by Mysti Parker
“Is this part of the Battle of the Chefs?” Susan asks.
“No!” Richard says. His face is redder than it usually turns when he battles the Muzak. He slams his handkerchief down and stands from his chair. Knowing Richard, he’ll blow his top on the unsuspecting chefs, which for him means a slightly raised voice and impeccable British manners.
But before he can hurl niceties at the warring chefs, a wave of laughter and clapping erupts around the room. Cameras flash, smart phones click, and all the TV crews are honed in on the action. Reporters with way too much makeup narrate the scene with melodramatic flair. One of them grabs Richard and another one kidnaps Susan for impromptu interviews. Richard’s angry red fades to a sweaty ivory as he tries to keep up with the barrage of questions.
Mrs. Roche finally snaps out of her text daze and looks up as another glob of meringue splatters on the right lens of her glasses.
“Come on, Mrs. Roche,” Brandy says. “Let’s get you to the ladies’ room.”
“What’s happening?” Mrs. Roche scrapes meringue off her glasses and takes Brandy’s hand.
Brandy groans like she might hurl at any moment. She half-drags Mrs. Roche past the media and out of the conference room. Nick’s not even paying attention. He’s snapping pics of the food war with his cell phone.
“Nick,” I say, waving frantically, but he pays no mind. “Nick!”
He looks up with an annoyed look. I mouth “Brandy” and make a gag gesture with my finger, while pointing to the door. He raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. How freaking dense can he be? A moment later, his eyes go wide. He bounds from his seat and runs out the door.
Mrs. Roche’s phone lights up again. I take this opportunity with everyone else being indisposed to be incredibly nosy. I snatch her phone and read the incoming text.
Goodnight, my sweet flower. Is she actually dating someone via technology? Then I see who the text is from. Of all the people it could have been, I’d have never guessed it in a million years. This host of 'Hotel No-No' had remodeled The Roche into something more worthy of the nightly fee over the holidays. He’s Irish, rotund, and at least ten years younger than she is.
Harry Prince.
Our dear Mrs. Roche has officially become a cougar, even though it must be a long distance fling. Mr. Prince lives in Ireland and travels all the time. I keep myself from scrolling through the rest of their text string in case they’ve exchanged something more than words. The Muzak serenades the occasion with I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston. I catch another roll grenade and bite into it. Good Lord, this place is crazy, and I never know what to expect from one moment to the next, but I’m never bored.
Episode #26
Star Trek Meets Goodfellas
The chef battle drew a huge audience on all the local channels. Or rather, the food fight did. We have now apparently become the epicenter for group conventions because of it. Tonight’s lineup consists of two troops of girl scouts and a few dozen neuroscientists. Thankfully, Mrs. Roche is staying at her own house tonight with her sister who’s visiting from Hawaii. She’d be a nervous wreck with all the noise. Between high pitched squeals and giggles from the girls upstairs, the scientists are gathered in the breakfast area, engaged in a heated discussion about Star Trek and its various adaptations.
“Janeway was clearly the best captain.”
“Are you kidding? Sisko actually managed to get rid of Q.”
“Yes, but he hit him. Unnecessarily savage.”
“Picard just quoted Shakespeare at him. Ewww, I’m shaking all over – ‘tis better to have loved and lost…’”
“That’s Tennyson, you idiot.”
And here I used to think literature professors had the market on weird conversations.
Carol’s working over from day shift to help with the influx. She’s drooling over a Girl Scout cookie order form.
I lean close and whisper, “Do you have any idea what they’re saying?”
“Not a clue. Say, do you want to get in on this order? I’m thinking the Thin Mints and Samoas.”
“I’m thinking I’ll eat the whole box, so I’ll pass.”
The conversation in the breakfast area grows more heated with an argument over whether Worf or Data would win in a duel. But one guy isn’t taking part. In fact, he’s sitting in the corner with a newspaper instead. He’s not wearing the required bad-fitting button up shirt and khakis that the other scientists are wearing. This guy’s wearing a dark tailored suit, black shoes with a mirror shine, and a slicked-back hairdo. Unlike the mostly anorexic-looking scientists, this one is built like a Mack truck and looks like he climbed out of a 1930’s mob movie.
I nudge Carol and point over there. “One of these things is not like the other.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Did you check him in?”
“No, did you?”
“I don’t think so. What is he, a spy?”
“The way he’s looking furtively over that newspaper is a little cliché, don’t you think?”
Carol edges in to her customary six inches from my face. From the smell of her breath, I think she’s already sampled some Tagalongs. “Or maybe he’s in the mob? He keeps looking at the door like he’s waiting for someone. You know, he kind of reminds me of Nick.”
“Greasy and up to no good? Yeah, but Nick would rather get in good with a mobster’s wife than an actual mobster.” My stomach churns around the Golden Wok I just had for dinner. “Don’t tell me he’s been messing with a mobster’s wife.”
“Isn’t Nick off tonight?”
“Yeah, he’s holding Brandy’s hair back while she barfs.”
“Morning sickness?”
“Yeah, and he likes to tell me the gory details. He really needs a friend.”
Carol’s bracelets jangle as she picks up her cell phone with a shaky hand. “I’m texting Jerry. He can be on the lookout in case he needs to toss this guy to the curb.”
“Good idea.”
We keep up the appearance of being very busy at the front desk for the next several minutes. Carol works diligently at rearranging all the pens so The Roche Hotel logo points the same way, while I make a record-length paper clip chain. Jerry meets up with Carol for a quiet conversation in the office. I can hear him mumbling something in his usual sasquatch grunts. The Star Trek feud finally comes to a draw when one of the neuroscientists stands up and announces that he has the entire third season of Deep Space Nine on his laptop and invites them all to gather in his room for a marathon viewing.
I’m relieved there’s been no brandishing of giant Q-tips for a fight to the death. Great timing too, since I’m down to my last paperclip. I make up a new batch of popcorn and tell them all to help themselves. The whole time, our Tony Soprano lookalike has barely moved, except to glance up from his newspaper from time to time. I don’t see a tommy gun on him, not that I really know what a tommy gun looks like. I’m pretty sure no one sent him to whack me. I don’t gamble. The only thing I’ve ever stolen was a box of Tic-Tacs when I was five. Wait a minute…did I pay that parking ticket from last week when I visited Mom and Julius at the retirement home?
Surely meter maids don’t send goons to enforce payment of parking tickets, so I put on my big girl panties and talk to the guy. “Excuse me, would you like some popcorn?”
He peeks around his paper and mutters, “Nah, thanks.”
“Do you need a room?”
Before he can answer, a whoosh of cold air and the door chime announces the arrival of my sister, Katherine. Her heels click across the entryway until they’re muffled in the burgundy carpet of our lobby. Head down and face scrunched, she seems really agitated and doesn’t even glance at me.
“Hey, Earth to Katherine!” I wave a popcorn bag at her. She finally stops and begrudgingly looks at me.
“What?!”
“Geez, what’s wrong with you? No luck with the husband hunt?”
“Oh, shut up, Jane, you’re so-” She looks over my shoulder, and her eyes wi
den for a moment. “Never mind. Good night.”
She books it down the hall as fast as her stilettos will take her.
Our in-house mobster watches her with narrowed eyes until she disappears around the corner and hides behind the newspaper again when he notices me noticing him. This is beyond weird. I’ve gotten all goosepimply, and only in part because the Muzak is stuck on its fourth rendition of Bette Midler’s Wind Beneath my Wings.
Once I’m back beyond the front desk, Carol seems as anxious as I am.
“Think we should call the cops?” she asks.
“They don’t arrest people just for being Creepy McCreepers. He’s still sitting…”
Never mind that. He folds the paper and puts it on the table, then unfolds himself from the chair. The guy is huge, at least Jerry’s size, if not bigger. With his meaty paws, he smoothes out his suit and strides down the hall.
“Crap, crap, crap.” I should have known Katherine was involved. I pick up the phone to dial 911, but hang it up and grab a key card instead. Typing in Room 12 on the key card scanner, I whip it through the coding slot and head for the door.
“What are you doing? I’m texting Jerry. Call the cops.” Carol's press-on nails furiously click on her cell phone screen.
“Not yet. We still don’t know if he’s up to no good. It could be some guy my sister picked up in a bar for all we know. Or one of her exes, in which case it might not be good after all. Mrs. Roche has called the police so many times already for false alarms, we’d be lucky if they came at all. And better to keep things quiet now so we don’t scare our guests.”
“Right, the girl scouts.”
“It’s the neuroscientists I’m more worried about.”
Carol arches her thinly tweezed eyebrows, then smiles and shrugs as I head out into the hall. Jerry meets me at the corner, broom in hand. I’m tremendously relieved to see the big guy. Even more relieved that he’s on our side.
Both of us tiptoe around the corner to the first room on the right, Room 12, our “ghost room,” and my sister-turned-squatter’s new home. Jerry hangs back a bit. Like a seasoned eavesdropper, I softly press my ear to the door.
The voices are muffled at first, then get louder until I can make out most of their conversation.
“I told you, I need more time!” Katherine pleads.
“Time’s up, sweetheart; you said you’d find it, and you ain’t found it.” He’s got a real wise guy accent that totally fits him.
Katherine says something else I can’t hear and then whines, “Just give me another week, Tim.”
I pinch my lips together. Tim? For real? Whoever heard of a mobster named Tim?
“You’re gonna have to come with me,” says Tim the mobster. “I think you’re holding out on us.”
Something clicks inside the room. Is that a gun? Please tell me it’s not a gun. Jerry taps my shoulder. Finger to his hair-muffled lips, he whispers, “Shh. Get back.”
Nodding, I shimmy along the wall and dial 911 on my cell phone. Jerry takes a master key card from his coveralls pocket and silently slides it in the slot.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“There’s a guy threatening someone in The Roche Hotel.”
Jerry holds his broom firmly in one hand and quickly opens the door with the other.
“Is he armed?”
Jerry rushes in. Katherine shrieks. There are a few thunks and a thud and an, “Oomph” from Tim. A handgun flies out the door and into the hallway, spinning to a stop on the carpet.
The dispatcher repeats, “Ma’am, is he armed?”
“Not anymore. But can you send someone to take him away?”
“Yes, ma’am. Is anyone hurt?”
Katherine runs out, wide eyed, and freezes when she sees me. My sister’s not hurt, at least not yet. She may be by the time I’m done with her. She sees the gun, and for a split second, I’m worried she might grab it and hold me hostage or something, but instead she grimaces like she’s bitten into a rotten peanut and cringes against the wall. I take a few cautious steps and peek around the doorframe into the room. Jerry has Tim pinned to the floor with the brush part of the broom at his neck and one very large work boot on his chest.
Besides gasping and shaking all over, Tim looks fine, too.
The dispatcher repeats, “Ma’am is anyone hurt?”
“No, our maintenance man has him restrained.”
“Okay, we’ll send someone out.”
“Thanks.”
A door clicks down the hall. From the room, the Deep Space Nine theme blares while a couple of neuroscientists with confused expressions poke their heads out. “What’s happening?”
“Oh, everything’s fine,” I say, standing in front of the gun so they won’t panic. “But stay in your room just in case.”
Another one pops his head out. They’re like a geeky three stooges stacked up totem-pole style, looking around the doorframe. “Isn’t that the ghost room?” The other two wrinkle their noses at him. I’m guessing he’s the paranormal scientist of the bunch.
“Yep, and sometimes things go bump in the night.” I watch as Jerry hauls Tim to his feet in the room. Jerry then pulls a tie wrap from his overalls and secures it around Tim's wrists. I turn back to the neuroscientists. “Don’t let a silly ghost story keep you from missing Captain Janeway.”
“It’s Sisko,” they say in unison, all three of them wrinkling their noses at me.
“Right, yeah. I’ll make a fresh batch of popcorn and deliver it to your room.”
“Thanks.” They slip back into the room, and the door clicks behind them.
“Phew, that was close. I’m glad the girl scouts are upstairs,” I say to Katherine, who’s leaning back against the wall, arms crossed and covering her face with one hand. “You’ve got some explaining to do.” I hope I didn’t sound like Ricky Ricardo when I said that.
Two policemen come around the corner from the lobby with Carol on their heels. She gasps and then swoons when Jerry pushes Tim along and hands him over to the police.
“Here’s the ma num mum,” he mumbles.
“Excuse me?” the officer says, pointing out the tie wrap cuffs to his partner. They both give a nod of approval.
I translate. “He said, ‘Here’s the guy, cuff him.’”
“Oh.” He pauses to do just that, then says, “We’ll need to ask you all some questions, so don’t go far.”
One officer hauls Tim away, while the other confiscates the gun. I shoot Henry a text, trying not to word it in such a way that scares him, but cops, arrest, and gun may have been a bit much.
I’m coming over, he texts. I’ll sleep in the office so you won’t be alone. Love you.
I don’t argue, because for one thing, he’s the sweetest man ever, and I’m pulling a double. It’ll make me feel better having him here over the graveyard shift.
The officer, a tall and very muscular black man, sits down with us a few minutes later at a table in the breakfast area. Katherine is sitting with arms crossed, looking contrite and annoyed at the same time. I’m very familiar with that face, unfortunately.
“I’m Detective Smith.” He gets out his notebook and starts with Katherine. “Now, Mrs….”
“Miss,” Katherine says with a sly grin and a few bats of her false eyelashes.
He doesn't look up from his notebook, apparently immune to my sister's flirtation powers. “Miss?”
“Stevens.”
She’s more than a few times removed from her maiden name, but I just sip my coffee and keep quiet.
“Miss Stevens,” he says pointedly, already getting impatient. Katherine has that effect on most people. “How do you know this…Tim?” He squints at his notebook. “Is that really his name?”
“Can I plead the fifth?”
His eyebrows sink into a serious straight line as he clears his throat.
I interrupt. “If she doesn’t want to talk, I will.”
Katherine snaps her head up and grants me her ‘total
ly disgusted’ look, complete with slack jaw. “Fine! I’ll talk. Tim’s my ex. He’s into some crooked business and racked up a huge gambling debt. He discovered some old article about a mob boss’s treasure hidden somewhere at The Roche. Wanted me to find it since he has a few warrants out for him. I had no idea my sister was working here watching my every move, so it’s not been as easy as I thought.”
As usual, she pulls the blame game. I don’t feel like playing. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t do your ‘job’.”
Detective Smith chuckles, then turns serious on Katherine again. “Did he threaten you?”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t go treasure hunting in some sleazy hotel if he didn’t.”
“Excuse me?” My voice is pretty defiant for 1:00 AM. “Sleazy? We just renovated. The only sleaze around here besides my ex is you.”
The detective scrubs a hand over his face, clearly trying to keep from laughing. “Calm down, ladies. You can play Family Feud later.”
So went the night. Apparently Tim the mobster had discovered a rumor about some sort of treasure on the property, though the only evidence was some article in an old newspaper. Detective Smith takes Katherine in as a possible accomplice in an attempted robbery. She’s none too happy about it, but I smile and wave as the cop car pulls away from the sidewalk.
Henry arrives just in time to give me a much needed hug and some fresh coffee. Carol and Jerry are snuggled up on the sofa. She’s even more smitten with our resident sasquatch now. I must say, he never fails to surprise me. I call Richard and Susan to fill them in on the happenings.
“How exciting!” Susan exclaims, after she made me promise that no one had been shot. “A real treasure, Richie!”
Richard, who I imagine is barely conscious in bed at this hour, mumbles, “Yes, darling,” in the background.
Carol goes home, but comes back with her overnight bag and gets a room because she doesn’t want to leave Jerry. Henry doesn’t leave my side the rest of my graveyard shift, and we can’t help but discuss the possibility (however remote) of there being treasure around here somewhere.
“I’m just glad you’re okay, but I guess it is pretty exciting, if it’s true,” Henry says, yawning. It’s 5:00 AM, the time he usually starts his daily donut deliveries.
