Carl got the job because he needed money. He kept it to look at girls naked.
Being a janitor had its perks. The hotel was high-class, he worked good hours. It paid rent for a studio apartment and alimony and child support for his retard son.
It was enough to get by. Then the movie stars came-ridiculously good-looking people who walked his hallways, freshly vacuumed just for them. They ignored him. No look, no smile, no “hi”. Nothing. Good asses to stare at, fake tits, painted faces, guards to shove him aside and threaten him when he said he had to clean next door.
Maybe they were paranoid.
Maybe they thought he was trying to sneak a peek. Maybe they thought he was putting cameras in there when he dragged his cart in there with him, one plastic wheel squeaking, the spray bottles sloshing and the rags swinging. The door would auto-lock behind him. They thought he was just some balding white-trash psycho in a bandana who limped and whistled Johnny Cash. Weird but harmless.
Behind that door Carl could see through walls.
The stars came. The websites followed. They’d showed him where to put the cameras-the waterproof ones in the showerhead for the top-down look, the thin long one (“the Snake,” he’d started calling it. They liked that.) in the drain so the invisible men could look up to them like goddesses.
He didn’t step into adjoining rooms to put the cameras in. Carl did it to clean. The cameras were already there. Later he’d grab the feed from the transmitter in the floor air duct, lurking in a layer of dust and around a bend. It was wireless, two inches wide and a three millimeters thin, silent, the antenna wrapped around the matchbox-sized box powerful enough to handle thirty cameras on three AAA batteries. The little fucker was tough. It could survive anything. It gave him everything-peace of mind, a future, hope. All he had to do was unplug a USB, put it in his pocket, jam another one in the slot and slip out the door. No one suspected anything.
Last Tuesday it came time to change the batteries/grab the raw footage again. There were no celebrities that day. But rituals can’t harm you. The managers weren’t in on it. He was the only one who got checks for “tips” every Wednesday. He was looking forward to it.
The room with the transmitter had been rented out then. No one had told him it was taken. They usually did. Carl pulled the cart with the bad wheel as always, the USB and batteries turning over in his clammy palm. He was whistling “Ring of Fire”. He shoved them in his pocket, limped up to the door and knocked.
Water running in the bathroom, muffled- the shower. No camera in there. Not on this floor.
It still didn’t feel right. The batteries scraped against each other. He knocked.
“Housekeeping,” he said for the millionth time.
The water stopped. A door shut, frantic.
“Sure, yeah,” a young woman called.
“Come in,” the voice said, “But not in the bathroom.”
“Alright, thanks.”
He opened the door with his key and stepped in. Carl dragged the cart behind him, kept whistling “Ring of Fire.”
There were two beds in here, perpendicular to him, the bathroom door on his left. Clothes slithered to the floor, a couple yards away, through a thin wall. Music started-metal, screamo, whatever they called it these days. It rattled the window in front of him. It clouded his mind, strangled his eardrums.
Good sound cover. One bed was spotless-lacy bras and flat skirts and formal frilly shirts laid on precisely. The other was a mess, sheets on the floor. He’d get it after.
He stooped over the grate.
Carl was a smart guy. But he didn’t know everything.
He didn’t know that the girl in the shower knew about that transmitter, that a Russian model found herself on the website last week and called her uncle.
He didn’t know that the door had opened or that she was behind him with a cold, professional look in her eyes again.
He didn’t know that shotguns could be silenced too.
by 
Matt Mattila
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