by Alan Russell
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Leonard,” said Am. “My name’s Am Caulfield and I’m the assistant general manager here. On behalf of the Hotel, I’m calling to express our deepest sympathies.”
Am’s attempt at sorrowful sorries didn’t get very far. “I really didn’t know Tim very well,” Leonard said.
And by the tone of his voice, Am didn’t think Leonard was going to be starting a retrospective any time soon.
“Well,” said Am, “might the Hotel be of any assistance to your group at this difficult time?”
Leonard thought a few moments before answering. To Am, that wasn’t a good sign. “Steve Daniels is the one you should talk to,” he finally said. “Steve’s in five twenty-two. He was a friend of Tim’s, so he’s pretty much handling everything.”
Daniels’s line was busy, which was excuse enough for Am to walk up to his room. A small man who looked like a depressed version of Harpo Marx answered his knock. Am barely got the chance to utter a few platitudes before the guest swept him into his room. Maybe it was the face-to-face, or maybe Daniels just needed someone to talk to. “I still can’t believe it,” he said. “Tim’s the last guy I would have figured for this.”
Am sat down on the sofa and let Daniels talk. He heard that Kelly had walked out on a good life. The deceased had run a successful development company in Menlo Park and had a family he adored. Daniels had known him for almost ten years, and this was the third consecutive year they had attended the convention together. It was an excuse for them to play golf and drink, the best tax write-off either of them could think of.
Tim was forty-four years old, Daniels said, and he’d left behind a wife and two small children. Phyllis Kelly was understandably very upset. She couldn’t accept that her husband had committed suicide. Self-murder went against their faith, was a sin.
Mrs. Kelly was too distraught to fly down, he said. In her absence she had authorized Daniels to take charge of all her husband’s possessions. The police had released them with alacrity, no doubt grateful to free themselves from dealing with the logistics of a long-distance death.
“You want a drink?” asked Daniels.
Am shook his head.
“Guess it is a little early,” Daniels said. It wasn’t even nine o’clock.
“Tim insisted upon buying the drinks last night,” he said mournfully. “I wish I had bought him his last drinks.”
“Were you with him the whole night?” Am asked.
“From ten until about two. We closed down your bar.”
They had done their drinking at the Breakers Lounge. Four- and five-star hotels never referred to their drinking holes as bars.
“Was he morose?” Am asked.
“Nah,” Daniels said, first giving Am a glance, then giving him a story. Am wasn’t a police notebook; he was a sympathetic face. “He was horny.”
“Horny?”
“As a toad. Tim tried to put the make on the cocktail waitress, but she just played him along.”
“Was he having marital problems at home?”
“Nothing more than usual. It was just that he was out of town, away from home. He said he was ready for an adventure.”
“So there was no crying in his beer?”
“Chivas. No. And like I told the police, I just don’t see Tim as a suicide. My guess is he fell.”
“Very hard balcony to fall from,” Am said. “It’s about four feet high.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what the police said.”
“How can we help?” Am asked. Translation: Who can we send a fruit basket to?
“Geez, that’s nice of you,” said Daniels. “I’m pulling my hair out figuring out what I’m going to do. I told Phyllis I’d bring home Tim’s personal effects. What am I saying? Personal effects. I’m sounding like a cop. This is Tim I’m talking about.”
Am made some reassuring sounds. Harpo looked sad enough to cry. “Problem is,” Daniels said, “his golf clubs alone are going to give me a hernia.”
“We can help,” Am said. “Our concierge can arrange to have everything shipped out.”
“That’d be great,” Daniels said, then gave Am a sideways look that asked for more help.
Am had seen that delicate but desperate expression before. About a million times. “How else,” he asked, “might we assist you?”
“What about shipping the body?”
Daniels interpreted Am’s silence as repugnance, not surprise. “I wouldn’t even ask,” he said, “except that almost the first thing Phyllis asked me was how she was going to get the body up to Menlo Park. And she was crying and everything, and I said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing, I already got everything handled.’ Only the thing is, I don’t have anything handled. The cops won’t even tell me when I can get the body. They said they were going to have to perform an autopsy.”
Am made sympathetic noises while Daniels told him how the police had advised him that under California law the coroner had to inquire into any violent, sudden, or unusual deaths. Kelly’s demise was apparently at least one of those.
“I wouldn’t worry, Mr. Daniels,” Am said. “I’m sure we can make arrangements to have a mortuary ship the body whenever the medical examiner sees fit to release it.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Daniels said, then winced at his choice of words.
Am wrote Patrice Rushton’s name and extension on the back of his business card, and an eager hand accepted the offering. “Our concierge can work out the details with you,” he advised.
And after she learns how I volunteered her, Am thought, she’ll probably kill me and work out a two-for-one with the mortuary.
“If there’s anything else I can do, please call,” he concluded.
Or thought he had concluded. When Daniels smiled, Am could see he was still holding back a few teeth. For too long Am had been practicing mind reading without a license. Daniels absently rubbed Am’s card between his fingers. There was something else on his mind, something he wasn’t quite ready to volunteer. Am wanted to walk away, but the same impulse that had made him help at the front desk, the values inculcated by his years in the service industry, prompted him to reach out.
He offered an echo. “Anything else?”
“Tim’s wallet,” Daniels said in a rush of words. “The police released it to me. And I noticed it’s missing his cundum.”
“His cundum?”
“His rubber.”
“Oh, a condom.”
Harpo looked a little offended. “Either is appropriate.”
You say tomato…“Really?”
He nodded his head, and Am amicably nodded his. Agreeing on a dead man’s cundum. Or condom.
“How were you so sure he had a condom?”
“He showed me his cundum,” Daniels said pointedly, “while we were drinking last night. Tim said he intended to get laid.”
“When did you see this condom?”
“I saw the cundum at about midnight. He thought he had a chance with the cocktail waitress.”
“Couldn’t it have just slipped out of his wallet?”
“I saw him put it back in.”
They had closed down the bar just before two. Tim Kelly had died less than an hour later. And now Am was being told that he had used or lost his condom during that short time.
“Did you walk back to his room with him?”
“No. He had to go to the john, so I told him I’d see him in the morning.”
“Did you tell the police?”
Daniels shook his head. “I didn’t go through his wallet until just a little while ago. And it’s not the kind of thing I’d want the police investigating anyway. Phyllis doesn’t need that now.”
Am agreed with him. Harpo finally looked relieved. Some of the burden of his friend’s death had been removed from him. But it wasn’t as if his discontent had vanished. It had just passed on to Am. Now he was the one wearing the funny expression.
In less than twenty-four hours as security director Am had come u
p against a suicide, a potential bra burglar, a company snitch, and a truffles thief. But this topped all.
Now he had a cundum conundrum.
XIV
So this is what cheerleaders do when they grow up, thought Sharon.
Am had advised her to take the morning Hotel tour, and a small part of her wondered if he had given that counsel out of spite. Sharon was one of a dozen people trailing behind a young, thin, athletic, beachy-blonde woman named Buffy. As if those weren’t sufficient reasons to hate her, there was the guide’s voice: high-pitched, exclamatory, and perpetually effusive.
“These terra-cotta tiles we’re walking on were made in Tecate, Mexico,” announced Buffy. “Does anyone want to guess how many tiles there are around the Hotel’s grounds? Come on, someone must have a guess!”
Much to Buffy’s delight, several someones did. She was even happier that the guesses were so wrong. “Well, hard as it is to believe,” said Buffy, her tone of voice amazingly reminiscent of that of Sharon’s kindergarten teacher, “I’m told there are over half a million of these tiles throughout the property!
“Anyone care to count them?”
Who wrote her script, A. A. Milne? But even Sharon had to concede that her group was enjoying the tour. They had gotten their fill of Italian marble, rococo woodwork, and original art, had traipsed through rooms that had troves of antique furniture, each discovery accompanied by their appreciative sounds. It was hard finding the commonplace at the Hotel. Even the ubiquitous wrought-iron fixtures, lamps, and gates were identified as special (“hand-crafted in Spain and hard as the dickens to keep up. Do you know we have four full-time painters constantly priming and painting them? That’s a fact”).
Another “fact” was how difficult it was to dust the chandeliers in the Crystal Room, three immense crystal chandeliers hanging from vaulted ceilings. The glass pendants shimmered like finely cut diamonds and were said to be almost as costly. No wonder Am was so jumpy about security, Sharon thought.
Her mind wandered from Buffy’s rote speech. Am Caulfield wasn’t what Sharon had expected. He was full of contradictions: cynical yet concerned; laid back but professional. The only thing fast about him seemed to be his wit, but he got things done. Sharon still had reservations about his appearance. He didn’t look like a manager. He looked as though he should be riding a wave or just finishing up a run on the slopes. It was that casual Southern California manner, combined with his tan, that had made her immediately question his professionalism. Sharon had assumed he didn’t have any gray matter to go with his sunshine look, but he had surprised her. She had to be careful around him. After knowing him for only a few hours, she had been tempted to accept his invitation to that ridiculous Come as a Guest party. But it wouldn’t have been fair to go. That would have been exceeding the boundaries of false pretenses, and Sharon was already feeling a little guilty on that front.
Her group started moving again, and Sharon followed. The Hotel was different from the heads-in-beds factories she was used to. Part of the Hotel’s appeal was that it was supposed to be behind the times, supposed to be a throwback to when the world was less rushed and more genteel. The Hotel offered spectacles aplenty, but its showmanship was understated. It didn’t have to compete with volcanoes, waterfalls, fireworks, and all the other extravaganzas so many resorts now felt it necessary to offer.
“Now we’ve come to the green stage of our tour,” said Buffy. She held up her thumb. Surprisingly retractable, Sharon thought.
“Though my thumb’s not green,” said Buffy, “we luckily have plenty of gardeners with such digits.”
“How many?” asked a smiling, slightly pudgy man with thinning red hair.
“I’m glad you asked.”
Sharon glanced at the questioner while Buffy meandered into her answer (abridged version: about forty gardeners). This wasn’t the red-haired man’s first question. His overeager interest in the Hotel made him stand out among the group. He was treating Buffy as if she were St. Peter. Come to think of it, thought Sharon, her backdrop did look angelic, a huge and spectacularly colorful floral centerpiece. The arrangements were positioned throughout the Hotel, and according to Buffy, many of the property’s exotic floral displays were supplied from its own gardens.
Buffy inhaled in front of the group, exhorted them to do the same like she was Jack LaLanne. The flowers did smell nice. Next to her, Sharon found the red-haired man doing nasal aerobics. He smiled at her, and she gave a tentative smile back. Most members of their group were older couples, so she wasn’t surprised that they had eventually ended up together. Still, she wasn’t sure she should encourage his attention.
“Amazing place, isn’t it?” he said.
Sharon agreed. He looked harmless enough, she thought. There was something puppylike about him. And something sad, she decided. He stayed by her side when they walked out to the rose garden, and there he surprised Sharon by gently lecturing her that she should make the time in her life to smell the roses.
“What about you?” asked Sharon.
He shook his head, and she saw his sadness once more. Then he let some rose petals drop from his fingers. He didn’t recite for her “She loves me not,” but Sharon could hear the words in the dropping petals.
They moved down the path to another garden. Sharon was about to broach a question to him, to get at his unspoken sorrow, but Buffy spoke up before she could.
“How many bulbs,” she asked loudly, “do you think are planted every year in the Hotel’s gardens?”
The man smiled, entranced once more. Through the Hotel trivia he seemed to forget about what Sharon perceived were his own regrets. Diverted, she never got the chance to ask her question, and a few minutes later the tour ended.
But not before Sharon learned the Hotel planted almost a quarter of a million bulbs every year.
XV
“Patrice.”
“Am, darling.”
Patrice Rushton fancied herself the leading lady of the Grande Dame. She had been hired as a concierge before it became de rigueur for all properties aspiring to airs to have a French title on staff. In the French tradition the concierge was the “keeper of the keys.” Am had come to believe the English translation was “extortionist.” The Hotel California’s concierges had trained local restaurateurs into inviting them over on a regular basis. When the restaurateurs failed in that duty, the guest referrals disappeared magically. Patrice referred to her concierge department as the “diplomatic corps.” Such titles, Am thought, begged for an international incident.
“Patrice,” Am said, “I need to enlist the skills of your diplomatic corps.”
Patrice beamed. She might have even attempted a blush, but only X-ray vision could have penetrated the layers of her generously applied makeup. Patrice was around sixty, but she let it be known she was in her forties.
“Guest services is our middle name, Am,” Patrice said proudly.
If that was true, then gratuity had to be their last name. Patrice had her hot lines to what she called power people, those who could get her the window tables, the tickets to popular events, the eight o’clock dinner reservations, the golf course times, and the seats on sold-out airline flights.
“You’ll be hearing from a Mr. Daniels in room five twenty-two,” he said. “I told him we’d help him ship some belongings.”
She nodded confidently, gave the barest touch to her short, well-coiffed hair. So far so good. Am cleared his throat. “I also said you’d assist him in a delicate matter.”
The touch of the hair again. “That’s what we are here for.”
“You might have heard about Mr. Daniels’s friend,” Am said. “Former friend, that is. Tim Kelly. He was in room seven eleven.”
It was undoubtedly a popular name that morning. Patrice suddenly didn’t look so comfortable. Kelly, she knew, wouldn’t be wanting tickets to the symphony.
“I told Mr. Daniels you’d take care of arranging the shipment of Kelly’s body.”
�
�Am…”
He knew better than to stop speaking. “You’ll probably have to work out the release of the body with the medical examiner or the police department. Apparently it’s in the morgue now.”
“Am—”
“Mr. Daniels will be finding out who’s handling the funeral services up north. That’s where you’ll need to send Mr. Kelly.”
“You must be—”
“If a local mortuary can’t help you ship out the body, I’m sure some airline will be able to assist in its transportation.”
Makeup always looks out of place when plastered to an angry face. In Patrice’s case, she looked like a hateful clown. “I am a concierge,” she said. “I am not a ghoul.”
“I’ll be putting you up for employee of the month, Patrice.”
And if she won, her picture would be posted in an area where even bored guests never nosed around.
“I am not happy about this, Am,” she said.
Probably because dead men aren’t the best tippers, he thought. “Delegation, Patrice. We don’t have marines, but we do have our concierges.”
Patrice stormed off. She looked ready to take Iwo Jima single-handedly. From behind him, Am heard clapping. Jimmy Mazzelli was his audience.
“Lady’s got a stick up her ass,” he said, then minced around in an amazingly accurate parody of Patrice’s walk.
Am didn’t let his amusement show. Jimmy didn’t know it, but he was due for a lecture. Besides, Jimmy didn’t need the encouragement. He had been a bellman at the Hotel for the last dozen years and always managed to straddle that fine line between being crudely funny and being fired. Sometimes you couldn’t be sure whether Jimmy was hustling a guest or just working a tip. He was in his mid-thirties, had lived the last half of his life in Southern California, but his formative years had been in New York City, and that showed both in his accent and in his manner. When Jimmy wasn’t running a comb through his long, slick hair, he was running the Hotel betting pools. The surest bet in the Hotel? That Jimmy had a Racing Form somewhere on his person.