Sunset stake-out

The evening sun lit up half of the window, the red curtains steadily turning into an orange-red melange for anyone inside. It’s room would heat up for about half an our or so before the sun would set, at which point the central heating would pop on to keep the chamber as warm as it’s colours. A nice cosy autumn evening, moments away from the golden hour, at which anyone inside would have a perfect view over the rest of the city slowly being soaked into the blue night.

It sure would beat sitting in the car with the engine turned off half freezing to death. A hunched up man said, tucking himself deeper into his coat. Staring through the lens of his camera, he shifted his gaze from the hotel room over to the parking area.

“They should have arrived by now”, he said, shifting through the settings of his device for the hundred time that evening. On the seat next to him, a half-eaten pastrami sandwich, wireless earbuds and an opened wallet. It displayed a card with the name “SECURITY INC.” in bold next to a younger, fitter and cleaner version of the man trying his best not to get an embolism by shifting his weight from one leg into the other. It ended up looking like he was trying to shake out sand of his ass. Luckily for him, no one would be walking around or paying attention to a shifty man. If someone would call the cops, he was happy he had is license with him.

Not that anyone would call the cops, or that would show up for that matter. In all his years as private detective, Rob Henderson never once had to explain anything. At the height of his career he would have told himself it was because of his natural predisposition for surveillance. Quiet, observant and fast.

“What a load of shit”, he said, finding a somewhat comfortable position. He’d been training other junior interns and noticed how sloppy they were, how often he’d spot them behaving rather strangely during an exercise of “stalk-the-teacher”. Then he’d realised something that stayed with him for the rest of his life; no one cared. No one cared if he was snooping around after dark looking at houses. No one cared if they saw someone getting mugged. No one cared this part of the city was an absolute dump to live in. So, it wasn’t too far a stretch to assume no one cared he was taking pictures of an as of yet empty hotel room.

“No one, except the paranoid, coked out rich husband of a loose trophy wife that is”, he murmured to himself. A weird man, his contractor, thought to impress him with an expensive office, a hot blonde secretary and a couple of pictures with some celebrities. All paled in front of the fact that he couldn’t keep his wife satisfied. His already wrinkly face looked even more tired when he had to tell the story of why he suspected it. Something with him snooping through her phone, texting about some very friendly pictures she had taken. He didn’t want to elaborate much. Rob didn’t judge, he had made a profession of being a voyeur so he really wasn’t in any position to. It made him a bit sad, these tired, old, white, well off men who supposedly had it all. He wondered if that would be him in 20 something years. He’d eaten from the fruit of plenty before, but it was ripped away from him before he could really appreciate the taste. He was supposed to be the boss of the firm, “great things are in store for you Henderson” old man Baker had said. If he’d known the great thing was the son of the old man returning on his hands and knees after he’d bankrupted his third company. And so it was, his partner bought out by the Baker Boy so they would co-lead the firm instead of Henderson and his partner. No overseas incentives, no extra vacation days for him. Suddenly his car felt a lot smaller, his ass a lot colder and his view a lot duller.

“Unless…”, he said as a car pulled up on the parking and two people got out. A tall creole woman, hued in a long black coat, a red scarf draped around her neck, fastened her pace towards the entrance of the hotel, leaving the other person in the car to fiddle with a large bag and quickly tail her into the building. Henderson let the sound of his camera’s shutter speed linger in his ears before looking at what he had produced. It was unmistakeable, Mrs. Jones, a.k.a; the trophy wife, was clearly visible in the lens. Henderson’s lips curled a bit upward. They immediately curled downwards when he noticed he’d only gotten a shot from the back of the other person.

“Damn, never in the same shot, they’re cautious or maybe they know they’re being shadowed.”

It was the fourth time he’d tried and failed at getting enough evidence for the contractor, and both of them were getting impatient about it. He waited a bit longer and lured into the hotel room through his lens.

“Room 507, fifth floor.”

He tried fitting a camera in the room after the third time he’d seen them in there, but the cleaning staff almost caught him, so that wasn’t an option anymore. Every time however, Mrs. Jones would lean out of the window to smoke a cigarette. Until now, her lover boy didn’t lean out with her, but maybe, just maybe today he would. His thoughts didn’t weren’t fully formed or the Creole woman popped her head out to light a cigarette.

“Come on you horny hunk, you know you want that smoke” he said, firing one click after another. At some point, the man inside must have something, because she threw out her half-done smoke and closed the window. Caught in the frustration of his failure, Henderson kept his camera shooting on auto and only after there was no fragment left of her he stopped the clicking. He sifted trough the pictures to try and get a glimpse of the man inside. His sifting took a halt when he noticed the woman staring dead into the lens after throwing her smoke away. There were at least ten pictures of her looking right at his car before she turned herself into the room again.

“Shit. ShitFuckShit, she didn’t see me right?” He thought to himself as his foot kept nervously tapping the floor. Her eyes looked straight into the lens. No mistake.

“Fuck”, he said as flashes of him standing in front of Baker Boy, with a carton box in his hands and a lot less money in his account ran wild inside his mind.

Almost out of anger he popped open his door before looking a final time at the empty window on floor five, before running of into the hotel. Some lo-fi jazz looped trough the entry hall as he made his way past the lobby boy. He thought of saying a quick goodnight when he noticed the young man was glued to his computer screen.

“Suits me just fine”, Henderson thought.

As he entered the elevator and the rush of adrenaline cooled down, only then he noticed the rashness of his actions. What was he thinking? He’d burst into the door, camera in hand, capturing the act of fornicating between the two like a National Geographic Researcher and quickly bolting out again?

“Fuck”, he said as he sifted the wheel of his camera between the pictures of Mrs. Jones again. It would have been beautiful mysterious portret, if it weren’t for his unacceptable blunder.

“They’ll be long gone by the time I’m there. I’ll be none the wiser, Mr. Jones is gonna scrap the contract and then Baker Boy is gonna sack me. Fuck.”

He had no choice. He looked into the mirror, saw a stressed out thirty year old shorter than average man with a longer than average corporate beard, tangled brown hair and a casual jacket and jeans. He awaited the ping and snuck out of the elevator.

“Room five-o-one, five-o-three”, by the time he’d passed five-o-five he’d fallen dead silent and started passing the doors very slowly, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth. Room five-o-seven appeared in front of him. Camera in hand, he was still pondering what exactly he’d do. He didn’t get a chance to decide because when he squatted down to peer through the keyhole, the door flung open and before he knew it, he was hurled inside by a large black arm by the strap of his camera. He only briefly twirled a bit before he was faced directly in front of the creole woman, sitting on the red sheeted bed, wearing a long white bathrobe and staring at him with emotionless eyes.

“Um, hello there”, was all he outed to her before he tried to run away. He was halted by the man he’d been thrown inside by. A jacked out black man in black jeans and a turtleneck sweater was blocking his entrance. The man looked straight out of a comic book, with hair gelled backwards, a pencil moustache and a hipster outfit, all the while being the twice Henderson’s size in muscle and strength, looking at him with one eyebrow raised.

“Where do you think you’re going”, he said with a lisp in his voice.

“I, erhm”, before Henderson could answer, the big bouncer-type nodded towards the lady. Henderson spun back around.

“So, you’re my stalker, it’s about time we met,” she said as she crossed her arms. “Who are you and what do you want?”

He looked around the room, saw there was no way out except the window and thought it better to confess than plummet to his death, five floors down. He straightened up and scraped his throat.

“My name is Rob Henderson, I’m a private detective hired by Mr Jones to investigate… possible infidelity.”

He didn’t even utter the words before he realised how ridiculous that sounded. But they didn’t laugh. Not because of that at least.

“Honey, if there would have been any fucking in this hotel room tonight, it would have been between us two”, the large black man said as he slapped Henderson’s ass playfully. Seeing the confusion on his face, the Creole woman started to speak.

“I’m not really his type and we aren’t here to cheat Mr. Henderson, can I call you Rob? I’m gonna call you Rob, feels too much like a bad Noire Detective if I don’t. You can call me Liz by the way and that’s William”, she said pointing towards the winking bouncer, sifting through his camera.

“Hey that’s…”

“Private?”, Liz said with a playful smile. She patted nodded him towards a chair, he followed her but stayed ready to sprint out of the room.

“When did you find out I was following you?”, Henderson asked.

“Couple of nights ago,” she said as she looked out of the window. “You left your flash on.”

William let out a giggle after that. Henderson bit his lip, he could slap himself a hundred times for that.

“Don’t fret, it must have been too big a contrast for your camera from your car compared to this room”, the other man let out, without looking up from Henderson’s camera.

“Yes, how did you…”, Henderson tried to ask turning to William, when Liz interrupted him.

“You see, we haven’t been meeting up to cheat, Rob,” as she stood up, dropped her robe to reveal her naked, Greek goddess like body to him to pick something from William’s bag. “We’ve been meeting to create art”, she said as she clapped open a tripod and William installed his own camera on it. She threw back her hair and opened up her chest as William started making pictures. For a while Rob looked at the quirky setting before asking a question.

“So what, you’re gonna tell me this is all a birthday surprise for Mr. Jones?”

She cackled at the thought and took another pose, pushing her breasts closer together as she laid herself on the end of the bed towards the camera.

“That windbag? No, I’m gonna bleed that bastard dry.”

Before Rob could speak, she continued.

“Did he tell you how we met? Of course not, he probably showed that picture of him shaking hands with Elon Musk.”

She covered herself up with the sheets so only her face was visible.

“I used to be an artist you know, just like William, my pictures were world renowned, when I went by the name of Miss Blizz.”

Something sparkled the memory of Henderson at that name.

“That’s right, wasn’t one of your black and white portraits of a sunset bought for half a million dollars?”

“Exactly, well well well, you’re not half as stupid as you look”, she giggled a bit with a wink.

Before he could answer she interrupted again. “Sorry, sorry, just wanted to play the femme fatal for a bit. I think you can fill in yourself who bought that and with it bedazzled a young, naïve woman.”

Rob nodded, thinking of a tired, paranoid man.

“You like art Rob?”

He was dumbstruck by the question.

“I guess so, I used to write the odd story here and there when I was a kid, aside from that not much.”

She nodded, without hearing what he said.

“You want to know why I got into photography Rob? Van Dyck. A brilliant painter, ahead of his time, beautiful portraits and pure emotions into them. In other words; raw.” she chuckled without smiling.

“Position change!” William lisped at the lack of change. She followed his orders and now sat upright an cold like an 18^th century painting of a queen. 

“Raw.. like my poor husband fucked someone behind my back”, she said gesturing at William to stop for a moment while reaching for her phone. She walked over to Rob to show him a video. At first he couldn’t make out what was happening, but soon he recognized both Mr Jones and his hot secretary, who clearly wasn’t enjoying herself.

“What’s that thing about suspicion haunting the guilty?” she said walking towards the window. “I’m going to get a divorce, get all of his money and turn my naked body into William’s art project. How’s that for a plan?

“And what makes you so sure I won’t tell all this to Mr. Jones?”

She barely looked at him.

“I don’t. I’m giving you an option. An option to for once do something right, help someone for a change. When was the last time you used your job for someone else than rich people with too much time on their hands?”

Rob couldn’t come up with anything.

“William’s sister for example,” she said nodding at the now quiet man. “Disappeared when she was eight. Cops didn’t find her after a week so they gave up, his family couldn’t afford a private detective, so they’re still waiting. She would have been 16 by now.”

“It’s time Liz”, William said with a lump in his throat, switching off the light and pointing the camera at Liz as she stood naked In front of the window, the dark blue canvas engulfing her every being.

“So what’s it gonna be detective?”, She asked, embracing the night.

Private detective Henderson couldn’t come up with anything. His job, Baker Boy, his extra vacation days, Mr. Jones. It all seemed so meaningless in light of things. No one cared about Henderson at the end of the day. No one cared about Liz’s feelings and no one cared about William’s sister. Maybe it was about damn time someone should.