morning. I'll text you if we find out anything. What's new on your end? I take it Janelle's still missing."
"No sign of Janelle, but Jimmy has contacts inside Janelle's hotel. He's working a couple of angles. Sneed's name popped up with him, too."
"Good work, Carol," Ben said. "We'll look forward to your text."
They hung up and Mac called Juan in Florida.
"Hey Mac," Juan helloed. "Is Janelle still missing?"
"Hi Juan. You're on speaker. Ben's here."
"Hi Ben. Has Bob discovered any worm holes in space lately?"
Ben and Mac laughed. "He and Lacey managed to tract the origin of Janelle's text to the vicinity of the Galaxy Hotel. They triangle three cell towers in the area."
"I managed to pull a favor from a local judge who's dating my sister."
"No shame in that," Mac chuckled.
"Anyways, I got a warrant to look at the Vegas Galaxy's occupancy roster the weekend of Janelle's text message." He collected his thoughts. Juan could hear Ben in the background saying, "We caught a break."
"Relax!" Juan countered. "This may take some time."
"Give us the reader's digest version," Ben said anxiously.
Juan started. "The weekend of Janelle's text message, the Vegas Galaxy had a 92% occupancy. That's about 4000 rooms and around 8,000 guests, figuring double occupancy. Of the 350 suites, 50 are for VIPs. They sometimes don't record the names of guests in the high end comp rooms. But they do record which hotel official the room is charged to."
Mac and Ben mused the confusing information. Then Mac said, "How many were charged to Ralph Locci and which ones."
"Let me see."
Mac and Ben could hear keyboard typing noises. Juan came back into the conversation about a minute later.
"Ralph Locci has the top twelve penthouses. Ten were used Friday night and eleven on Saturday night during the Janelle text weekend. I'll dig deeper to find the actual guests in those rooms."
"Good work," Ben said.
Mac echoed Ben. "Super! Jimmy has some people close to Janelle's work place. We'll text you with alerts as we get them. Keep that judge in your pocket and out of your sister's pants!"
Juan smiled and hit end button on his phone's keypad. He was glad that was over. He wanted to get back to his voter fraud case.
"One more to go," Mac said.
Ben asked him if he wanted anything to drink. "I'll have a Coke, thanks."
Mac figured it was about eleven AM in Samoa so he didn't hesitate to call Kitiona.
"Hi Mac," Kitiona answered on the second ring. "Is this a Foundation call or are you wondering which bathing suit I'm wearing?"
"Ahhhh, Ben's on speaker with us!" Mac wanted to sound official.
"Hi Ben. Don't imagine you care which bathing suit I'm wearing."
"Well, if knowing will help Mac to focus, sure, go ahead and tell us."
"It's a tied, blue, bikini top and gold bottom. But, I'll put on my Foundation t-shirt for this call if it's important."
"Oh, give me the Polynesian lifestyle," Mac whispered.
"I heard that! Anytime Mac," Kitiona said with a hopefully challenge.
Ben interpreted their banter. "Thanks for texting Janelle's cell phone carrier. Bob and Lacey pinned her senator text to the Galaxy Hotel vicinity."
Mac, over his Polynesian, Kitiona-type fantasies, chimed in. "Jimmy has some contacts inside the Galaxy, who work around Janelle's area. They and detective Rizzo are working the case from the inside. They came up with a Chinese contact. Doesn't your factory, Motorhead, sell brake glue to China?"
Kitiona thought for a few seconds. "We have a few outlets. One's in Beijing. I'm not sure exactly where the others are located."
"We were thinking. If necessary, could you take a trip to visit one of those outlets? And maybe do some scouting?"
"I've never been to China. That could be interesting. Would you come along?"
Mac hesitated for a long moment. "I should but I won't…..this time."
Disappointed, Kitiona said, "I would feel safer going with someone. I can ask Kaia and Mark. He's going nuts not hearing from Janelle."
"Jimmy will be getting back to us in a day or two. Check out who Motorhead sells to and find their locations. See what kind of visiting arrangements you can set up with them without causing a stir. You know those Chinese are suspicious of everything!"
"Ok Mac." She paused for effect. "Time to take the Harley for a ride. Need to check on Kaia and Mark. She's doing her best to keep him focused on his research and her, of course."
"Ok then, bye for now," said Mac.
"Bye," she echoed.
Chapter 22 Discovery
About noon the next day, Mac received a text message from Carol. It read, 'one Senator and two Representatives were signed out to Vegas that weekend'.
Mac immediately texted back, 'WHO'.
Carol responding text read, Senator Larry Sneed, Reps George Timmathy, and Jeannine Yemen.
His text back simply read, 'thxs'.
Ben arrived with Chinese takeout from King Lings. "A little Chinese brainstorming fuel!" he said setting the bag filled with four, quart cartons on the conference table.
They started eating and Mac started talking. "The name Larry Sneed keeps popping up. I thought we could go through Sneed's legislative history while we eat."
"Remember, I use the seek and peck typing method." Ben said with a mouth full of chow mein noodles.
"No problem. All you'll have to do is read and scroll. You read about Sneed. Here's Sneed's legislative record," he said turning the Dell laptop so the screen faced Ben. "You scan through it. Start with this year and work your way back. I'll do a Lexis-Nexis search on Sneed's friend, Li Wing."
"Good plan," Ben said chop-sticking a juicy piece of sweet and sour pork into his mouth. He began tapping on the keyboard's down arrow and scanning the monitor's information.
An hour later, Mac asked, "Anything?"
Ben raised his head. "Sneed's into land stuff. His record is full of land-use legislation. He recently attached a land-use amendment to the Obamacare Bill."
"You mean the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?"
"Yea. You know from the bill's name that it won't protect anyone or make healthcare affordable," Ben mused.
"What
