Yates sobs. “Yes, I’ve learned my lesson. I promise. Oh god, please, please.”
“Maybe you should call your brother,” Leo says, and Hobbs looks offended.
“What, you sayin’ I can’t make decisions without his approval?”
“Nah, man, it ain’t like that.”
“Then what the fuck is it like?”
Leo shrugs. “I don’t know, John. What do you want to do with him?”
John looks at his sewing machine on the desk and at Yates, then back at the sewing machine. He scratches his head and a cloud of dandruff and lice drifts out of his hair, floats to the ceiling and explodes.
Yates continues to beg for his life, but it doesn’t seem to faze Hobbs.
“He’s seen too much,” he says, and Yates screams loud enough to wake up every guest in the hotel. Hobbs tries to kick him to shut him up, but this time Yates is ready. He rolls out of the way, grabs Hobbs’s foot, and flings him backward. Hobbs cries out and collapses over the desk, knocking over hammers and other strange looking tools with sharp points.
Yates runs past me and flees the room. Leo chases after him, but he isn’t smart enough to move around me and the narrowness of the foyer traps us both.
“Get the fuck out of the way, hotel asshole!”
“I’m trying!”
Across the room, Hobbs desperately attempts to clean up the shattered sewing machine. “If that motherfucker gets away, I’m killing both of you. That’s a goddamn promise.”
It’s enough motivation to get us to discontinue our reenactment of a Three Stooges episode. Out in the hallway, Yates is punching the down button on the elevator, screaming for somebody to help him. Nobody’s left their rooms yet, but it’s only a matter of time. People do not want to help others in danger, they either want to ignore the issue or film it on their cameras for the world to laugh at.
If we catch Yates, he’s a dead man. If I let him get away, I’m the dead man. Unless I escape the hotel with him. We could head to the police station together and give a full statement. Except Hobbs could be gone by the time we get back. What if him and his cowboy brother know where I live? Any one of them could have easily followed me home one morning after work, scoped out my apartment. Or hell, who cares about where I live? They know where I work. They know there’s no guards, no security cameras. No way in hell I’m an important enough figure of the human race to warrant twenty-four hour surveillance for the rest of my life. If I die, the only person it will affect is the asshole who has to cover my shift until a suitable replacement is recruited from the stack of job applications growing fungus inside Javier’s desk.
But still. I can’t kill him, and I can’t let him die, even if that means further endangering my own life. Fuck. None of this shit would be happening right now if I hadn’t gotten drunk with George. Whoever mugged me better be enjoying themselves. Of course they are. They’re $4500 richer.
Leo’s already on top of Yates, punching him in the face, making him scream louder, the dumbass. I rush them and push Leo off. “C’mon, man, you can’t do this here.”
The door to room #210 opens and a woman sticks her face out. “What’s going on out here? Do you need the police?”
I freeze. We’re busted. Caught by a grouchy guest before I’m given the chance to go to the police myself, now I’m guilty, there’s no getting around this. Except I’m the one with the tie, I’m the one with the name tag. I’m the guardian of this hotel. In this building, I am the law.
I hold up my hand, trying to look calming and reassuring as Leo drags Yates down the hallway. “It’s okay, ma’am, only a drunk guest having trouble walking. We’re just trying to get him to his room.”
“He sounds like he’s hurt.” The woman peeks her head farther out of her room, trying to get a better look at them.
I jump in front of her, smiling. “Yeah, I think he fell, but seriously, we have the situation under control. I do apologize about the noise. I’ll be sure to discount your stay for the inconvenience.”
The mentioning of a discount is enough for the lady to forget all about the man on the verge of death in the hallway. She smiles weakly, then frowns. “It’s the least you can do. Can’t even sleep in this miserable place.”
She slams the door.
The good thing about hotels, you can do practically whatever you want and the next day all the witnesses leave the state. Well, at the very least, the block.
Leo’s dragging Yates through the side-door into the stairway and I have to sprint to catch up with them.
“Leave me alone,” Yates begs. He swings his arms to fight Leo off, but Yates is weak and disoriented. His punches are like kitten massages against Leo’s chest. “Please. I beg you.”
Leo laughs. “Listen to the racist beg the nigger for his life. Ain’t that just grand?”
“What are you going to do?” I ask, praying there’s nobody else in the stairwell.
“I don’t know,” Leo says. “I’ve never killed anybody before.”
“Neither have I, so maybe we shouldn’t start now?”
Leo looks at me like I’m crazy. “Did you not hear what John said?”
“So what?”
He pauses, contemplating my answer. “He called me a nigger.”
“Doesn’t mean he should die.”
“He doesn’t believe in tips.”
“I’ll tip you!” Yates says. “I’ll give you whatever you want, oh god, please, don’t kill me.”
Leo looks around, obviously out of his element. This guy’s no killer, and I certainly am not one, either.
“Well,” he says, “what are we supposed to do?”
He releases his grip on Yates, and Yates immediately pushes Leo down the stairs. Leo tumbles down the steps and smacks his head at the bottom of the landing. Yates laughs and extends his middle fingers. “Fuck you, nigger!”
Leo groans and gives Yates a death glare. Yates turns around and bolts up the steps toward the third floor.
“Follow that motherfucker!” Leo screams, struggling to stand.
I run after Yates. He sees me coming and cries, continues running up the stairs instead of entering one of the hallways. Maybe he doesn’t realize this hotel’s only five stories, but he eventually reaches the door to the roof. He tries to open it, but it’s locked, so he punches the metal and curses.
Gasping, I near in on him, thinking fuck, I gotta lose weight. “You idiot, I’m trying to help you.”
“Help me?” Yates says. “You were going to kill me.”
“Ugh. Shut up. Move.” I pull out my cashier keys and unlock the door, push Yates out onto the roof and close the door behind us. It automatically locks once it’s shut, trapping us in pitch-blackness. Up here on the roof, there are no lights. I hold my hand out in front of my face and I see nothing. “Why the hell did you run up the stairs, anyway? You dumbass.”
“Where else was I supposed to go?” Yates asks in the darkness. “You and that nigger were planning my death.”
“If you had stopped and listened, I’d talked him out of the idea, then you went and pushed him. Jesus Christ. Stop using that word.”
“What word?”
“You know what word.”
“Nigger?”
“Ugh. I should’ve let him kill you. You’re the worst fucking guest in the world.”
“Wait until your manager hears about this in the morning. I’ll have your job.”
“I just saved your life, man.”
Yates chuckles. “No, you failed at ending my life, you pathetic little man. Now you will face the consequences.”
His face lights up about ten feet in front of me. His cell phone.
I ask him what he’s doing and he tells me he’s calling the police.
“You’re going to tell them I helped you, right?” I ask. “That I wasn’t the one who tried to hurt you.”
Yates raises his eyebrow, amused. “Why would I lie?”
“It’s not a lie.”
“You are ob
viously in cahoots with those…those thugs.”
“It’s not like that, man.” I step toward him, but he doesn’t move. It’s too dark, he can’t see shit. Maybe a foot or two in front of him thanks to the light of his cell phone.
He doesn’t seem intimidated by me, isn’t afraid to ridicule. He knows I won’t do anything. I’m too much of a coward. I’m not a fighter. I’m not someone who breaks noses or blackens eyes. I’m just the night auditor. I’m nobody.
Yet I step forward again, and this time I’m close enough for him to see me.
A fist bangs on the roof door. Leo shouts for us to open it, that we’re both dead, that we’re so dead it’s not even funny.
Yates gasps and drops his cell phone, and the screen shines up at us from the ground. The stupid motherfucker’s checking his text messages.
“I thought you were calling the police.”
“I was getting there, Jesus, that’s private.”
I bend down and pick up the cell phone. He’d been in the process of composing a text to somebody named Lauren:
Me: “sorry 4 not calling all nite been meeting important clients luv u”
As I read his message, his cell receives a text from somebody else. Someone named Perfect Edge Paper Manufacturer.
Perfect Edge Paper Manufacturer: “already miss that big cock”
Three more messages arrive almost instantaneously:
Perfect Edge Paper Manufacturer: “have you left your hotel yet? :*”
Perfect Edge Paper Manufacturer: “I’m still close by, want 1 more quickie? ;)”
Perfect Edge Paper Manufacturer: “I’M SO WET!!!!
The Nightly Disease (Serial Novel) Page 14
