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Shawn always knocks first. If he was a client, Joey would come to the door, but they’ve long had their own pattern, and it’s not exactly unusual for him to leave Shawn to let himself in. He’s the one who books the hotels, after all.
So he waits what is almost a polite length of time before pinching his key card from the front of his jacket. He leans forward to look up and down the dated hallway, lit in yellow, the same at 4am as it would be at noon. And probably the same as it has been since the eighties.
At his side, Craig is silent.
There’s a soft beep from the pad and Shawn lowers the key, letting himself in with a click of the door. He holds it open with the toe of his boot as Craig enters, unbuttoning his cuffs.
Shawn starts on his own suit buttons as he walks into the clean light of the hotel room. He’s ready to leave business downstairs, maybe have a smoke with Joey and kick back for the night.
Two steps more and his fingers stop where they are.
Craig materialises at his shoulder, and Shawn still doesn’t move. His eyes run over the scene, slow and increasingly deadly.
There’s blood. On the bed.
Dark, sneering stains on the pillow and the sheet, daring him to imagine what put them there. At his feet, a crumpled black skirt. A box of condoms has exploded across the floor on the other side of the bed – and, there, more blood. A blotch of it mars the corner of the bed, and at the foot of it, a pool is steadily sinking into the carpet. Thank fuck hotel cleaners don’t ask questions. He’ll slip them an extra wad on the way out – right after he makes sure that his guy is still alive.
The red drips and smudges lead to the adjoining bathroom.
“Joey!” Shawn bellows, striding to the door and pounding on it.
When he hears nothing, the darkness at the corners of the room grows louder, the red stains cloying and loud where they lie on the floor.
“You motherfucker,” he curses the door, quieter, “I don’t wanna have to pay this place for damages, but–”
The lock clicks from inside.
In a second, Shawn is pushing it open. Joey’s staring back at them tiredly over his hand, where it pinches his nose. He’s drowning in a white t shirt which Shawn suspects might’ve been his once, and which is painted with yet more damning blood spatters. There’s more smudged under Joey’s fishnets. Shawn tries not to look at where the blood tracks right up to the hem of his boxers, poking out beneath the shirt.
Joey’s face is good enough distraction, anyway. There are dark rings bruising under his eyes, a graze on his forehead.
Joey must catch Shawn’s growing glare, because he rolls his eyes and turns away to lean on the sink. Thin streaks of blood line it, too.
Sean looms over him in the mirror.
“You’re not the one who’s meant to be doing the hit on this guy.”
Joey drops his hand to glare darkly up at him. All it does is reveal more of the fucker’s handywork. Blood streams from Joey’s nose, deep red and hardening under it, and his teeth glisten with it. Where his shirt gapes at the neck, bruises taunt back from his pale skin.
“Ha, ha. None of it’s his.”
“None?”
“Chill, man. You guys can still handle it. Got what you wanted on him.”
“You let him walk out of here?”
“’S nothing I can’t handle.”
Shawn sighs.
“I’ll drive you to the clinic.”
“Just give me a minute, dude.”
There’s already one ruined towel balled up in the hotel shower, and Joey grabs at a second, swiping at his face. It only succeeds in smearing the sticky blood further, smudging over the corner of his mouth. Cupping his hand under the tap, he splashes it over his mouth, wincing at the sting in his split lip.
As he scrubs, he gives Shawn a pointed look in the mirror.
Sighing, Shawn sets his shoulders and glares back, but steps out of the room and pulls the door almost-shut.
Keeping one ear on the bathroom, Shawn grits his jaw. Craig’s coldly neutral gaze returns from the bed to meet his. Shawn has a feeling they’re both going to enjoy finding this guy.
“I got a look at his ID. Can write the address for you,” Joey’s voice comes through the door. “Carries a fucking desert eagle.”
“Douchebag,” Shawn mutters.
“Gets his coke from Sam over on East. And he had a business card for the strip joint on the same block.”
“I knew it.” Shawn cracks his knuckles. “Good work. You nearly done? You can tell us the rest on the way.”
“Gimme a fucking minute. I need some fucking pants.”
Shawn heads over to the bed and pulls Joey’s suitcase from under it. When he finds his jeans, he throws them through the gap in the door.
“Wouldn’t have sent him up here if I’d heard bad shit from any of the others, y’know–”
“’S fine, dude. Best way to get what you needed, right?”
“Better be fucking worth it. Now get your ass out here.”
The dull slam of the second towel thudding into the shower comes a second before Joey huffily pulls the door open. There’s a small drip of red still trying to break free from his nose, but the worst patches have gone. Still doesn’t exactly leave him fresh-faced, with the last of his eyeliner still caked on and the dark spectacle-arcs where his nose is puffing up.
Joey finds his hoodie and wrestles into it while Craig packs and closes his case and stands ready at the door. Shawn is counting cash to leave on the side when he cracks open the minibar on a whim.
Joey raises his eyebrows but shrugs and swipes the beer Shawn holds out, cracking it open and taking a swig.
“It’s cold, moron. For your nose.”
“Yeah, and it’s also beer.”
Swinging his car keys round a finger, Shawn just shakes his head and follows them out of the room. Joey shoves his hood over his head, trailing behind Craig. Shawn catches him touching the bottle to his nose, after all.
Throwing the keys and cash by the door, Shawn takes one look back at the room, cleared of all but blood, and shuts the door with a promise he looks forward to following up on.