‘He could be, sir, but let’s not jump to any conclusions. There’s every chance your briefcase is completely unspoilt. Let me check who’s staying in that room.’
Pierre brought out that huge book again, heaving it open to the page licked by its enormous red bookmark. I swear it spat out a cloud of dust.
‘This is interesting,’ he said, his finger coming to a stop at the name beside the room number. His eyes turned cold and wary. ‘This says that the room has been rented out to a single occupant, and a woman no less.’ He turned his smile back on, as if remembering that I was across the desk from him. ‘Well, I suppose she could have had a gentleman caller! Let’s go up and ask, shall we? I’m sure this has all been a terrible misunderstanding.’
‘The only thing that guy’ll be misunderstanding is my fist if I don’t get my case back,’ I grumbled, though Pierre’s pleasant assistance was dousing the candle of my rage somewhat.
He left the reception desk in the capable hands of his fellow concierge, and the two of us walked to the elevators in silence. Once inside, Pierre began to hum a tune I’d heard the house band perform earlier that evening. He was wringing his fingers and playing with the hem of his uniform.
‘I’m terribly sorry for all the inconvenience this must have brought about,’ he said as the lift climbed to the sixth floor. ‘Particularly given how late the hour has become.’
‘Never mind that, it’s hardly your fault. I just want my bloody briefcase back so I can finish my evening.’
‘Particularly important to you, is it?’
‘More than you would understand. But why somebody would want to steal it, I haven’t a clue.’
The doors opened with a polite ting and we made our way to the dastardly door of room 608. Its peep hole watched, unblinking, as we approached.
Pierre knocked politely.
‘Excuse me, madam? It’s the management. I apologise for the disturbance at such a late hour, but would you mind opening the door? There’s been a…’
He looked at my stone-cold expression of impatience.
‘…An incident, involving the theft of a briefcase. It would be of great help to all parties if we could get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.’
There was a rustling behind the door and the click of a latch being taken off. The door opened a crack, then about halfway.
‘Of course, dear Pierre,’ came a sweet, French accent. ‘You know I’ll be happy to help in any way I can.’
In the doorway stood a woman far unlike the man I’d seen run through it only minutes earlier. She was slender, sleek and beautiful. She wore a thin, pink nightdress which clung to her figure and left little to the imagination. Very little, in my case, for the woman before me was the very same I had watched from the steps upon my arrival - the very same I had seen getting out from the pool in what I’d half-convinced myself was a dream.
‘Thank you, Marie,’ said Pierre, relieved. ‘I knew I could trust you to co-operate.’
I stared at her, lost for words. She looked at me and winked, though Pierre seemed not to notice.
‘Mr. Webber here has had his briefcase stolen,’ Pierre continued. ‘Now we’re not sure who took it, but whoever it was used a key to get into your room. I don’t suppose you have a man in there, do you?’
Marie feigned offence. ‘What are you trying to suggest, monsieur?’ She put her hand to her bare chest as if his words had cut the clothes from off her.
‘Nothing at all, Marie, nothing at all. We’re simply trying to work out what’s happened to Mr. Webber’s briefcase before things become any more complicated. Perhaps I could take a quick look around the room, just to reassure him that it hasn’t been hidden in there?’
‘Of course, Pierre, by all means,’ she said, stepping to the side so that he could pass. She stepped back into the doorframe before I could follow. Behind her I could make out Pierre conducting a brisk but thorough examination of the room.
‘Hello again, George,’ she whispered, a kissable smirk dancing across her lips. ‘I told you you didn’t have to do it, and here we are.’
‘You know where it is!’ I replied, confused as to why I was also whispering. ‘Where is it? You have no idea how important it is to me. Give it back to me now and I won’t press charges, I swear.’
‘I don’t ‘ave it. It’s long gone from ‘ere, I’m ‘appy to say.’
‘Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on but you’re in on something, so cut the crap and give it back. And I swear your accent is getting thicker just to wind me up.’
Pierre came back to the doorway, looking awkward as he brushed past Marie’s lacy nightgown. ‘Nothing in there, I’m afraid,’ he said, looking sympathetic. ‘No man and no briefcase of any description.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Marie said, pulling the door to. ‘I wish I could be of more help. Good luck finding whatever it is you’re searching for, Mr. Webber,’ she added, just before the door locked shut. The sound of the chain being dragged across was clear to hear.
‘Well, looks like it’s a dead end,’ said Pierre, shrugging his shoulders and making to walk off. ‘Perhaps we’ll give it another shot in the morning, aye? Fresh minds and fresh eyes. And who knows, maybe it’ll turn up in lost and found…’
‘Hold on a second,’ I said, grabbing him by the arm. He looked alarmed so I let go, but he stayed put. ‘I know that somebody went through that door with my briefcase earlier, and I know that woman is in on it. I also know that something very weird is going on here, and so do you. You don’t have a good poker face, trust me. But regardless of whatever shit you might be hiding I need that briefcase back tonight, so the two of us are going to find it, and pronto. Understand?’
Pierre looked at me for a long time. I could almost hear the clockwork of his mind ticking as he mulled over the repercussions of telling me what he would, eventually, confess.
‘I don’t think you have the… the…’
‘Guts? Balls? Nerve?’
‘…Imagination.’
‘Try me. I was fun once, believe it or not.’
‘Okay, okay. But you’re not going to believe it. What would you say if I told you there were an infinite number of worlds, their membranes as thin as the wall of a bubble and each only a hair’s breadth from one another, stacked up and all around like building blocks?’
‘I’d say the reception desk isn’t keeping you busy enough.’
‘Of course you would. But it’s true, even if most people never notice. How could they? Most people can’t even admit to the reality they live in, let alone the infinite possibilities and permutations that lurk just a pinprick away. But they are there, and there are certain places, certain folds, where those worlds more closely overlap. Once you’re there all you need is the right set of keys, and a door.’
‘What an absolute crock of bollocks.’
‘I kid you not. Le Petit Monde is just one of those places; a cross-roads, if you will. There are a great many of them, and a great many more nobody yet knows about. But from here or there one can go anywhere - any time and any place one chooses. And from anywhere too, with enough practice… So long as there’s a door, of course.’
‘Jurassic period out of the question then?’ I asked, sarcastically.
‘Never tried, though I doubt I could push open a Brachiosaurus’ gate anyway.’
‘This is absolute bollocks,’ I said, pacing up and down the corridor. My watch was showing ten minutes to midnight. Everything was ruined. Ruined. An anniversary, wasted. ‘Some arsehole has made off with my briefcase and you can’t do anything except make up some bullcrap about magic doors. Jesus-H-Christ. Who do I speak to about making a complaint?’
‘That would be me, sir,’ said Pierre, approaching Marie’s door once again, fishing a ring of keys from out of his pocket.
‘And if I want to complain about you?’ I asked, testily.
Pierre paused, having picked out a key and pushed it into the lock.
‘Well, that’s
never happened before. I’d have to find out.’
He turned the key.
‘Wait, what are you doing? That woman is in there, she could be in any state, you can’t just barge in-’
Pierre pushed open the door.
Dazzling sun blinded me. I had to raise my hand to shield my eyes and from beneath I could make out a great strip of golden sand, peppered with red and white striped deck chairs. An endless blue ocean crashed and retreated beyond. The quiet smell of salt drifted past my nostrils and off into the hotel corridor, and gulls spiralled round and around in the clear Jamaican sky.
Leading down from the doorframe were weathered wooden steps, and from between them scuttled a tiny crab. I could feel myself starting to sweat, so hot was that glaring sun, when Pierre shut the door without warning.
We stood there in silence, a few grains of sand scattered across the carpet between our feet.
‘Talk about a room with a view,’ said Pierre. ‘Shame we can’t put it on the brochure.’
‘Another,’ I said, the word slipping out from my mouth like a wet eel. My brain felt as if it were falling apart, like a soft muffin being picked away bit by bit. ‘It’s a trick. Somehow. A good one. Another. I don’t know how you did it, but another.’
‘Very well,’ said Pierre, using the same key again.
And this time when the door opened, I saw not the luscious sands of the Caribbean but a city ravaged. Swirling towers of purple flames licked the sides of skyscrapers, while clouds of smoke and screams billowed into a sky as black as the void beyond the stars. And as if seeing us looking out at the ruined metropolis, a set of claws swung down from the heavens, ready to tear us asunder.
Pierre shut the door with a slam.
‘Sorry. You’re probably not quite ready for that yet. Still think it’s a crock of bollocks?’
I shook my head. Perhaps if I’d been capable of words I would have told Pierre to go screw himself, gone back to my hotel room, and rocked back and forth in the dark trying to contemplate the new reality that had opened up around me. But instead I just shook my head like an animatronic from Disneyland, and that’s probably why my evening took an even greater turn for the unusual.
‘Good. Because you’re going to have to get used to it, and quick, if we’re going to get your briefcase back.’
He placed his palm to the wood of the door, then his ear, as if listening.
‘Got it,’ he said, and put the key in the lock a final time.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said, climbing out of my stupor like a mountaineer reaching the peak of Everest. ‘You mean we’ve got to go through the door? Into whatever’s out… there?’
‘You’re the one who wants his briefcase back so much. I would have been happy to wait until morning because as I said - you never know what might turn up in lost and found. What’s so important about it, anyway?’
‘It’s… it’s just very personal to me, that’s all.’
‘Well, I won’t have it said that the concierges of Le Petit Monde don’t go out of their way for their guests,’ he said, sarcastically, waving his hands. ‘And I can’t have a black mark beside my name, after all. Not from the renowned George Webber. So let’s get moving, before I change my mind.’
He opened the door and the same blinding light shone out, the same dancing shades of colour that twisted and fought like the kaleidoscope I’d played with as a child. Somewhere amongst the echoes I could hear a trumpet, or a trombone. It sounded faint and forgotten, as if played from the bottom of a well.
‘Don’t worry,’ he added. ‘We’ll be back before midnight. Probably.’
I stepped to the precipice, unable to see what lay beyond. My fingers crept forward, crossing the threshold and disappearing into the light. They returned intact. I was about to ask Pierre if we couldn’t give the other rooms of the hotel a quick check when a hand shoved me in the small of the back.
Forwards I fell, spiralling and sprawling…
Chapter Six
…into a street that smelled of piss and regret.
I’d travelled far, far from the familiar. Approximately 7455 kilometres, in fact, or a little over four thousand nautical miles, or ten or eleven hours on a conventional airline, if such a direct flight were available. My head felt muddy and disjointed, and I struggled to make sense of the frivolity around me.
Pierre stepped out to my left and I heard the unmistakeable and terminal sound of a door shutting behind us both.
‘Where are we?’ I asked, hunched over and rubbing my eyes. I was beginning to make out the shape of my shoes.
‘Bourbon Street, New Orleans,’ said Pierre with more than a hint of glee in his voice. If my eyes had been clearer I would have seen him smiling. ‘The best of a bunch of worlds, all crammed into one aquatically challenged city.’
‘New Orleans, Louisiana?’ I yelled, and then threw up. My vision improved just enough for me to see my dinner splash across the kerb. ‘I’ve never even been to the States.’
‘Well you have now. Don’t worry about that,’ he added, patting me on the back. ‘Everyone struggles the first time they travel. And you’ll fit right in with the locals.’
Being sick seemed to have cleared my head somewhat. All around me I could see people younger than myself - though not exclusively - stumbling out from bars and clubs, laughing and crying but mostly spilling something. Most of the men wore polo-necks though a few were clad in black tee-shirts scrawled with illegible band names; the women wore strapless tops and dresses two sizes too small and were, as a result, spilling themselves in an altogether different fashion. From behind various doors drifted everything from country to jazz to pop to metal. The door across the street from us advertised ‘barely legal babes’. I’m pretty sure I contracted a venereal disease just looking at it.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I moaned, trying to stand up straight. It was a challenge, but despite some tentative wobbling my legs managed it. ‘Is this even the same world as we were in before?’
Pierre nodded. ‘Yeah, I should think so. But I’d wager a fair few hours earlier.’ I hadn’t even noticed the change from night to day. How bright the American sun smiled compared to its English counterpart. ‘Come on,’ he continued, ‘there’s no use standing around. We’ve got a briefcase to recover.’
As we turned right and walked down the sidewalk, I asked, ‘What makes you so sure that the thief came here? I mean, if there’s an infinite number of worlds then there’s an infinite number of places he could have gone, right?’
‘Very true,’ he replied, ‘and if you think about it, there’s an infinite number of worlds where he has your briefcase and an infinite number where he doesn’t. But that’s hardly the point. Your briefcase is here.’
‘But how do you know?’
‘Well, it’s a knack. There are echoes in the doorways, if you know how to listen for them. Takes more years to learn that trick than you could know, believe me. So I just listened to where the last person had gone - besides what I’d shown you, of course.’
‘That’s just ridiculous.’
‘You don’t know the half of it.’
‘So it’s kind of just a hunch?’
‘Well, that and I’m pretty sure I can see your culprit just over there, looking shifty outside Hurricane Joe’s.’
About twenty metres down the road was a figure standing off from a huge crowd of people. Behind him were murky windows offering a dozen types of rum cocktail, and above hung a faded sign on which a drunk tornado had been painted. Despite the warmth of the afternoon sun the man had a black scarf pushed high up his face, and in his hand hung my briefcase.
‘That’s him!’ I said, ready to run him down. ‘That’s the bastard who stole my case. What are we waiting for?’
Pierre had grabbed hold of my arm and was shaking his head. His eyes hadn’t left the thief, however.
‘We can’t just go charging after him. I know, I know,’ he said, seeing my frustration, ‘you want your things back. But what’s the
use in making ourselves known, only to lose him again? Who knows which world he might disappear into.’
So we didn’t chase him down, and we didn’t retrieve my briefcase. Instead we continued down the side of the road. I had to dodge an inebriated young man lunging out from a store front and two less than trustworthy fellows who seemed intent on guessing the age of my shoes. I decided quite quickly that New Orleans and I were not going to have a comfortable relationship.
The thief was heading in and out of the thick crowd ahead, looking out of place in his black jacket. Every time I went to run after him Pierre held me back.
‘We don’t want him to panic. What if he darts into a world where briefcases are outlawed? Or where leather evaporates in contact with the atmosphere?’
‘Are there really such places?’
‘There must be, somewhere. Anyway, I’ve seen this type of traveller before. He’s new to all this so he’ll just hop wherever he can, hoping to lose us. He doesn’t have somewhere to end up, per se, he just wants to get far enough away that we don’t follow.’
I held my breath as we passed a particularly fragrant part of the street. Up ahead a girl was hoisted above the revellers; her high heels pointed towards the sky.
‘I guess your hotel has a fair few visitors from… outside?’ I asked, thinking of the bartender, of the double-date diners… and Marie.
Pierre nodded. ‘We’re what I like to call a ‘gathering spot’. People from all sorts of times and places come to meet one another, or disappear from their realities for a while. We have to keep some of the… stranger guests in their rooms, of course. For everyone’s sake.’
I didn’t dare ask what constituted a strange guest but my imagination crafted something with more eyes than sense, with more tentacles than care as to where they went. I shivered.
‘Not that they couldn’t go anywhere, meet anywhere, of course,’ Pierre went on. ‘With an infinite number of worlds there are an infinite number of doors, so get good enough and you can pretty much go to and from anywhere you like. But I guess there’s something comforting in emerging someplace familiar, somewhere where the staff know your secrets.’
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