by Alan Russell
“The same. He tried to tell everyone he was the front office manager of the Hotel, but big Mr. Johnson—”
Bull.
“—said that he thought front office managers were supposed to be around the front desk, and he couldn’t remember seeing him there. No one else could, either.”
“Is he all right?” Sharon had the decency to ask the question. Am was more interested in the method, and length, of the torture.
“Yeah. When he finally convinced them he really did work for the Hotel, they still pressed him on his being a spy at their meeting. Casper told them he wasn’t with security exactly, but more with the Hotel secret police, and he was doing undercover on the murder. I heard from a banquet waiter that he whined and cried until they let him go.”
“Are they still in the Neptune Room?” asked Am.
“Nope. Broke up a few minutes ago.”
“And I suppose,” Am said wearily, “they’re going around in posses again.”
Jimmy shook his head. “For most of them, it’s a siege mentality. That’s what I came to warn you about. A lot of them have barricaded their rooms. They’re afraid to go out or let anyone in. You should have seen them when they left the Neptune Room. They walked out like crabs, scuttling backward, afraid for their backs, afraid of each other. Some of them were holding cocktail weenie skewers, and kept swiveling around a hundred and eighty degrees. Bob Johnson isn’t a password for hugs and brotherhood anymore, not by a long shot. You whisper ‘Bob Johnson’ to them now, and most of them jump.”
Good, thought Am. Now we’re even.
Jimmy looked around again. He still didn’t see the sketch. “So, I was thinking, Am. Maybe if you gave me a copy of that sketch, I could put the rest of the Bob Johnsons at ease. If we don’t act soon, the whole lot of them might check out. Most of those that doubled up are at the desk now, either leaving or trying to get a room of their own. They don’t trust their roommates anymore.”
“What a shame,” said Am.
XLVI
“I remember the day I gave up on jigsaw puzzles,” said Am. “A friend had given me one of those giant ones with a few thousand pieces. I worked on that damn thing for days. It’s a scene forever ingrained in my mind, a Yankee Clipper gliding across the sea. The puzzle was a bear. Between the foreground and background were several shades of blue that were all but indistinguishable, and the clouds and sea froth were of the same consistency. I swore that puzzle wouldn’t beat me, and yet it did.”
“How?” asked Sharon.
“It was short one piece. To me, that hole looked about as big as the Grand Canyon.”
Sharon understood his reference and his unhappiness. They had painstakingly put together their murder puzzle and had come up with a face, name, and motive. Their only missing piece was the murderer, admittedly a large piece. It didn’t matter that everything else was in place; there remained only that gaping hole.
Reluctantly Am and Sharon had called in McHugh and the SDPD. A cordon of plainclothes police had descended upon the Hotel. Sketches of Carlton Smoltz had been given to all of the undercover officers and sentries posted at all entrances and exits. Calls had been made and information verified. Jane Doe was positively identified as Deidre Smoltz. As the hours passed, different teams were organized and contingencies planned, but Carlton didn’t cooperate by returning to the Hotel. Rooms 207, 208, and 209 now housed San Diego’s finest, with McHugh himself holed up in room 208. The detectives weren’t optimistic, though; most were certain that Carlton had fled the city and wasn’t coming back.
Though Am had helped the police coordinate their surveillance, his involvement felt anticlimactic, more busy-work than anything else. The excitement was gone, and he was left with the feeling that he had fallen short. He experienced the letdown of being outside the loop, of being the one who answered the phone instead of making the call.
Sharon had noticed his increasing gloominess. “Hey,” she said, “even McHugh said we did well.”
“That’s what he tells all the meter maids.” Am picked up his jacket, threw it over his shoulder. “See you.”
“You leaving?”
He offered a lackluster nod, which made her angry. His attitude suggested that all their efforts didn’t matter. “It’s Saturday night,” she yelled to his back. His cowardly back.
Her words stopped Am. What exactly did she mean? Anyone who worked in hotels had a calendar and time frame not in keeping with most of the industrialized world. To Am, Saturday night meant more functions than usual and a full Hotel.
“So what?”
Did she have to hit him over the head? “Didn’t we talk about dinner and drinks tonight?”
Surprised: “Sort of.”
“I haven’t eaten a thing all day.”
“Neither have I,” he said. Except, he remembered, that piece of margarita cheesecake.
She threw her jacket over her shoulder, reminiscent of his posturing. “Shall we go?”
He nodded and hurriedly thought of a plan for the evening that wouldn’t take them inland. It wouldn’t do to have Annette break down on their first date. Or would it? He described Annette’s history and her quirks, but Sharon wasn’t sure whether to believe him.
“We could head east,” Am suggested.
“No,” said Sharon. She wasn’t superstitious, but like most people, she didn’t walk under a ladder unless she had to.
Several cars passed them, but not without a little rubbernecking and a little smiling. “This car isn’t exactly inconspicuous,” said Sharon.
“Twenty smiles to the gallon,” said Am. “Even more when we do parades.”
“Parades?”
“Annette, and me, and about fifty other woodies sometimes tour with the OB Geriatrics. We putter around, long boards in tow, and offer viewers nostalgic Elysian Fields, or at least beaches. Unanswered, of course, is the question of which came first, the beaches or the illusion.”
“You’re raining on my parade,” she said.
“It never rains in Southern California. Sometimes it just mists very heavily.”
“Who are the OB Geriatrics?”
She was a careful listener, something he wasn’t used to, something that was a little bit frightening. “Official name, the Ocean Beach Geriatric Surf Club Precision Marching Surfboard Drill Team and Gidget Patrol, usually shortened to the OB Geriatrics.”
In an attempt at a Rod Serling voice, Am said, “Imagine, if you will, a collection of woodies, followed by a bevy of beach bunny Gidgets, and then the pièce de résistance, a group of aging surfers. Boards in hand, aloha shirts on their backs, the Geriatrics show on land what they do on sea: take the big waves. Their skits, choreographed by booming music, and a few lifeguard types with whistles, have them hanging ten, wiping out, and running around like a latter-day collection of Busby Berkeleys. Around them are such props as papier-mâché seagulls, beach chairs, inflatable sharks, one with a human leg in a toothed mouth, and cheering Gidgets in Hula Hoops. Like Indians of old demonstrating their skill at the hunt, the surfers pantomime their ride of the big blue horse, but instead of tom-toms, there are the sounds of ‘Surfing Safari,’ and ‘Wipeout,’ and ‘Surfing U.S.A.,’ pushing percussions that have the crowds cheering, singing, and dancing.
“Of course, these days,” added Am, giving up on his “Twilight Zone” voice, “most of the Geriatrics probably surf better on asphalt than on the ocean.”
“And are they really a precision surfboard drill team?”
“That sort of depends on how many beers they’ve had beforehand. Another old tradition.”
They cruised south along the coastline, proceeding through the Bird Rock area of La Jolla onto Mission Boulevard, then through Pacific Beach and Mission Beach. The lights of Belmont Park’s Giant Dipper roller coaster beckoned them to stop. Most of San Diego seemed to be out for a walk or a ride, and Am and Sharon joined the strollers. The crowd was polyglot and diverse, from the dressy set out to dine to the beach purists whose wardr
obes didn’t extend beyond bathing suits. Two SDPD patrolmen were out on their walking beat. The beach police wore shorts, which looked much more comfortable than bulletproof vests. Skateboards were not yet issued as official police equipment.
Screams are always a good draw. They drifted toward them and the roller coaster, where a long line of people were waiting to have their near death experiences.
“One of San Diego’s other landmarks,” said Am. “Like the Hotel California, the Giant Dipper is on the National Register of Historic Places.”
“Are you kidding?” she asked.
“I am not,” he said. “It was built in 1925 and is now the last of its kind.”
The carriages slowly creaked up the rails, but though the roller coaster was of age for Social Security, she still knew how to thrill. The speed picked up and with it the banks, drops, curves, and, most of all, the screams.
“Care for a ride?” asked Am.
“Thanks, but I’ve had enough thrills and chills for the weekend.”
They continued their stroll, coming to the Plunge, Southern California’s largest indoor pool and a venerable landmark for the swimming set. The huge pool had been put out of the athlete’s foot business for a few years but after a face lift had returned grander than ever. Short of the ocean, it offered more liquid space than any other spot in the city. Sharon was particularly taken by the huge mural on the wall, a pod of killer whales. She moved her head up and down and then side to side, never taking her eyes off the artwork. At last she announced, “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“Those whales seem to be moving, following you around like the Mona Lisa’s eyes. It must be disconcerting to swim laps and always feel like you’re being pursued by killer whales.”
“Maybe that’s the idea, to make people swim all the faster.”
They moved on, stopping frequently to window-shop. Sharon insisted on going into only one store, a surf shop. Her browsing, Am thought, was reminiscent of a tourist’s looking upon quaint aboriginal artifacts. She marveled at the different kinds of boards, the long and the short of them, the body boards, boogie boards, and knee boards. Fingering through the multitude of waxes, wet suits, sunblock, beachwear, decals, and bumper stickers, Sharon almost looked as if she were tempted to go native. When in Rome…
“Ready to take up the sport?” asked Am.
“Right after bullfighting,” she said.
“Not forty miles from here we could catch a bullfight,” said Am. “There are two bull rings in Tijuana.”
She shook her head emphatically. “I get squeamish enough watching football.”
“Maybe the matador would present you with the ears.”
“If he did, I’d probably present him with my dinner.”
Her announcing “dinner” put an immediacy to their hunger. In their short drive, they had probably passed a hundred restaurants, every one of which now seemed to be calling. But this was a night, Am thought, for fine dining. Sharon would want finger bowls and menus where English was the second language.
“We better get our name on a wait list,” he said.
She surprised him: “Why don’t we hold the tablecloth, and the anchovies?”
They ate pizza on the boardwalk, not goat’s cheese with hearts of palm and sun-dried tomatoes, but pepperoni and mushroom with a runny red sauce. Straddling the beach wall, they alternated between watching the tide and watching the tide of humanity. As if to sum up their viewing, Am said, “Freud said the ocean is feminine, and also said a lot of people are nuts.”
“Is that an exact quote?”
“Close enough.”
She questioned him about where he got off talking about Freud, and waxing poetic, and sometimes sounding pedantic, and Am told her about his philosophical meanderings and how for years he had faithfully scanned the Help Wanteds in the hopes of finding some firm advertising for a philosopher, “a pursuit,” he said, “that has proved as fruitless as Diogenes going out with his lantern and searching for an honest man.”
“Why hotels?” she asked.
“Why not? A fantasy industry in a fantasy city.”
“And what makes this a fantasy city?”
“It should be more desert than not, and maybe because of that, it’s difficult to tell what is mirage and what isn’t. This is a city where old is measured not in centuries, but in decades, where Yuletide is celebrated by sailors in Hawaiian shirts cruising San Diego Bay in boats draped with Christmas lights, where the change of seasons is measured not by falling leaves or dropping snow, but by the number of convertibles with their tops down.
“San Diego would be a difficult city to invent if it didn’t already exist. Some great fantasists have known that. Ted Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, lived out most of his life in La Jolla, and L. Frank Baum wrote one of his Oz books in Coronado.”
Am opened his arms to all that was around them. “Behold,” he said. “Emerald City.”
“And that makes you what, the Wizard?”
“Sometimes. Guests come to the Hotel for a respite from the real world. Any great hotel fosters an environment of fantasy, has a staff of magicians, each and every one versed in maintaining illusions. Showmanship is important, and so is sleight of hand. No one wants to see a juggler sweating, or an illusionist positioning mirrors. The guests pay for their fantasies, and they make the staff pay dearly if they don’t get them.”
“And where does the Hotel California come into your fable?”
“Camelot, you mean. It is the constant among the transience, the castle among the sea foam. The Grande Dame is a personality, a presence, a pronoun, even. The Hotel. Everyone needs their magic places.”
“And do you really think the Hotel a magic place? Or is that just good PR?”
“Ask the pilgrims. They’ll tell you.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard the traveling wealthy referred to as ‘pilgrims.’ “
“Shrines must be kept up. And the wealthy aren’t the only wayfarers. Sometimes the poor, or the middle class, decide to be king for a day. I think the Hotel is more special to them than it is to the rich. When their cameras come out it doesn’t take much imagination to see them years from now thumbing through their photo albums and remembering little details of their stay, and the people that they were, and their memories. The Hotel seems to take on a cosmic significance to many, almost like a trip to Mecca. When staff becomes cynical, I try to remind them that they could be providing the brightest day in a fellow human being’s existence.”
Am paused for breath but not to consider, not to think of something cute or to be clever, but just to find the words for what was inside of him. In the background the noise from the roller coaster was building, along with the speed of its cars. There were a few screams from the occupants.
“I’ve watched the magic at work, couples teetering on divorce reclaiming the very room where they began their married journey, and finding their roots again,” said Am. “I have seen the bitter and the sweet, a man who traveled with his wife’s ashes three thousand miles, a husband who still remembered. He decided what was left of his wife belonged in the Pacific, off the shore of the Hotel, because their fondest memories were of that spot. He checked in with an urn, and when he registered, it was as mister and missus. For a few days, he told me, she was almost there.”
As the speed of the Giant Dipper built, so did Am’s words. “I have witnessed the world coming to the Hotel, family reunions from around the globe. I have helped with special events, conferences on the environment, and international treaties, and have seen the world shrink, and become a better place, in front of my eyes.
“For over a century the movers and shakers have come to the Hotel. I know a maid who put a pea under a princess’s mattress, just to see if she’d really feel it. I have shaken hands with the father of the atomic bomb and said, ‘There—there goes someone who literally shook the world.’ And on that same day I helped the doctor who found a cure for polio, and
I thought, This is alpha, and this is omega. This is death, and this is life. That is the Hotel.”
There was the grand finale of both machine and speech, the last rush of metal on wooden slats, of larynxes being stretched: “I remember helping the first woman astronaut up to her room, and I couldn’t help but reflect that she who went to the stars, also went to our third floor. And somehow through that vicarious experience, I have been there to those stars.”
Slow, and slower: “There are times when I curse the Hotel, when I hate her, when I wish she had not become such an encompassing part of my life. But I have never doubted that the Hotel is a special place. It is where I belong.”
Am was suddenly embarrassed. He could never remember having rambled on like this before. In the madness of a workday it is often difficult to acknowledge special moments. His talk had been personal, introspective, not the usual kind of black humor uttered on the job. Being honest made him feel vulnerable. He looked for an easy joke, or a pat statement, but found himself short of any, so he looked at Sharon instead.
She was trying to hide her tears, but not doing a very good job. Surprised, Am wasn’t sure what he should say or do. In the movies, men were always pulling clean handkerchiefs out of their pockets, but Am only had a Swiss Army knife in his pocket, and she didn’t need a bottle opener, but a closer.
Still, he attempted chivalry. He carefully wiped some crusted pizza sauce off his napkin and handed it to her. Sharon rather fiercely attacked her eyes.
“They’re not really tears,” she said. “Just California mist.”
XLVII
They had drinks at Jose Murphy's, a Pacific Beach club as schizophrenic as its name, and between listening to a band and watching other people dance, they talked. Sharon asked more questions than he did, and Am wondered if she was that curious or whether it was a defense mechanism. She inquired of the loves in his life, and Am explained how he hadn't really dated for six months, but that the time alone had been good for him. Until the breakups, he had been preoccupied.
