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40
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Light poured through the window of the room and the clock ticked. Mort had fallen asleep on the couch rather than the bed where he should have been.
He stirred, then stretched, then woke up and glanced at his watch. "Shit!" He yelled, jumping up from the couch. He looked around and spotted his coat and book bag on the floor. As he put the coat on, he noticed that his car key was missing from the key rack on the wall. He looked at it suspiciously. He could've sworn that the young man from the hotel had placed it on the key rack the other night.
Nevertheless, he patted himself down, but returned no key from his search. He grabbed his book bag from off the floor and placed it on his shoulder. Mort opened the door of his suite to reveal Shooter's hat lying on the floor in front. He looked around trying to spot Shooter, but did not see him.
He went back into the room, opened a garbage bag and returned to the plain black hat that sat on the floor. He looked at the hat. Was it grinning at him? Hold on, a hat grinning at him? What the fuck had he been smoking the other night! The hat didn't even have a mouth to grin from even if it could.
He shook off his paranoia and quickly encased the hat in garbage bag, being ever so careful not to let any part of it make direct contact with his skin. Then he stepped back into the room and placed the bag with the hat on the coffee table. After, he left his hotel room, went down to the lobby, walked out of the hotel and made his way through the hotel parking lot.
A constant sound of beeping was coming from nearby.
The driver's door of a car was wide open. That was the car that was beeping away. He looked around, then walked over to the car. He just knew that this had to be his rental car.
He approached slowly, then sat in the driver's seat, being careful to touch nothing. He quickly shut off the motor. Aha! He had found his key at least.
Mort looked around the car, then spotted some cigarette butts in the ashtray. He eyed them carefully, then picked one up. He studied it, recognizing the brand immediately. "Pall Mall," He said aloud.
He replaced the butt. "Cracker bastard."