by Alan Russell
The maintenance man’s voice was low. He was still in his secret-agent mode, probably would have preferred if they had communicated through decoder rings.
“What is it, Cotton?”
“Were you aware that the efforts to neutralize the Neptune Room have been countermanded?”
What the hell was he talking about? Am stifled a sigh. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Cotton.”
“The engineering department,” he said, “has orders to make the Neptune Room operational by oh-eleven hundred hours today.”
There was an echo to Cotton’s words. In his mind’s eye Am could picture him hunkered down in the darkness and confines of the utility room, his whispered voice playing off the concrete walls. “Are you telling me,” said Am, “that engineering is fixing up the Neptune Room this morning?”
“Shit,” muttered Cotton, the enclosed utility room doing a good job of shouting the word around. But Cotton remembered that Am had once been a manager and probably couldn’t help himself. “That is affirmative.”
The repairs didn’t make sense. The Swap Meat wouldn’t be checking out until tomorrow—unless the Hotel’s tactics had finally gotten to the swingers and they were all leaving early. “Thanks, Cotton,” said Am. “I’ll check it out.”
“I also have it on good authority that the normalization of the occupation rooms is occurring today.”
That translation, Am supposed, was that the swinger rooms were being put aright. “I’ll find out about that also,” said Am.
“You should know that the Neptune Room could easily be”—Cotton paused dramatically—“deactivated again.” Then he hung up.
Deactivated, thought Am. I’ve created a monster.
Kate Kennedy was apparently well over her waterworks, judging by her overly (even by her standards) effusive greeting.
“Kate,” said Am, cutting her good cheer short. “I hear that the Neptune Room is being made—” (to his annoyance, he had to stop himself from saying “operational”) “—up now.”
“That’s right, Am. It appears we overreacted a bit yesterday. The Swap Meat has accepted the fact that they couldn’t have the meeting rooms, but even without them, they’ve been just as happy as peas in a pod.”
“I wonder what Gregor Mendel would have said about those peas,” said Am.
“Gregor who?” Kate asked very cheerily.
“Nothing,” he said. “I also hear that the Swap Meat guest rooms are being fixed up.”
“We were going to call you,” she said. “It’s just that we all agreed this morning that there was no need to treat the group so badly.”
The we again. “Who’s we?” he asked.
“Janet, me, and Melvin. We really think we made much ado about nothing.”
Am had a distinct feeling that the first “we” was the unholy triumvirate, and the second “we” was he. “We think we should treat them like normal guests,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”
It was getting more difficult figuring out which “we” was which, even with Am’s new understanding that he was an overreactor whose draconian measures had been deemed unnecessary.
“You’re saying it’s time to kiss and make up?” he asked.
“Exactly,” she said.
And the Swap Meat would be the last group ever to object to that.
“Why the rush to get the Neptune Room fixed up?”
“We’re doing it as a favor to the San Diego Police Department. It’s comped.”
She offered the last sentence as if she was doing her patriotic duty. Swingers are our friends, she had all but told him, and now she was saying the same thing about the police. Am wasn’t sure which supposition was easier to accept.
“Why do they want the room?”
“Apparently they’re having a press conference.”
The bad feeling, the one that had temporarily left him after figuring out who was hiring all the young GMs, returned. “Who’s in charge of this press conference?”
“Detective McHugh,” she said happily. “He’s in our office now…”
What better place for him to announce that Dr. Thomas Kingsbury had been murdered than at the very Hotel where it happened? Maybe the “we” sentiment was right. Perhaps Am had overreacted. A simple orgy didn’t sound like such a bad thing now, at least not when compared to a more public humiliation.
Chapter Forty-Two
McHugh was just leaving the sales and catering office when Am arrived. He was chewing on something, no doubt one of the food samples left out for prospective clients. “Did you tell them,” asked Am with righteous indignation, “why you wanted the meeting room?”
The detective appeared amused at Am’s anger. “Of course I told them. I said we were having a press conference.”
“Where you are going to announce that Dr. Kingsbury was murdered?”
“That’s right. And I would have told them that, too, except they never asked.”
Damn, thought Am. Sales still wasn’t asking the right questions. You’d think by this time they would have learned. He didn’t make their same mistake. “What was the cause of the doctor’s death?”
“Show up in a couple of hours, Caulfield. I’ll save you a ringside seat. Hell, maybe I’ll even introduce you to the media.”
“I don’t think the Hotel is the proper place for your press conference.”
“Why not?” asked the detective. “This is where the investigation is taking place. Besides, it’s publicity for you.”
“Sure,” said Am. “Maybe you can announce our two-for-one May Murderer’s Special. Two people check in and only one leaves.”
“You’d probably make a killing,” said McHugh. His wit inspired him to smile momentarily. It inspired Am to fantasize about giving Cotton orders to “deactivate” the room during his press conference.
“Now, you’ll have to excuse me, Caulfield,” he said. “I have to go and make myself pretty before the media arrives.”
“I can understand the necessity of that,” said Am, “but we need to talk.”
“I doubt that.”
“You have some information that interests me. And I know some things that could prove useful to your investigation.”
McHugh pretended he wasn’t interested. “I gotta run,” he said, offering his statement while standing still.
“I’ll walk with you.”
The detective shrugged, then started walking. Am fell in beside him. “What is it you want?” asked McHugh.
“A look at the case file,” said Am. That really wasn’t of interest to him, but he wanted to throw McHugh off. “And Kingsbury’s interview notes of the UNDER participants, as well as all of their questionnaires.”
McHugh mulled over Am’s requests, tried to figure out why those things were important to him. His inclination was to just say no, then watch Caulfield pout and plead some more. But he had to put personal pleasure aside. Caulfield had said something about having information that might be useful to the investigation. Since his team hadn’t yet turned up anything of significance, McHugh was ready to grasp at any straws. He didn’t like going into press conferences without a few good possibilities. The jackals were good at knowing when he was bluffing, at exposing the thinness of the standard “pursuing several leads” line.
“Tell me what you got.”
“Do we have a deal? Do I get what I asked for?”
Sure, thought McHugh, everything you want. But next week. The detective nodded.
“Today?”
It was almost like the jerk-off had read his mind. Well, he didn’t have to make it easy for him. If he expected everything brought to him and handed over on a silver platter, he had something else coming. “Downtown,” said McHugh. “Four o’clock. Don’t be late.”
Don’t be late, the detective thought, because I’m going to be. At least two hours.
“I’ll be there,” said Am. “Where?”
McHugh tossed him a business card. “Now shoot,” he said.
&
nbsp; Am didn’t want to identify Marisa as an accomplice, so he made it sound as if he had worked alone. He told McHugh about Skylar and Brother Howard, and the reasons the men had for wanting to see Kingsbury dead. The detective kept an expressionless face, but he was surprised. This sounded like good stuff. Maybe he’d only be an hour late for their appointment.
“We’ll check it out,” said McHugh, evincing the faintest of interest.
Am had hoped for a little more enthusiasm and gratitude, but then this was Detective McHugh he was dealing with. They were almost to the lobby. “I’ll see you at four,” said Am.
Five, five-thirty, thought McHugh. He nodded.
“I demand satisfaction!”
The shout made both men look up. Down the hall they could see a man wearing red pajamas waving his fist under the face of Felipe the shoe-shine man.
Bradford Beck wasn’t going to take it anymore. He liked the way Toyota was cringing and acting afraid. The little Jap wasn’t going to get away with a few empty promises this time.
The morning hadn’t started well for Bradford. He had awakened with a terrible hangover, had learned that champagne and tequila are not a very good mix. And then there was this damnably annoying itch in his groin area. Though he scratched and scratched, he couldn’t seem to find relief. Bradford kept telling himself the symptoms were psychosomatic. He had worn protection, after all, but things had gotten a bit racy—very racy, in fact. Out of hand, some might even say. That Missy was some wild woman. But the morning after he was repenting those few hours of pleasure, and not only because of the itch. If he had given Cleopatra all of his attention, then maybe her nose wouldn’t have gotten out of joint and maybe things wouldn’t have happened the way they had. He’d been courting Cleopatra for too long to give her, and all her money, up. The best-laid plans, he thought, then scratched furiously and gave up on the rest of the saying. Cleopatra, he had thought, suddenly awakening. I’ve got to help her. Then he noticed something. All of Cleopatra’s luggage was gone.
Bradford tried to call the front desk, but his phone was still broken. He threw on some pajamas and some shoes (he had neglected to bring his slippers) and stormed over to the elevator to make his call. The front desk didn’t seem to know anything about Cleopatra’s whereabouts.
“Your bellman made a fucking citizen’s arrest on her!” Bradford screamed to the operator. “Someone there better be able to goddamn tell me where she is!”
The operator had politely suggested that he “sleep it off,” and then had hung up on him. That’s when Bradford went ballistic. Toyota was going to make everything right this time.
Wearing only his red silk pajamas and his calf-skin loafers, Bradford stormed down to the lobby. Screaming “Toyota!” and “I demand satisfaction,” he ran up to the shoe-shine man and pushed him up against the wall.
“Yesterday you made a lot of promises,” Bradford said. “Well, my room still looks like shit. Nothing’s been done, that is if you don’t count my girlfriend’s being kidnapped. Your bellman did that. I’ve encountered nothing but rudeness and buck-passing. The buck stops here, Toyota. Got it?”
Felipe was terrified. He started pleading his fear and innocence in Spanish. Bradford wouldn’t hear anything of it. “Talk in English,” he said. “I don’t speak Japanese. This is still America.”
The shoe-shine man kept babbling. “English, I said,” yelled Bradford, then kicked him hard in his backside. Even though he had applied a lot of boot, Bradford noticed the shine on his loafers was still untarnished. The Nip should stick to shoe-shining instead of managing.
The lunatic’s crotch-pulling and shouting were bad enough, McHugh thought, but he could almost overlook them, just as he could his wild talk about kidnapping, and his interpreting Spanish as Japanese. But the kick couldn’t be ignored. He had Bradford on the ground and tied up in about four seconds, then stood up to admire his handiwork. As a kid, McHugh had wanted to be a rodeo performer.
Am was attending to Felipe. The shoe-shine man was shaken up, but not hurt. Bradford had done a lot more bullying than pummeling. “Are you okay?” Am asked him.
“Okay,” said Felipe, using one of the few English words he knew.
“I’m arresting you for assault,” McHugh said to Bradford. He didn’t bother to Mirandize the kook. This one was probably just going to get kicked over to county mental health.
“Are you a police officer?” asked Bradford.
“Yes.”
“I mean a real San Diego police officer?”
McHugh flashed his badge and nodded.
“Good. Maybe you can tell me where Cleopatra is.”
“I can do even better than that,” said McHugh. “I can take you to her barge.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Before the press conference, Am didn’t know much about potassium cyanide. Now he was only too familiar with the chemical compound. As far as Am was concerned, the medical examiner was entirely too enthusiastic on the subject.
“Quite, quite fatal,” Dr. Simpson had told the assembled press. “Two tenths of a gram will kill you within fifteen minutes. We estimate Dr. Kingsbury had about twice that in his system.”
The press asked their questions and the ME answered. It was a primer on poisoning. Potassium cyanide was “very, very (Dr. Simpson invariably emphasized his statements with two adverbs) easy either to obtain or to make.” There was “simply, simply nothing” complicated about making such a poison. The component parts didn’t have to be purchased at a chemical lab. They could be obtained at a photography lab, or a craft shop, or even a neighborhood store (“though it would be necessary for anyone trying to create a proper poison to carefully read the labels,” the doctor admonished, “to make absolutely, absolutely sure that a fatal toxin was manufactured.”)
Someone had read their labels well. The potassium cyanide, Dr. Simpson said, could have been administered in either liquid or powder form, but it appeared the murderer had opted for liquid. It was the better choice, in his opinion.
The ME’s demonstration included a chalk talk on the chemicals of death (KCN was the chemical abbreviation of potassium cyanide), and how different proportions of other products could have approximated that lethal combination.
Why, said Dr. Simpson, any layman could make a very effective poison from any number of over-the-counter supermarket offerings. And when you considered what anyone could buy in a hardware store…
Detective McHugh chose that moment to thank the medical examiner and direct him to his seat. There was a reason, he thought, that the man just worked with corpses. But most of the media weren’t paying any attention to Dr. Simpson’s closing remarks. Being enterprising journalists, they had assiduously avoided organic- and physical-chemistry courses in college. They were humanities majors, for God’s sake, and hadn’t been much interested in his hieroglyphics (who cared that potassium carbonate—K2CO3—was used in making glass, pigments, ceramics, and soaps?). Besides, there were other matters more pressing, like food.
Am had worked out a set of signals with Cathy Cleary, the banquet manager. Cathy was waiting on his calls like an anxious pitcher. Whenever Am thought there was something being said that was particularly damaging to the Hotel, he signaled the banquet manager to send in food. Though poison recipes didn’t affect the Hotel per se, Am still wasn’t keen on seeing them printed up in the local newspapers. They might give some ideas to San Diego’s no-growth advocates. He motioned to Cathy, who sent in a waiter with a tray of shrimp. The quantity had been agreed upon ahead of time, a full platter, but not nearly enough to feed a roomful of hungry journalists. This was the third tray to be sent out at an opportune time (miniquiche had been the first course, and scallops wrapped in bacon the second). Pavlov’s dogs never responded so well as the press. The appearance of the shrimp causea an immediate queuing up. Am hoped that the continued interruptions of “alternate feeding frenzies” would keep the media from getting too worked up over the poisoning.
McHugh tried to
vie with jumbo shrimp, but learned that on the media food chain, detectives apparently rank below such crustaceans. Most of the haphazard questioning was done by those who already had shrimp on their plates. They called out with full mouths over the din of those still jostling in line. Marisa was one of the few journalists who hadn’t been seduced by the fare. She stayed seated, taking notes and asking questions. Am sidled up next to her, wrote on a piece of paper: “Dinner Tonight?” She saw his message and nodded. “What Time?” he wrote. Marisa held up seven fingers and Am nodded.
“Could the poisoning have somehow been inadvertent?” asked one reporter. “Could Dr. Kingsbury have somehow taken it accidentally?”
“No,” said McHugh. “I’m told that’s highly unlikely. The scientific consensus is that it was introduced in his food or drink.”
That announcement didn’t stop the media from eating as many shrimp as possible.
“Where did Dr. Kingsbury dine—”
Before the reporter could finish asking where Kingsbury’s last meal had taken place, Am signaled for the next tray to be brought out. Why did everyone have to know that Kingsbury’s final repast had been at one of the Hotel’s restaurants? Next they’d want to know how much he tipped (16 percent, if Am remembered correctly).
It was a small side of roast this time, served on the opposite side of the room as the shrimp. Some of the media started running, beating the server to the carving table. Detective McHugh found that he was talking to himself.
“Clever,” said Marisa, the word less than sincere.
Am tried to look innocent. “What do you want to eat tonight?” he asked.
“Lobster,” she said, “unless you’re planning on bringing some out on the next tray.”
Am didn’t comment. “Got a restaurant in mind?”
“We’ll decide later,” she said. “Let’s meet in the lobby at seven. I have a six o’clock follow-up interview with Lady Death. She’s promised a whopping thirty minutes this time.”
“Why a second interview?”
“Believe me, I tried to beg off, but this country’s decided Angela Holliday is big news. Her book has only been out three days and already it’s a best-seller. My editor wanted a follow-up piece, something more in-depth than my last Architectural Digest copy. Or did he say in-death? I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to her hourglass again.”
