Holy Rollers

by Rob Byrnes

  But a few minutes later, he realized his plan had a flaw, because when Merribaugh had reported his original keycard—the one Jared now held in his hand—missing, the hotel had issued him a new one…and reset the lock.

  So Jared, ever resourceful, figured out another way to return Merribaugh’s wallet, and began sliding the contents under the door. Then he took the empty wallet to a service closet and dropped it down a laundry chute.

  22

  Jack Hightower looked at the clock behind the registration desk, calculating both the time he’d been at work and the time he had left as well as how big his next paycheck would be. Although by now he would gladly give up his entire paycheck just to get out of his uniform and into bed. Then he had an even more mortifying thought.

  They couldn’t make me work another shift, could they?

  He would quit, he decided. Not even give notice. Just strip off his uniform and walk through the lobby in his underwear, a final defiant good-bye to his employment in the hospitality industry. Let the suits in corporate work double and triple shifts! See how they liked it! That would show ’em! They’d be—

  “I need to get this bag out of the safe.” Jared Parsells stood on the other side of the desk with a claim ticket in his hand.

  “Of course you do,” muttered Hightower, because there was nothing he’d rather do with a line of thirteen people waiting to register than retrieve something from the safe. Still, he did what he had to do, and several minutes later handed over Merribaugh’s suitcase.

  “Thanks,” said Jared, who of course didn’t tip.

  In the lobby, Jared pushed down the handle and slid the suitcase most of the way under a chair, which he then sat upon. Seven million dollars was hidden under his hot little ass and he felt the warm happiness of success.

  He sent Grant a text: done. in lobby now.

  He wondered why, whenever he was on a job, no one seemed to think he could handle himself. Hadn’t he always come through? Other things got bobbled, but never his part. His ran smoothly. So smoothly that he was starting to think he might be worth more than ten thousand dollars.

  Maybe…Twenty? He deserved that much respect. He’d talk to Grant—no, he’d talk to Chase—about that later.

  He saw Grant and Mary Beth approach from a service door, and leaned forward to pull the suitcase from under the chair.

  “Jerry!” Jared looked up at the sound of Merribaugh’s voice. He was approaching quickly. Grant and Mary Beth saw him, too, and veered away. “There you are! I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Who, me?” asked Jared innocently, and with a kick from his heel the suitcase was wedged a few inches deeper under the chair.

  “Yes, you!” Merribaugh fussed with Jared’s collar before setting one hand on his shoulder. It was a gesture that would have been almost paternal, if Papa was a perv. “Come on, now! Dr. Hurley is opening the conference in just a few minutes, and you have to be there.”

  Jared tried to subtly break away from Merribaugh’s fingers. “I have to?”

  “You have to.”

  As Merribaugh tugged him through the lobby, Jared’s eyes found Grant and he shrugged helplessly.

  $ $ $

  Sephora Girl was manning the door as Merribaugh rushed Jared past her and into the ballroom, where two hundred chairs faced the other end of the room. They walked down the center aisle until they reached the front row, and Merribaugh directed Jared to sit in the second seat.

  Merribaugh leaned close to his young charge. “As you can see, it would not have looked good if we were late. Dr. Hurley would have definitely noticed.” His voiced verged on giddiness. “You’re about to become a star, Jerry!”

  Jared craned his neck and looked over the crowd. The room was fairly full and more people were entering. It was going to be difficult to get back to the lobby. He could only hope that Grant had figured out where the suitcase was hidden.

  Then he noticed Merribaugh next to him, beaming.

  So Jared put his head back in the game. “Yeah. A star.”

  $ $ $

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Sephora Girl held up her hands helplessly and tried to hide her increasing frustration with Christ-like calm. “But unless you’re wearing a lanyard, I can’t let you in.”

  “But I’m telling you,” said Grant. “I lost it. Probably in the chapel.” He wondered if the hotel even had a chapel, but didn’t dwell on it. “And I really need to get in there.”

  Her smile was patronizing. “I understand, sir, but the rules are the rules. And by restricting this to registered conference attendees, we’re helping protect you. Otherwise, radical homosexual activists could infiltrate and disrupt what should be a meaningful, life-changing event.”

  “Trust me, lady, at this point I need all the life-changing I can get.” He thought about Jared. “And I’m also as anti-gay as anyone.”

  She threw up her hands as Grant walked away. “Again, I’m sorry. But God bless you!”

  He was going to find a side door—maybe he could pose as a waiter or something—when a much better idea walked in.

  “You,” said Grant, grabbing the freshly re-showered Dan Rowell firmly by the elbow and leading him a few yards away before he could react.

  “Don’t hit me,” said Dan when he registered who’d grabbed him.

  Grant was puzzled. “Why would I hit you?”

  “Because of Jared. I mean, Jerry! And you’re his father, so…”

  It took a moment, but Grant picked up. “Oh, that. Don’t worry about it. But I need you to get a message to him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Merribaugh just dragged him inside, but they won’t let me in without one of them neck things.”

  Dan looked at his own. “You mean a lanyard?”

  “Yeah, that. Anyway, I need you to find him. Tell him I need to talk to him right away. I’ll be in the lobby.”

  Dan nodded, understanding the orders but thoroughly confused, and went off to find Jared.

  $ $ $

  Mary Beth sat in the lobby. She was just eleven feet from seven million dollars, but she had no way of knowing that.

  She did know, though, that the tenor of the lobby had changed over the past few minutes. First, a half dozen men marched through the lobby and up to the clerk at the front desk. He’d given them a sour look and the people waiting in line had started to complain, but the men said something and suddenly everyone seemed very deferential.

  And then the men, one holding a couple of keycards the clerk handed over, walked to the elevators. They were still waiting when Grant returned.

  “What’s with those guys?” she asked

  He took one short glance and ducked his head. “FBI.”

  “You sure?”

  He didn’t bother to take another look. “Oh, yeah.”

  The men moved the other guests aside while they boarded the elevator, and the doors closed. No one complained about the delay; as a matter of fact, they’d seemed sort of impressed. This definitely wasn’t New York City, where ninety-seven-year-old ladies would have fought their way onto that elevator.

  When they were gone, Mary Beth asked, “You don’t think they’re looking for us, do you?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, they let Constance go…”

  She frowned. “Yeah, but maybe that was just a ruse to get the rest of us.”

  He looked at the floor, but unfortunately not eighteen inches far enough or he’d have seen the suitcase. “We’re small potatoes to them. I think.”

  “If you say so.” She sank back in the chair. “I take it you couldn’t get to Jared.”

  “They wouldn’t let me in. But I ran into his boyfriend du jour and asked him to pass on the message.” He sighed. “No telling how well that’s gonna work.”

  $ $ $

  Almost two hundred men and women—most growing giddy with anticipation, some anxious with dread—waited for Dr. Oscar Hurley in the ballroom. He was fifteen minutes late for his keynote address, but he was Dr. Osc
ar Hurley, so the audience forgave a lot.

  “Hey, poster boy,” said a voice behind Jared, which made him smile until he turned in his seat and came face to face with cocky, red-haired Louis Lombardo.

  “Oh. You.”

  And the voice of the man sitting next to Lombardo said, “God forgive me,” as the man behind the voice tried to hide his face with one hand.

  Jared squinted. He knew that face, or at least what he could see through the hand. “Business Center Guy? Is that you?”

  Merribaugh turned at the commotion, and when Business Center Guy saw him he said, “God forgive me,” again, a bit louder, and this time hid his face with both hands.

  “What’s wrong, Max?” Lombardo asked Business Center Guy.

  “You know Business Center Guy?” Jared asked.

  “I…uh…” Louis Lombardo looked away. “No. No, I don’t.”

  Business Center Guy moaned. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!” It came out more loudly than he’d intended, given the low profile he’d been trying to keep, and when he realized that he put his hand on Lombardo’s leg.

  “Yes, you do!” Jared shouted. “You do know Business Center Guy!”

  Merribaugh turned and, out of the corner of his mouth, said, “Jerry, this is not approp—”

  Business Center Guy moaned once again at the sight of Merribaugh. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!” It was much louder this time.

  “Pipe down, Max,” said Merribaugh. Heads were turning in their direction, and not just from the closer rows.

  Jared’s head swiveled in Merribaugh’s direction. “You know him, too?”

  Merribaugh’s back stiffened and he faced the podium. “Of course not.”

  “But you called him Max!”

  His jaw was the only part of his head that moved. “Well, I just…try to learn names.”

  “Lead us not into temptation!”

  Jared shook his head and said, more to himself than anyone else, “Everyone’s been tapping that ass. I do not feel special anymore.”

  $ $ $

  Dr. Oscar Hurley knew he was quite late, and he really didn’t care. He was good enough to grace the homos with his presence, so let them wait.

  But now…Now it was time for his entrance.

  After thousands of public appearances, he had it down to a science. He would walk from the rear of the room to the front alone; that conveyed humility, and it was important for people to know he was a humble man of God.

  At first, only a few people would even notice him, but their smattering of applause would attract the attention of others, and theirs would attract others, and so on, until the hall was full of applause.

  Then someone would stand, and that would also have a ripple effect across the audience. And they’d remain standing until he signaled they should be seated. His record was ten minutes, thirty-nine seconds.

  It was extraordinarily predictable, and quite gratifying.

  Sephora Girl almost swooned as he entered and proceeded to the center aisle. And then he began his entrance…

  He stopped after two steps. Was someone screaming The Lord’s Prayer in the front of the room?

  Then he realized no one—absolutely no one—was paying attention to him. They were all straining to see the commotion up front.

  The Lord’s Prayer…someone hollering that he wasn’t gay anymore…someone else hollering that he didn’t feel special…

  What the hell was going on?

  $ $ $

  Special Agent Patrick Waverly clicked off his phone. “They searched both their rooms, but there was no money.”

  “None?” asked Special Agent Oliver Tolan.

  “None. But they found a claim check for the hotel safe. It looked suspicious, though. Someone stuck it under Merribaugh’s door with what appeared to be the contents of his wallet.” That was odd, but Waverly had seen odder. It was part of the job. “He’ll call me back.”

  Tolan leaned against a wall and said, “Y’ever stop to think maybe we’re on a wild goose chase?”

  Waverly nodded. “Always. Every case.”

  Tolan folded his arms, feeling the satisfying dig of the holster against his chest and the gun against his armpit. “Well, I gotta figure someone knows something. Between the IRS and the Bureau, they’ve put enough man-hours into it. I doubt they’d be doing that just to watch us chase our tails.”

  “You’d think that,” said Waverly. “But we’re talking about Washington.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Tolan. “Gotta remember that.” He sighed. “I guess all we can do is hope your hunch is right and Price and LaMarca lead us to the cash.”

  Waverly winked. “Trust me on this one, Ollie.”

  Tolan looked at him. “Did you just wink at me?”

  Waverly winked again.

  “That’s sexual harassment, Patrick. Haven’t you ever heard that no means no? I could sue the Bureau for this…”

  “Fifty-fifty?”

  “Of course.”

  $ $ $

  Grant and Mary Beth tensed up as the elevator disgorged the half dozen FBI agents, who made another beeline to the front desk.

  “They didn’t look around the lobby,” Grant said out of the corner of his mouth. No one more than a few feet away would have known he’d said a word. “That works in our favor.”

  They watched while pretending not to watch until…

  “Oh, shit,” Mary Beth said a half minute later, looking back at the copy of The Washington Post in her lap and pretending to care. “The clerk just handed them my bag.”

  Grant finally took a breath and relaxed. “That’s a good thing.”

  She mimicked him, talking out of the corner of her mouth. “How do you figure?”

  “That means they’re looking for Merribaugh. Maybe Hurley, too. But not us.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, and looked back at The Post as six agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, kneeling on the floor, ripped open Mary Beth’s suitcase and began rifling through back issues of Cosmopolitan and Vogue.

  $ $ $

  “I figured I’d find you here,” said Dan Rowell, pulling Jared away from the uproar at the front of the room that had now been joined by at least two dozen allegedly ex- and hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-gay men.

  “Hey!” Jared batted his eyes, flashed Smile Number Three, and felt just a little bit special again. Ignoring the chaos, he asked, “What’s going on?”

  “I’m gonna get you out of here.” Dan took him by the hand. “Your father wants to see you.”

  “My father?” Why would my father…? “Oh, right.”

  While Jared had been the catalyst for the fight, which was growing out of control with every new recrimination, he’d been happy to retreat into the background as Louis Lombardo increasingly became the focal point. For a reformed sinner, Lombardo seemed to get around quite a bit.

  Dan led Jared up the side aisle, past row after row of eyes staring at the growing turmoil.

  “Ooooh!” shouted the crowd, and they turned back to see Max, the Business Center Guy, slug Lombardo in the nose.

  “They should sell popcorn at these things,” said Jared as they rushed out past Sephora Girl, who stood horrified in the doorway.

  $ $ $

  Still in the back of the room, still unnoticed, Oscar Hurley wasn’t quite sure what to do. He supposed a man of God should try to break things up, but, well…they were homosexuals. Maybe it was better to let them sort things out among themselves.

  Then he saw Dennis Merribaugh in the middle of things. That seemed strange…

  And then he saw their poster boy run out, holding hands with Senator Cobey’s aide, which was when he realized things were out of control.

  It was one thing to have a debacle in the privacy of a hotel ballroom among a bunch of perverts who’d already paid their registration fees. It was quite another to have a public debacle—with its centerpieces a congressional aide and the man he’d introduced in
front of the entire congregation of the Virginia Cathedral of Love—that would give a black eye to the Moral Families Coalition and his ministry.

  “Dennis!” he screamed, and plunged into the fray.

  $ $ $

  Six FBI agents marched out of the lobby, and thirty seconds later two gay men ran in.

  “What took you so long?” asked Grant.

  “You should have seen it,” said Jared. “There was this big shouting match, and it was turning into a fistfight when we left.”

  Grant rolled his eyes. “Okay, that’s great. So where’s the suitcase?”

  “Oh, right!” Jared looked under the chairs, finally spotting it and pulling it out.

  “Damn,” said Mary Beth. “I was practically sitting on it. I could’ve just…” She sensed Grant staring her down. “We could’ve just grabbed it and run.”

  Grant took the suitcase from Jared’s hands and snapped the handle into position. “Mary Beth, go find Farraday. He’s circling the block. Flag him down and tell him to wait out front.”

  She left.

  “Jared, say good-bye to your friend.”

  Jared looked at Grant and said, “Maybe I could stay for a few days. That’d be okay, right?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “It’s okay.” Dan gently stroked Jared’s arm. “We have each other’s phone numbers, right?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “And I shouldn’t be in the way of your father and sister. They’re your family, and you should be with…” Dan stopped and dropped his head.

  And then Jared was at his side, an arm wrapped around Dan’s shoulder. “Baby, don’t cry. It’ll be all right.”

  But when Dan looked up, his eyes were clear and his jaw was firm. “I’m not crying, Jared. I’m angry.” He pointed at Grant. “Angry about what he is doing to you!”

  Grant pointed to himself. “Me?”