Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality

by Jacob Tomsky

  What choice did I have? I left my guest standing there, halfway helped. I said, “Excuse me,” and he got all huffy because he was busy grilling me about where’s good to eat tonight, even though that’s really not my job: that’s like asking a doorman to clean a toilet. We have trained concierge elitists for that, and they get paid five dollars more an hour.

  I put my guest on pause for a moment, though, mostly because Brian was looking right at me. He was sort of peering at me, like through a fog, looking all sad and cute in his tuxedo. I burned off three new keys, and I didn’t need to double-check the room number, because I’d kept a protective eye on Wilson ever since noticing the last line to “I’d Love Just Once to See You,” which ends with the sweet refrain “I’d love just once to see you, I’d love just once to see you … in … the … nude.” Hilarious. So I handle the key situation quickly, and Brian was still gazing at me, as if he knew I was taking care of him.

  Then it happened.

  I slipped the keys in a packet and gave them to the handler, the one I recognized most, and Brian smiled at me, as if he’d seen me before, knew I’d been helping him for more than five years, and he stepped forward. His face lifted in a smiley smile above his boyish black bow tie, and he put out his big hand for me to shake, held it over the desk, like let’s-be-friends. (“We’ve been friends now for so many years.” —the Beach Boys.)

  I put my hand in his, and he said, “Hi. I’m Brian Wilson.”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Wilson.” I moved his hand up and down a little, since he was just keeping it still. “And you look sharp, my man. It’s an honor to have you. I hope you have a good time at the party, Mr. Wilson,” and I let his hand go. His face clouded over a bit, but his happiness remained, and I know there was music blowing up inside of him and that he felt good. The handler I recognized gave me a genuine smile and took Brian by the elbow, leading him off.

  The lobby cleared out, just the overwhelming lingering odor of cologne and a few rhinestones left on the ground that the bellmen were scooping up and rocketing at each other’s faces now that no one was in the lobby. One of the stones hit me hard in the throat, and I smiled at Trey. He said, “That’s right, bitch. Throw it back and I’ll break your left leg.” I used a pen to pick it out of my keyboard, where it had lodged itself, and while staring at it, thinking, shit, maybe it’s a real diamond, and I can sell it for a hundred thousand dollars, quit this shit job, and buy a mansion in South Africa. Then it hit me.

  Brian hadn’t recognized me at all. I thought the sad-happy fog he lives under had parted for one magical moment and he’d seen me. But no. His handlers had probably sat him down on our uncomfortable couch while tying his bow tie for him and said, hey, Brian, so tonight we are going to be around a lot of people, okay? We won’t stay long, but some of these people are going to know who you are and might want to say hello. Don’t worry, we’ll be next to you the whole time, and all you have to do is say, “Hello. I’m Brian Wilson.” Here try that once. Good. See, that’s all you have to say, okay? Don’t worry, we can come back soon, and we won’t let anyone bother you. Can you let me hear it one more time?

  “Hi. I’m Brian Wilson.”

  I know who you are, Brian. You were just programmed for meet-and-greet party mode, right? You are not there yet, buddy, you’re still in the lobby, but I hope you had fun when you got there, and I hope everyone who shook your hand felt as honored as I felt. I’m so sorry you had to die for our sins, Brian, and thank you so much.

  Two weeks after that I met Ginger Smith.

  Ginger Smith. For the purposes of this book, that is a fake name of a fake name, meaning the name she stayed under was fake to begin with and I have altered it again. How awesome is that? Ginger, model-slim brunette, five feet ten, was always dressed in tight-fitting business attire, the kind that looks a little too good, something maybe for a porno. A porno set in the workplace. She was always in a hurry and always smiling.

  Things were a little odd. First of all the fake name. If you asked her for an ID (you know me, I never did), she would hand you a twenty-dollar bill instead. If that didn’t work, she would cancel the res and walk right back out. Shady. Sometimes she would lay down a CC, but she always paid cash at checkout, always. And if that wasn’t odd enough, she always checked out the same day she came in. Up to the room around 1:00 p.m. and back at the desk at 4:00 p.m. with a stack of dirty dancers to settle up with.

  She was always in a rush and wouldn’t even wait for change. If the room and tax came to $459, she would hand over five Bennys, and the $41 on top went, without question, to the agent, since the minute an agent touched the bills, she’d say, “Thank you, sweetheart,” and blow out the doors.

  I once saw Ginger Smith, in an unprecedented move, walk right down the desk and hand every single one of the four working agents a baby brick. The classiest move I have ever seen in my life. So sexy. So beautiful and, hence, she was loved.

  Ms. Smith. She was/is gorgeous. The first step with a guest of that caliber is to lock her down hard. Become her only agent, the sole recipient of her generosity. And I tried. Every time I was lucky enough to pick up her call, usually about an hour before she’d roll in, I would have everything waiting for her (including a slip of paper inside the key packet that laid out her room and tax in advance, so she could get her money in order before she came down). Plus, also inside the key packet, you guessed it, one of old Tommy Jacobs’s business cards with e-mail and phone number, including a little note that told her to text me any day she wanted to come in and I would take care of it. For months she never utilized my personal contact info. I would bring it up, and she’d say she lost my card but, yes, agree that having a cell number she could text would be the best.

  “Ms. Smith, put it in your phone right now. Tom at the Bellevue. Stand still for three seconds, and put it in right now.”

  She did. “Here,” another twenty on top of the sixty in change she was going to leave me. “You’re a sweetheart.”

  She was the sweetheart. And the next week I got the text.

  :Coming in, darling! Around noon!:

  :You got it, Ms. Smith. Rate is $429.50 after tax. I’ll have the keys waiting!:

  :(Smiley face):

  From then on she could fly through the lobby, and I would hand the keys off like Gatorade to a marathon runner. Off she went.

  “Ms. Smith was coming in today?” my co-worker Janelle asked, clearly jealous she hadn’t gotten the reservation call.

  “Yep.”

  “You always get her now. You should share.”

  “Yep.” Not going to happen. I locked Ginger down hard. I was in love with everything about her.

  Except for the fact she was a prostitute? A prostitute, right? I couldn’t see it any other way and, believe me, I wanted to. She used the room for three hours max and paid cash (at checkout, even though paying up front would be more convenient, a single point of contact simultaneously beginning and ending all business with the hotel, but, prostitute-wise, she wouldn’t have the cash until after the deed, feel me?). But, just like Hockstein, you never really know until you know. Some people blow money for no reason. Plus, I’ve seen my share of working girls, and they do not make reservations. The johns secure the room, and the pimp just points the hooker missile in the right direction.

  But eventually, adding another hazy clue to the mystery, she mentioned she could use some extra amenities (razor and shaving cream, extra soap). I guess she liked to get superclean before or after whatever happened up there. So I started filling our little Bellevue gift bags with bath salts and soaps and creams and mini deodorants and lint rollers and whatever cool stuff I could find in the housekeeping closet. I would paper clip her keys to the side of the gift bag, and she would fly through the lobby, looking beautiful and talking fast, snatching the bag with a wonderfully grateful smile. These care packages ended up getting me into substantial trouble with the new director of housekeeping. Hired from some brutal land of feudal reign, our new ho
usekeeping director fit right in. She looked like Shrek rolled in mud. As I was organizing a care package one afternoon, there she was, more than obstructing the door to the main storage closet in the housekeeping department, not allowing me to leave.

  “Why are you taking this bag of items?”

  “Well, it’s for a frequent-stay guest. She only uses the room to freshen up but still pays full rate, so I think it’s nice to make sure she has what she needs in advance so she can be in and out as fast as possible.”

  “There is no reason she is getting these items for free.”

  “Yeah, well … Aren’t they free to all guests?”

  “If they request them.”

  “Well, she requested them.”

  “No, you are stealing them. Tell her to call our department directly, and we will deliver the items.”

  “What? Seriously? How about you grab me a piece of paper and I’ll write down every item in this bag and then you can pretend she called you directly and go ahead and deliver them up. And do me the favor of delivering them ASAP because she is on her way. That work for everybody?”

  (Another definition of “write-up”: disciplinary action issued for going above and beyond while simultaneously anticipating a guest’s needs.)

  That put an end to the gift bags but certainly not an end to Ginger’s willingness to tip me heavily.

  I owned Ms. Smith. Or, well, maybe someone else did, by the hour. After a year of working together exclusively, we started to talk a bit more at the desk, real casual and about nothing, before she flew out the door, back into Manhattan. She once claimed her apartment bathroom was being renovated so she thought it was easier to shower here. Another time, when I directly asked where she, you know, worked, she said for the CEO of a hedge fund and he often had her work early a.m. and then attend dinner parties, hence, rather than make her go all the way to her apartment (which was a whole twenty blocks, one mile, away, less than ten dollars in a cab), he would give her cash to throw on a room and never needed receipts. Okay. Why the fake name? I asked. Well, Ginger was actually her first name, but her last was so eastern bloc, she claimed, that it was more trouble to use it, what with the difficulty in spelling.

  Prostitute? Right? I DON’T KNOW!! She was so very sweet and generous and … well. Feel free to make your own decision. But me? Why would any working girl cover the overhead of the hotel room? I’ve seen it all, and I still, even today, can’t call it for certain.

  I decided to do something really nice for her. After she left the building but before posting her rate and settling the account, I went to the front office manager and explained a little bit about Ms. Smith: her revenue stream, low-maintenance status, and how her short, three-hour stays allowed us to double dip the room. Double dipping is essentially charging two guests full rates for the same room on the same night. Usually, double dipping is illegal. Por ejemplo: when a group books twenty rooms, but one traveler is unavoidably delayed without enough notice for the group to avoid paying the night’s rate, yet the hotel allows another guest to occupy the paid-for-but-vacant room for the night and effectively clock a double rate, that’s a fat double dip. In Ginger’s case, I inquired about the possibility of offering her a half-day rate, since she only occupied the room for three hours, causing minimal damage, leaving the room easy to flip and sell again.

  “Go for it,” the manager said.

  I texted Ginger right outside the manager’s office, explaining I had reduced her rate by half, hence I had $200 cash waiting for her, which I offered to hold in my bank and apply to her next stay.

  :You’re a sweetheart! No, no!! I insist you keep it!! It’s all yours!:

  Again, does that sound like a sex worker to you? Keep my $200?

  And that totaled a personal take-home of $250. In one day. With Ms. Smith.

  How much did I love her?

  Let me count the ways: twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, BRICK.

  Two weeks later she booked another room, and after she departed, I secured her another half-day rate, asking a different manager of course. She texted back immediately.

  :Keep it!:

  :Fuck no. This is yours:

  :Please, baby, just keep it:

  :No. It will be in an envelope under your name at the concierge desk. Not another word about it. Buy yourself a beautiful dress with the money!:

  :How sweet of you! I will pick it up tonight:

  That was that. Until I checked my phone an hour later and saw she had texted again:

  :You are so sweet. I hope you have a nice girl who takes care of you. You deserve one:

  That stopped me right in the stairwell. What exactly was that about? I didn’t have a nice girl. In fact, I had just separated from Julie two weeks prior. We’d been seeing each other irregularly, but in this lonely town those infrequent dates drew us out of obscurity, and we became dependent on them, began to enjoy the knowledge that there was one other person who knew what your bedroom looked like, knew where you were born and what kind of person you had become. That became a relationship to me. And it wasn’t easy, the separation. I listened to Elton John and felt miserable every night. Honestly, I am still horribly in love with Julie. But now here was an unusual text from an unusual woman. Who hoped I had a nice girl.

  :I don’t anymore, Ginger. But I hope you have a nice man to take care of you:

  :I don’t anymore either (wink face):

  I sat on the stairs before heading down to the cafeteria, which would submerge me below cell service, and waited to see if she would text again. She did.

  :We should get a drink together!:

  TOMMY, ASK YOURSELF: Are you certain she is not a prostitute?

  I texted her back.

  :Ok!!:

  Indeed.

  We met for drinks at Columbus Circle with a view of Central Park. I was dressed above my station, wearing the nicest clothes a front desk agent is legally allowed to wear in public. Fifteen minutes late, she flew into the bar, saw me in the corner, and hustled over. I couldn’t believe she was going to sit still and talk. She was like a shark, always moving, and now here she was taking a seat next to me on the couch, her brunette hair a bit disheveled and her forehead cutely perspiring.

  She was sitting still.

  Then we started to drink. For every one of my Jack on the rocks, she downed a martini. She drank seven goddamn martinis, and I have never seen anything like it. I went to the bathroom about three hours into this drinking war, and when I returned she had paid the whole tab (and, well, I couldn’t really fight that. Fourteen drinks anywhere near Columbus Circle comes to, essentially, my weekly paycheck).

  Minutes later we were walking along Central Park South (she was stumbling a little, holding on to my arm) on the way to a second bar, one where we could smoke. Yes, you can legally smoke inside, and it’s right there in midtown, but I will not mention where, because this bar belongs to me and not to you. I propped her up on a stool at the antique wooden bar, and all the old cigar-huffing fat cats stared at me in what I suppose was envy. Hooker envy.

  She took off her diamond-bezeled Rolex and put it before me, next to my drink. “You know, I bought that because it reminds me that money doesn’t mean anything. Money doesn’t mean anything at all.” The Rolex was all scuffed and scratched but definitely sparkled magnificently in the low light. “You take it, Tom. Take it.”

  “You’re giving me your Rolex?”

  “For a time. Just take it, okay? Wear it for a bit.”

  I put it on my right wrist. I was now rocking two watches. We ordered another round, and she brought out her iPhone to show me pictures of her family dog.

  As she wiped a drunk finger across the screen, she slowly passed several nude photos of herself, some taken inside a tanning bed, staining her naked body with eerie yellows and greens. But, you know, they were still hot. Then she really began to open up, but not about her profession. About herself and her problems, mental problems that manifested themselves in physical ways, like a compulsion
to pick at her chest with tweezers until it bled.

  I have to say, at that moment, I was living the life. Whatever else I might be, I was not bored. This was some other, other, other type of shit.

  So we ordered another round.

  Everything else was continually escalating at work. I received almost weekly documentation for some crime, along with the rest of the desk staff, and everyone’s service and commitment just got worse and worse.

  All of my service training was gone. I talked fast and dirty. If you weren’t tipping me, then move on. I had money to make. Want to know all about the property? Read the book in the room.

  Next guest, please.

  But just like drinking toilet hooch, these clandestine operations began to give me stomachaches. It was dirty money that I spent on dirty martinis to forget how terrible it felt to hustle and steal every day. This life was giving me the frowns, daily, but as the hundreds began to push my savings account higher, I started to think about a nice clean break, getting back out into the world, posting my own bail, and flying away.