The metal detector in the lobby didn’t worry him because he didn’t have any metal on him that might be detected. Gardenhire had made arrangements. At the metal detector in the lobby, Babb pretended to be rumpled and ruffled. He pretended he needed a pot of coffee. That darn message alignment, harrumph, harrumph. The soldiers barely glanced at him. Babb collected his wallet and change from the tray and continued on. Gardenhire had made arrangements for the gun to be placed behind an ice machine on the third floor. A suppressor too. Babb was ambivalent about an arrangement like this. It took a lot of the sauce off a job, to be honest. Some of the sauce. He used the house phone in the lobby to request, in a rumpled, ruffled way, immediate housecleaning for room 519. Babb picked that number because May 19 was his birthday. He went to the fifth floor and waited. A few minutes later a housekeeper pushed her cart out of the service elevator. She knocked lightly on the door to room 519. No answer.
