Lemons 03 Stroke of Genius

by Grant Fieldgrove

  Fifteen minutes later we were exiting our shitty hotel, Elise wearing a black top now, and were on our way to somewhere with a little more inspiration in its design.

  We had a much needed fun night out. I’m not a big drinker, it’s not something I really enjoy or look forward to, but seeing as we were in Vegas I decided I would let Elise pick our evening’s entertainment. Between the kids, me and the job, her nights of partying had all but come to an end (unless you count that stupid date,) and she decided our first stop would be the next door’s hotel bar. Followed by another hotel’s bar. I ordered a Medina and told the bartender to make it funky and cold. He stared blankly at me, un-amused and ready to rip my throat out. I changed my order promptly. I ended up having one vodka-Redbull at each stop, trying to take it easy. Elise had three drinks to every one of mine. Our final stop on our casino crawl was the MGM Grand across the street. As we were walking up to it from the outside, above us on a massive screen as bright as the noon hour’s desert sun, was my main man, Tom Jones.

  I stopped in my tracks and grabbed Elise by the arm, stopping her forward motion with a quick jerk.

  “Oh. My. God!”

  “What?” Elise asked slowly, drunkenly and rather apathetically.

  “TOM JONES!!!”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Look, look!” I pointed up towards the screen and bouncing up and down in excitement, like a child on Christmas morning. “Look! Seven straight nights starting Thursday! We have to go, oh my god, please can we go?!”

  “We have to leave on Thursday night, ‘member, Honey?’ Elise said. At least I think that’s what she said. Her voice was slightly slurred. She rested her head on my shoulder. I’m not sure if this was affection or pure drunken laziness. Either way, I’ll take it.

  “Well, maybe?” I desperately ask.

  “Yeah, babe, maybe we can leave Friday morning. We’ll see.” She reached out and took my hand and we continued walking into the casino. After a few more drinks we had to call it a night.

  We returned to our room two hours later, drunk (me slightly, her ridiculously) and exhausted. Elise gave me a kiss on the lips that seemed to linger longer than her normal, friendly kisses, her even going so far as to give my lower lip a little bite, then she turned on her heel and quickly vanished into her room.

  What! The! Fuck?!

  Confusing much?!

  Stupid girls!

  9.

  I heard a sound coming from the other room and got up to investigate. I entered the living room that didn’t belong in the hotel. It looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was dark outside. I went to the window and threw open the curtains, revealing the massive rainfall illuminated only by the night’s full moon. I stared for what seemed like a long time before a loud crash of thunder startled me from my reverie. I closed the blinds and rubbed my eyes. I was still groggy and wanted to return to bed.

  Someone coughed behind me and I flinched in fright. I turned to look but there was no one there. I went back to bed. A different bed than the one I had just gotten out of. I was just crawling back under the covers when I heard another cough. I kicked my feet over the slide of the bed.

  “Who’s out there?” I ask with no response. “I have a gun!”

  I began to walk slowly back into the living room. The rain is pounding on the roof of whatever house I am in. My heart is beating faster than it should be. I step silently on the carpet, entering the next room. My phone rings loud and I am again startled.

  “Hello?” I whisper into the phone.

  A gruff man’s voice answers, “You call a cab?”

  “No. No, I didn’t call a-‘

  “Fuck you!” the man yells at me. “I’m going to rip your eyes out and shove them down your fucking throat! Do you hear me?! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

  I release my grip on the phone and it falls silent onto the plush carpet. I can still hear the man’s voice from the floor, threatening me. It doesn’t concern me now because in the far corner of the room I see Elise tied to a chair. Her back is to me but I know it is her. She’s crying.

  I walk up behind her and put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m here,” I tell her. “It’s okay. I’m here. I won’t let them hurt you.”

  Elise suddenly wasn’t bound to the chair anymore. She turned freely in her seat to look at me. I noticed her hair had grown a little longer than when her back was turned. She looked me in the eyes and put her hand on top of mine and I found myself looking at my wife now.

  “It’s time, Archie,” Marianne says to me.

  “Time for what?” I ask. I can feel myself starting to cry

  “I have to go.”

  “No wait!” I yell, but my wife and the chair she was sitting in was already gone. The rain had stopped. Tears rolled down my face and the only sound left in the room was coming from the carpet where someone was continuing to threaten my life.

  I awoke the next morning feeling good. I know I’m not the biggest drinker, but I’ve still yet to have a hangover. I’m pretty proud of that. I got out of bed with a smile on my face, something I haven’t done in a long, long time. My dream had already slipped away but had somehow left me…better. Then I remembered the previous night’s moment and I became really confused again. Oh well, I’ll have time to worry about that later. Today, we had work to do. I showered and got dressed and was very pleased to see that, for a change, I would get the chance to wake Elise up. I snuck into her room and approached her bed. She was laid out flat on her back with her mouth wide open. She reeked of booze and was snoring softly. Her head shifted a bit and a ray of sunlight from the crack in the blinds made the drop of drool rolling out the side of her mouth glisten a bit. Funny, for how repulsive she looked, she was still beautiful. I opted out of punching her in the arm for her wakeup call and decided to touch her on her shoulder.

  “Hey Butthole. Wake up,” I whispered.

  Nothing.

  “Come on, darlin, we’ve got to go.”

  Still nothing. Oh well, I tried. I put my weight behind her and gave her a quick, hard shove. She rolled right off the bed and hit the floor with a thud. She quickly shot up and yelled at me.

  “What the hell?!”

  “Ha! Payback, beyotch! Get dressed. We’ve got work!”

  She groaned and gave me a dirty look. Her eye makeup was smeared and she looked like some sort of drunken raccoon. She was still fully dressed from last night.

  “I need a shower,” she mumbled.

  “Bullocks!” I exclaimed! “You look marvelous!”

  “I look like death.”

  “Yep! But we’re in Vegas, nobody will even notice. Hurry it up.”

  “Ugh, I’m nauseous.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Like hell I’m not.”

  “I think you meant to say you are nauseated. Nauseous means something has the ability to make one nauseated. Like; the sloppy horse vagina they’re passing as roast beef at Arby’s is nauseous. You’re nauseated. Not nauseous.”

  Elise stared at me with her empty eyes and did a disgusting closed mouth burp which she then blew in my direction.

  “Actually,” I said, “I was wrong. Upon further inspection you are nauseous.”

  “Hate you.”

  “Go get ready!”

  I was able to watch a terrible movie on HBO from start to finish before Elise was ready to go. We were really behind schedule. I hoped we could make up some time. A big break early on sure would help us out.

  We made our way to the front desk and asked to speak with the head of security. The brain-dead zombie behind the desk asked what my business was and I responded by flashing her my P.I. license. This seemed to satisfy her and she told me to take a seat. Shortly after, we were invited into a private office just off to the left of the check in area.

  “What may I help you with, Mr.-‘

  “Lemons,” I add.

  His name, according the plaque on his desk, was Greg Adams, Head of Security. He didn’t seem
very threatening from here. While he was tall, he didn’t have much muscle to him. I wondered how he would handle a situation which needed securing. Then I remembered that he probably sat on the bench and told a bunch of meat-heads what to do.

  “Mr. Lemons,” he continued. “And your name, Miss?”

  “Reynolds. Elise.”

  The two hours of prep didn’t help her hangover much. She was a mess. I found it rather humorous.

  “Sir, we are here about a recent death in your hotel?” I told him.

  “I see,” Greg said, appearing confused.

  “It appears early last week a man died in one of your rooms.”

  “It happens,” he said. “All too often, actually.”

  “I would imagine, but this guy died, how shall I say, while in the act of self-gratification.”

  “Oh yes, I won’t be forgetting that one anytime soon. You’d be amazed to know what we discover in these rooms. This is a new hotel, so that was our first death by autoerotic asphyxiation. Probably won’t be the last though. That case was ruled accidental. What do you have to do with it?”

  “Well,” I answered and then glanced towards Elise. This is usually where she interrupted me. She was staring at the wall behind Mr. Adams, eyes glazed over, with a lifeless expression on her face, breathing through the gap between her parted lips. I continued, “We were commissioned by his friend and work partner, whom he was traveling with at the time of his death. It seems his friend was his roommate back in our hometown and knew the deceased quite well. Our client doesn’t believe at all that his friend died in this manner. He wants us to take a closer look at it, see if we can find anything maybe the police missed.”

  “I appreciated your situation, Mr. Lemons, but I can-‘

  He was cut off by a slight groan from Elise. We both looked at her with expressions of shock and repulsion upon our faces. She hadn’t even realized she had made the sound and was clueless to our gazes.

  “-Is she okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, she’s fine. Just. Ya know. Vegas.”

  “Right.” He went on, “Anyway, I can assure you, Mr. Lemons that I took control over that case and we found absolutely no signs of foul play. We found the young man on the security camera, sitting at a table when he stood up and went up to his room. We have him stepping on the elevator alone. That’s where the camera loses him, but ninety seconds later he used his keycard to enter his room. The door was opened again with the keycard only once more a half hour or so later, but we assume he pushed his room service tray out into hall and the door closed on him. The cart was still outside his door when they body was discovered. And that’s it. Nothing more. The door was not opened again until the maid used her pass card to do her cleaning duty. I promise you there is nothing else to investigate. There is nothing to find.”

  “All the same, Mr. Adams, we’d still like your permission to poke around.”

  “As you wish. The room is still vacant, as is company standard. The young man died last Tuesday and the room has to remain vacant for two weeks. It is Tuesday again. You have one week. But I cannot promise you much help from our end. We are involved in something much more pressing.”

  “What would that be?”

  “We had a young woman who claims she was abducted from our hotel and taken to a vacant, dirt lot a mile or so away where she was savagely beaten, raped and left for dead.”

  “Oh my god,” Elise gasped. It seems she had regained consciousness. If there is one thing she hates more than anything, it is a rapist. Mr. Adams’s story had grasped her from her hungover stupor and caught her attention.

  “What does being sued have to do with you?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m not really at liberty to say. It is a private matter,” he responded.

  “Come on,” I urged him. “We’re both professionals here. Maybe you’ve heard of me. Remember the Brad Jackson case?”

  “I thought that name sounded familiar,” he said.

  “See. I’m a good ally to have. And it’s not like this isn’t something I couldn’t just find on the internet in about two seconds. We’re intrigued. So, please. Share.”

  “Very well, I’ll give you the basics. The young woman claims she was attacked by two men here in our hotel. Her memory is hazy, unfortunately. She blacked out from the attack and when she finally came to she was being raped. She remembers having her hands bound behind her, but that’s about it. She blacked out again and when she awoke, she was alone, face down in the dirt, blood and muck covering almost her entire body. She was found some four hours later buy an officer driving nearby.”

  “Oh my god!” Elise gasped again.

  “Wow, that is terrible,” I added. I felt sick to my stomach. I’m sure Elise did too. I could see it on her face. This wasn’t the hangover. “So, excuse my obtuseness, but what does that have to do with being sued and you? I don’t understand.”

  “Simple, Mr. Lemons. She is suing the hotel, so naturally myself and the hotel detective have to investigate this matter intensely. Unfortunately, the world we live in today, we can’t just take everyone at their word. We need to make sure we are not being conned. We need to make sure she really was abducted here. And we need to find out exactly what happened and who did it. If for nothing else than to just prevent it from every happening again.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Lemons, we run a business here, and the bottom line is always the cost. We could have just paid her off, but compared to what it would cost to run the investigation as opposed to what she is asking, it is cheaper for us to dig deeper in to it. I’m sure you are sympathetic to our procedure, being a P.I. yourself.”

  “No! We are not,” Elise said. “The woman was beaten and raped and you are going to treat her like a criminal?! That is complete-‘

  I put my arm on her knee to quiet her down. “We understand, Mr. Adams.” I looked at Elise. “It’s just like what we would do. Always suspect the client first.”

  She gave me a dirty look then sat in silence.

  “So, how is it going?” I finally asked.

  “Not well. Not well at all,” he answered.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “The problem, Mr. Lemons, is we have yet to find her leaving the casino. We’ve spent countless hours watching video after video from the night of her disappearance. We follow her all over the hotel until she makes her way to her room. That’s the last we ever see of her. It’s like she vanished into thin air.”

  “Interesting. What day was this?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes and gave his head a slight shake.

  “Last Tuesday.”

  10.

  “Welp, let’s make like a baby and head out, Elise,” I said. “Thank you for your time with this matter, Mr. Adams. I’m sorry that you don’t think there is something a little odd about finding a dead body on the same day as an apparent rape, but I guess that’s why I’m the investigator and you’re the security. Thanks for the room key.” I reached into my pants and grabbed my wallet and removed one of my cards. I handed it to Mr. Adams and said, “Here’s my card, my good man. You call me if you need any help solving this case.” I grabbed Elise’s arm and we busted out the door back into the lobby. My adrenaline was pumping.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Elise said to me as we snaked our way through the crowds of people pissing their money away. Normally this many people gathered around me, bumping into me, would drive me insane, making me breath heavily and my vision become tunneled, my legs unsteady, but today I barreled through them with hardly any hesitance. I was on a mission and none of these pathetic, drunken losers with their dreams of hitting it big could stop me.

  “It certainly was,” I said. “Come on, let’s get some lunch and talk this one over.”

  “Great. I am starving. Need bacon! And French toast.”

  “Hey Calvin Coolidge, you were asleep for twelve hours! Breakfast is over.”

  “No way, Vegas has tons of buffets that serve all foods at all hours of the days.
”

  I stopped in my tracks, amidst the gray haze of cigarette smoke and the dank, dour air of booze ridden sweat and broken dreams, to look at my partner, my friend, my love, the mother of my two favorite people on the planet. I looked her straight in the eye, with utter disbelieve, shock, repulsion and mild anger. Of all the things I have gone through in my entire life, of all the ups and all the downs, of all the pain I have been through, the heartache, the tears, none of that compared to the horror of this. I looked at Elise, right into her glossed over, empty stare of last night’s drunken stupor. Time seemed to stop around me. The room seemed quiet and still.

  “I’m sorry. Did you just suggest we eat at a…buffet?”

  “What? No.”

  “You did! You did suggest it! I heard with my own two ears! Do you know what goes on at buffets, Elise? Do you?”

  “Um, you can eat until you’re full for fairly cheap?”

  “No! That’s not what goes on. I’ll tell ya what goes on! It’s about one step above a potluck! People make this FOOD,” (I actually did air quotes around FOOD. I’m not proud but I had to make my point, here!), “then they set it out in large trays. Then do you know what happens? Do you know, Elise?”

  “Um, people eat it?”

  “PEOPLE EAT IT! They line up for it like horses at a trough. They breathe on it, they stick their disgusting, unwashed, money-dirtied meat hooks in MY food and shovel pounds of that shit on to their plate, then stick the disgusting used spoon back into the slop for the next mouth-breathing, slack-jawed yokel to have his go at it. And this goes on, all day long at the good old buffet. Sure, it’s only ten bucks for all you can eat, but is it worth it? I THINK NOT!”

  “God, you’re such a pussy. We’ll go to a restaurant then.” (The mouth on this woman, nowadays, I swear to god! I tried to clean up my language since the kids have become human sponges, but hers has gotten worse. I first realized there was a problem with the kids when we got a call from the principle a few months ago saying that my little, sweet, adorable Eric kept saying “down with whitey.” Then he called his teacher an ass burglar…He then went on to explain to her exactly what an ass burglar was: he who burgles ass!” I’ve kept the language to a minimum since then.)