The Hotel Detective (30 page)

“A little peace, Julian,” prayed Am. “I need a little peace.”

Without it, Am feared, he would forever be sidetracked from hunting down the murderer. With not a little guilt he remembered
that he had sent his partner off without him. Where was she? There were messages piled high on his desk, and he looked to
see if one was from Sharon. The calls had come from reporters, concerned guests, friends, purveyors, and the curious, but
there was nothing from her. Concerned, he called housekeeping and was relieved to hear that Sharon had taken a room checker
along with her. At least she wasn’t searching for a murderer by herself.

He was tempted to sweep all the messages into the trash. It was easy to understand why some guests insisted the desk hold
all their calls. There is a power in putting your life beyond the reach of the world, in deciding when, and if, you are ready
to respond to its knocking. That’s what David Stern had done.

Something nagged at Am. Even presidents and rock stars could be reached through the switchboard, bona fide callers being privy
to a code name or on an approved list. Stern hadn't been a rock star. He should have been reachable, if only to his secretary.
Of course he could have just called into work every day and received his messages that way. But what if there had been an
emergency? Or an important business decision that couldn't wait? Perhaps they had worked it out that anything important was
to be addressed to the attention of room 605.

Am hadn't checked to see if there were any messages for David Stern. He assumed that if there had been any, the police would
have picked them up. Since the lawyer had asked for anonymity, all messages or mail (or deliveries, such as wine and cheese)
should have been held at the desk for him. Am's real dilemma was whether it worth getting out of his seat to pursue yet another
dead end. The front office supervisors were supposed to monitor the messages. Uncle Harry's note for niece Jane in room 223
wasn't supposed to extend beyond Jane's check-out, though too many times it did. Any message to infamous room 605 would have
been noticed. Or would it? When you have over seven hundred rooms, names and numbers tend to blur.

Out at the front desk two clerks were laughing loudly. “Do it,” said Tracy.

“Yes,” Sue said. “I dare you.”

T.K. looked as though he were on a comedic roll, never a good sign.

“Whatever it is,” said Am, turning the corner so that everyone could see him, “I'd advise against it.”

The clerks tried to stop laughing, unsuccessfully, and T.K. decided to explain. “I was just saying we should page over the
intercom, `Bob Johnson, please come to the lobby telephone. Bob Johnson, you have a call.'

Am rolled his eyes, shook his head firmly, and started looking through the messages. As properties have become larger, and
rooms too numerous to be accommodated by individual tubby holes, different message systems have been devised. No one will
be happier than hotel PBX operators when voice mail becomes the rule of guest rooms throughout the land.

As Am suspected, there were no messages for room 605. Before giving up, he decided to look through the hold box, the Hotel's
version of the dead letter office, a repository for messages, faxes, and mail that somehow never reached the guest. For once,
the system worked.

Since Stern was no longer a registered guest (the Hotel had already direct-billed his firm in the hopes of collecting on the
account), some clerk had redirected his fax to the hold box. Am held off reading the pages until he returned to his office.
The cover sheet was from Stern's secretary. She had handwritten, “This man still firmly in the denial stage. Says that you're
his only contact with his wife and he needs to hear from you yesterday. Didn't make any promises, of course. Soak some rays
for me. Liz.”

Then Am slowly read Carlton's letter, words from a man in pain. Carlton Smoltz had implored the lawyer to have his wife call
him. He knew their marriage wasn't the best, but he was willing to work to make it better. Have her contact me, he had written,
anytime.

What would David Stern have advised his client? Am hoped he would have told her to call her husband. This Carlton sounded
sincere. Maybe now that there was no longer a lawyer between them, Carlton and his wife would get back together.

Am dropped the fax into his wastebasket, then thought better of that and retrieved it. He might be Carlton's only chance.
Am would have preferred sending the words directly to Mrs. Smoltz, but he decided the right thing to do was to send them back
to Stern’s firm.

“I know his room number!”

Sharon’s traditional reserve was broken. She was all but dancing in his office. “He’s in two oh eight. I’ll bet you anything.”

She couldn’t stand still, had to walk around as she excitedly described what
wasn’t
in room 208. When she finished, Am had trouble being as enthusiastic.

“Did anyone identify him as the occupant of the room?” he asked.

“Not exactly….”

“And did you make sure he didn’t send his laundry out?” Unsaid: If Wrong Way fouled up on one delivery, what’s to say he didn’t
another?

Her face fell. “I didn’t think of that.”

Am picked up the phone, punched in an extension. “I’d like you to check if any laundry went out for room two oh eight. The
name’s Bob Johnson. Bob…”

He looked to Sharon for a middle name. “Carlton,” she said.

“Carlton?”

She nodded, albeit with some surprise. The sharpness of his response hadn’t seemed necessary.

“Bob Carlton Johnson,” Am announced, both to the phone and to himself. A few seconds later he said, “Thanks,” but the quizzical
expression remained on his face.

Sharon couldn’t restrain herself. “Well?”

“Oh,” said Am, remembering the purpose of the call. “He didn’t send out any laundry or dry cleaning.”

She sighed in relief, then looked afraid once more. “Maybe he’s already skipped. There’s hardly anything in the room.”

Am wasn’t listening. He was thinking about the name Carlton. It was a coincidence. It had to be. The faxed letter he had read
hadn’t contained any threats or recriminations. There wasn’t a tone of “reconcile, or else.” And yet…

He motioned Sharon to sit and passed her the fax. She read it, put it down, then picked it up and looked at it a second time.
She was about to respond when Jimmy Mazzelli marched in.

“Trouble, Am.”

The bellman threw himself on the chair next to Sharon, gave her a casual nod, and slouched.

“What now?” asked Am. His echo: This better be important.

“Bob Johnsons.”

Am covered his face but resisted the impulse to cover his ears.

“They got wind of the rumor, Am. Responded pretty vigorously to it.”

“What rumor?”

“That one of the Bob Johnsons is the murderer. The talk is, you guys even got a sketch of him.”

Jimmy straightened a little and looked around. He hadn’t forgotten about the incentive money offered for getting one of those
sketches. Though the time limit had expired, he was still confident he could get some green out of Mr. Johnson. Unfortunately
there didn’t appear to be a copy sitting around.

Am was afraid to ask, but he did: “What happened?”

“From what I hear, the Neptune Room got closed off to the world, and the interrogations got pretty nasty. Everybody started
pointing the finger at everybody else. Some fights broke out, and there were all sorts of accusations. Some confessions, too.
Everyone had to provide identification. Turned out there were some ringers, guys with names like Henry Robert Johnson and
Daniel Bob Johnson. That’s against their rules. The first name’s got to be either Robert, Bob, or Bobbi.”

The Bob Johnson Society ground rules were of no interest whatsoever to either Sharon or Am. “Get on with it,” she snapped.

Jimmy looked at her with a little surprise, then continued. “There were a couple of real phonies, though. One was an actor.
He was going deep cover. Guess his part wasn’t really supposed to start until the next act. The other actors vouched for him.
But Casper didn’t have it so easy.”

“Roger?” asked Sharon.

“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.

“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.”