The Detective Goes After the Next Customer

Daniel Sihn had a long night.

After withdrawing as much of his funds as he could from an ATM, he managed to get rid of Jim's car by visiting an old acquaintance of his. Pablo Escabar was one of his snitches from back when he worked in Vice. The punk was a low level bruiser for one of the local narcotics dealers, and in the greater scheme of things he wasn't very important. What he was, though, was very observant, as he was quite well versed in keeping his ear to the ground and dredging up information on various underworld matters. Daniel needed a car, and Pablo had a rusty old toyota that miraculously ran somehow. The snitch was quite happy to trade it for Jim's Mazda.

Daniel then used his new wheels to head to the ritziest hotel he could find. It cost him almost half his funds, but he booked two nights in their best room, one with a large steel safe to keep his "valuables." It was through the hotel safe that the Detective was able to find out which item had been nullifying the others' powers. It didn't even take him that long, as his first attempt with locking the briefcase away from the other items proved correct. When the briefcase was outside the safe, the items didn't work. When he locked it inside, everything worked as they should have.

With the briefcase locked inside the confines of the steel safe, Daniel then layed out all the items onto the hotel's floor like he had at his apartment. Now that the annoying nullification effect was gone, he could get around to testing the items to see what, if anything, they did.

The playing cards seemed pretty useless; except for the bawdy pictures of naked women on them, the detective couldn't find anything different about them. The wallet proved equally useful, though it did have fifty dollars inside. The walkman, though working, didn't seem to pick up any radio stations and just received loud, blaring static. The keychain also baffled him, as it seemed just like an ordinary cheap plastic keychain.

Thankfully, some of the items he managed to figure out. Sadly, most of their effects were less than useful. The ear plugs for instance, blocked off all sound from being heard. They were probably useful if he ever needed to go to sleep during a rock concert, but for every other occasion they were utterly pointless. At least it wasn't as useless as the airplane ticket; from what Daniel could tell all it did was float about three inches from whatever surface it was laying upon.

He also found out what the house key he had taken from the FBI agent did. After testing it out on his room and bathroom door, Daniel realized that it could unlock anything that had a keyhole in it. Pretty obvious, now that he thought about it. The key might come in very useful.

The flashlight was also quite interesting. Daniel had removed the batteries for the item and found that it still remained working. At first he thought this was all it did, but while playing around with it his cellphone rang. Looking in the display, he saw that it was his mother and he cursed in annoyance. Suddenly the light from the torch vanished, and in front of him appeared his mother. He was so startled that he dropped the flashlight, and the image of his mother disappeared.

Daniel picked the item up again and turned it on. He then thought of his mother, and lo and behold, she appeared. She was completely solid-looking, not like a ghost or hologram. He thought of someone else and soon the image of his mother was replaced by his captain, gruff angry look and all. He switched his thoughts once more and soon Agent Knight was standing in front of him.

"Weird," Daniel muttered as he reached forwards and tried to touch the woman's face. He wasn't really surprised when his hand went right through it. The detective experimented some more with the flashlight and was able to make the image move, making it walk around the room. He even got it to speak by thinking the words he wanted them to say.

"Hey, sexy. Come here often?" The image of Sarah Knight asked him seductively.

The detective chuckled, then shut off the flashlight causing the image of the pretty agent to vanish. He felt a bit guilty about having her locked up, but he **** the feelings aside. It had to be done.

The final item he discovered a use for proved the strangest. He was looking through the group of artifacts Jewel had owned when he picked up the locker key to examine it. Upon its side was engraved the words "Copperfield Station." Daniel searched online and saw that Copperfield was an old bus station that had closed down in 2004. The place didn't even exist anymore, as the building had been demolished to make way for some luxury housing.

After putting the locker key down, Daniel was startled when he saw something from the corner of his eye move. He jumped up, looking around wildly, but a search of his room found nothing amiss. He bent down and picked up the locker key again; this time he saw something appear in the corner of his eye. Looking towards it, he saw a single public locker set, much like one would find at a bus stop or airport, right next to the hotel's television stand. Daniel dropped the key in his hand and the locker vanished.

"What the hell?" The detective grabbed the key once more, and once again the lockers appeared. It was one row composed of two lockers, one atop the other. The metal was painted a dark green, and etched onto the doors of the lockers was 301 at the top and 302 on the bottom. The number on the key said 301.

Moving to towards the strange sight, half afraid that it would vanish if he came too close, Daniel reached out and touched the cold metal. It seemed solid enough. He tried the key on the locker marked 301 and it turned. Opening it, the detective was slightly disappointed to see that it was empty. He closed the door then tried the key on the bottom locker; it wouldn't open.

Daniel walked away and set down the key, an action which caused the lockers to vanish. He picked it up, and it appeared. No matter how many times he repeated the action, the same result always occurred. Whenever he picked up the locker key, the mysterious lockers would appear out of thin air.

Deciding to try an experiment, Daniel picked up the key and when the lockers appeared he grabbed the remote control to the hotel's tv. He then approached the lockers and opened 301. He placed the remote inside, shut the door, then put the key down on a nearby dresser. The locker vanished taking the remote control with it.

He picked up the key, causing the lockers to reappear. The detective smiled when he opened the door to 301 and saw that the remote was still safely inside. Excellent. It looked like he found a way to keep his valuables from getting stolen.

Daniel then took about half an hour to put all the artifacts inside of 301 along with his guns and ammunition. He kept his service pistol with him as well as the items he had discovered the powers of. He then shut the door to the locker and dropped the key into his pocket. The locker vanished, but quickly reappeared as soon as his hand grasped the key again. After opening the door, he let out a relieved breath when he saw that everything he had put inside was still there. He then closed the door, stuffed the key in his pocket, and watched the ghostly locker set vanish.

Well, that was one set of problems taken care of. He was still left with the briefcase, though. He definitely needed to find a safe place for it since he couldn't very well use the locker key, not with it nullifying everything's powers.

Daniel looked at the clock and sighed when he saw that it was already 5 am. It was too late to go to sleep, not if he wanted to make use of the head start he had on the feds for collecting the other items. The detective was fairly sure that they had gotten the same list that he had received from John, the proprietor of the Hidden Treasures pawn shop. Hopefully Agent Knight was still locked up and would stay that way until noon. If he acted fast he could most likely get to two or three names on the list.

The detective took a quick shower and shave, then got dressed in the same suit he'd been wearing the day before. He needed to look official after all, if he were to fool the customers to handing over the items to him. He just hoped they didn't notice the bullet holes; thankfully the fabric was dark so they weren't too blatant.

After getting fully dressed and grabbing his gun and artifacts, Daniel left the hotel and hopped into his car. Flipping open the map, he thought of the next customer he would be visiting and smiled when the red circle appeared, ready to lead him towards his prey.

"I'm coming for you, Amanda," he whispered as he started his car. "Please have my mirror ready for me..."