by Alan Russell
“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 photos 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.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
They had drinks at Jose Murphy’s, a Pacific Beach club as mixed-up 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.
Breakups?
Almost apologetically, he explained he had been dating two women at the same time. “It wasn’t planned,” he said. “It just sort of happened. One was eight years older than I am, and the other ten years younger. The older one liked staying at home, and playing Scrabble, and going for quiet walks, while the younger preferred night life, and dancing, and a faster lane.”
“So what happened?”
“I went bald,” said Am.
Sharon pointedly scrutinized his full head of wavy hair, then questioned him with a look.
“Not literally, just mentally. I relived the Aesop’s fable of the red-haired man with two mistresses, the one older and the other younger. When he was with the older one she plucked out his red hairs, while the younger one pulled out his gray hairs. They plucked and plucked until he went bald.”
“A hair-raising story,” she said. “It must have been terrible having two women fawn over you. What’s next? Triplets? And since they’d all be the same age, you wouldn’t have to worry about going bald.”
“I’m not looking for triplets,” Am said, “and it wasn’t a case of losing hairs. I just didn’t lose my head to either one of them.”
His eyes demanded hers, and his message was this: You, I could lose my head to you. And she didn’t immediately look away.
They drove back to the Hotel, Am playing tour guide along the way, describing the names of various beaches and the lore associated with them. They parked Annette near Children’s Cove and stopped to look for sea lions on Seal Rock. The moon was full, and there was a hint of coastal sage in the air. Everywhere there seemed to be something Am wanted to show her: the caves around La Jolla Cove where opium smugglers used to store their wares; the remains of Alligator Head, a rock landmark whose jaws had been taken years back by a storm.
They watched the activity at La Jolla Cove, three scuba divers going out for a night dive, and marked their progress by their luminescent green lights. Unsaid, but between them, was the feeling that they too were venturing forward into new depths. They slowly retraced their way along the path, detouring for a time with their shoes off to amble in the grass of Scripps Park, before finally returning to their footwear and the trail. The strong sound of the surf reminded Am of yet another landmark. “Boomer Beach,” he said. “When the surf is up, it really booms.”
The pounding of the ocean stopped them. They stood close to one another, could feel the impact of the torrents of water. It wasn’t a scene out of From Here to Eternity, but they found themselves holding each other, and kissing, and coming up for breath.
Sharon finally broke away. “Am—orous,” she said. “That must be the secret of your nickname.”
“No,” he said.
“Am I getting close?”
“It depends.” His lips moved near hers, but she wasn’t about to be put off—that, or she thought their kissing had gone far enough.
“Give me a hint.”
Her single-mindedness was both beguiling and frustrating. “I earned it on the job.”
“That’s not much of a hint.”
They started walking again. Sharon worked at wangling more information, but Am was closemouthed. When they got back to the car neither was quite satisfied with the other. In silence they drove back to the Hotel. Am found a spot next to her car, but good nights didn’t immediately follow. By mutual signal they reached for the other and began to kiss once again. Their breathing became short, their flesh warm and sensitive. Again Sharon broke their contact.
“No more, Am—ore,” she said, a guess and a plea in her statement.
“I have protection,” he said.
“As we know only too well, condoms break.” Then she kissed him on the cheek, patted Annette’s upholstery good night, and stepped out of the car. “I had a wonderful time,” she said.
“The night’s still young,” he said, but she laughed. H
e waited until she drove off, and still he sat. He needed to cool down, but even more than that, there were lots of things to think about. Oddly, her statement kept playing in his mind. Condoms break. That was obvious, wasn’t it? But it was something he hadn’t thought of. Tim Kelly, the guest who had checked out the hard way, returned to his thoughts. Am decided a talk with the night auditor, and night security, was in order. He wanted to see if a theory of his held water. The notion was a little crazy, but it was something he felt compelled to check into.
It was another two hours before he got home. Am’s curiosity might not have killed him, but he was damn tired. As he turned onto Coast Boulevard, the signal lights from the train tracks started flashing, and the barriers moved into place. Freight train, he thought. Too late for the passenger trains. Fighting off sleep, he waited until the train passed by. His hobo spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak. Someday, he thought, yawning, I’ll hop aboard. I’ll travel north, with stops in Oceanside, and San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, and sometimes Irvine . . .
He parked Annette in her garage.
. . . and Santa Ana, and Anaheim, and Fullerton, and Los Angeles . . .
Almost sleepwalking, he found his way to his bed.
. . . and with continuing service on to Glendale, Van Nuys, Chatsworth, Simi Valley, Oxnard, Ventura, and, and . . .
The train stops worked better than sheep. He fell asleep before running out of them.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Whatever happened to those IBM signs, thought Am, the ones that used to say THINK?
In the sixties, there had probably been millions of those placards on walls. It hadn’t taken very long for the variations to follow, THIMK being one of the most popular. Now there weren’t even any THIMK signs to be seen. Either the country hadn’t been into thinking for a few decades (and not just limited to the Trump era), or thought processes didn’t need to be exhorted by signs.
It was early in the morning to have to think so hard, but Am still tried. The results, he feared, were closer to thimk. He decided the best way to try to get one particular answer was to place some personal ads online. He worked on the wording, then posted the ad on a few appropriate websites.
There was only one incident report from the night before, and it involved neither Carlton Smoltz nor the Bob Johnsons. There had been several noise complaints stemming from a celebratory party thrown by Ducky Duckworth. The Padres had signed Duckworth, the possessor of one of the best arms in baseball, to a thirty-million-dollar pact. He and his friends had celebrated away over ten thousand of those dollars between the hours of 9 P.M. and 2 A.M. Security had been dispatched several times to quiet them down. The merrymaking hadn’t been confined only to Duckworth’s room. A dozen of the revelers had ended up swimming naked in the north pool. Am decided two notes were in order, one to the food and beverage director and the other to housekeeping. By running up so much alcohol to the room, the restaurant had fueled the party. What was good for F&B was not always necessarily good for the Hotel, and this was one instance where service should have been slow or even nonexistent. His note to housekeeping included a copy of security’s report and a request for them to look over Duckworth’s room before he checked out. Am was afraid that the party might have resulted in the kind of interior decoration the Hotel didn’t want. If the room was trashed, he wanted Duckworth to pay for the damages. From experience he knew it was always easier to collect payment before a guest checked out. Afterward they were likely to blame any damages on anything from an earthquake to the maid.
The notes written and dispatched, Am decided some coffee and maybe a Danish would taste good. He wandered over to the staff cafeteria but found Marcel Charvet standing between him and his coffee. It was a dear price to pay for his caffeine habit.
“Ham, Ham!” he said, slapping Am enthusiastically on his shoulder. “The myzteree is zolved!”
“Misery?”
“Myztery. Come with me.”
Am reluctantly followed Marcel to his office. When the chef picked up a bag, Am was afraid he was going to get a noseful of opossum, but instead Marcel dramatically revealed a bag full of walnut-size balls.
“Ze truffles,” Marcel said triumphantly.
The missing truffles. The ones Am had said he would be on the lookout for. He picked up one of the unprepossessing fungi. It didn’t seem the thing of culinary orgasms. Am sniffed at it but failed to discern anything more than a slightly musty odor.
“Good, no?” asked Marcel.
Agreeing was easiest. He nodded.
“Would you like to meet ze detective?”
Competition. “Sure.”
“Voilà.”
Am had thought the tablecloth was covering a food delivery. In a way it was. A pig was in a cage, but Marcel didn’t make introductions.
“Zis peeg keep pushing at his box,” said Marcel. “He sneef like he smell a sow in heat. So I wonder what smell so good to him. And behind ze door, under a towel in ze corner, I find ze truffles.”
“What’s the pig doing here, Marcel?”
“Ze luau tomorrow night.”
Oh, no, another ersatz Hawaiian dinner. Any other chef in town would have ordered an already butchered pig. Knowing he shouldn’t ask the question, Am still did: “Why a live pig?”
Marcel started explaining, throwing in a lot of his spittle to boot. He told Am things about sweetbreads and other culinary concoctions that sounded like endorsements to vegetarianism. The chef had plans for everything from the blood to the offal.
“And ze, how you zay it, curl-le-Q tail, zay are delezious fried . . . ”
So much for the other Hotel detective. “Got to go, Marcel,” said Am. “Lots of work.”
“Ham,” he said, “Ham! One more thing.”
The pig wasn’t the only one destined for the spit. Marcel moved in close for the kill.
“Ze Weintraubs,” he said, liberally spraying on Am, “came in for dinner last night.”
Oh, no, thought Am.
“Zay both wanted ze veal marsala. Zay said zay wanted them just like zay had had ze night before, not like at dinner, but like ze one delivered to their room.”
It had been a busy morning for Augustin Ramirez. Sundays were always popular for room service, with guests lounging in their beds and reading their thick newspapers. But this morning hadn’t been like most Sundays. Maybe it was a full moon. The guests he had served had acted very strange. Most of them had answered their doors as if deathly afraid, and their acting scared had made him feel the same. Some had even asked to see his identification. And all the strange people had the same name: Bob Johnson.
He felt his pocket. It didn’t have the usual full feeling. The tips so far had been disappointing, and Sunday morning was usually one of his best days. The policia hadn’t helped. All three rooms had ordered enormous breakfasts, but none had tipped worth a damn. And this after their rooms were free, and their meals were being direct-billed to the city of San Diego. But Augustin knew that over the course of a shift the good usually evened out with the bad. Though he’d endured the stinkers so far, you never knew what the rest of the day would bring.
What was this? He checked a ticket waiting for him in the kitchen. Ah, this was more like it. Room 322 had ordered a champagne breakfast, and not just any champagne. Dom Pérignon.
Augustin knocked on the door, always three knocks, no more, no less. The door opened. Some of the room service waiters liked to wheel their carts inside, but Augustin thought it was classier to carry in a tray or two, to show his straight back and firm arm.
He started inside, paused to bow, and in that moment almost dropped the tray. In his forty years as a room service waiter, he had never dropped a tray. But in front of him was . . .
It was only his lifetime on the job, years of rote service, which allowed Augustin to get through the next few minutes. He stammered and stumbled; he mixed up silverware; and it took him three attempts to uncork the champagne. His hands were trembling, and he spille
d the precious bubbly. But Augustin was lucky. The man didn’t pay any attention to him, and neither did the woman, so focused were they on each other.
The champagne poured, the table laid out, Augustin readied to leave. There was the matter of collecting the money, or having the check signed, but the room service waiter was too scared to approach the man. He wanted only to get out of the room.
“Hey!”
The word stopped Augustin. He was found out.
“Didn’t think I’d forget you, did you?”
Augustin didn’t look in his eyes. He couldn’t. He started with his silent prayers, and that’s when the man slipped some money into his front pocket. “Keep the change,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Augustin. He walked outside and almost collapsed. He had to find Am. There was no time to delay!
But for all the urgency, the room service waiter still stopped to peek at the money that had been thrust upon him.
The man might be a murderer, thought Augustin, but he sure knew how to tip.
It had been a magic evening for Carlton and Bobbi. They had taken a cruise around San Diego Bay, had dined in a downtown restaurant that overlooked the beckoning lights of the city, then had found a nightclub where they listened to some jazz and ended up swaying away on the dance floor.
Arriving back at the Hotel very late, they had kissed and held all the way to her room (one of the police sentries was in the restroom when they passed, and another didn’t look very closely; he was looking for a single man, not a couple). At her door, Bobbi had invited Carlton in.
And there, the magic of their evening never really stopped.
Augustin’s news was difficult to believe. He was surely mistaken. But after learning that room 322 was registered to a Bobbi Lee Johnson, Am had dashed out of his office. Now, almost at the room, he was second-guessing himself. He didn’t even have the stun gun. And wouldn’t it make sense to retrieve McHugh from room 208 and have him accompany Am to 322? But he couldn’t bring himself to delay. What if Carlton Smoltz disappeared again? No, he had to proceed alone.
