by John L. Monk
A hard chuckle on the other end.
“Right,” Tom said. “So you’re Bo, huh? Okay, where are you? Agent Tucker thinks you left the country. For your sake, tell me that’s not true.”
“If he’s saying I’m a fugitive he’s a liar,” I said. “I went on vacation—I told you that in the email. He’s gonna try to get me for a bunch of jewelry. And stealing a dead guy’s identity.”
“Bo, don’t say anything else.”
“What?”
“I need you to understand that I cannot knowingly put perjury on the stand.”
“What’s that mean?” I said.
“That means whatever you say you’re guilty of doing, then that’s how we’re going to defend it—like you’re guilty of it. Understand? If you say you didn’t do it and they have the wrong person, I can put you on the stand and we can defend it like you’re innocent.”
I laughed at him. “Mrs. Swanson must be pretty proud of you.”
“Let’s stick to one thing, okay?” he said. “Now, tell me about the hacking charges.”
“I’m not a hacker, dammit. I allegedly used the system to read people’s email, but Milestone gave me access. I didn’t have to do anything special to see it.”
“The access they gave…” I heard clicking on a keyboard. “When you say gave me access, you mean Ted?”
“Allegedly.”
“Go on.”
“Allegedly I looked at people’s email, and when they got gold shipments I picked them up at the door. Allegedly. How stupid do they got to be to trust heavy little boxes like that with a bunch of postal workers? Allegedly. You know Tom, if that lawyer gig ever falls apart—allegedly—you could always be a mailman.”
A few uncomfortable moments passed, and just when I wondered if I’d gone too far, Tom said, “Mrs. Swanson told me you were smart, but I think she’s wrong about you. I think you’re stupid, selfish as shit, and don’t deserve her help or mine. On top of that, I think you need to get back from wherever you are now and turn yourself in. Today. And by the way, I’m helping you as a favor to her. I’m doing good by her, not you. Get the fuck home. Then we’ll talk.”
Then the son-of-a-bitch hung up on me.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was ashamed for a lot of reasons I didn’t care to explore just then. On top of that, the tourist drinks were losing their edge.
“Bartender! Yeah—no,” I said when he reached for a big tulip-shaped piña colada glass. “Give me a scotch, okay? Something expensive with lots of ice.”
The bartender nodded good-naturedly and gave me my medicine, not giving a damn about me any more than Tom. I was fine with that because I could depend on it.
Despite the scotch tasting marginally worse than unleaded gasoline, I drank four more. The last time I’d been drunk was off a stoppered carafe of red wine Mrs. Swanson kept locked in a liquor cabinet. I hadn’t needed anything special to open it, and when I drank the whole thing it made me sick. Since then, the best I ever got was a little tipsy. That carafe was still in her cabinet, still filled with water and food coloring so I wouldn’t get caught.
An hour later, well beyond tipsy, I hit send on the third Grumpy Cat meme I’d sent to Tom since the hotel fixed its Internet connection. Imagining the perplexed look on the foster’s face set me giggling madly, earning me disgusted looks from passing guests and a concerned glance from the bartender, working the stick for a burnt-faced fat guy with a big bushy beard.
“They fixed the Internet!” I shouted. The bartender smiled and shook his head, and Mr. Beard turned his back on me.
Mom and Dad had their problems, but they were right about one thing: doing anything that didn’t make me this happy was stupid. I extended my hand to the glass and lifted it to my mouth, the motion fluid and robotic and perfect. I was so fascinated that I did it again. And again. I called for another round, emphasizing how expensive it had to be, the most expensive drink they had—yes, the Remy Martin XIII was perfectly fine, and damn the tortillas. I ordered two more, drank one, and poured the other out for all my dead homies.
At some point I noticed three people around me, or maybe it was one people. Asking me my room number. I told them I lived in a great big mansion and started crying so they’d believe me. We talked a little more, I got mad at something, and oblivion caved in around me.
***
I woke in the middle of the night, still dressed. The trip to the bathroom was a mission I completed through single-minded determination. Somehow I got back to bed without stopping to rest along the way, and the next time I woke up I was thirsty and hungry.
Room service brought pancakes, eggs, and coffee. I felt … odd, sure, but I attacked the food like I was mad at it. Whoever cooked it was a genius. And then I rushed to the bathroom and re-experienced the genius in reverse.
Wow, my stomach ached afterward. Puke spasms felt like a hundred crunches, condensed. When I got up, the headache I didn’t know I had asserted itself and sent me straight back to bed. As the morning progressed, I got up two more times to dry heave.
Later, I remembered: I was supposed to move to the Poseidon today.
I hovered uncomfortably near sleep until the middle of the afternoon, dreading every trip to the bathroom and forcing myself to hydrate. Later on, I got dressed and went to visit the little store in the lobby, hoping to get something for my headache. As I shambled past the front desk, I tossed a wave to the cheerful lady who always waved back. Only this time she didn’t. She just stared at me, wavy-hand firmly down by her side. I encountered a similar response from the bellhop, who usually had something nice to say.
“How’s it going?” I said to him.
“What do you want?” he said, not smiling. As he said it, I noticed he had a fat lip.
Before I could answer, a responsible-looking man came over.
“Mr. Mosley?” he said, pronouncing it Moss-ly. Somehow, not as cute as the lady at the airport did it.
“Who wants to know?” I said.
“Please follow me, sir,” he said, and flourished a hand to a deserted section of the lobby.
I followed him.
“Mr. Mosley,” he said, “I have to ask you to please pack your belongings and leave in the morning.”
“Are you asking?”
“No sir, I am not asking. You cannot lay your hands on my staff, I don’t care how drunk you get. Do you understand me?”
He sounded pissed—the angriest I’d seen anyone since coming to the lovely place.
“Ah,” I said, flexing my hand. It did seem a bit sore.
“We did not call the police, and for that you can be happy. There is a ferry that leaves the island at 9 a.m. If you cannot find another hotel, the concierge will help you. Also, nobody will serve you alcohol anymore, so do not try to buy any. Do you understand me?”
“Who did I hit?”
The manager frowned in disbelief. “You don’t remember? You punched that man over there. And you disturbed the other guests. You better be happy you didn’t hit me.” The look on his face when he said it made him seem two feet taller than he really was. “Am I clear?”
Upset at the rough treatment and wondering why he had to talk so loud, I said, “Everclear.”
He forgot to laugh.
“Then good day to you, sir,” he said.
After a final hard look at me, he walked crisply away.
When I looked around for the bellhop so I could apologize, he was gone.
Chapter 15
Being dressed down in a hotel lobby and told you’re a bad person isn’t pleasant. Doing it with a hangover, even less so. So my arrival at the decadent Poseidon Hotel and Resort gave me no joy. I didn’t ooh and aah at the huge Disney-tacky Pegasi dancing motionless in the fountain out front, or the brilliantly painted seascapes or lofty domed vaults corbeled in seashells. I didn’t peer closely at the impossibly open spaces and wonder how the building kept from coming down around us. The place looked like it was ripped trident-first from the
sea, glittering brighter than all the gold I’d ever taken. But my head hurt and I wanted the lady at the desk to stop yammering with the gabby American woman in front of me and give me my hotel key. The woman wouldn’t shut up about some book she’d read but couldn’t remember the name of.
“I’ll tell you when I call my sister,” she told the rent-a-smile behind the desk, then left with her husband, off to not matter in a different place.
Maybe the worker saw my sourpuss face and decided not to engage me in literary chitchat, because she quickly processed my sign-in and handed me two keys to the room.
The lobby crawled with people shuffling everywhere and getting in each other’s way. It was also loud, due to all the shaped stonework. I saw a few domed cameras, mostly near check-in desk, clinging to the polished decor like enormous black ticks. No guards anywhere in sight.
An interactive map hung on one of the walls showing the various tourist attractions. I figured security probably focused most of their attention on the casino.
The Crown Towers section of the hotel overlooked the Royal Suite by about seventy-five feet from the highest room. I rode up the elevator with a large group of people that had a lot to say to each other. One by one they peeled off to their various floors, eventually leaving me to make my way up the right-side tower. I wasn’t staying at the top because those were all occupied. I had a corner unit facing the front of the hotel. It would have been perfect if it could have been three floors higher.
When I walked in, the room was decadent and awesome and had a view that was heartbreakingly beautiful, but all I did was drop my stuff, turn off the light, and crawl into bed.
***
I spent most of the day napping and drinking water, alternating between watching TV and surfing the web for anything I could find on the famous room’s security. All anyone wanted to talk about was how expensive it was to stay there. Around four, feeling better, I got my trunks and spent a couple hours down at the stunningly perfect beach, staring at people’s girlfriends and sipping non-alcoholic beverages. A bit later I returned for a shower, dressed up nice, and went down for an early dinner.
None of the floors listed in the elevator were labeled “Royal Suite.” Down in the lobby, I saw an elevator door next to the others that required a keycard to operate. I’d seen doors for that elevator on my floor, without keycards or any way to access it.
After dinner, I took a final nap so I’d be perfectly rested and free from the effects of my daylong hangover. When I woke it was still too early, and the sun still visible on the horizon. Almost eight o’clock.
I didn’t know if anyone was staying in the Royal Suite, but I doubted it. Anyone who did wanted to be seen. They’d be up against Isabella Rhodes, arriving Monday for five nightly performances. Who’d spend all that money only to vanish in the light of a brighter star?
You tell yourself encouraging stuff like this. It lets you do stupid things, and sometimes you even have fun.
From my suitcase, I got a pair black sweats and a dark long-sleeved shirt. My sneakers were already black with black soles, but I switched out my white tube socks for black. Satisfied with my appearance, I had a look at the exit to my balcony—an inexpensive sliding-glass door with no security bar. I could have opened it by lifting the door in the frame. My problem: I couldn’t be sure of the same quality on a room you had to pay $25,000 a night to sleep in.
I stepped onto the balcony and leaned over the railing for a look. Man oh man it was a long way down. Three floors up, my target balcony abutted the right-most edge of the famous terrace, minus what looked like a three-foot gap. But to get there I had to get up there, climbing one room at a time without anyone looking up at the beautifully lit building and snapping pictures for posterity—the reason for the dark clothes. Now if I could get a little nighttime, I’d be set.
Using the remainder of the light, I charted a course up the wall, memorizing as I went, noting the hard grooves and ridges that’d assist me until I could grab the next ledge up. If I didn’t slip or miss a handhold or get tired or sneeze or lose my nerve and start sweating and slip off, it’d be easy.
When I was a kid, the roof of anything was a special place for me. The feeling I got way up in the scary reaches of the world felt better than the high score of any video game. The other kids didn’t get it, but I think Mrs. Swanson did. For such a perceptive lady, she’d never seemed to notice me up there. Raid the money jug of all but pennies and she’d have you in “the chair” faster than you could say E Pluribus Unum. But I could climb up the wall and poke around up top all day, so long I was never late for my meals.
Over the years, I’d kept up with my climbing. Mostly at a local camping store where they let people go up the rock-climbing wall. I always made sure to buy stuff. That way they didn’t mind cinching me into the safety harness and babysitting while I pretended to test out new shoes or gloves or clamps or whatever. Other than that, pull-ups at the gym was also a great exercise.
The movie Sneakers was on one of the premium channels, so I didn’t mind waiting through it to stave off the jitters and get my mind in the proper frame.
When the credits started rolling, I got up and stepped outside. The air was cool and the breeze off the Caribbean fresh. Down below, the enormous resort blazed with light from everywhere but the beach—my chief concern in all this, minus falling a hundred feet to certain death. Anyone looking up from the pool or the bar or the casino would do so with eyes spoiled by the electric lighting. Someone looking from the beach would have a great view. But with most of the light concentrated mainly around the middle of the terrace, rather than the side, I hoped I’d be too small and move too slowly for anyone to notice from that far away.
After casting a worried glance at the handful of lit-up windows in the far tower, I tightened the straps on my backpack, retied my shoes, and wiped my hands free of moisture. Then I stepped over the concrete ledge and reached for my first handhold: a lip of stone running below a run of bowling-pin-shaped balusters.
Whether through bravery or stupidity, my adrenaline hadn’t kicked in. A good thing. Sweating and shaking and shallow breathing wasn’t an option, dangling by my fingertips so high up. Now that I thought about it, I still felt a wee bit queasy from my hangover.
“I’m gonna laugh if you fall,” I muttered.
Trusting in my nigh-invincibility, I performed my first pull-up, bringing my face flush against the stone and locking my chin over it to give my fingers a break. Then, fighting everything in me not to move too quickly, I reached up with my left hand, keeping myself in place through chin and right hand alone while I groped blindly. At first, I didn’t feel anything but air … then sighed the panic away when my hand grasped one of the rails.
I couldn’t be sure how much of this pretty stonework was cheap façade, rather than sturdy construction. Mindful of my other hand, I tugged the rail as hard as I dared, mentally comparing it to the solid-seeming railing outside my own room. When this one proved just as immovable, I put all my weight on it and pulled up, one-handed, letting a small groan escape when I grabbed another rail. Then I placed a foot under me and climbed onto the first of the three balconies.
The first thing I noticed was a light on inside, behind closed curtains. I grew worried at the noise I may have made. What a fright we’d have if someone came out to enjoy the night air.
After a quick look across the way to see if I’d acquired an audience—I hadn’t—I climbed back out and did it again. This time, when I tried my left-armed pull-up, it was a lot harder. So much so that I found myself pushing-off with my right hand, which had the added effect of nudging me ever so slightly away from the balcony. It helped, sure, but it jeopardized my only other support, if briefly.
Now on the next balcony, I felt fine waiting there a good ten minutes while I got my strength back. One-handed pull-ups are twice as hard as the two-hand variety in purely mathematical terms. Try doing it without moving your hips beneath you and it’s half again harder—like cur
ling really heavy dumbbells without rocking back and forth.
For the last floor, I used my right hand even though I wasn’t as strong in that one. Right-handed and left strong—how weird is that? Anyway, I pulled up fine and found myself on another dark balcony. It turned out the gap between the two railings was six feet—not the three I’d estimated.
I considered my destination: a span of terrace, about nine feet wide, with sliding doors and plate-glass windows. The terrace widened grandly in the center, lit up from below by bright lights, effectively killing my night vision. Which was great. I’d counted on that light to hide me in the shadows.
What I hadn’t counted on was the giant metal plate running floor to ceiling, blocking me from jumping across. Almost like the architect had envisioned a need to protect the hotel’s richest guests from stalkers or paparazzi or cat burglars. If I wanted to get inside, I had to find a way around it.
There were a few ways I could do this. I could go out, find a plank and somehow secure it on my end, then crawl over. But that’d take too long, and try explaining a big long plank to the lobby personnel. Another way had me climbing one more story up, fifteen feet above the roof of the suite and then leaping down onto it. The problem there was, if anyone had reserved it, they’d hear me when I came hurtling down. You can be only so quiet falling more than twice your height onto a hard surface.
And then there was the other way.
For the moment, I rejected the other way and pressed my ear to the sliding glass door of the room I was perched outside of, but I didn’t hear anything. The door opened easily by lifting it in the frame off the hook inside the doorjamb the same way it had in my own room. I slid it open, popped my head through, and fought off a perverse urge to yell, “Surprise!”
When nobody hit me with anything or screamed, I opened it the rest of the way and stepped inside.