Finder's Fee

            He was not a much of a computer guy. Sure, even a dinosaur such as himself could do a basic internet search, but he wasn't sure how he was going to go about doing some deep internet digging. Some of his colleagues from back in the day had told him how easy the job had become because of the internet, but he was skeptical to say the least.

            Typing one name into the search engine had him staring at the computer screen in amazement. They did all of the work for me, he thought to himself as he was slowly shaking his bald head in disbelief.

            He remembered when a job like this required hard work. Not only was it no longer hard, he realized how impossible it would be to screw up. He remembered making a lot of phone calls from phone booths and private numbers. He would spend a considerable amount of time in his car, staking out houses, apartment buildings, and cheap motel rooms. It required tons of concentration; paying attention to every detail available to him, while seeking out new leads to fill in gaps of information, without any guarantee that the roads he chose to go down would even lead anywhere.

            In just a click of a mouse, all the information he needed was delivered to him on silver a platter. What could have potentially taken him five to ten weeks, now would only take him five to ten minutes.

            He gathered up all the information he felt was pertinent to the case, and wrote it down in the little tan army notebook he kept in his left shirt pocket. Even though he had a portable computing device (better known as a cellphone) that he carried around everywhere, and could have looked up the information at any place, and at any time, he still preferred to write things down in his little notebook. For him, holding on to the past was like holding onto sanity, but sometimes he felt like he was grasping at straws.

* * *

            His destination was Las Vegas. Thanks to social media, he even knew the name of the hotel they were saying at. It was a five star hotel. A little pricey, but well within his budget. He had the entire weekend to get the job done, so he decided to take the rest of his Friday night off. The drive from the City of Angels to the City of Sin would take its toll, so business would continue first thing in the morning.

            He woke up early in order to take advantage of the complimentary breakfast. While he sat at his two person table eating his muffin, he wondered if they too would take part in the free meal. He weighed the possibility in his head, but he was leaning towards no. He refused to believe that it would be THAT easy. He thought they had most likely spent the first night drinking, and were sleeping off their hangovers.

            To his surprise, about ten minutes after he had already brushed the thought aside, the two people in the picture he was keeping in his wallet were dragging their feet into the line for the continental breakfast spread. He took another look at the photo, just for a sanity check, but it was a plain as day.

            He was half right. They were clearly hungover, but who could refuse a free breakfast? Not this happy couple.

            They sat at a two person table that was fairly close to his own. He had just finished his breakfast when they sat down, so he just sat there pretending to read his newspaper, while occasionally peeping over the top to check out the couple. Old clichés, die hard. By the way they looked at each other, with sparkles in their eyes, it looked like they were on their honeymoon. They looked like new lovers who still had their entire lives ahead of them.