by Alan Russell
It wasn’t genius that helped Am to solve the crime. It was the woman’s legs. They were extremely attractive and made him pause on a stairwell to admire them. When she also paused, ostensibly to tie her tennis shoe, Am was being more observant than usual. And that’s when he noticed her surreptitiously pull out a television remote control from her purse. He watched her aim and shoot.
All of the Hotel’s television sets are the same; all operate by remote control. The woman had been scouting out rooms where she could use her censor’s touch. Her easiest targets had been first-floor rooms with their patio doors open.
Am explained the woman was mad at her husband. She said that even though they were on vacation, they might as well have been at home. Apparently, he didn’t want to do anything except watch TV. She had stormed out of their room after they had argued, had unwittingly departed with a remote control in hand. She hadn’t set out with the intention of being a vandal of the airwaves, but while walking around the courtyard trying to gain her composure, she had been interrupted by a blaring television. Before the woman knew what she was doing, she had taken aim and knocked the offensive set off the airwaves. That was the beginning of her mission, her vendetta. She was only sorry that her room was on the fifth floor, too high up to zap their television out of commission.
The woman had given up her remote control without a fight. It wouldn’t have ended that way on the TV, she had told Am.
With the Bob Johnsons finally receptive, and his speaking pump primed, Am remembered a few other victories over crimes, talked about the capture of the haughty man with the epicurean stomach who had falsely signed in their restaurants at least a dozen times before being caught. He liked good food but didn’t have the means to pay for it. When apprehended, the man was anything but repentant. While being led off, he had opined to Am that they should get some new menus in the Marina Restaurant.
“They’re getting to be the scratch and sniff variety,” he had announced disdainfully.
Everyone laughed, except maybe Bull. Am felt good. Now he had them. Maybe he could tell them about—
Jimmy Mazzelli ran into the room. How many times had Am told him not to run? Hotels were an illusion, and illusionists weren’t supposed to rush or sweat. Through sleight of hand, with a flourish, hotel workers were expected to conjure up visions of beauty. No one cared how the tricks were done, no one wanted to know that to make ice displays and floral arrangements, or to feed five hundred people and bring water and then wine (or, better yet, change water into wine), there were hundreds of invisible staff working, some circulating as anonymously as possible, others toiling feverishly behind the scenes. But here was Jimmy, being anything but invisible, bounding right up onto the stage where Am was speaking and wildly motioning him away from the microphone. Reluctantly he stepped back.
Jimmy spoke for Am’s ear only. He didn’t count on Herman’s acoustical wizardry. His excited whisper was converted into a reverberating screech: “Am, Cotton just found two fucking corpses in one of the rooms.”
It would have been difficult distinguishing who looked more shocked: Jimmy, listening to the echo of his profane words, or Am, who didn’t want to believe the messenger.
Unwillingly: “Two?”
Jimmy had learned his lesson. He nodded mutely.
“Hokey,” announced Bull Johnson, loudly enough for the rest of his brethren to hear. “I was up in Frisco for one of these murder mystery weekends, and they started their program in just the same way.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
In every life there has to be a worst day. Am was hoping this was his. What had Nietzsche said? “What doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger.” But then Nietzsche had never worked in the hotel business.
Two guests had been murdered in his Hotel. Detective McHugh had displayed a facsimile of the suspected murder weapon to the press, and had identified the knife as Hotel California cutlery. Because the assailant hadn’t brought the knife in from the outside, the press later announced that the deaths were the result of an interrupted robbery. The burglar had entered the room while the couple was in bed, and the speculation was that he hadn’t known they were in the room. There was a struggle with the male victim, a prominent Bay Area attorney, and afterward, no doubt in a panic, the knife wielder had stabbed the Jane Doe to silence her screams. It had originally been assumed that the woman was the lawyer’s wife, a theory based on the one-carat-plus diamond on her ring finger, but later it was learned that the lawyer, a man identified as David Stern, was unmarried. Because it was believed the woman’s wallet had been removed from her purse, her identity was still in question.
In an effort to keep Hotel guests from panicking, it was reported that the criminal had fled the scene the day before. Am wished he had done the same. There wasn’t anyone else who could speak for the Hotel. No one was stupid enough. Kendrick and the owners could not be reached in their inviolable retreat, and Am knew it wouldn’t be proper for the Hotel to respond to double murders with a “No comment.” Melvin Carrelis, the Hotel’s legal counsel, had cautioned Am to speak in generalities and appear very sympathetic. He was advised to refer as much as he could to the police, decry the basic sickness of society, and try to avoid referring specifically to what had occurred at the Hotel. The plan was for Am to read a short statement, answer a few questions, and then encourage the reporters to let the police conduct their investigation without interference. Two words into his statement, Am was deluged with questions.
There is a taint of scandal associated with even the poshest of hotels. The business of selling rooms isn’t perceived to be quite as respectable as selling insurance, or groceries, or bonds, or flowers. Beyond all the sanitized-for-your-protection sealants, hotels are among the most human of all environments. They are ports of call, destinations, and offer an allure more salacious than salubrious. One manager had once confessed to Am that he could never quite shake the feeling that he wasn’t working so much for a hotel as for a bawdy house.
The reporters’ thoughts ran along those lines. They voiced their speculations in baying voices. Could the woman have been a prostitute? Were drugs a problem at the Hotel? Did criminal elements frequent the place? Am tried to hide behind the flag of the Hotel being on the National Register of Historic Places, but the media weren’t visibly impressed. Their attitudes seemed to suggest that this was a hotel, and despite the purported vintage of the inn, it was just another outlet of a business that smacked of sex, and licentiousness, and a general laxness of morals. Scant hours had separated a suicide from a double murder. The reporters wanted to know what other terrible things were going on at the Hotel.
Even after Am finally freed himself from the reportorial questions, there was still the deluge of staff and guest inquiries. Extra personnel were assigned to cover the phones, and Am had Brown’s Guards send as many uniforms as possible to present an image of ample security. Additional staff was also called in, with the end result of much trumpeting but little in the way of cavalry. A special room had been set up to try to handle the crisis, a place only for Hotel staff. It wasn’t so much the setting for strategy sessions as a fire auxiliary.
Public Relations Director Ben Cooper had been putting the Hotel in the society and travel pages for years, but when asked by Am to try to keep the Hotel out of the spotlight, or at least to soften the lighting, Ben announced that the only thing worse than bad publicity was no publicity at all. Am’s double take went unnoticed.
“The biggest knock from the locals is that we’re so old,” he said, “so staid. San Diegans think that nothing exciting ever happens here. This might wake them up.”
Ben rubbed his aquiline nose thoughtfully and looked rather pleased with himself. There had to be a correlation between permanent brain damage, Am thought, and too many public relations releases. He could just imagine the tone of Ben’s proposed piece: “The Hotel California, voted one of the hundred best hostelries in the world by the Travel Writers Association, located on the famed Riviera of th
e west, the La Jolla Strand, and situated in San Diego County, which American meteorologists have labeled as the only ‘perfect climate in the country,’ was host to an exciting double murder yesterday.”
“I’d like to clear whatever you send out, Ben.”
“Certainly, Am. No such thing as bad publicity, you know.”
What about a hepatitis outbreak in one of the restaurants? Or a convention of child abusers? But Am let the rebuttals die in his throat. Ben had probably been repeating his catechism for forty years. It wasn’t the time to tell him about the emperor’s clothes.
Phones kept ringing, and staff kept yelling questions at Am, most of them unnecessary. Few people were willing to make decisions themselves. Sharon was Am’s biggest help, willing to use her own judgment. When she called out to him, he knew to listen.
“I think we ought to look into this one,” she said, hanging up the phone. “It’s the Bob Johnsons.”
Huns. Mongols. Vandals. Congress. Words that invoke fear. Bob Johnsons now had that same hold on Am.
“They’ve organized into what they call posses. They’re going around the Hotel trying to solve the murders.”
Instead of wearing silver stars, they had on their My Name Is Bob Johnson name tags. Am would have prayed to St. Julian, or even Procrustes, but he had the feeling neither was listening.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Most actors think there’s little to the travails of the postal credo. They believe that delivering mail through rain, and snow, and dark of night pales when compared to delivering lines through the same. And mad dogs seem of little consequence when stacked up against chronic coughers, sadistic audiences, incompetent staging, and abysmal direction. When not on stage, journeyman actors sound much like battle-hardened marines. They’ve seen and lived through it all and stand proudly as living examples of perseverance. To a seasoned actor, giving up on a performance is unthinkable. But eight veteran actors, four women and four men, did just that.
From the first, their show had not gone well. The bellman had made his surprise announcement, and then the security director had excused himself hurriedly. The staging had called for the production to begin right after the hotel dick’s exit. The unexpected circumstances of his departure had left everyone in the audience buzzing. Nonetheless, the company had proceeded as planned. One of the actors, guised as a banquet waiter, had spilled a glass of wine onto another actor. A loud argument ensued. The script then called for other actors to intervene, with the intended result of general chaos. There was chaos aplenty, but it turned out that little was of their own invention. The actors called out their lines, pounded their chests dramatically, and waved their hands, but the Bob Johnsons ignored them. The attention of the audience was already taken by news of the actual murders. The Bob Johnsons found that topic infinitely more interesting than their acting.
For a while, the murder mayhem production continued, the actors performing mostly for themselves. There were a few occasions when the audience actually seemed to be showing a glimmer of attention, but those moments were always dashed whenever a self-appointed Bob Johnson news courier would race into the room and breathlessly yell out the latest information about the murders. Thespians who had out-roared planes and trains and thunder lost their voices, and their audience, to the murder updates. There was a Frank Capra feeling to the setting: the waiting crowd, the exciting news, the popular responses. Desperately the actors tried to continue. The show, by God, had to go on. That’s what they had been taught. Those were the words to their religion. But at last they realized they were upstaged and gave up.
The Bob Johnsons started speculating aloud on what could have occurred. Tablecloths were pulled from tables and tacked up on the walls. Markers and pens were produced; table linen quickly became ink-ridden (the banquet manager walked in, saw what was going on, and ran out screaming hysterically—only the actors noticed). Information was collected and shared, and suppositions followed: it was a drug deal gone bad; the mob had done a hit; the deaths were from a love triangle. The amount of conspiracy theories began to rival the JFK assassination. Instant experts appeared, their main qualification a loud voice. There was a carnival atmosphere to the room, with Bob Johnsons circulating around and listening to the best pitchmen.
Bull Johnson quickly drew the biggest crowd, the result of his voice and his tactics. When information about the murders dried up, Bull primed the pump for more details, generously tipping hotel staff for any and all news. Jimmy Mazzelli became a favorite of Bull’s. The bellman ran a table and an extension phone into the room and provided diagrams and layouts of the Hotel.
The actors, huddling together in a corner, watched the goings-on with attempted cool contempt. Every so often there were giveaways to their studied postures, quick head movements, a nervous shaking of their legs. The phenomenon going on around them was something they had never witnessed before, something almost combustible. There was a frenzy, a sensibility that was mob-like. Pandemonium occurred when a new rumor started circulating and took hold of the room. Suddenly everyone was talking loud and mean: other murders had been discovered in the Hotel. There was a serial murderer loose. He was in hiding. The mood of the Bob Johnsons turned ugly, changed to that of a lynch mob.
“I think some western justice is in order,” Bull Johnson shouted.
The crowd agreed.
“Isn’t this exciting?” asked Bobbi Johnson, holding on tightly to Carlton’s arm as if he were her protector. Carlton didn’t demur. He found Bobbi’s holding on to him exciting.
“I’m a member of the police reserve in Barstow,” said Bull. “Seems to me it’s time I invest in all of you the power of a posse comitatus.
“Latin,” he said a little less loudly. “Means something about being a force of the county. Now why don’t everyone raise their right hand and swear after me.”
There was a rustling in the crowd and a raising of hands. Bobbi Johnson reluctantly disentangled herself from Carlton and raised her arm. Carlton did the same.
Bull cast his red eye around the room, saw that every Bob Johnson hand was up, then said: “I, Bob Johnson . . . ”
The echo followed.
“ . . . vow that I will do my best to find this murderer . . . ”
Out of synch, but gamely, the voices repeated the words.
“ . . . and see that justice is wrought.”
Bull’s sentiments concluded by all, he shouted, “Let’s form into posses and get that son of a bitch!”
Chapter Thirty
Being told that there were vigilante Bob Johnsons roving around the Hotel was a frightening thought for Am. He kept imagining wannabe Dirty Harrys moving around in packs, looking for a murderer.
“Now, who was it,” Am asked Sharon, “who told you about the Bob Johnsons?”
They were hurrying forward in a southwesterly direction. Am hoped that most of the Bob Johnsons were still in the proximity of the Spindrift Room and could be contained, isolated the way you would a cancerous growth.
“A man identified himself as someone the bellman. I think he said Maury.”
“Cory?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
Am groaned. Cory Corrigan wasn’t exactly known for his accuracy. His nickname was “Wrong Way.” He’d been a bellman at the Hotel for about twenty years, and it was a foregone conclusion he’d get lost at least once during his shift while helping a guest to his room. Cory was the Hotel’s version of the United Way, a charity case, but there was a sweetness to him you rarely found in the human species. Cory wasn’t slow; he was scattered. He’d ask the guests where they’d come from or what had brought them to La Jolla, and he’d be so engrossed in their conversations that he’d forget what room they were going to or exactly where they were.
“What’d he say?” asked Am.
Sharon wrinkled her brow and tried to remember his exact words. “He was excited. He said he was outside the Spindrift Room when the Bob Johnsons came out. They were talking about posses and ju
stice, and they were brandishing forks, knives, and spoons.”
Am groaned again. It wasn’t as if they were storming the Bastille. He motioned for Sharon to continue with her story.
“Then Cory told me he’d followed the largest of the posses, and that they’d ended up at some room.”
“What room?”
“It didn’t make sense. I thought he said the T. P. Room.”
Am nodded and redoubled their pace. He didn’t bother to explain that the T. P. Room was the informal name for the Hotel’s paper storeroom. Every hotel staff seems to think it is their duty to apply alternate names to everything on the grounds, to essentially create a second language. To help alleviate confusion, the keys were often labeled two ways, on one side the proper name and on the other the Hotel vernacular. This was done to maintain the sanity of new employees. In the presence of guests a supervisor might dispatch a new busboy to the “restaurant supply room,” a location seemingly unknown to the busboy, but when handed a key the busboy would find two names, one at least familiar to him: the Roach Motel. Housekeeping storage was called the Doghouse, with spare mattresses found in the Corral. The gardeners usually ate, and hung out, in the Taco Shop. In some instances the Hotel nomenclature didn’t seem to make sense, but if anyone dug deeply enough, the roots to the naming emerged. Am had never been able to figure out why the utility room was called the Smoke Shop, until resident guest Wallace Talbot told him that in the eighties half a dozen employees had been busted for smoking marijuana there.
