Free Sweet Dreams by Aaron Patterson

Kirk dug in his wallet for some cash. "Keep the change." He tossed the driver a fifty, and then headed into the building. Hill View was a simple hotel that sat next to a few other hotels in the same district. It was not a pay by the hour hotel but only about two steps higher up on the food chain. The lobby stank of cigar smoke and stale coffee. Kirk didn't bother to even look at the scabby rail of a man behind the short thing they called a front desk.
    The room was about twelve by twelve and had a double bed and a nightstand next to it. A fifteen-inch TV sat on a desk just beyond the foot of the bed. This room had a small shower and the bathroom was so small that it didn't even have a sink. In fact, the room didn't have a sink at all. Kirk packed up his clothes, which were thrown all over the floor and made sure to grab one of the white robes as a gift to himself. "Thanks. I needed one of these." Stuffing the robe into his Underarmor bag and zipping it shut, he thought how strange it was that a dump like this even had robes. A few blocks down from the hotel, Kirk had noticed a Avis rental car place and decided to walk. He slung his blue and black bag over his shoulder and put his sunglasses on. He had on a white t-shirt and light blue jeans with a hole in the left knee. He gritted his teeth each time he added weight to his sore leg, and the only thing that made it not hurt so much was that the punk that shot him was at the morgue. Avis had a bumbling blond behind a white counter when Kirk wandered in. She was a snot, and as soon as Kirk opened his mouth to explain his situation she confirmed this assumption. Kirk had to flash his badge to get the tall woman moving, and smashing up the last car didn't help any, but the FBI would take care of it. At least, that is what he told the dumb blond behind the counter.
    Once he was behind the wheel, again Kirk felt much better. He requested the new Dodge Charger and they happened to have one left. In addition, to make him feel even more not so cranky, it was black!
    Kirk couldn't get that phrase out of his mind. "They said. Who is ' they '?" Gus had said 'they.' He needed more info. He needed a hacker. "I need Mooch!"
    Kirk had picked up Mooch a few years back for hacking into the eBay website. He put every auction as a ' buy it now'
    for a dollar, and the site ended up in a lawsuit for the billions that were lost in that one day. Kirk didn't turn him in and no one even knew it was him, so Kirk let him off. It was somewhat funny and Kirk knew it was always good to have one of these guys owing you a favor.
SWEET
    DREAMS
    67
    "It's time to pay up, kid." Kirk dialed his cell as he drove down the street, weaving in and out of traffic only to get stuck behind three yellow cabs.
    "Pick up," Kirk grumbled. The other end of the line crackled and a young voice came on the line. "Hey, Mooch, I need that favor you owe me. I'll be online in ten minutes. Stay close to your phone." Kirk hung up the phone before Mooch could say anything more then hello.
    Slipping his phone into his pocket, he turned down Fourth Street and looked for a coffee shop, he needed some caffeine, and if he got cut off one more time he was going to scream. There!
    He spotted a small coffee shop called the Mean Bean . He pulled down the alley next to the brick building and parked in the back. The building was three stories tall and used to be apartments back in the fifties but had been renovated into a coffee shop, a law firm, and a few other businesses. Grabbing his laptop from the front seat, he locked the doors and went in the back door as if he owned the place.
    The Mean Bean was decorated with different oversized coffee cups and the walls were painted mocha brown and black. Burlap sacks hung from the walls, along with pictures of coffee beans and newspaper clippings of the Mean Bean's first ribbon cutting ceremony, which made at least one local paper.
    Kirk ordered a plain black coffee from the pretty browneyed brunette.