by Alan Russell
“You!” he said, shocked. Amazed.
Then, with a little more thought and a little more feeling: “You son of a bitch!”
Kendrick didn’t know his bras were in the wringer. “How dare you—”
“You stole Kris Carr’s bras,” Am said.
Taking a deep breath, attempting a defensive dignity, Kendrick said, “What are you talking about?”
Am shook his head. Who guards the goddamn guards? he thought. He kept the UV light on Kendrick’s hands. A strobe questioning light never worked so well.
“Maybe you can explain away your company spy and your less than ethical tactics. But try justifying your stealing the bras. I’d like to hear you do that.”
Kendrick tried moving his hands, but Am followed them with the light, their dance of hands and light an odd choreographed sequence of spotlighted green beacons. Finally, with not a little desperation, Kendrick hid his hands under his large desk. Given that pose, his protestations of innocence sounded strained. “I have no idea what you are babbling—”
“People don’t change their habits,” said Am. “You worked as a GM for several prestigious hotels prior to coming here. You were in a position of trust. I’m willing to bet those properties also suffered from some strange thefts and that there were some oversize bras reported missing.”
Hands still under the desk, Kendrick asked, “Are you willing to bet your job?”
Am thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “I’m willing to bet my job.”
There wasn’t any bluff in his answer. Even Kendrick knew that. “Perhaps,” he said, “we could work out an arrangement …”
Am laughed bitterly, and Kendrick stopped talking. Neither one of them said anything for a minute, both doing their own assessment of the situation. Am kept the light at the ready, and Kendrick kept his hands under his desk.
“I think it’s unfair,” Kendrick said finally, “that I should lose my career, and my reputa-shun, ov-ah such trivial—allegations.”
It was as close as Kendrick could come to a plea and the first time Am could remember him engaging in something approaching a conversation, something other than giving orders.
“I work hard,” Kendrick said. “You know that. I put in eighty-hour weeks. I know I am a perfectionist. I know I have the reputa-shun of being difficult. But I make money, and I make opera-shuns run more efficiently than they ever have before.”
And you and your kind take the soul out of a place, thought Am. You take away what made it special by bringing in a cookie cutter design and trying to stamp a uniformity that shouldn’t be there. You save a nickel, but you lose a dollar. But you’ll never understand that. You can’t see that this Hotel needs its quirks and traditions. People come back for those.
“Not everyone wants McDonald’s,” said Am. “We have an original here, not a lithograph, and you’ve never treated it as such.”
The only thing the two men had in common was the Hotel, but neither one of them knew it as the same property. Kendrick was leaning forward, straining to understand what Am was saying, but he couldn’t comprehend. To him, the Hotel was like any other. It was a business formula, not a living and breathing thing. It was dollars and cents. And if there was room for anything else, it was oversize bras.
“I want your resignation,” said Am. “Make it effective this evening, and clear out the office tonight. Your resignation letter will announce my appointment as acting general manager, and will recommend me for the permanent GM’s position.”
“That’s blackmail,” said Kendrick.
Am shook his head. “No, it’s not. I deserve the job. I’ve earned it, and you know that. Besides, the owners will decide whether I stay or whether they want to bring in someone else.”
“If I do as you say,” said Kendrick, “do you promise to never men-shun a word of all this?”
“Yes,” said Am, “provided you return the bras you stole, and provided you give me your word that you will never steal from any hotel you work for in the future.”
“I promise,” he said.
“And I, also.”
Kendrick appeared relieved, but not completely; he looked like a man torn between conscience and self-preservation. “I am truhsting in your word as a gentleman,” he said.
“You already have that.”
The GM decided he was protected enough to be honest. He didn’t act superior, but he didn’t look beaten, either. Misery loves company, and he was ready to share. “You will find your victory not so sweet as you think,” he said. “Although I am not at liberty to divulge what went on this weekend, you will soon be hearing from the owners. And I’m not talking about the old owners.”
“What do you…?”
Kendrick held up his hand. “I am not being coy, suh. I have already said more than was legal, or prudent. There are certain contingencies still being discussed, but I figured I owed you that much warning, at least.”
The men regarded one another. There would never be admiration between them, never anything approaching friendliness. There was a bridge to their perspectives that neither had ever spanned, but at that moment they had at least come to some sort of agreement.
“We still un-dah-stand our compact?”
Am nodded. Kendrick could have left without warning him, but he hadn’t. A change of ownership would likely mean Am wouldn’t have a job, as new owners traditionally bring in their own management teams. It was a lot to take in all at once.
“So my reign will likely be short,” said Am.
It was Kendrick’s turn to nod. Am expected to feel bitterness, but he didn’t. There was some sadness, but more than that was the sense of inevitability. Or was that futility?
“I am reminded,” said Am, “of the monarch who asked his counselors to devise a saying that would serve in both prosperity and adversity, and they came up with, ‘This, too, will pass.’ Tomorrow I will be the GM of the Hotel California, but this, too, will pass.”
Kendrick’s head was cocked, like a dog trying to make out an unfamiliar sound. It was clear he couldn’t understand what Am was getting at.
“I majored in philosophy,” offered Am, “not hotel-motel management.”
“Ah,” said Kendrick, sounding sympathetic for once.
It was the right explanation. “How much time?” asked Am, the resigned terminal patient to the doctor.
“The sale should be final in a hundred days.”
Not much time to pursue the Holy Grail, Am thought. “Then I will have to make those days memorable,” he said. “Like Camelot.”
If things hadn’t changed between them, Kendrick would likely have said, “What does running a hotel have to do with a bunch of silly knights?” But he didn’t say anything. The agreement between the two men was not rapprochement. They didn’t come away fathoming each other, didn’t even shake hands as they took leave of one another for the last time, but as Am left the office, he did volunteer a final “Good-bye.”
Looking up and catching his eye, Kendrick said, “Sayonara.”
LI
When he arrived at the Hotel on Monday, Am wasn’t sure what he should do. For most of the morning he sat in his office. He wasn’t hiding out, exactly—the faster-than-light Hotel grapevine had already put out the word that Kendrick had up and quit and Am had taken over, which had resulted in a constant stream of visitors offering their congratulations—but he really wasn’t doing anything. To Am’s mind, the high-point of his morning was when he raised himself out of his chair and turned his cartoon of the exasperated clerk and Cassie’s drawing of Procrustes around again. Momentarily, at least, that made him feel better, but his malaise soon returned. There were things that needed doing, but he didn’t want to do them. He felt deterred by the unpleasant matters yet to be faced up to, realities oppressive enough to keep him immobile. Most visitors saw his chipper face, but Am didn’t offer Sharon that same mask.
“I understand congratulations are in order,” she said.
“Yes.”<
br />
Her demeanor was as tentative as his. “You don’t sound very happy.”
“I suppose I’m preoccupied,” said Am.
“Over what?”
“Figuring out what season this is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t, either,” said Am. “Some people never get used to this climate. They need leaves to change color. They need the snow and cold of winter, and the green promise of spring. Their lives are regulated around those conditions. But I’m used to January being Miss Elsie, who comes out from Minneapolis to escape the cold, and February is the Burkes, who never miss the golf tournament at Torrey Pines. I’m used to August bringing the extended Stephenson family to the beach, and September being Mr. and Mrs. Chu and their racing coterie for the last two weeks of the season. Every month of the year I associate with one guest or another.”
“It sounds like you do know your seasons.”
“Used to,” said Am, but he didn’t elaborate. He opened a box on his desk and took out a Bible.
“Representatives from the Gideons just dropped these off,” said Am, “two old men. They wanted to know if we needed any more complimentary Bibles. Strange how Bibles are the only items in hotel rooms that management actively encourages guests to take, but they’ve never proved nearly as popular an offering as virtually everything else. We only needed one replacement box.”
Am patted the carton and let a little quiet build. “We got to talking, and one of the men asked me if I knew the Bible. I told him that as a hotel manager I was well acquainted with the story of Job. They both thought that was pretty funny.
“I guess they were looking for an opportunity to proselytize. The other one said that in every business there was a ‘time to weep and a time to laugh,’ and then he credited Ecclesiastes. Judging from the last couple of days, that description sounds about right, doesn’t it?”
Sharon wasn’t sure where the conversation was going. She didn’t say anything.
“Ecclesiastes,” he mused, then thumbed through the Bible, found the book, and did a little silent reading. When he finished, he looked meditative.
“How about a book report?” asked Sharon.
“Funny. We were just talking about seasons, and that’s kind of what’s there, a time lesson. It reminds us that there’s a time to be born and a time to die; a time to love and a time to hate.
“But what it doesn’t tell,” said Am, “is what time it is today.”
If Sharon knew, she didn’t tell him.
It was one of those beguiling days in the hotel business, where guests are effusive about what a wonderful stay they’ve had, and the staff can do no wrong, and everyone is smiling, and there is no better business to be employed in, and world peace seems not only possible but likely. There are those days.
Am had talked to the owners, and they had taken his ascension lightly, never hinting that great changes were afoot. Almost, he could revel in his new position, could just feel plain good. But even if Kendrick was wrong, even if he had planted seeds of doubt as his final sour grapes, there were still some matters pulling at Am. His puzzle was still missing a few pieces. He knew they wouldn’t make the picture look any better, but it was time to put them in their place anyway.
In the afternoon he had gone to Kendrick’s former office, had presumed to take over the great man’s den. He was sitting at Kendrick’s oversize desk when the moving men arrived. They had orders to take away the desk and the chairs. When Kendrick’s furniture was removed, Am found himself sitting on the floor in the middle of what was now a cavernous room. The empty office amused him, as did his position. From the floor he made some calls and did some thinking. He didn’t like what he was hearing, but he wasn’t surprised. Am knew that if it was time for anything, it was time for truth.
There was one call he didn’t expect. When you put a message in a bottle and throw it out into the ocean, it’s unlikely you will ever hear back from anyone, but the long shot came in. Everything fell into place, but the fit was still lousy.
Room 711 was unoccupied. Am went up to the room and thought about Tim Kelly. He had been wrong about everything except his initial assertion that Tim Kelly had not committed suicide.
Sharon came up to the room a few minutes later. Am thought he owed her that much. “Hi,” she said.
“Hai,” said Am. “Isn’t that Japanese for yes?”
She nodded slightly and looked to him for further comment, but he didn’t say anything else, just led her out to the balcony. The tiles had been replaced, and the balcony was well scrubbed. There was no plaque to Tim Kelly, nothing to indicate that he had dropped seven stories to his death.
He breathed deeply of the sea air and felt calmer. He didn’t like looking at a death, so he looked at something better, the immutable ocean. Today it had an aquamarine tint, but every day its colors changed, its palette altered by the clouds, sun, tides, and kelp. He looked north, blinked hard as if to remove some motes in his eyes, then looked again and recognized the distant objects. The hang gliders were out in force, plying the late afternoon thermals. Some of the pilots were courting angels, had caught updrafts that made them look small, birdlike. To get to those heights, the pilots had to run and jump off the Torrey Pines cliffs. Am wondered if they made prayers to Daedalus and Icarus. It was a long way down.
“Tim Kelly died a silly death,” he said.
Sharon stopped watching the hang gliders and focused on Am. “The other night you reminded me that condoms break. That got me to thinking. How do they break? And why?
“Maybe I was so hung up on the sexual element, I couldn’t see the obvious. I forgot that condoms could be used for other things.”
“What other things?”
“Water balloons. In my college days that seemed to be their primary use.”
Am took a breath. He felt like one of those hang gliders, felt as though he were leaping off a cliff. “Tim Kelly was up on this balcony after a night of drinking and failed romance, and from here he looked down and saw a young couple making love.
“He decided to interrupt their lovemaking, decided to rain on their romantic parade. Kelly filled his condom with water. He couldn’t just drop his balloon; he had a fairly long throw to reach them, and not the best vessel for the tossing. Kelly needed momentum. He began his run from the sliding glass doors of the balcony. I think he slipped near the railing.”
Am kicked the framework and the tiles. “These doughnuts are more decoration than support,” he said. “Kelly was intoxicated. He didn’t know which end was up. A few of the tiles gave way. I imagine he panicked when his foot broke through. My guess is that he kicked himself up and over.”
Sharon measured the hypothesis and the fall as well. The theory came up short. “That’s still only a guess.”
“No. Remember how we found water pooled in the bathroom the next day? That was the residue of Kelly’s filling his condom. There was also the digs in the wood which marked where he skidded, and the fallen decorative tiles.
“And,” said Am, “there’s the couple who witnessed his fall. He’s seventeen and she’s sixteen. Next to the backseat of a car, there’s no more popular place than the beach for young couples to go and make out. I placed some discreet ads and posted some notices at local schools. And just a short time ago I heard from a very uncertain young man. He told me about being on the beach with his girlfriend, and their being disturbed by some sound, and his looking up to see a man falling to his death. Tim Kelly got his desired coitus interruptus, but not in the way he wanted. He landed not ten yards from the couple. They didn’t dare go to the police because the girl was afraid of what they’d have to say, of what they’d have to testify. Her parents didn’t even know she was out. When they left the beach, they were in a panic.”
“They left behind the confusing second condom,” said Sharon.
“Yes.”
“So what do you do with the information?”
“I tell Mrs. Kelly. Dying from a regret
table accident is a far better thing than thinking her husband killed himself.”
“It could mean a lawsuit,” she said. “Lawyers running around taking depositions, engineers doing decking studies, and the ABC investigating whether too much liquor was served.”
“I guess that’s something the new owners will have to worry about, isn’t it?”
Sharon didn’t move. What time was it? thought Am. Almost, it was a time to hate.
“You graduated from Cornell three years ago, not three months ago. Care to tell me what you’ve been doing since then?”
She didn’t back down. “I imagine you already know.”
“I do,” said Am. “You’ve been working for Yamada Enterprises. Among their many holdings are hotels. You’re one of their top hired guns. I assume you came in here to play Mata Hari, to collect whatever damning evidence you could. Is there some rule that everyone has to have spies these days? Is it de rigueur?”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that. I was just supposed to analyze operations.”
“Do they pay you in silver?”
“Try not to be bitter,” she said. “The acquisition has been in process for some time. Mr. Yamada doesn’t like surprises. He wanted me to look behind the scenes.”
“I guess you gave him a real eyeful, huh?”
She didn’t say anything.
“The murders didn’t scare him off?”
“No,” said Sharon. “They were leverage to get a better price.”
Am laughed bitterly. “So it’s a done deal?”
“Yes. I was going to tell you….”
He didn’t want to hear it. “The Hotel California is owned by the Japanese?”
“Yes.”
It was wrong. You’re not supposed to sell national monuments to foreigners. Other San Diego resorts had been purchased by the Japanese, La Costa Resort and Spa, and the Colonial Inn, and Le Meridien just to name a few, but the Hotel California was different. It was a landmark.
