Ed Villein's Arc

Chapter 7 of 12

The venue is a banquet hall three blocks from headquarters, the kind of place with crown molding and chandeliers that look like they cost more than his truck used to. Ed walks through the front entrance at 1400 wearing his janitorial uniform, pushing a mop bucket he filled with clean water. A woman in a black vest meets him near the entrance. She looks at a clipboard, then at him. "You're early. The party isn't until Saturday." Ed nods toward the marble floor. "Manager said you needed the stone polished before the event. Takes two days to do it right." She frowns, checks her clipboard again, then waves him through. He counts it as the first test passed. He works his way through the main hall, mopping in slow strips while his eyes map the room. The bar sits along the east wall with glass shelves and brass fixtures. Three catering carts stand against the back wall near the kitchen doors, the kind with hidden compartments underneath for extra supplies. The middle cart has a loose panel—he tests it when the woman isn't looking. It opens without a sound and closes flush. Big enough for a small case. He commits the layout to memory: seventeen steps from the kitchen doors to the bar, six steps from the cart to the nearest table. By 1600 he's finished mopping and the woman signs his fake work order without reading it. On his way out, he stops at the cart one more time and nudges the panel open with his knee. It gives easily. He slides a folded napkin into the gap so it won't sit completely flush, just enough that he'll know which cart is his when he comes back. The napkin is white, same as all the others stacked on the shelf above it. No one will notice it's there. He has his hiding place now. Sixteen days left.