Stroke of Genius (Archie Lemons #3)

by Grant Fieldgrove

  "Or like, how there are never any normal births on sitcoms? They always have to be whacky! Like, in a cab or they're snowed in, or they’re all dressed like a bunch of assholes from The Flintstones. Always something ridiculous. And why is everyone getting trapped in elevators, too?" (One of my top fears, but no need to share that right now.)

  The laughter continued. She was totally intrigued.

  "I can go on and on. That's why I want to write a book about it."

  "Wow, that is fascinating." She looked back at Elise who was still sitting silently with a bitchy look on her face. "Isn't he fascinating?"

  Elise answered in a rather flat, sarcasm dripping tone, "Yeah. He's real fascinating. He can also spot a panty line from a hundred yards away, go weeks without pooping and tell you every major motion picture that shows wiener. Fascinating." She leaned in close to my ear and whispered, "What’s with the whore?"

  "WHORE?" I say louder than I should, completely stunned! I look towards Gena, expecting her to be just as shocked. She's not. She smiles and nods her head. Like, duh.

  God damn it. Gross. I never even understood the allure of hookers, anyway. I always imagined it would be like fucking a hallway. Ugh.

  That night was one of the longest nights of my life. The vomiting. Oh my, the vomiting. Every new step to soberness made me vomit more. First I vomited up the thoughts of hanging out with a Vegas whore, then I vomited when I was sober enough to remember I just ate at a buffet, then I vomited when I realized I was holding on to a disgusting toilet seat while doing all the previous vomiting.

  14.

  I was pretty worried about what would transpire the following morning, but it turns out my concerns were for nothing. Elise was too busy making fun of me to have time to be mad at me. I'm pretty sure she realized that it was all her fault, anyway, by forcing the booze on me. I think she figured if she kept me occupied with her insults I would be too distracted to realize this small fact. I didn't care though. The last thing I needed was a fight with Elise. My night was shitty enough without this capper.

  I showered and got ready then we made our way to the elevator. Funny girl here decided to take the bottle from her purse again and offer me a little nip. I whole-heartedly declined and decided I would just try to man up and make the trip alcohol and drug free in '93, ya'll.

  We stepped on the lift and I made my way to the far corner and stood there perfectly still with my eyes closed the entire way down. The thoughts of the unfortunate alternative of whore-cooties helped me stay calm until we reached our destination. We stepped off. I was quite proud of myself.

  We stopped in one of the little souvenir shops, a different one from last night, and bought a couple of Rockstars for our fun-filled day of staring at cameras. Caffeine in-hand, we made our way to the security offices of the Myra Hotel and took our seats in front of the wall of screens again.

  Our task for the day was to eliminate all those who couldn't have done it. From the time Leslie stepped on the elevator from the time she was found in the field gave us a timeframe of three to four hours. That meant, in order for us to eliminate suspects, we would have to account for every single person who used that whole bank of elevators, not just the people who used her specific elevator. There were stairs we had to account for, it would be too easy to take the elevator to a higher floor then take the stairs down. Elise remembered something, though.

  "That guy, Whatshisname, said there were security cameras at the stairwells though, remember? He said they were motion censored and would only flick on if they were tripped."

  "Shit. Okay, so where does that put us, then?"

  "Well, if we can rule out the stairwell then that'll make it a hell of a lot easier to start eliminating people. We can just focus on one elevator instead of the entire bank of six."

  "Good idea, so we need to see if there was any activity at all that morning from the stairwell. Should be easy enough."

  "Righto, I'll start looking."

  "Great. I'll keep looking at these assholes then."

  It took Elise all of ten minutes to locate the correct camera and about ten seconds to discover that there wasn't even a seconds worth of footage from that entire day. The motion sensor had never been tripped.

  "Well, look, solves that problem, right?"

  "Um, not really, E," I said. "Not quite yet."

  "How do you figure?"

  "You remember that old Robert Redford movie Sneakers?"

  "Yeah! With River Phoenix."

  "Yeah, from back in his non gutter days."

  "Ouch!"

  "Anyway, my point is, remember that scene where they're trying to beat the motion sensor in the office and ol' Butch Cassidy has to move something like less than one inch every few seconds or something like that?"

  "Robert Redford was the Sundance Kid. Duh. Sundance Film Festive."

  Ugh! She's right. I've really been slipping lately.

  "Anyway, butthole, remember what I'm talking about?" I ask.

  "Yeah, I remember."

  "Okay, then I think we need to test this out. I'm assuming the attackers would take at least a few precautions to not get caught. If he has even a mild knowledge of security systems then he would know what a motion sensor looked like."

  "Okay, hold on. Are we operating under the assumption that Balthazar-"

  "Balls."

  "Sorry. Balls. Are we under the assumption that Balls was involved in this or are we still treating these cases separately?"

  "Still separate. As of now we have nothing to link the two things together aside from it happening in the same hotel around the same time."

  "Seems like a pretty big coincidence. To me..."

  "Yeah, but not big enough. If Balls was one of the attackers, then who was the second? It was just him and Vince in town for vacation and Vince never left the tables the entire time Balls was upstairs killing himself. And if Balls was one of the attackers, why would he just give up, go back into his room and masturbate? It doesn't fit."

  "Okay, we'll come back to that, then. Right now let’s find us a dirty rapist."

  "Agreed. So who wants to be Robert Redford?"

  "I'd say you but that would be a pretty big compliment on your appearance."

  "Argh! Hate you! I'm Redford! How do we do this?"

  "Just go up to the stairwell and trip the camera so I can find you, then when it flicks off again, try and get through the door undetected."

  "Okay, I'm just going to do this on the first floor so I don't have to go-"

  "Oh no no no," Stupid Elise interrupted. "You're doing this on the correct floor Mister. It has to be exact."

  God damn it, I hate when she's right. Shit shit shit.

  "Fine" I reluctantly agree. "What floor was she attacked on?"

  "Hold on." Elise opened up a folder and rummaged through a bit. "Floor thirty-seven. Your lucky number."

  "Are you kidding me?!"

  "Nope, why, what’s up?"

  "What floor was Balls found on?"

  "Thirty sev- Oh shit."

  "Yeah, oh shit is right. We should have been asking that question from the beginning."

  "We Suck!"

  "We totally do."

 

  "Well, crap. Let’s get goin’. Good luck up there."

  15.

  I finally reached the thirty-seventh floor after the world’s longest elevator ride up. I was alone. And frightened. As silly as it sounds, Elise being with me really does help calm me and hinder my fears a bit. But this time it was just me versus scary elevator and I didn't like it. I was armed with a kick ass walky-talky from the security room to keep in contact with Elise. It was fun to play with. While I walked to the stairs I pretended I was a cop from E.T. who had his shotgun erased by Spielberg and my walky-talky was just a digital insert.

  Oh man, don't get me started on that though. At least Spielberg was nice enough to put both versions of the movie on the DVD, unlike Mone
y-Whore George Lucas with his special SPECIAL editions of Star Wars. Ain't nothing special about that shit, George. Nothing at all. What goes through that guy's mind when he's making these choices? It’s embarrassing. Like; Hey guys, let's have a racially offensive slave alien here and make him talk like a jiggaboo, OH! and he'll fart a lot and be really annoying and ruin the movie!

  Genius George! Let’s do it!

  Great, oh, what about during the most powerful scene in Return of the Jedi, I have Darth Vader turn to the camera and yell NOOOOOOO? That way, everyone who watches the movie won’t be confused as to why Vader is turning against his master. They’ll all realize now that he does not want his son to die…because he says NO. I feel it’s much too confusing the original way.

  Brilliant George, You should do it!

  Oh I will do it. Wah wah wah, I'll laugh all the way to the b-.

  "Lemons, what the hell is the goddamn holdup," Elise cackled through the speakers.

  "Oh sorry, breaker breaker, I got distracted."

  "You were thinking about Star Wars again, weren't you?"

 

  "No! No I wasn't"

  "Sure, then what were you thinking about when I called. Quick!"

  "Um.... Darth...Rapist..." Shit!

  "Darth Rapist, huh?"

  "No. Um. You misunderstood. I didn’t say Darth Rapist, I said DARK rapist. I think we may be looking for a black guy."

  "Mhmm, and why is that?"

  "Because…um…black people… Um… Shit! Fine, I was sidetracked with Star Wars, sue me."

  "I will. No go to the goddamn stairs so I can find you. Jesus."

  "Okey-day"

  I wound my way through the long corridor until I reached the emergency stairwell. I looked up and saw the camera aimed at the door, next to it was the motion sensor. I would have already tripped it if it worked correctly.

  My speaker crackled, Elise's voice coming through after a second of static. "Okay, I've got you. Back away and let it die. I'll give you a signal."

  "You mean you'll just tell me the camera is off?"

  "Yes, smart ass, I'll tell you when the camera is off."

  "One more thing," I added.

  "What's that?"

  "Cannndddyyyyyccaaannnneeeeee."

  "God, will you be serious for a moment? And I can still see you. Back away!"

  "Fine."

  I stood there and waited for three minutes before Elise instructed me to go. I took a deep breath and slowly moved into the range of the censor. I felt like I was moving maybe an inch per every five to ten seconds. It was hard and rather nerve racking. Still no word from Elise on my discovery. My foot stepped down softly on the carpet and I shifted my weight to make the next step. I reached the door after around two minutes or so. I had moved a total of three feet. Still no word from E.

  I slowly wrapped my hand around the door handle. Still undetected. I turned the handle and slowly pushed the door open. Once the door broke free from the frame, Elise's voice came on.

  "Disco," she said. I was discovered.

  "Well shit. Okay, well at least we know it’s possible to reach the door without tripping it. Now we just have to get this thing open."

  "Okay, well let’s try again. Just stay perfectly still where you are and the camera should reset, that'll save you from have to Sneaker across again."

  "Good deal. Over and out, Al."

  "Al?"

  "Yeah, Al Powell. From Die Hard? Duh? Remember, McClane is up in the bathroom picking out glass from his foot and his talking to Carl Winslow down below. That's what this reminds me of."

  "So you're John McClane and I'm Urkel's friend. Great, seems fair, thanks."

  "No sweat. Over and out."

  I waited another three minutes until I got the word from Elise. I tried the door again, this time even more slowly. No dice. I couldn't even get a crack in the door without being discovered.

  We stayed at it for two more hours, never gaining any progress. I was fed up and hungry and called it quits. In fact, I was so pissed off I was actually getting worse with each try, instead of better and I wanted to kick the goddamn door in. I told Elise I was coming down. I was frustrated as I stepped on to the elevator. When the doors closed, I said out loud, "How the fuck did she get out of this goddamn building?!" The question kept me preoccupied the entire way down.

  I got back to the security office and Elise told me it was a valiant effort. She was right, it was something that needed to be done and now it could be crossed off our list. Leslie absolutely did not leave her floor via the stairs. It was something.

  "How the hell did she get out of this hotel, though, E? It doesn't make sense!"

  "Well we're just going to have to look harder. Mulroney said they checked everyone closely for a possibly disguise, but WE didn't look. We'll just have to look harder."

  "God, do you think she was lowered out of the window or something? There is a roof a few floors below their floor. It's possible?"

  "No its not, Vegas hotel windows don't open. Besides, how would someone get on the roof in the first place, unless he was...staff?"

  "Is it possible?"

  "I don't think so, but it’s worth checking. Let’s put that on the back burner for right now. We can, however, focus on the staff for the time being. She could have been taken out in a laundry basket or a food cart."

  "Okay, we'll focus on that next. But for now, can we please get some food?"

  "Sure, I know this great buffet."

  "I hate you."

  "You love me."

  "Such a bitch," I say, trying to contain my smile.

  "Hey, whatever works."

  "Yeah, well…Being a bitch didn't work out too well for Meredith Brooks. Just remember that."

  "Meredith who?"

  "Exactly."

  16.

  We decided to leave the hotel and cross the street to the MGM Hotel & Casino and get a late lunch at Rainforest Cafe. We don't have one of those back in Bakersfield, so it was a nice diversion. We tried not to talk about the case too much, deciding instead to talk about the kids. We missed them. We wouldn't be able to stay here much longer so we were really going to have to kick it in to high gear and get this thing solved. We had pretty much pushed Vincent's case aside; we just didn't have much to go on. We decided we wouldn't charge him any extra, even if by some miracle we did solve it.

  We sat there a while longer, eating our meal. Elise had ordered this ridiculously large Mai-tai that came in a glass with lights flashing in it. Seemed to fit in with our surroundings, oddly enough.

  I continued thumbing through the menu featuring nice photos of various rainforest critters. "Damn, for seeming to be all animal friendly here, they sure don’t have very many vegetarian options."

  "Sorry, hon."

  "Like here," I said, turning the menu towards and showing her a picture of a frog. "Look, on this page it’s all; Look at this beautiful red-eyed tree frog. Then you turn the page and they’re like; Hey, try our new Red-Eyed Tree Frog Burger! Fuck you, animals, you make our burgers authentic! Because everything is totally authentic here at The Rainforest Café. Meanwhile, there’s a fucking animatronic gorilla over there about to catch fire."

  "Would you like to go somewhere else?"

  "Nah, I’m good. Hey! Ya know what I was thinking?" I ask.

  "Oh lord, I can only imagine. What, Archie? What were you thinking?"

  "You remember that show Hunky Vampires of the Hollywood Hills?"

  "Yes, of course I remember it. I was the one who told you about it. Remember?"

  "Oh yeah. Well anyway, after the Brad Jackson case, I read up all about it, just out of idle curiosity."

  "Okay...?"

  "Well, Brad's character was a vampire, yeah?"

  "Yes..."

  "And him and that werewolfy, shirtless fella were fighting over the love of that dead-eyed shitty actress chick, right?"

  "So far so g
ood. Where ya going with this one?"

  "I'm wondering. So Dead-eyed Shitty Actress Chick ends up choosing Brad Jackson's vampire fellow and getting impregnated by him. You with me so far."

  "Yes, I am familiar with the story, remember?"

  "Okay, here's my question. Brad is a vampire. He is dead. He has no heartbeat, no pulse. He has no blood pulsing through his veins. So how, I ask you, was he able to get the boner needed to impregnate the girl?"