I unzipped my purse so I could grab the 9mm pistol inside. I also made sure my reading glasses still hung from my neck. Sad to say, I needed them to see the sights on my pistol. Humiliating, I know, but I was still a crack shot as long as I remembered to wear them.
I also carried my pepper spray in the breast pocket of my sweater just in case I needed to get my point across with a little less assertiveness.
The first problem was the manager’s office, a glass-fronted room on the corner closest to me. Sitting inside reading a thick book was a haggard man in a grubby tracksuit with thinning salt-and-pepper hair that desperately needed to be cut. He looked up from over the top of his book and spotted me before I even got onto the property. By the time I had made it from one parking lot to the other, he was out of the office and coming for me.
I put my hand in my purse and opened my mouth to speak, but he spoke first.
“If you find him, get him out of here quietly. I don’t want any trouble, and the state troopers are personal friends of mine.”
He said this not in a hostile manner but matter-of-factly, like he was telling me the room rates or checkout time. I suspected he had to say this a lot.
I put on my best scandalized-long-suffering-wife frown. “I’ll have him out of here before you can say ‘excessive alimony!’”
He snickered at that.
“Happy hunting,” he said, and turned to go.
Then I noticed what book he was reading. It was War and Peace, with a bar code from the Cheerville Public Library.
“You’re reading Tolstoy?” I said, surprised.
He turned back, his eyes lighting up.
“I love the Russians. Tolstoy, Turgenev, Lermentov, Solzhenitsyn… theirs are the greatest literary treasures of the world.”
“They are nice, especially on cold winter nights. I suppose they were written on cold winter nights, or cold summer nights. But I’ve always preferred the French.”
He took in a breath of air and put his hand on his chest. “Ah yes, Gide, Baudelaire, Anatole France… such prose! Such poetry! Have you read The Gods are Athirst?”
I smiled. “I really must be going.”
He glanced at the hotel and then back at me. “Oh, right. The cheating husband. Go get him! He had to pay for the room in advance anyway. No refunds. No refunds on the Viagra vending machine either. I’m going to get back to my reading. Books are much more reliable than men.”
He headed back to his office. I chuckled and shook my head.
Well, at least that was one less problem tonight.
I walked along the front of the hotel, noticing there were no security cameras. Even if there were, my friend already had his nose firmly buried in a classic of Russian literature. The lights were out on all the rooms I passed, but judging from the noises coming from within, the residents were not asleep.
Once I got to the corner, I paused. Glancing over my shoulder to make sure my friend was still reading, I found that he was actually out of sight, sitting as he was, a bit back from the window. Good.
I peeked around the corner. There were about ten motel rooms along this row. Only one had its light on. The four-by-four from Escudo Security was parked in front. From the dim light of the flickering streetlamp that feebly tried to illuminate this part of the parking lot, I could see there was fresh mud on the side of the vehicle.
Only two other cars were parked on this side. I heard no noise coming from those rooms.
I crept up to the motel room door. The view through the window was completely blocked by a heavy curtain. The sound of low voices came from within.
I reached into my purse and pulled out a stethoscope. Yes, a stethoscope. Very good for listening through walls. Even better for listening through windows, the glass conducting sound waves much better than concrete.
I cupped my fingers around the cold end of the stethoscope and placed them gently on the window before easing the stethoscope into position. Just putting it up to the glass would make a telltale click, and I had a feeling these guys had pretty good situational awareness. It might seem like a small precaution, but small precautions had saved my life, and my mission, on countless occasions.
The sounds from inside the motel room came loud and clear now. I heard several male voices speaking in Spanish. I’m fluent in Spanish, fluent enough to recognize a Panamanian accent when I hear it.
“You marked the spot, right?” someone asked. He sounded older, his voice gravelly from many years of smoking.
“Of course. Just like you asked us to. I even put it in a metal box so the animals wouldn’t get it.”
“Oh, that was a good idea. Should have thought of that myself. We’ll move it to a better location in a couple of days. Want a beer?” Gravelly Voice asked.
“Sure.”
I heard the sounds of several aluminum cans being opened.
“To Panama for the Panamanians!” Gravelly Voice said.
“To Panama for the Panamanians!” the others replied. Since they all said it together, it was hard to tell their numbers. At least the three I had followed here. Maybe a couple more.
I cursed myself. I should have counted the number of beers being opened. On second thought, there might be a teetotaler in the crowd.
“I think this all went well,” one of the voices said. He sounded young, eager for assurance.
“It did,” Gravelly Voice said. “No innocent people hurt.”
“If only the Americans were so careful,” Young Guy replied.
“You’re too young to
