by Marc Strange
“I’d be very happy if you didn’t do that, but I should warn you that I’m feeling morose.”
“Morose, you say?” She smiles. “Then we definitely need a table.”
An hour later, during Olive’s second set of the night, Connie and I have moved closer to the stage. Olive is almost above us now. We have a table on the far side of the stand, in shadows, in a corner, with a candle. Olive sings “Lush Life” while Connie tells me in a quiet voice how she hopes she won’t be seeing very much of me.
“I’m ambitious. I’d like to be posted in Washington, or London, or in some hot spot with bullets flying.”
I find myself staring at her face, gazing into her dark eyes. I’ve seen that look before. She’s a warrior. “Bullets flying?” I say.
“I look good in a flak jacket.”
“Wear a helmet. It’s a dangerous world.”
“Want to tell me about your hand?” She’s cradling my hand in both of hers, like a book.
“Just a bruised knuckle.”
“Your hand is swollen.”
“It’s sore, but I’ll ice it down. It’ll be okay.”
“But you’re not going to tell me about it.”
“I’m going to try to avoid showing up in the papers, or on the six o’clock news, or in police dispatches for a while. I’m going to steer clear of hot spots with bullets flying. I have a hotel to look after.”
“That’s what you were doing, weren’t you?”
“I was trying to clear Arnie of a murder. It was bad enough he stole the money. Now it looks like the hotel is going to take some big hits.”
“And you, too?”
“It could happen.”
Just then one of the servers, Lisa, comes towards us. “Joe? Sorry. There’s a phone call for you.”
“Gritch?”
“No, it’s one of the maids. Raquel, I think.”
“Excuse me,” I say to Connie. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.”
Barney is holding the receiver out to me.
“Mr. Grundy. It’s Raquella. Raquel. Can you come up here, please? Mr. Alexander has fallen down. !Venga en seguida!”
“Immediatamente.”
“Muchas gracias.”
I make a quick trip back to the table. “I’m sorry. I have to go. My boss is ill.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No,” I say. “I have to look after this.”
The elevator is slower than usual. People want to get on at nine, but I tell them there’s an emergency and close the door in their faces. I hope I seemed apologetic. I probably looked fierce. The little boy hid behind his mother’s legs.
“Come in, please.” Raquel’s hair is loose, her dark eyes worried.
“Where is he?”
“In the bathroom. He fell down.”
Leo is lying in an awkward position, half in and half out of the rub. His left leg is bent over the rim of the tub. His head is on the floor.
“He hit his head.”
“Have you called an ambulance?”
“No. I just called you, and I put his robe over him. I don’t want to move him. I thought maybe you could carry him to the bed.”
“No, I’d better not move him. Get another blanket. Don’t let him get cold. Is there a rug under him?”
“The bath mat.”
“Get a blanket.”
Leo has a phone in his bathroom. Handy. Raymond is in the office. “First we need an ambulance for Mr. Alexander in the penthouse. Then get his personal doctor, Dr. Kronick. Tell him to get to the hospital. Vancouver General probably.”
“What happened?” Raymond asks.
“He fell down and hit his head. He may have a broken leg. I don’t want to move him.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes, he’s breathing. Just do it. Ambulance first. If you can’t find the doctor’s number, call Margo. Right away. Better call Margo, anyway.”
The paramedics come and move him gently onto a spinal board, with his head immobilized, his legs securely belted, and his arms bound around his chest. Then we take him to the fifteenth floor, around to the service elevator, and straight down to the kitchen and out through the back. The ambulance pulls up to the loading entrance.
“You taking him to General?” I ask.
“Yep,” one of the paramedics says. “He’ll be there in four minutes.”
“His doctor will meet you there,” I say.
I go back downstairs and check Olive’s to see if Connie is still there. Barney points at the street entrance. “She left ten minutes ago, champ,”
I climb up to the sidewalk, even though I know she’s gone home. The street is almost deserted. A steady downpour drenches me, but I stand there, anyway, absorbing the rain.
chapter twenty-nine
Sunrise. A chill west wind with attendant drizzle has kept Wreck Beach nudist-free. Molly MacKay is careful to point the urn away from the wind. The ashes disperse like smoke curling across the chop. I catch myself framing a petition to no one in particular that particles might make it to the anchored freighters in the bay and carry bits of Buzz to far-off lands and other seas. I’m standing on a sloping rock, above and behind the assembly, at the bottom of a steep path down the bluff. There are more people than I expected, a dozen or so. I recognize some of them. Near the water J.J. is under a broad umbrella playing bottleneck guitar for the soprano with the haunting voice. Her silver hair is dancing and her song is pulled away from me. I can barely hear it on the wind.
“Oh come angel band Come and around me stand Oh bear me away on your snow-white wings…”
Bubba, the big road manager, has his arm around Molly’s shoulders, and she leans against him as they rejoin the little congregation. There are hugs and kisses all around and someone starts another song. It seems like an inappropriate time for me to be bothering her with more questions. I turn to see Connie Gagliardi and her camerawoman sliding down the path.
“You might have told me you knew where it was going to be,” Connie says.
When she hits the sloping rock, I put out a quick arm to keep her upright. The camerawoman has wisely worn Reeboks and stays vertical on her own.
“You wore the wrong shoes,” I say.
“You could have mentioned the location.” She smacks me on the shoulder. “Are you getting any of this?”
“It’s a nice picture,” the camerawoman says. She has a clear plastic bag protecting her camera.
“Have they done the ashes yet?” Connie asks.
“They just blew away,” I say.
“Shit!”
“Shush,” the camerawoman says, “I want some of this song.”
Connie stands beside me, and we listen for a moment to the tune, to the wind and the gulls crying, to the choppy waves smacking the rocky shore. She has her footing now and doesn’t need support but still she holds my arm.
“Melancholy weather,” she says.
“Shush,” the camerawoman hisses.
Connie lets my arm go and picks her way carefully down to the beach with microphone in hand. The camerawoman turns her head to look at me without taking my picture. “She watched one of your old fights last night.”
“Mercy,” I say, “where would she come up with one of those?”
“Sports archives at the station.”
“Did I win?”
“I don’t know,” she says, turning her head to peer through the viewfinder again. “I wasn’t invited.”
The camerawoman follows Connie down to the beach. I stay where I am, above and behind.
It is melancholy weather, appropriate to my current disposition — my boss in a coma, my right hand throbbing like a gumboil, my job in jeopardy, no answers. I don’t even know the questions anymore. And I haven’t done any of what I set out to do. Arnie is still the murderer of record, and Jeff Axelrode hasn’t paid his $16.45 bar tab. Maybe it is time for some changes. I’ve been much too comfortable at the Lord Douglas, too comfortable for too long.
Might as well be wearing slippers and a cardigan the way I’ve been shuffling around lately, operation going to hell in a handbasket, sloppy procedure, suspect workforce. The scorecard doesn’t look great.
And then something starts happening down on the beach. While I was indulging myself in rue and recrimination, Bubba the road manager has gotten himself into a tussle with a big man I didn’t see arrive. Jeff Axelrode is trying to talk to Molly MacKay. She doesn’t want to talk to him and is seeking the protection of the musicians and the mourners who have started to disperse. Bubba bars Axelrode’s way, moving side to side like a cutting horse. Axelrode attempts to bull his way past, and Bubba gives him a two-handed shove, the kind that cops give when they slam you against a wall. Axe shoves back. He, too, is familiar with the cop shove. It looks from here to be an even match.
Connie’s videographer is in candid camera heaven, gliding around the periphery of the scuffle, grabbing reaction shots. Connie tries to get a microphone near Molly, but Buzz’s sister is shielded by backup singers and record producers. Axelrode loses his footing on the rock and now stands on the sand, looking up at Bubba and the musicians. He shouts something at Molly and retreats with as much dignity as his righteous anger will support, heading up the slope at an angle to where I’m standing. I climb with him, parallel and near enough that when we reach the top of the bluff we’re within conversation range. He shouts, anyway.
“Get the fuck out of my face, Grundy. I’m not in the fucking mood.”
“I need to talk to you about Arnie.”
“That piece of shit. He’s dead.”
“Someone else was there.”
“Prove it.” He gets into his car, and when I step closer, he points a gun out the window at me. “I’m serious, Grundy. This is not a day to piss me off.”
“It’s about your bar tab.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You and Alvin Neagle ran out on your bill the night Buzz was shot.”
“Get it from Neagle. He’s the one with all the fucking money.” He has to put the gun on the seat beside him to start the car and jam it into reverse.
“You on the run, Axe? The police are looking for you.”
“Mind your own business, Grundy.”
“Arnie getting killed is my business.”
“Arnie McKellar fucked with the wrong people. Just like you’re doing, asshole.”
He puts a ding in the hotel’s sedan when he backs out. That’s another bill I’ll have a hard time collecting.
At the other end of the parking area people are getting into cars. Molly is nowhere to be seen. Connie is coming towards me. The woman with the camera is getting into the Channel 20 van. She doesn’t look our way.
“Is Molly still down there?” I ask.
“Just left,” Connie says.
“Did you hear what that man wanted?”
“Dee got a lot of it on tape. Come and watch it later.”
“No ambush?”
She smiles. “You’ve had your fifteen minutes, big fella. How’s your boss doing?”
“He’s still unconscious.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“They don’t know. He could wake up any minute. He’s not hemorrhaging, his brain function is good, and his vital signs are okay. I’m hopeful.”
“Good,” she says.
There’s an awkward pause.
“Ruined our date,” I offer.
“Was that a date? Felt like a date for a minute. But you didn’t ask me out.”
“No, it was your doing.”
“So? Ask me. I’ve been carrying the freight in this thing so far.”
“You’re too short for me,” I say.
“I have heels.”
“You’re too young for me.”
“I looked up your bio. You’ve got a few good rounds left, bud.”
“And you’re what? Twenty-eight?”
“What a charmer. Still, just for the hell of it, you should ask me out sometime.” She turns and heads towards the Channel 20 van.
“Which fight did you watch?”
She looks back at me.
“Dee, your camerawoman, said you watched one of my fights.”
“Dionee. That’s her name.”
“I don’t think she cares for me.”
“She has a protective streak.”
“Which one did you watch?”
“I’ve seen three. That’s all we had.”
“I’m surprised there are that many.”
“Your fight with Mr. Holyfield was on pay-per-view. We only had a highlight package.”
“Not my finest hour.”
“You kidding? It was magnificent. Of course, you did get your clock cleaned, but you were stalwart doing it.” “How about dinner?”
“I wouldn’t want to keep you up past your bedtime.” “I’ll have a nap,” I say.
chapter thirty
“I hear Lloyd Gruber’s annoying alto voice before I reach the front desk. Melanie gives me a wide-eyed look and an elaborate shudder as I approach. The Groob has returned. She nods in the direction of Lloyd’s office. I can’t see Lloyd yet, but Margo is visible through the glass partition, standing at attention, chin firm and eyes brave.
“Fine state of affairs! Cut my trip short. Come back to fnd this operation in shambles … and … and find policemen crawling all over my … my private property. A stack of lawsuits a foot high…”
Margo shouldn’t have to face the storm alone.
“Welcome back, Lloyd. That’s a nice tan.”
“Oh, it’s you, Joe.” Lloyd is always a bit fidgety when I’m in his space, possibly because I outweigh him by fifty pounds. One of the fidgets is reflexive watch-checking. Lloyd is big on timetables.
“It’s nine-fifteen. I expected you fifteen minutes ago.” “I had a funeral to attend.”
“Oh. Anyone we know? Knew?”
“The hotel guest who was murdered. You didn’t get a chance to meet him.”
“Ah, well, I’ll get right down to it. Obviously, you’ve heard about Mr. Alexander. Of course you have. You attended to him. He’s okay, isn’t he? I mean, he’s … he’s comfortable? How is he?”
“He’s not conscious yet.”
“You mean he’s in a coma?”
“Technically, I guess, but his doctor says there’s lots of brain function going on.”
“Do they know when he’ll wake up?”
“No, sir, they don’t.”
“That’s because he’s in a coma.” Lloyd bustles about his office, straightening, adjusting, wiping, desk, bookshelves, furniture. You’d think Margo had trashed the place.
Margo stands clear of his housekeeping. She turns to look at me. Get ready.
“It looks like he’ll be needing a new hip,” I say. “They can’t do much until he wakes up, of course.”
“That’s a shame,” Lloyd says. “And, of course, you’ll be attending to him, I mean, while he’s in the hospital.”
“I’ll be doing whatever he wants me to do, yes.”
“Which, ah, brings me to the next order of business. With, ah, Mr. Alexander out of commission, so to speak, Mr. Alexander the Younger, that is, Mr. Theodore Alexander, the son, is, ah, assuming control of the hotel’s operation, as of —” he checks his watch “— twenty minutes ago. He’s sent me a number of directives. The first of which, and you should be aware that this is not in any way, ah, a reflection of my personal views — I would prefer to consider the situation more fully — but, in light of what’s happened here while I was away, and with Mr. Alexander Senior unable to direct things personally, the Lord Douglas is, on specific orders from Mr. Theodore Alexander, terminating its relationship with, ah, with JG Security as of the end of business hours today, Friday, at which point the, ah, hotel will expect you to clear your office of all personal effects.”
“When, exactly, is the end of ‘business hours’ at the Lord Douglas?” I ask. “We’re pretty much a 24/7 operation, ar
en’t we?”
“Ah, let’s say, today, end of today, midnight.”
“I have a contract.”
“According to Mr. Theodore Alexander, you have a personal services contract with Mr. Leo Alexander and not with the hotel per se. Now I don’t care to get into what that means in terms of your severance package, or any of that. That’s … that’s between you and Mr. Alexander Senior. But as he is no longer capable of, ah, managing the hotel, and whatever personal services you may be required to provide for him in his present condition would seem to, ah, divert your attention from your responsibilities here at the hotel, Mr. Alexander’s son, Theodore, thinks it will make more sense to, ah, relieve you of your obligations here. The first order of business, conveyed to me personally by Mr. Theodore Alexander, is that another security system will be put in place by the beginning of the week.”
“What happens between midnight and Monday?”
“I assume Mr. Theodore Alexander is making arrangements for temporary security.”
“Just a friendly reminder, Lloyd. You are supposed to be managing the Lord Douglas, not Theo. You work for Leo Alexander.”
He flinches at this, or maybe he just flinches every time I speak. He turns his back and gives his attention to straightening frames on the wall. “Mr. Theodore Alexander expects you to vacate your residence, as well, but I’m sure we can be a bit more flexible about the deadline for your departure.”
“Be careful, Lloyd,” I say. “Mutiny is a hanging offence.” I follow Margo back to her office.
“Joe, I’m so sorry.”
“What about you, Margo? You going to be all right?” “Nobody’s said anything so far. I’m not … who knows
what’s going to happen.”
“None of this was your fault.”
“Joe,” she says, “I can run a hotel. Given the authority, I could run this place very well. But part of running a hotel is handling things like what happened here this week.” “You did great. I’m the one who messed up.” “I don’t suppose Lloyd has mentioned that he’s the one who made you hire Arnie?”
“I’m sure he’ll have to mention it to someone at some point.”
“I think you’re getting a raw deal.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “It’s not over.”
