by Alan Russell
The door flung open. Ray had left it open for Jimmy, but it wasn’t the bellman who walked inside. It was Missy. When she entered she was fully clothed. That wasn’t the way she left.
As the mariachis played, Missy shimmied and shook and disrobed. She performed directly in front of Bradford, popping buttons to the notes, shaking her dark hair in his face, offering him zippers and clasps and her person. He sat there unmoving, but very watchful. The band played on with increasingly more exuberant notes. This was better than having panty hose thrown down on them from the balcony, much better. Their playing, and Missy, brought the party from next door into the room, a raucous, clapping crowd. The room was soon overflowing with swingers. Cleo turned to ask Bradford to do something, and saw his mesmerized face. Salome had never had such a rapt onlooker.
Missy was down to her briefs. A slight pull and her bra was off, a little tug and her undies were on her finger. Velcro, thought Bradford, but that wasn’t all he thought. His intense gaze didn’t go unnoticed. Standing in front of him, Missy twirled her bra around one finger, and her underwear around the other. The majorette act ended when she deposited her underclothing on top of Bradford’s head, covering his eyes.
Everyone except Cleo laughed. Bradford removed his undergarment blindfold, and looked around at the laughing crowd. How did all these people get in my room? he thought.
“You owe us money, man,” said Ray.
Bradford was too confused to argue. A naked Missy was helping herself to a glass of champagne. She had, he observed, worked up a slight sweat. He handed the money to Ray, who didn’t even try and hit him for a tip. Jimmy had already given him an extra twenty-five bucks.
Where was Cleopatra? Bradford looked around and saw her talking to that damn bellman. She was crying. Naturally. And now she was following the bellman out of the room.
“Hey!”
She didn’t hear him. The mariachis weren’t playing, but everyone was talking. Who had invited the circus to his room? It was like a Fellini movie was happening in front of him. No, worse. He had to fight through the crowd. Bradford wished he were wearing blinders. Were those three people really . . . ?
“Cleopatra!”
This time she did hear him. The bellman positioned himself between them. “Please don’t interfere, Mr. Beck,” he said. “It was my sad duty to already have to make one citizen’s arrest.”
“You what?”
Jimmy tried to sound official. That was something new to him. “I warned both of you about the consequences of underage drinking. Cleo confessed that she drank a glass of champagne. So I was forced to arrest her.”
Bradford looked around. What was next? Carrie Nation and a bunch of ax-wielders storming into the room? “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Jimmy looked his sanctimonious best. “No, sir, I am not.”
“Get out of the way and let her go.”
Bradford’s cultured voice, that same voice he had worked on for so long, was gone. So was the country-club tan, replaced by a red, angry face. Brad Beck wanted to hit somebody.
“Mr. Beck,” said Jimmy, “please don’t force me to involve you in this. I don’t think the courts would look kindly upon your contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Cleo and I both thought it best that she, and she alone, pay the consequences.”
Brad took a deep breath. Damn it! This bellman with the New York accent was talking like a big-city shyster. And worse, he was making sense. Couldn’t they revoke his financial advisor’s license if he was convicted of a felony?
When in doubt, thought Bradford, speak in a universal language. “Can’t we be reasonable here?” he asked, reaching for his wallet.
It pained Jimmy to tell him that they couldn’t be reasonable; it pained him very much when he saw the amount of the bribe being offered. Almost, he succumbed. But he couldn’t, not with Cleo standing there. Jimmy wondered whether he was going soft in the head.
Bradford was wondering the same thing. This wasn’t happening, was it? His intended very rich wife was being led away, all but handcuffed. He should do something. What was that line about a fair maiden never being won by a faint heart? Maybe he shouldn’t be hasty, though. If he popped the bellman, they could easily prove assault. And besides, it was Cleo they wanted, not him. Bradford turned to her, offered his best sorrowful face, which looked truly pained. Her fortune—his fortune—kept proving elusive. “Don’t say anything to them, dear, until you talk to a lawyer.”
It wasn’t what she expected. Cleo was hoping for a little more John Wayne. With tears in her eyes, she nodded. Jimmy started to lead her off. She was going to jail. What would Daddy think? It was all so tragic. They had only walked about a dozen paces when Cleo turned around. Her intention was to yell “I love you” to Bradford, but she never delivered those words. She saw him being led away also—by that naked woman back into their room.
Chapter Thirty
Brother Howard’s appointments were being handled by a woman who identified herself as “Arielle, his assistant.” She wore Birkenstocks, and her hair was braided with turquoise beads. The obligatory crystal dangled in front of her tie-dyed shirt. Though she spoke New Age, she was only too familiar with the words VISA, MasterCard, and American Express. The Brother was in session, she said, but could see them next. Their initial thirty-minute consultation would be two hundred dollars. Am silently handed over his plastic, resisting the impulse to tell Arielle that they just wanted to talk to the dead, not have someone killed, but when Arielle tapped into her tablet for a credit-card approval Am couldn’t contain himself any longer: “That’s not really necessary,” he said. “A lot of dead people can vouch for me.”
“And apparently a few of the living,” she said, noting the approval code number. With a smile, Arielle directed them to an anteroom, and wished them “peace.” It was almost enough, Am thought, to make him nostalgic for “Have a nice day.”
The waiting room was just off a suite. Marisa put her ear to the door to see if she could hear anything, but Am didn’t make her eavesdropping easy. He paced the room, only stopping periodically to examine his credit-card voucher.
“You think you could turn this in as a newspaper expense?” he asked.
“You think you could turn it in as a hotel expense?” she asked back, pointedly repositioning her ear.
Am started pacing again. “I can try,” he said. “I can put it in as a miscellaneous security expenditure. Maybe accounting won’t notice.”
“If it doesn’t fly,” she said, “I’ll go halves.”
“Two hundred dollars,” said Am. “How can he justify those prices? It’s not like there’s a Dead People’s Union. And the Teamsters aren’t involved in transporting us to ‘the other realm.’ At least I don’t think they are.”
“It is a long-distance call,” said Marisa. She could hear voices in the other room, but couldn’t distinguish any words. Reluctantly, she gave up, choosing to surrender in a comfortable chair. Am sat down next to her.
“Ever been to a séance?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Why solicit spirits when you don’t have to? We already have the Hotel ghost.”
“Ghost?”
“His name’s Stan, not that we’re on a first-name basis.”
“Are you putting me on?”
He shook his head. “Most of the staff swear by him, and some of them swear at him, especially the women. Stan likes to show off for ladies. He turns lights on and off, and opens doors. We’ve had these official-looking paranormal experts come out and do studies, and they always go away reporting ‘unusual activity.’ Psychics and receptives are always saying they feel Stan’s presence.”
“Maybe we should ask Brother Howard to get us in touch with Stan.”
“Dr. Kingsbury,” said Am, “is haunting me much more than Stan.”
“We’ll have to do something about that,” she said.
Am liked Marisa’s ambiguous tone. He had wondered if that special feeling between them would extend b
eyond their time in the restaurant. Sometimes the magic is ephemeral, its life short-lived and dreamlike. Relationships, he thought, were about as easy to explain as ghosts, and potentially as frightening.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
“Ghosts of the past,” he said.
They talked about the present instead, skating for the most part around anything personal, content to converse in anecdotes and job-related stories. Their jobs were similar, Am insisted, in that both of them were in the communications business. Half his time, he said, was spent acquainting staff with “situations.”
He told her about what wasn’t advertised on hotel VACANCY signs, how over ten thousand lawsuits were filed each year against U.S. hotels claiming negligent security, and how behind those lawsuits were over ten thousand sad stories, and ruined vacations, and even destroyed lives. She heard in his words the unsaid conviction of “Not at my Hotel,” and once again thought of him as the Old West sheriff, even though he was quick to say that he was “no house dick, just a temporarily displaced hotel manager.”
His disclaimer notwithstanding, he told her about the crime-prevention program he had started at the Hotel, how he tried to educate both guests and staff on safety, and how difficult it was to tread that thin line between making the inn secure without making it into a stalag. But what he couldn’t teach, he said, was common sense. When guests physically went on vacation, their minds followed. They walked around waving rolls of money, and thought nothing of wearing ten pounds of jewelry. They answered the door without verifying who was there, and were careless with their keys. Criminals never need invitations, he averred, but too many guests offered them anyway.
“The kids that used to call identifying themselves as being from the utility company and asking if your refrigerator was running have grown up,” said Am. “The punch line is no longer, ‘Well, you better catch it before it runs out your door.’ It’s often a gun.”
He explained how intruders often used house phones to call guest rooms, identifying themselves as being from the “front desk” or “maintenance,” and stating that there was a problem in the room requiring their attention. The best locks didn’t help, he said, when guests willingly let their assailants inside.
Guests weren’t the only ones scammed. Too often the Hotel was targeted by those claiming losses and demanding compensation. Determining fact from fiction was often difficult. There were bills submitted after the fact, with receipts from dry cleaners, tailors, and clothiers. It was rare for there ever to be witnesses to what incident had supposedly occurred.
There were also many charitable scams asking for complimentary meals or stays. One scam had bothered Am more than most because it forever made him cynical about charitable requests. A twenty-five-year-old man had written requesting a complimentary stay, saying he had “a rare and dangerous cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma.” The note went on to say, “My debilitating surgery and chemotherapy don’t allow me to work, and have left me with no funds.” His parents, it went on, “had honeymooned at the Hotel, and I hope the magic and wonderful memories it brought to their marriage might pass into my own life, as the survival rate for my type of tumor is less than thirty-five percent.”
Am decided there were too many violins in the letter. He phoned the San Diego Hotel Motel Association with his suspicions, and learned that another hotel had called in describing the very same letter. A subsequent investigation revealed that identical letters had been sent to thirty San Diego hotels, nine of which had agreed to provide complimentary stays before learning that the letter was just a ploy for free room nights. Am wasn’t sure whether he was prouder that he had recognized the scam, or that nine hotels had cared enough about another human’s plight to want to help without asking too many questions.
“That’s the problem with scams,” said Am. “It makes good people suspicious. It stops you from doing the right thing, makes it that much easier for you to say no without even thinking because we’ve all been trained to be distrustful.
“I think that was a part of Thomas Kingsbury’s anger. He didn’t hate the ‘ghouls’ so much as what they did to the human spirit. As he saw it, they plundered the dying and soured the living, distracting everyone involved from the life-and-death issues at hand.”
Am’s righteous indignation was cut short by the opening of a door. Brother Howard stepped forward and bowed. “Welcome,” he said. “Please join me inside.”
He held out his arm for them to enter the parlor. There was a table inside, but no crystal ball. On the table were some books, DVDs, and MP3s. All of them had Brother Howard’s picture on the cover, as well as gold stars with the prices.
Brother Howard motioned for them to sit. He sat down and appeared to offer a silent prayer, his holy head resting atop the fingertips of his pressed hands. When he finished with his meditative moment he smiled, then reached out with his hands to both Am and Marisa and made the announcement, “Let us join in a circle.”
Holding Marisa’s hand was fine by Am, but he didn’t much like being in the clasp of Brother Howard. Was he in the grip of a murderer? He was supposed to take the lead in this interview—Marisa had had first crack at the mentalist—but he found it difficult to ask questions of a man he was holding hands with.
“Marisa Donnelly and Am Caulfield,” said Brother Howard, “both of you have expressed interest in gaining access to another realm. I can enable your passage, can direct you on the way, but in the end each of you will have to make your own journey.
“To hear the dead is not an easy thing. Most of us cannot even hear ourselves. We need to attune our listening, need to get comfortable with our own beings, and come to terms with all of our senses before we can attempt to venture beyond.
“Our first exercise will be for you to listen for your heartbeat. It requires total silence and concentration. Why is it that we can hear and feel our hearts after vigorous exercise, but not at other times? It is there all along, but usually silent, waiting to be discovered like so many other things. Picture in your mind this tireless engine in your chest, this constant clock which we have tuned out of our senses.”
Brother Howard closed his eyes and stopped talking. Am watched him to see if he was peeking. As far as he could see, he wasn’t. Marisa followed Brother Howard’s example. She actually seemed to be trying to listen to her heart. Am thought she was going a little far. The silence, and the handholding, continued. For want of anything else to do, Am started listening for his heart. His breathing became lighter and slower. Several times he felt on the verge of picking up that elusive beat, but always it escaped him. His thoughts started to float, his consciousness a series of run-on sentences . . .
. . . how long have we been listening probably five minutes that’s about thirty bucks of silence and they say talk is cheap they ought to price out silence can’t hear my heart but if i could it would be about a dime a beat should have brought along a stethoscope and pulled it out but what he really wants is to get a bead on our wallets just wait until he describes the length and treatment of his snake oil that’s one pitch that’s going to get cut short with my own questions wonder how he’ll respond to the name of doctor kingsbury maybe i should bring his name up casually and ask brother gardenia reverend howard to listen to what he has to say and oh by the way doc just how am i supposed to be positive in a world with so many of these bloodsuckers . . .
“Am,” said a voice. “Am.”
Brother Howard gently shook Am’s arm. He hadn’t been asleep, Am told himself, not exactly, but he had drifted. Red-faced, he returned.
“Good,” said Brother Howard. “Very good.”
Am turned a little redder. In all the world, this was the last person from which he wanted to hear praise.
“You see how Am let loose of his conscious mind,” said the Brother. “That is often necessary. We need to open ourselves up.”
The star pupil glowered a little. At least they weren’t holding hands anymore, he thought.
&n
bsp; Brother Howard turned to Marisa. “Did you attune to the beat of your heart?” he asked.
It was her turn to look embarrassed. “Yes,” she said quietly.
Had she really? Am wondered. He wished he could have heard her heart, wanted to know how it sounded, and pounded.
“What about you, Am? Did you find your heart?”
No, he wanted to say, I think I lost it. But he simply shook his head. That didn’t discourage Brother Howard. He said that what they had done was merely an exercise, one of many to build their awareness.
“I don’t have special hearing aids,” he said, “that will provide you the ability to hear the dead, but I do have a program”—he tapped the table and brought their attention to his tapes and books—“that has allowed many to succeed in that quest.”
“Are you sure this ability can be taught?” asked Am.
“There is no question about it,” he said.
“How is it,” asked Am, “that you succeeded in bridging this rather enormous gap, when others have not?”
“I am by no means the first to have done so,” said Brother Howard. “Mine is a God-given ability, not unlike those who can see auras, or those who have second sight.”
“And you just woke up one day and heard the dead?”
“Not quite so simple as that. I think for most of my life I sensed the fragments of communication around me that were not of this world, but I was never quite sure of what I was hearing. Over time I was able to distinguish the messages, and learned how to better tune into them.”
“Do you carry on conversations with the dead?”
“I wouldn’t call them conversations. I prefer the term ‘dialogues.’”
‘“How’s the weather?’ Or, ‘What’s up?’ Those kinds of dialogues?”
