by Dean Kutzler
He scrambled up from the desk and ran out into the hallway. He’d avoid the unpredictable elevator sans check-in time and prepared to sprint all the way down the stairwell, using the stairs. Down was always easier than up. Just before his room’s door shut and locked him out, he realized he hadn’t grabbed the hotel key. Quickly elbowing the door in time, he ran back in and snatched the key off the armoire. Before the door had a chance to close for a second time, he was down the hall and running.
He flew past the pool and rounded the corner to the elevators. He barely avoided a head-on collision with an elderly woman in a pink sun-visor hat and matching velour jump suit, pumping the elevator button. He ran past so fast, that the wake of his breeze caused her to turn in the direction of his trailing wind. Seeing nothing but the empty hallway, she turned back around to see the stairwell door swinging shut, nary a soul in sight. She nervously shrugged her shoulders and resumed pumping away at the elevator button.
“Where the hell is this damned thing?” She spoke, as if expecting an answer.
Jack descended the stairs two and three at a time, nearly tripping and falling at least four times before he made his way to the first floor. Sweat ran down his face as he bolted out of the stairwell door and wiggled his way through a crowd of Asian tourists waiting to file into the elevator.
Once the path was clear, he made a beeline for the Starbucks. Only a single Asian man at the counter. All the other customers were seated, drinks in hand, laptops and electronic reading devices open. It was clear sailing. He slowed his pace to a light jog and took in a deep breath as he passed the barista pulling out a fresh shot of espresso for the Asian gentleman before he saw the bus pulling up to the curb through the window. He made it in time. He held the door open to let a young woman, struggling with one of those extremely annoying mammoth-sized baby strollers, into the coffee shop.
The bus’s door opened, and a few Asian tourist stragglers made their way off the bus as Jack waited to get on. When he got to the top of the stairs to pay the bus driver the fare, he realized that his wallet was in his carry-on, back in the room.
“Damn! I left my wallet in my room. Can you front me a ride to the hospital and I promise I’ll pay you once I get back?”
The bus driver whipped his head around with a scowl at the ready. The corner of his mouth twitched as he said, “Buddy, if you needed to get to the hospital in such a rush,” twitch, twitch, “you shoulda called a ambulance. This, is a bus. With payin’ customers who got places to be.” Twitch, twitch. “And number two ain’t been late on my shift in the ten years I been drivin’ her and I ain’t intended on startin’. Please step back down to the platform.”
“Please, my uncle’s at Mount Sinai and he doesn’t have much longer to live and I need to get there. Please let me ride, just this one time for free. I give you my word. I’ll come back and pay!” He saw the passengers starting to gawk at the scene he was causing.
The bus driver looked out the bus’s window, then back at Jack yanking on his goatee and said, “Buddy, do you realize how many times I hear that one?” Twitch, twitch. “I got a schedule to keep, here. Number three is behind me ‘bout ten minutes. Please get off the bus.”
Ten minutes. That should be enough time. Before he stepped back down, he turned and looked at the passengers and thought about asking one of them for the fare. Immediately, like all true New Yorkers, they all turned their heads in another direction.
“Look,” twitch, twitch, “buddy—” the bus driver started to say.
“Okay! Okay!” Throwing his hands up in the air, he stepped back down onto the platform, letting number two keep its schedule. He couldn’t blame them, the driver or the passengers. He’d grown up in this city. A hell-of-a-town it was, but you never could be too careful.
Jack remembered the time he and Calvin had lunch at a Così cafe in Montréal. On their way in, they’d passed this nice little old lady wearing authentic cat-eye glasses and a scarf tied around her neatly teased hairdo. She was holding the door open for customers and begging for change as they entered the establishment. She was not the typical picture of a panhandling bum.
Lacking Mayor Giuliani’s aggressive assault on cleaning up New York’s bums and panhandlers, it wasn’t an uncommon sight in Montréal to see them begging for change or food outside places like Così or especially Schwartz’s deli, where people lined up down the street to get a taste of their fine pastrami.
Normally immune to bums—growing up in New York City—her age-old innocence and neatness had caught Calvin’s and Jack’s eyes. When they sat down to eat, they saw her scoot into a booth at a nearby table that hadn’t been cleared off. She sipped leftover coffee from the half empty cups left by the lazy patrons that didn’t clean up after themselves.
Such extremes as eating or drinking from stranger’s left overs left Calvin and Jack to think about the authenticity of her act. Surely someone wouldn’t do that for mere change unless necessity really called for it. So they decided that this little old lady was really down on her luck and needed a little help.
When they were finished with lunch, Jack slipped a twenty towards her over the table. She had moved on from the coffee and was picking a crumpled, lipstick-stained napkin off a gold mine of a half-eaten sandwich underneath.
She looked up at them through those hideous glasses, a slight grin forming at the corner of her mouth and said, “God bless you”, before quickly palming the twenty off the table.
On their way out of the Così, Jack felt a little strange about what they had just done. After all, she was probably someone’s Grandmother that was too proud to ask her children for help.
Calvin stepped outside, but Jack’s journalistic curiosity got the better of him and he glanced back. His eyes widened when he saw her counting a wad of cash, her glasses sitting on the table next to the half-eaten sandwich. Apparently, they had been the top score of the day.
Number two made a loud swishing sound as it pulled away from the bus stop. Jack could feel the heat from the engine flush over him as it passed by. Shaking his head, he hurried back into the hotel. The young woman with the obnoxious stroller was waiting for her latte, feeding the baby a madeleine cookie. The enticing smell of fresh espresso permeated the coffee shop and the barista just placed a venti on the pick-up table underneath those peculiarly shaped red lights.
His feet had nine minutes to beat.
He wasn’t going to miss number three. He gave the barista a sorrowful look and started sprinting into the hotel. When he reached the elevator, the doors opened and the pink clad elderly woman was just stepping out.
“Be careful dear. This place is haunted,” she said and quickly shuffled away.
Jack sized-up the stairwell door, wondering if he could out run the elevator to the seventh floor and still have breath left to make it back down to the bus stop and keep his date with number three.
No.
Before the doors shut, Jack slipped onto the elevator and punched the button for the seventh floor. His days of running track had long since passed. Once the elevator started to climb, he held his finger on the CLOSE DOOR button. He didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a shot.
Once the elevator reached the seventh floor, the doors opened up to six young girls. They were dripping wet and dressed in hotel towels, waving to someone beyond his sight.
“Thank you Father!” They said, snickering in unison, before Jack heard the sound of the stairwell door close. Then, in an exuberant pre-teen schoolgirl fashion, they turned around and bum-rushed Jack out of the elevator, practically trampling him like a herd of wet water-logged elephants before he could step out of the way.
He ran down the hallway, past the empty pool and around the corner. When he reached his room, he started to put the hotel key card into the locking mechanism and felt the door give way before the lock had a chance to disengage.
It was already unlocked.
He couldn’t remember in his hasty exit if he’d heard the door clic
k shut.
“Hello?” he called through the cracked door.
Sweat began to gather on his brow as he looked down each side of the hallway. Empty, except for the maid’s cleaning cart at the far end. He’d forgotten to put the Do Not Disturb sign on the handle.
“Helloooo? Is anyone in there?” He tried again, rapping on the door this time. Maybe the maid had forgotten something and was checking the room before she started cleaning the rest of the floor.
He pushed the door open with sweaty hands and his mouth fell slightly open at the sight.
The lights were off but the room was still dimly lit from a sullen overcast bleeding through the gap between the drapes, making the room look like a graveyard in pale moonlight. Even though his eyes were still adjusting to the eerie illumination, he could see what his brain was having a hard time processing.
He felt like he’d just stepped into a different reality where the room he knew was worlds apart from what he knew it to be. He stood stone-still, mouth hanging open a little wider.
“What the fu—,” he said, flipping on the lights.
The room looked like it had been hit by a whirlwind. Furniture was overturned and strewn haphazardly about the room. He could hear the dial tone from the phone hanging by its cord, dangling from the toppled desk. What remained of the lamp lay in pieces next to the desk.
Both beds and box springs had been flipped on end and stripped of their sheets. The pillows had been shredded, their feathers scattered across the bedding inside of the empty bed frames. The faux-headboards that had been nailed onto the wall had been pried loose and overhung the mess. The nightstands were in no better shape, up-ended with their drawers upright, resembling grave stones amidst the rubble.
When the initial shock had faded, he stood still a moment longer listening for sounds. Once he was sure the room was empty, he went in search of his luggage so he could take inventory of his personal damage. The luggage and carry-on weren’t in the closet where he’d left them.
Bad sign.
He quickly sifted through the debris in the bedroom and found nothing but the hotel’s ruined contents.
He found his belongings in the bathroom, same manner as the room—up-ended and disheveled. His luggage was splayed open on the tile floor. Clothes and toiletries everywhere.
Jack slammed the luggage lid closed and stood it upright in the middle of his clothes. The handle brushed the shower curtain, causing it to stir. Then he realized that he hadn’t checked behind it.
Anger started to replace fear. He’d never been violated in such a manner and he was getting pissed off. Forgetting caution, he grabbed the shower curtain and wrenched it open, hoping to find the person responsible for the ransacking so he could ransack them.
All he found was the disheveled contents of his carry-on bag inside the tub. He stooped over to examine his belongings. His laptop was underneath the empty carry-on bag with a gash on the cover. So much for returning it he thought, picking it up and gently placing it on the floor beside the luggage and clothes.
He sifted through the emptied contents of his carry-on bag in the tub until he found his wallet. Credit cards, photos and money were still intact. Even his flattened out lucky penny he got from the vending machine at the New Jersey Turnpike rest stop on his way to the shore after senior prom. The inscription he’d stamped into it read Achieve Greatness. There hadn’t been enough room to include without Dad.
In fact, all his belongings were still there. Whoever broke into his room had taken nothing.
What had they been looking for?
Why break into a hotel room, demolish it and then walk away with nothing? Not to mention the unbelievable fact it took less than fifteen minutes—the time it took him from the bus stop and back—to create this devastation.
His room must have been mistaken for someone else's. That thought was even less comforting because if they hadn’t found what they were looking for, they’d be back to look again.
He didn’t have time to deal with this right now. He probably already missed number three. He’d call the front desk and alert the authorities on the way to see his uncle. He needed to focus on catching number three if he hadn’t already missed it. He was out the hotel room door and on his way down again.
“Damn!” He cupped a hand over his eyes as he stepped down from the curb. The sun was gleaming off the back of number three, charging down Broadway. He couldn’t believe it. Time was growing shorter than his patience. He jogged past Planet Hollywood to the corner of Broadway and 46th and started to hail a taxi. He was going to have to trust his luck and as luck would have it, Jack knew this taxi cab driver.
“Heeeeey Mack! Whatta de odds?” The cabby said, warmth radiating from his tone as Jack got into the cab.
“Aaah—hey, Mr—” searching the back of the cab for the cabbie’s ID.
“Name’s Harold. Harold Poytner. What can I do ya for?” He said with a Cheshire grin, offering his hand in front of the open divider-window.
“Pleasure, Harold. I’m Jack. Pleasure to meet you again and I am so very glad I did.” He said, winded from the jog, gripping Harold’s hand.
“Pleasure’s all mine, Jack.” Harold gripped Jack’s hand.
“I need to get to Mount Sinai Hospital. My uncle is dying. How fast can you make it to the Hospital?”
He let go of Jack’s hand as if it was electrified—palm up and said, “Say no more. I gotcha on dis one, buddy. Just hold tight. We’ll be dare in five.” And with that, Harold flipped his golf hat around and laid on the horn as he tore away from the curb, barely a glance given.
The cab sped down 46th and hung a louie onto 6th Avenue. “On da green! Not in between!” Harold shouted out the cab window. A woman and her poodle wearing matching purple jumpsuits were disobeying the DO NOT WALK sign. “Geez! Pedestrians think they own da damn streets!”
The pedestrians? Jack closed his eyes and put his faith in the seasoned cabbie. Plus the cab was built like a tank. Jack would be safe. The pedestrians? That might be a different story.
Passing Radio City Music Hall, down the stretch of 6th and turning right on to Central Park South, Jack eased back into the seat. If anyone could get him to the hospital on time it would be this guy. Looking up at the iconic Radio City Music Hall sign as they passed reminded Jack of all the times his uncle had taken him to see the Rockettes and their amazing synchronized high kicks. Somehow, Uncle Terry always managed to get front row orchestra seats and Jack would stare at all those legs, trying to catch one of the Rockettes out of sync. This became one of their special traditions. Without fail every year, Jack and his uncle never caught a leg out of sync until Jack started high school and tradition was trumped by the ninth grade coolness factor.
One year before the ninth grade factor, his uncle started a new tradition: FAO Schwarz. A young boy’s fantasy come true. Each year they combed every inch of the toy mecca and his uncle would let him pick out one toy for an early Christmas gift. Anything, anything at all. One year Jack had wanted Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon spaceship from the movie Star Wars, but his uncle persuaded him a remote controlled toy boat was a lot cooler and actually worked, unlike the spaceship. Jack had been so excited about the boat, his uncle suggested they walk over to Central Park and give it a try if the pond wasn’t frozen over.
Once they reached the park, they ran into a friend of his uncle’s. The man was standing by a little bodega that sold hot beverages and baked goodies to people strolling through the park. The man was tall, decked out in a black trench coat buttoned to his neck, further accentuating his tall stature, with a black fedora hat resting on his head. Two eyes peered out underneath the black fedora, like shiny lumps of coal.
As they approached his uncle’s friend, the man just stared through coal-black eyes at Jack clutching his new toy to his chest. His uncle told Jack to stay by the bodega while he ushered the man off to the side for a quiet conversation. Jack couldn’t hear them, so he assumed they were talking about business. On numer
ous occasions, Jack’s father had shooed him away during his business discussions. His father had said that women and young boys didn’t need to hear or talk about men’s business.
When Uncle Terry finished talking, the man in the black coat slowly nodded and took a step towards Jack, never taking his dark eyes off of him, nor blinking once. The man extended a gloved hand towards him and said in a deep thick accent Jack had never heard before, “I’m Emmerich Koenig.”
Uncle Terry walked around the man and said, “Um-ah, Jack, this is an old friend of mine from—law school.” Uncle Terry’s tone was unfamiliar to Jack. “What do you say, pal? Introduce yourself proper and give my old friend, Emmerich, a man’s handshake.”
Jack looked at his uncle for a second, then turned to stare into those icy lumps of coal before shifting the toy boat under his arm to extend his tiny palm. As the man drew near, the shadows of fall shifted and Jack could see the misshapen bulbous nose on the man’s face. A slow grin spread as Jack reached for his hand, revealing pointy, jagged teeth.
When he took hold of Emmerich’s hand, the lumps of coal grew intense as he gripped a forceful, tightening hold on Jack’s. He raised the boy’s hand up to an unnatural position for a hand shake and pumped it with a strong force.
“Ouch!” Jack yelped, yanking his hand back. A huge drop of crimson blood was forming between his right thumb and forefinger.
“My dear boy! What haas happened?” Emmerich asked, grabbing Jack’s hand and examining it. “It seems as if the eyelet from my glove haas cut your hand.” He quickly produced a handkerchief from his black overcoat and dabbed it at Jack’s wound. “There! Das is better? No?” Emmerich asked, letting go of Jack’s hand and replacing the handkerchief in his overcoat. Jack put his hand to his mouth and immediately began to suck.