Frank Carrera, a dark haired man with hazel eyes, sat on the side of a neatly made bed. The comforter had an elaborate floral pattern that announced it as hotel linen. His eyes were set off in space, as if waiting for something. He thumbed over the power button of the remote in his hand, but felt it was useless to watch TV. There was nothing on at this hour worth watching anyway. His mind started to wander. He couldn't keep doing this for the rest of his life. Judy had been prodding him to think about what he liked doing, trying to help him figure out how he should make a living. She was good like that. She wasn't on his case about too much, but when she did get on his case about something it was because she genuinely cared about him and his future. He was going to marry that girl, and was beginning to feel much more motivated about choosing a career from simply being around her. She was very driven, determined to be a veterinary tech, and paying her own way through school to do it. Bang! A loud gunshot rang out from the room next door. Frank didn't flinch. He turned his glance to the wall that was shared with the next room and stared. It wasn't a stare of concern, or even fright. He was listening. The room seemed even more still in the wake of the gunshot. Everything was completely silent for a moment. Suddenly a loud volley of gunshots echoed through the room and some short screams could be heard. Frank continued to stare at the wall. There was a long silence, followed by a few lone gunshots, and then there was nothing. He sat there for a few minutes, making sure that there were no more sounds coming from the room. "Sure can't do this for the rest of my life" he thought as he picked up a black leather duffle bag and walked to the door. He emerged from his room and glanced both ways down the hall. No one in sight. He walked to the next room over, the door sat slightly open, a soft scent of gunshot in the air. He opened the door slowly, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him. He placed his duffle down and surveyed the room. It was a gruesome sight, and the carnage seemed overwhelming even to him. bodies were strewn about and pools of blood were soaking into the furniture and rug. Small strings of cotton and feathers danced around in the rays of light that shot through the window. A byproduct of the bullets that had gone through the couches and pillows. It was a suite, so he wasn't immediately alarmed when he didn't see Jacob. He was as thorough a hitman as they get, and he was probably casing all of the rooms to make sure the entire suite was clean. Clean of bad men with guns that is, not clean of dead bodies. Click. It was the sound of a gun being cocked. He froze. He looked down to see where the noise had come from but the first thing he saw wasn't the gun he was looking for, it was Jacob. He was lying, slouched up against the wall. His head was facing the opposite direction, but it was clear from his stance that his body was lifeless. His heart sank. All at once he realized that the job had gone wrong. Two years of walking into cleared rooms and now this. "That's right fucker! Your boys couldn't handle the job. You cocky fucks, do you know who I am?" Frank turned to face a man with long dark curly hair, several clumps of which were disheveled and dangling in front of his face. He looked as if adrenaline was rushing out of his system, and his arm was shaking under the weight of his gun. "How many more of you fuckers are waiting out there for a shot at me?" And then Frank realized that man before him was not professional. There was a hint of it from the indignant phrasing of "do you know who I am", but the fact that he thought that Frank was another hit man put an explanation point on it. Frank was scared, but his mind was racing on how he could exploit the fact that this man seemed new to this. They were both in a bad situation right now. The worst situation Frank had ever been in his life, but he had to do something. He had to stall. "I'm not a hit man" "Fuck you!" The man was clearly unstable, maybe Frank could calm him down with his conversation. Maybe he could use the mans ignorance of the situation to his advantage. Maybe he could dominate the conversation and at least give the man enough pause such that he didn't shoot right away. Or maybe Frank was simply a dead man already. "My name is Frank Carrera" he said in the most calm and confident tone he could muster. "I'm a janitor." He paused, to ensure the man was listening. "That means I come in after jobs and I clean up the mess". "I know what a fucking janitor is asshole, and I know what a dead janitor looks like, and it looks a lot like you unless you give me a reason why not" Frank doubted that the man knew what a janitor was, and was clearly not in control of the situation. He had watched too many movies. He was asking frank to give him a reason not to kill him? If he knew what the fuck he was doing he'd either kill Frank or not, no questions asked. He was practically asking Frank what to do. This made sense, the man was shot, his associates were dead, probably his friends at that. He was confused, possibly new to this game, and he didn't know what to do. Despite his fear Frank felt a certain confidence growing. He'd always been the little guy, the newbie in every conversation. I mean shit, he was just a janitor. But here he suddenly was the professional. He was scared, but he started realizing that maybe he had a chance to live through this one. He just had to maintain the illusion that he was in control. "You don't want to shoot me. I'll tell you what you want to do..."