The Fat Innkeeper

by Alan Russell

  “Do tell. Or would you prefer singing?”

  “Wailing,” he emphasized, then explained, letting out his whale song.

  He talked about life and death, about business and business cards, and working in an “occupied Hotel.” Am and Sharon had met at the Hotel California. She had arrived as a hospitality spy, had worked there gathering information before Am found her out. He still insisted that what she had done was unethical; she conceded only some gray area. The Japanese had to know everything about any business they were interested in buying, she had explained. It was almost a compulsion with them. According to her, the Japanese loved data more than sushi, and their information networks rivaled those of the CIA, KGB, British Intelligence, and Mossad. These days, though, Sharon’s Mata Hari days were over, unless helping Am figure out how to navigate the Japanese cultural maze qualified her as a double agent. Her advice came with a price, though, payment doled out by Am in the form of a Japanese folktale. Sometimes she called him “My Scheherazade-zuki.” It was about as close to an endearment as she was offering these days.

  “Kipling was right,” finished Am in his lament, “when he said, ‘Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’ “

  “I suppose you’re talking about the same Kipling,” said Sharon, “who in one sentence managed to be sexist, racist and imperialist, when he wrote, ‘Take up the White man’s burden.’ “

  “Change the word ‘white’ to ‘yellow’ and we have the unspoken mind-set of the Japanese, don’t we?”

  “The Japanese don’t think of themselves as being yellow,” said Sharon. “They consider themselves wheat-colored.”

  “Wheat-colored,” said Am. “I supposed that makes sense. Don’t they always go around saying America is their granary?”

  The exact quote, oft repeated in Japan, is that Europe is their boutique, and America their farm.

  “And you don’t like being a farm boy?”

  “I don’t like being treated like a boy.”

  She had told him before that the Japanese were the most prejudiced race on the planet, had even conceded that many of their business designs were imperialistic in nature. And yet Sharon admired many things about Japan and the Japanese, including their accomplishments, their drive, their industriousness, their innate curiosity, and their culture.

  “Then don’t act like the American stereotype that they believe in: loud, whining, and uneducated.”

  “What? And disappoint them?”

  Sharon had told him before how the Japanese public schools ran 240 calendar days per year, as opposed to 180 days in the United States. She had a lot of facts like those at her command, enough for him to refer to her sometimes as “Tokyo Rose.”

  She was pragmatic, with a business head, and he was the philosopher and dreamer. Her roots were East Coast and upper class. He had never lived more than half a mile from the Pacific. And yet Am remembered how only a few months back they had connected. They had—had—twained. Oh, how they had twained. Maybe Kipling was wrong. Sharon must have felt his hope and his ache.

  “I have no time for ren’ai, Am Caulfield,” she said. “You have to start going out with other women.”

  “What’s ren’ai?”

  “Romantic love,” she said.

  “I’m surprised the Japanese even have a word for such a thing,” he said.

  “Don’t stoop to their level,” she said. “Don’t automatically assume the worst. Surprise them, farm boy. Who knows? Maybe they’ll even surprise you.”

  “Is this sayonara?”

  “Not before my folktale.”

  “You wouldn’t consider phone sex instead?”

  She didn’t answer. Eventually, Am told her about the two elderly neighbors, the one honest and good, and the other black-hearted and evil. They saw each other on the road just before the new year, and the subject of their new year’s dream was raised. For the Japanese, the first dream of the new year is very propitious, foretelling what is to be.

  “A few days later,” Am said, “the neighbors saw each other again and compared their dreams. The honest old man said that he had dreamed that luck would come to him from the heavens, while the vile old man said in his dream he had seen that luck would come to him from the earth.

  “That very day the honest old man started tilling the earth on a field he shared with the evil old man, only to find a huge jar full of coins. He decided that this was the fulfillment of his neighbor’s dream, and that the right thing for him to do was to go and tell him about his find. He tromped next door and told the evil old man about the booty that awaited him, then went home to warm himself in front of a fire.

  “The evil man hurried over to the site. As he turned the buried jar toward him, he was overjoyed to hear the sound of clinking gold. But instead of finding coins inside it, he found it was full of writhing snakes. Vowing revenge, the evil man carried the jar over to his neighbor’s house. He climbed a ladder that was propped alongside the house and, straining with his load, made it up to the roof. Looking down through the smoke vent, the evil old man could see his neighbor and his wife warming themselves. The sight incensed him. He hoisted the jar up over his head and decided to dump all the snakes atop the good man and his wife. But when he overturned the container, it wasn’t snakes that fell into the room, but coins of silver and gold.

  “ ‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ cried the honest old man, as the room filled with lucre. ‘First our neighbor receives his luck from the earth, and now we receive our luck from heaven!’“

  Sharon didn’t say anything for several moments. Maybe, Am thought, he could have chosen a better story. With a little doubt, and a little defensiveness, Am announced, “Japanese folktales aren’t necessarily like Aesop’s, or Hans Christian Andersen’s.”

  “I wouldn’t expect them to be,” said Sharon. “I was just thinking about the story. Thank you for sharing your pennies from heaven.”

  Cued, he offered his own good-bye. He wanted to tell Sharon that she had been his new year’s dream, but that would have been a lie. If he remembered correctly, he had dreamed about the Hotel. Was it a sweet dream? He couldn’t recall, could only remember his having to work through a hangover the next day.

  Chapter Eight

  Mass transit is not something considered synonymous with Southern California, but it was Am’s preferred method of getting to work, partly because he enjoyed the pleasant bus ride along the coast, and partly because he didn’t have to explain himself to Annette. But today he needed to drive, reason enough to plead.

  “Going to La Jolla Strand,” he told his car, using the same kind of tone you would to mollify the gods.

  Annette was a 1951 Ford Station Wagon, but not just any station wagon. She was a “woody,” a wood-paneled wagon. Am had bought her under false pretenses, had figured only to hold on to her a few months before getting a nice return on his investment. That never happened. Anyone who owns a collectible soon learns that Emily Post could have written a three-volume set on dos and don’ts. Am figured that owning a Frank Lloyd Wright house was about the same thing as owning a woody in Southern California. You don’t add an indoor Jacuzzi or a sundeck to a Wright house. It’s inviolable. And you don’t just treat a woody like you would any car. Am claimed he would have sold Annette years back if it hadn’t been for his neighbor Jimbo, who liked nothing better than working on her and keeping her in “bitchin’ trim.” Whenever Am mentioned that he was thinking of selling her, people responded as if he were spitting on the flag. They didn’t know about, or wouldn’t believe, her quirk. Annette drove fine if you didn’t take her far from the coast, preferably within sight of it. Stray from that route, and she quickly let you know you were on the road to hell.

  Luckily, the drive from Del Mar to La Jolla is most easily navigated along the coast. Annette cantered along Old 101, her V-8 purring and easily taking the grade up Torrey Pines. Temperamental? she seemed to be saying. Not me.

  The scenic drive was lost on Am that morni
ng. He had risen very early and purchased copies of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and the Blade-Citizen. All three newspapers had devoted a good deal of black ink to the life and times of Dr. Thomas Kingsbury. Or was that lives and times? Kingsbury had been a doctor, a researcher, a magician, and a psychic/paranormal investigator. “When I was a healer,” he was quoted as saying, “it was unacceptable for me to give up on a patient. I resented being stymied by the incurable, and the unknown. I went into research to open doors. I went into the miracles business. That’s when I really started to resent the phonies. I saw too many scientists giving their all only to be eclipsed by pseudo-science charlatans. I saw the sick being preyed upon, false hopes being dangled for dollars. Every society needs their Totos pulling back the curtains on disingenuous wizards. I made it my mission to promote reason and rationality, and expose snake oil and cosmic dust.”

  The portraits the newspapers provided made Am wonder just whose death he was investigating. Was it Dr. Thomas Kingsbury, dedicated hematologist; Thomas Kingsbury, M.D., research scientist; Tommy Gunn the Magician; or Dr. Tom, the avenging angel? The man was a Rubik’s cube. He had won a slew of awards, most for research unpronounceable to laymen; work with globulins, glutinins, hemoglobins, leukocytes, and polymerization. Kingsbury evidently never met a blood disease he wasn’t interested in. Maybe that’s why he had so vigorously pursued the claims of the exploitive paranormal; he couldn’t stand bloodsuckers.

  There had been occasional patches of fog along the drive, at first innocuous wisps, but a gray layer by the time Annette crossed the borders of north La Jolla. The June Gloom had staked its position along the coast as firmly as a desert dweller on a beach holiday. Am caught his first glimpse of the Hotel just above Scripps Institution of Oceanography, its telltale red tile roof a beacon through the haze. The Hotel stretched along the expanse of La Jolla Strand, forty acres of beach-front property. It had been housing guests for more than a hundred years, and during that time had undergone numerous expansions and renovations. What hadn’t changed was the resort’s many charms. A masterpiece does not age; it just adds myths.

  Am parked Annette in Outer Mongolia, the employee parking lot that was far away from the Hotel, but relatively close to the security hut. He took a shortcut, a trail of his own making, cutting through the more circuitous flower-lined pathways. The Hotel’s gardens were famous, from its towering palms to its colorful peonies. No walkway was without bird-of-paradise or hibiscus; no trellis without bougainvillea or mandevilla; no trail without roses or orchids. Any stroll was a floral seduction, the intoxicating scents of jasmine, honeysuckle, and gardenias commanding visitors to do as they should—stop and smell the flowers.

  Am noticed the fragrances, but having served in the Hotel California’s service for ten years, he was not so easily waylaid. He had bitten of the Hotel’s apple long ago, thought of himself as far removed from innocence, but maybe he’d need to do some more chewing to get further knowledge of evil, and an understanding of why Dr. Kingsbury had been murdered.

  The security hut was not on any recommended Hotel tour. It was removed from both the gardens and the ocean, no mean feat, as most of the Hotel managed both floral and aquatic vistas. Am was sure the location wasn’t some accident. He suspected there was a direct correlation between the perceived importance of departments and their housing. The executive offices were fit to receive dignitaries, and had ocean views. The quarters for sales and marketing were expansive, with museum-like displays; purchasing and accounting, located in the back of the house, looked high-tech enough to be a bookie operation; and catering, in its garden setting, was a cornucopia of exhibitions, with pictures of food, weddings, and meeting rooms, and samples of fruits, chocolates, and cookies. (“Offer them most of the seven sins when they walk in,” the catering manager had once explained, “and you’ll book the function every time.”)

  Where was the security hut? It was the last stop on a poorly asphalted path (only legs, or utility carts, could navigate it) closed to guests. Its nearest neighbors were groundskeeping and gardening, but it was clear those two departments considered security the country cousin. Am’s predecessor in his job, Chief Horton, had often proclaimed, “In the priority of things, security at the Hotel is considered lower than a snake’s fart.” The Chief had always found it difficult to speak without some reference to flatulence.

  The transition from hotel management to hotel security had not been an easy one for Am. He was used to being involved in the important decisions of the property. Formerly, he had to be concerned about everything that went on in the Hotel, a situation almost analogous to trying to control the workings of a mini-city. His responsibilities were now much more limited, even if many departmental heads were still in the habit of calling on him for help. He had considered resigning, but had found it difficult to end his relationship with the Hotel, telling himself it wasn’t quite the right time yet. “I haven’t suffered enough,” he said, usually with a laugh, an explanation that sufficed for most. The truth was an onion he didn’t pick at. From the first, he had felt at home in the Hotel. As it had done to so many others, the Hotel had enchanted him.

  Am walked into the security hut. Flanders was on dispatch. He had gone through most of a box of jelly doughnuts sitting in front of him; strawberry, from the look of his shirt. Flanders looked like John Belushi in his last days; bloated, unkempt, and borderline demented.

  “Do not pass go,” said Flanders. “Do not collect two hundred dollars. General Tojo’s called three times in the last five minutes. He wants you over in the executive offices pronto, Tonto.”

  Tojo, aka Takei. “Did he say what he wanted?” asked Am.

  “No,” said Flanders. “But by the teakettle sounds coming out of his teeth, I’d say it was your ass.”

  Yes, thought Am, the Hotel enchanted him. The only problem was that he could never be sure if it was a good spell or a bad spell.

  Chapter Nine

  One thing that could be said for Takei, no matter how early you arrived at work, he was already there toiling away. As far as Am was concerned, that was reason enough to dislike him.

  Takei was waiting for him outside the executive offices. He didn’t try and hide his anger, didn’t try to ritualize his displeasure. The man was almost turning American, and Am wasn’t sure he liked that.

  “When I arrive,” he said, “I find another young man sitting in my office.”

  So, thought Am. Someone had finally beaten Takei to work.

  “He had the same story as the others,” said Takei. “I tell him there is a mistake, and that he should remove himself from my office, but he will not leave.”

  That was a first, thought Am. His predecessors had quickly vacated Takei’s office when asked to leave.

  “He say that he was hired as the manager,” said Takei. “I tell him more than a few times that that position is already taken.”

  Takei’s tone was firm. The unsaid echo was there might be an opening in security very soon.

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Am.

  “You tell me that before, three, four times. Did you call the authorities like I suggest? The FBI?”

  Am got the feeling that Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., was still headlining on reruns in Japan. “We’re talking about serial hiring,” said Am, “not serial murdering.”

  Takei’s face went white. “This is not a funny thing,” he said, “even if everyone seems to think so.”

  Somewhere in that somber statement Am heard a child’s cry of “Everybody is laughing at me.” That explained why, from appearances at least, Takei was more alarmed about this situation than he was by Dr. Kingsbury’s death. In Japan few things are more important than saving face.

  “I’ll get back your office for you,” said Am. “And I’ll try to get answers. Maybe this one noticed more than the others.”

  “If he did not, what will you do?”

  Am almost said, “I’ll perform seppuku in the lobby,” but instead replied,
“I’ll come up with a new plan.”

  It would have been more accurate had Am announced he would simply come up with a plan. What he had been hoping was the practical joker would tire of his game. But this prankster was single-minded, if nothing else.

  The kid was sitting in Takei’s leather chair. He looked as Am expected, about eighteen or nineteen, and still in the market for acne cream. Diana Wade was talking to him, trying to put the young man at ease. Takei’s administrative assistant was getting all too used to these kinds of situations, and was hard-pressed not to show her amusement.

  “Hi, Di,” Am said.

  Diana was new to the Hotel, one of the few recent additions that Am approved of. She was a single mother successfully raising two young boys, which meant she was basically unflappable. Her job, Am had heard her say, was the easy part of her day.

  “Hi, Am. I’ve got another new boss. This one’s named Larry Young.”

  The kid was the fourth GM to announce himself in the past month. There was a similarity to all of the pretenders to the throne. They were eighteen to twenty years old, equal parts cocksure and unsure. All of them had applied for a job at the Hotel, any job. Apparently someone had managed to purloin their applications. The young men had been called and arrangements made to meet them at a site off the property. The mystery interviewer had been uniformly impressed with all of the candidates. Their intelligence, their acumen, and their character had in every instance astounded the bogus human-resources director. He had told the applicants that they were not just suited for any job, but the top job. They were to be hired as general manager. It was the kind of story which only a young man could believe, could swallow without too many questions. It didn’t totally surprise them that someone else confirmed what they had always suspected: they were very special.

  “Hi, Larry,” said Am. “My name is Am.”

  Am offered his hand, but it wasn’t accepted enthusiastically. “Mr. Fletcher,” said Larry, “warned me about you. He said I shouldn’t listen to either you or Mr. Takei.”