, including a collapsible cage for the pig-something I designed myself.
The file included the various peccadilloes of my vic, along with his schedule. Tomorrow was the fundraiser, but Reid had the bad habit of not showing up for such events. Miami was a city crawling with vice, and with his love for gambling and-I did not make this up-“gender illusionists,” my guess was that Reid would be otherwise occupied that evening.
Which left tonight to do the job. Using a cheap, pay-as-you-go cell phone, I called the front desk and asked for Reid’s room. They connected me and I started the trace on my laptop. His room number came up almost immediately, thanks to my cousin Missi, who had come up with this particular technology a few months back. It looked just like a memory stick with a kitten hanging from a branch and the words Hang in There on it.
I changed into a nondescript black suit and headed up to Reid’s room. Walking past to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I slipped back to the room and knocked on the door. Upon hearing no answer, I slid my allpurpose room card into the slot and was rewarded with a click as the door popped open.
Once inside, I quickly checked the room for surveillance cameras and, finding none, began to search for ideas that would help me take this bastard out. It would have been easy to hide and wait for his return, but it was obvious that more than one person shared the room.
I was running out of time. I needed to find something that would tip me off to his whereabouts or plans. It only made sense to kill him outside the hotel. That would take suspicion off of me.
Footsteps in the corridor made my heart beat a bit faster. This was an adrenaline rush, not fear. I didn’t believe in fear-it only made things worse. A key card slid through the slot. I had only a split second to dive into the bathroom and close the door.
Someone was moving about the room, opening drawers and turning the TV on and off. I heard nothing for a few moments. Had he gone? I waited-not an easy thing to do in a hotel shower. I hated hiding. Personally, I preferred the direct approach. Less bullshit and more fun.
After ten more minutes of examining the tiles for mildew, I gave up. Vic must have left. Even so, I slipped noiselessly from the shower and opened the bathroom door. As I started across the bedroom, I heard a cell phone ring. I froze. It was then that I noticed my vic stretched out on the bed, oblivious to me as he answered his phone.
I remained where I was, frozen like a statue. Vic was babbling some nonsense on the phone. I was certainly in his peripheral vision. You’d think he would notice a strange blond man in a black suit standing in midstride just a few yards to his left. I’d like to think I’d notice something like that. It gave me a few seconds to think about how I could kill him.
Looking around without moving my head was a new experience for me. The room was devoid of heavy statuary,.45s with silencers (that would have been too convenient, I suppose), or even a letter opener. I had nothing on me-this was just meant to be a surveillance job. Well, I had my passkey room card, but what could I do with that besides give him a nasty plastic cut? There wasn’t enough time to wait for his cell phone to give him brain cancer, and the landline phone wasn’t big enough to bash him in the head.
Vic clicked off the phone, and that was when he noticed me standing there. Thank God too, because I was getting sick of acting like I was frozen in time. The funny thing was, he just lay there on the bed. Maybe he was blind?
I couldn’t be so lucky. He hurled the cell phone at me. I guess he could see after all. I dodged the hightech Treo as it smashed into the wall and into a million little shiny pieces. Technology today.
I reached for the lamp on the nightstand, only to find it was bolted down. Fantastic. It gave Vic just enough time to regain his senses and spring from the bed-a feat that impressed me, considering his size. I was even more impressed when he landed a hamfisted punch to the side of my head.
Bringing my knee up, I connected with his groin, groaning at his lack of foresight. Most men expect that kind of contact and block it. Not this idiot. He actually began to whimper the word Mommy over and over. The two of us stumbled a little, him with swelling testicles and me with a bit of a concussion. Instead of stars, for some reason I saw the kitten on the memory stick Missi had given me. After regaining my senses, I dragged his doubled-up body to the terrace. Vic groaned as I pushed open the French doors and looked over the edge of his private veranda. It was about six stories down to the pool. If I managed it just right, I’d be out the door and in the stairwell before he smashed into the concrete just to the left of the pool.
Vic was still in a fetal position. What a loser. I wished all my vics fell so easily. He was heavy, but I managed to get him to the low fence at least before he rallied and decided he didn’t fancy a swim.
The son of a bitch landed a pretty strong kick to my shin, and it stopped me in my tracks long enough for him to rise to his feet. Good. It would be much easier to shove him over the railing if he was standing. With a running start I barreled into his abdomen with my shoulder and he went over like a Slinky. I didn’t wait to see what happened. His scream told me he was on his way down and I was overdue in my own room. After a brief stop to wipe down everything I’d touched, I fled the scene of the crime.
“That did not go well,” I informed Sartre as I returned to my room. She looked at me sideways to indicate that that was exactly what she expected from me and went back to munching on a carrot. Since she was of no help whatsoever, I stripped off my clothes and looked in the mirror.
My face was red and starting to swell, and my right shin was bleeding. I used styptic powder to stop the blood and opened my shaving kit. Missi had invented a sort of steroid that when injected stopped the bruising process in its tracks. When I traveled, I kept the solution in bottles labeled, Insulin. No one ever questioned me.
The steroid would take about half an hour to work, which meant I couldn’t leave the room until then. Killing Vic in the hotel made for an interesting dilemma. The authorities could launch a room-by-room search, and unless there had just been a recent rash of brawling, I’d be the only patron who looked like he’d been in a life-or-death struggle.