Barely Legal

86

James Glick spotted them from the glass elevator he was riding down from his tenth-floor room in the Hyatt Regency. They were at the front desk checking the registration. At least that’s what it looked like. One guy was distracting the desk clerk while the other was surreptitiously checking out the register. He could swear the guy was leaning over the counter to look at the computer screen.

And there he was, in a glass elevator, heading right into their arms.

He flailed out his hand, pressed a floor at random. Mezzanine. That was good. Anything that wasn’t Lobby.

He got off the elevator and leaned over the mezzanine balcony to get a closer look.

These guys were different. They didn’t look like the guys he had been mistaking for goons ever since he got on the Amtrak express. These were the real thing. They looked tough, mean, and they carried themselves differently, with the effortless authority that came with power.

And they didn’t have suitcases. A dead giveaway. He’d realized that after getting a few funny looks himself. After that he’d bought a carry-on suitcase to blend in. But these guys clearly didn’t care.

James Glick knew he was just being stupid. It was the same thing all over again. These guys would turn out to be businessmen there for a convention. They’d left their suitcases in their car while they checked in. And they wouldn’t take the elevator to the tenth floor to check on him, they’d get off on six, where they were staying.

He watched them get into the glass elevator and tried to tell himself it was just his imagination. Then one guy stooped to tie his shoe, and his jacket fell open, revealing his shoulder holster.

James Glick shrank back in horror. As soon as the elevator passed the mezzanine, he ran to it and watched the floor indicator. Sure enough, they got off at the tenth floor.

James Glick was breathing hard. There was an exit door at the end of the corridor. He pushed it open, thundered down a flight of stairs, ran out the door of the Hyatt, and hailed a cab.