Gunther sat in the middle stall of the men's restroom. Sitting at the top of the toilet tank, his feet resting on the seat, he peered through the gap between the door and the frame of the metal stall. He watched a younger man walk to a urinal. Leaning back, he pondered the thought that there could be a witness. The thought hung in the back of his mind and he pushed it forward.
Gunther has observed his target for a little over two weeks. He analyzed the daily pattern that his unwary prey followed. Unless his target was secretly paranoid, this was the best place to take care of business.
His target, Milton G Stumph, was a middle-aged corporate upper-management figure who borrowed money from many people. Some were friends, who tried to politely bring up the matter in day-today conversation. Some were members financial institutions, who threatened to take away his vacation home in southern Florida, his Audi 6000LX, maybe even his thirteenth century Chinese vase. And some, two in fact, were organizations that supported all sorts of vice. Organized crime, the Mafia, Yakuza, whatever you wanted to call it. The kind of people that bring about ideas of short and stocky Italian gentlemen in ill-fitting suits. All of them sitting in the back room of a smoky restaurant, with big plates of spaghetti everywhere. Whatever. These days, they sit on the deck of their "fishing vessel" and monitor their stocks and bank accounts on a portable computer rig. They watch their numbers go up. And, when the numbers stagnate or drop, they pick up the phone and call someone to make the numbers get big again.
Gunther was not one of those people.
The people who got the call would do the same thing the bank would do. Except, they didn't send snail-mail in pink envelopes with a black stamp marked "urgent". Instead, would appear in person with a suitcase full of ass-kicking. After this, there would be no doubt as to whether or not you need to make a payment.
Gunther was not one of those people, either.
He was who they called when someone was either unavailable for one-on-one sessions, or they repeatedly tried to skip out of payment.
This was not Gunther's first choice of a career. Nor his second or third. But, despite a degree in dentistry, he found that it was much more tolerable to put bullets in people than his fingers in their filthy mouths. Also, owing a gazillion dollars in student loans to one of the previously mentioned organizations was instrumental.
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He pulled a nine millimeter pistol from under his coat. A cheap no-name model. Semi-automatic with 10 rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. Nine by nineteen millimeter hollow-points to be specific. It was a typical Beretta knock-off, with one exception. The barrel has a threaded tip.
From his other pocket he pulled a silencer. In a often-repeated fashion, he joined the two pieces with a screwing motion that may resemble machines having intercourse.
He pressed the safety and locked it into the red.
Time check 2:03pm.
The plan was simple. Anytime between 2:00 and 2:10, Mr.Stumph would go to the restroom. He always chose the stall on the far end. There, he would sit and grunt, or just zone out. No matter. It would take him about 5 minutes to do his business, which Gunther felt was not nearly enough time to properly clean oneself. Then he would flush and make his way to the sink. There he would wash his hands for a mere 15 to 20 seconds. This irked Gunther the most, as proper hand washing should take at least three minutes, if not five.
The plan is to wait until he passes and enters the stall. Then Gunther would leave his stall and walk to the end. He'd kick the door open (as he made some "adjustments" to the latch so that it would freely detach from the door) and then unload two bullets into the targets chest and one in the head. He'd close the stall door (which he also rigged to fall closed, instead of open) and then drop the pistol into the wastepaper basket. End of story.
But, what if someone else was in the restroom at that time? Gunther had made a plan, but was getting nervous, none the less. He frisked his front pocket for a small brown bottle of pills. With one hand, he popped the led off and dumped a single tablet into the crowded palm of his right hand. Contorted and dropped it into his mouth. He let it sit under his tongue and dissolve.
At that point, Gunther fumbled the contents of his hands, his eyes wide in panic. When he heard the cap plink off the floor, he very briefly considered the consequences of using a non-sterile pill bottle lid. What if some vicious micro-organism hitched a ride on the rim of the lid as it rolled around on the floor? He might pick up the lid, cover his mouth to muffle a cough, get some of the micro-filth on his mouth, then be hospitalized with some kind of mouth fungus. Lying in a hospital bed, unable to eat solid food, what with the possibility of more evil slime entering his body from his crusted lips.
When he heard the rattle of the pills spill across the floor, a dirty lid did not seem to be a concern. The mind spins with the thoughts of the widely varied diseases that the pills now carried. Each pill could be like a bag of mixed jellybeans - Jellybeans of bacterial filth. If he were to consume one, the resulting infection and sickness would put him into the ICU for an indefinable amount of time. The EMT who found him would take the pills, which would then be analyzed by scientists, who would misdiagnose the sickness, as the smoothie of frothy viruses would be of a different composition.
When he heard the plop of his weapon falling into the water below him, an entirely different problem came about.
He sprang up to look into the bowl below him and the last few unscathed pills joined the firearm in the toilet.
The toilet had been flushed, yes. At least once since it's last use. But, is once enough? Tiny air bubbles flowed from the barrel, as it slowly became filled with the potentially poison-laden fluid.
What to do, what to do? He stepped down to the floor below and peered into the bowl, a safe distance from the seat. He raised his hand above the opening and concentrated. He thought of 'Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back', what with Luke Skywalker hung from the ceiling in a icy cave the probably smelled like dirty wet fur. Would the weapon leap from the toilet into his hand, like a lightsaber from a pile of snow? He smiled slightly at the though. Then he considered that the weapon was wet, the magazine and slide probably filled with water. Toilet water. His slight smile become a pouty-face frown.
Then, it occurred to him suddenly - He could kill two birds with the potential of avian bird flu from a safe distance away with one stone if he flushed the toilet several times, with generally clean water washing away most of the filth. During one of these flushing cycles, the water would drain low enough that he could snatch it up in a hand-full of toilet paper. He would then need to disassemble the weapon and dry each part. Quickly, but thoroughly. A quick glance at the side of the stall revealed two almost full rolls of toilet paper. Almost enough to complete the job.
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"Dude, what the fuck is going on in there?"
Bob turned to his co-worker and they walked back from a smoke break.
"What? Where?"
"In the bathroom. Did you hear that guy in the stall? He kept flushing the toilet. Over and over, like...twenty times. What's he doing in there."
"Oh, yeah. Funny, I thought I heard crying."
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Officer Davis filled out his incident report.
"The victim was found in the fourth floor men's room of the SoftApp Corporate building. As per initial observation from the coroner, it appeared that Mr. Stumph suffered repeated blows to the head with the ceramic top of a toilet tank."