A Hitch at the Fairmont

by Nick Bertozzi

  “Uh-huh,” said Opal, pulling two more chocolates from the display case. “Mr. Wall-nut Toffee Chew.” She winked. “One for the road.”

  • • •

  The elevator was as slow as usual. Jack tucked the chocolate tin under his arm and pushed the call button again and again. Was Shen on a break?

  While he waited, Jack looked at the earthquake celebration display opposite the elevator. The centerpiece was a newspaper article from a Midwestern town with the headline WAS GOD’S WRATH DESERVED? It said the earthquake was a punishment for a city where “good Christian men may be tempted by harlotry and drunkenness or fall prey along the Barbary Coast to robbery, battery, or the deplorable practice of shanghaiing.” The rebuttal in a local paper mentioned how the A. P. Hotaling warehouse, which supplied booze to San Francisco’s bar owners, had gone untouched. Included was a poem:

  If, as some say, God spanked the town

  For being overfrisky,

  Why did He burn the churches down

  And save Hotaling’s whiskey?

  The article made Jack uncomfortable. Did God send such destruction for sin? What about the good people who suffered in the quake? What about the kids who lost their parents? What sin could a kid commit that would deserve that kind of punishment?

  The elevator bell rang, and the door slid back.

  “Floor, please,” Shen said, a bit out of breath. As they were going up, she pushed the lift button with her right hand while adjusting her jacket with the left. She turned to Jack like she had something important to say, but when the elevator arrived at Jack’s floor, all she said was, “Watch your step, please.”

  A strange quiet covered Aunt Edith’s suite. Approaching her room, Jack spied a chocolate in the middle of the floor, next to a brass button. He picked them up. The button was polished and cold. The chocolate was praline pecan. How odd. Aunt Edith would never let a praline pecan escape her grasp. Jack wrapped the chocolate in its little foil cup and put it and the button in his pocket.

  “Aunt Edith?” he called. The silver frame had fallen off the end table. A thin crack marred one corner of the glass. His aunt’s wedding photo wasn’t scratched, so Jack figured his mother was safe underneath. Had they had an earthquake while Jack had been gone? He hadn’t felt anything. More likely Muffin was to blame.

  In front of his aunt’s bedroom door Jack found the carcass of the gold box of chocolates. Pleated foil cups lay scattered about. Jack picked up the box. A few chocolates remained. He looked into the room. The crystal bowl was overturned and mostly empty. The rumpled bedspread sprawled on the floor. Half-eaten, spit-covered chocolates smeared a lumpy message on the bedsheets. It read:

  wE hAvE hER

  No PoLicE

  And the coconut cream dotted the i.

  JACK STACKED THE BATTERED BOX of earthquake chocolates on top of the unopened tin and set them on the dresser, next to Muffin’s empty cage. He circled the bed, staring at the lumpy chunks of nuts and fillings in the letters. The front of his brain screamed this is a sick joke. But tendrils of doubt were twisting up his spine.

  “Aunt Edith,” he called, “this isn’t funny.”

  Was she trying to teach him some sort of lesson? Show him just how alone he was, as if he didn’t know? That would be just like her. And he’d be the one who would have to clean up this mess.

  “Aunt Edith?”

  He looked in the closet, behind the curtains, beside the dresser. There were only so many places a woman of Aunt Edith’s size could hide. Under the bed wasn’t one of them, but he looked there, too.

  “Aunt Edith!” he called loudly, rushing to the sitting room.

  She wasn’t behind the sofa, where Jack slept, nor crouched behind the hi-fi stereo.

  Of course! The bathroom!

  He ran to the bathroom door. This was Aunt Edith’s inner sanctum, where she engaged in what she called her beauty regimen, though Jack thought of it as an act of pure faith. He hesitated at the door. Just a few days ago Jack had accidentally opened it as Aunt Edith was stepping out of the shower. Jack knew boys at his old school who longed for a glimpse of a lady in the shower, but he was pretty sure the whole experience had put him off girls for good (and he’d only seen her from behind). Aunt Edith had bellowed like a foghorn on San Francisco Bay.

  “You’d better knock from now on,” she’d called as he backed away and shut the door. Well, you didn’t have to tell him twice!

  He knocked. No answer. No light coming from beneath the door. He turned the knob. He entered and switched on the light.

  “Arrr!” he cried, and sprang back.

  Aunt Edith crouched on the toilet.

  But no. It was only the wooden wig form she kept atop the toilet tank with her auburn wig pulled over it. Two more wigs perched on the counter, along with a vast array of ointments, powders, and makeup. Otherwise the room was empty. Jack stared into the pedestal mirror on the vanity.

  “Where is she?” he asked his reflection.

  A scritch, scritch sounded behind him. In the mirror, the shower curtain swayed. Jack turned. The cold of the marble floor penetrated the soles of his shoes. He reached out. The nubbly texture of the shower curtain sent shivers up his arm. He inched the curtain back.

  “Aunt Edith?”

  A white blur lunged at him from the tub. He fell backward, tearing the curtain from its rod. He grabbed a towel rack. It ripped off the wall and swept across the vanity. The mirror fell and shattered, nearly on top of him.

  “Muffin!” Jack yelled. Aunt Edith’s pet sat on his chest and glared at him. With a scolding chatter it darted out of the bathroom.

  There was a knock from the front door. Jack stood up, flapping his shirtfront to shed the slivers of glass. The knock came again.

  Jack couldn’t imagine who was knocking or what they could want, but maybe it had to do with Aunt Edith. He opened the front door. A familiar figure stood there, in profile, as if ready to return to his own suite. Jack half expected the creepy theme music from the man’s television show to start playing. This time Jack remembered to step out of the way.

  Alfred Hitchcock sailed into the room. He wore the same blue wool suit, and a look of concern.

  “Are you quite all right, young man?” he asked. “I heard shouting and then a crash.”

  “All right?” Jack echoed. He backed into the sitting room, where he stumbled against a chair and sat down with a plunk. He wasn’t hurt, but when was the last time he’d been all right?

  “Are you?”

  “Ummm . . .” Jack didn’t know where to begin.

  “Young man, it’s quite late.” The director ticked off items on his fingers. “I have a very important novel to review for screenplay potential, an actress to replace for my TV show with nothing but dreadful robots applying for the position, and a call to make to Mrs. Hitchcock. Now, since you seem fine, I shall get back to work.”

  “Don’t leave,” Jack said. “I’m not all right.”

  The director leaned over Jack, his attention focused, his lively eyes now keen and cutting, the eyes of a man who knew things. “Well, what seems to be the problem, then? Is someone here hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you parents?” The director spread a fleshy hand on the chair back and looked around the room.

  “They’re . . . they’re dead.” The words were a punch in the gut.

  “Dead!” Hitchcock’s eyes popped wide with surprise, and maybe a little bit of . . . curiosity? “Good heavens! Young man, dead is usually considered to fall under the heading of ‘hurt.’ Very much so, in fact.”

  “Huh? Oh . . . No, look, my parents aren’t here. I live with my aunt.” Jack pointed to the bedroom. “Just go look.”

  Jack followed Hitchcock down the hall, but the director stopped short in the bedroom doorway.

  “There’s a weasel on the bed,” he said.

  Jack pushed into the room. Muffin sat on the bed, licking and eating the chocolate words. He’d polished off the c and
most of the i. He was just finishing the coconut cream.

  “That’s just Muffin,” Jack said, “my aunt’s pet chinchilla.” He picked Muffin up by the scruff of his neck, holding him at arm’s length. The rodent glared at him but curled up in a still ball while being carried. Jack locked him in his cage. Muffin circled his cedar shavings twice, then settled down to sleep.

  Jack turned to the director and told him all that had happened from the time he’d switched on the TV until now.

  “Well, young man, we had best ring up the police.”

  “But what about the message?” Jack cried.

  “ ‘We have her. No pole’?” Hitchcock read. His brows crinkled in obvious confusion. “What pole?”

  “It used to say ‘police,’ ” Jack said. “What if they find out and hurt her? What if they kill her?”

  “Stay calm, young man,” Hitchcock said, “though I know that can be difficult when someone you love is in danger.”

  “Someone I love?” Jack’s head was spinning. How quickly things can be taken from you. Friends. Family. Orphans in books were always full of pluck. Or clever. Or courageous. Jack just felt queasy.

  He looked at the director, this man who had the world in hand instead of on his shoulders, this man who knew all about the dark things in life, who had tamed them by throwing a light on them and projecting them onto a screen. You couldn’t lie to a man like that.

  “Honestly, I don’t even like my aunt very much,” Jack said. “But look, she’s family. Since my mother died, she’s the only relative I have. If something happened to her, I’d have nowhere . . . no one . . .”

  “All the more reason to involve the police.” Hitchcock took Jack by the arm. “Let’s go to my suite and call the hotel. They’ll send someone to take you to the station.”

  The director’s grip was firm, gently urging Jack out of the room. But soon enough he would pass him off to someone else. There was darkness ahead. Jack tasted it yawning in front of him, vast and unknown.

  “No!” Jack pulled away. “You. I want you to take me.” The first time you explored a cave, you took a guide who knew the place.

  “As I said, I am quite busy. I’ve a movie to plan and stories to choose for next year’s show.”

  “Please,” Jack said. “You know things. I see it every week on your show. You know about stuff like this. Kidnappers and murderers and thugs.”

  The director’s eyes crinkled impishly. “So you’ve had a look at my résumé?” He seemed pleased, but still hesitant.

  Jack pressed on. “Don’t you want to see how the story ends?”

  Hitchcock’s eyebrow arched. “Perhaps.”

  “It could be interesting,” Jack said.

  “But . . .”

  “It could be challenging,” Jack added.

  “True . . .”

  “It could be . . . It could be . . . grisly.”

  A smile erupted on Hitchcock’s face. “Grisly?”

  “Very,” Jack said, though he hoped it wouldn’t be. “Please, Mr. Hitchcock. If I go to the police, I need someone who can help me.”

  The director’s brow furrowed. His gaze seemed to lose focus. “When I was just a boy, my father sent me to the constable with a note. The man locked me in a cell and told me that’s what they do to naughty boys. I’ve feared the police ever since.” He bit his chubby lower lip.

  Jack put his hand on the director’s. “I’m afraid too.”

  Hitchcock blinked. “Nonsense,” he said. “Let’s be quick. I have work to do.”

  CENTRAL STATION ON WASHINGTON STREET wore an aggrieved look, as if it had indigestion from so many years of swallowing murderers, swindlers, and thieves. The large oak door opened inward but grated against the floor on the last half of its swing. The linoleum tiles sported a stark black-and-white checker pattern, except where the shuffling feet of decades of perpetrators had worn a gray path, its edges soft and rounded, from the door to the front counter.

  A pudgy, balding police sergeant perched behind the counter, his arms stretched as wide as the newspaper in front of him. Another policeman, bamboo-thin, with a pointy nose and eyebrows that met above it, sipped coffee and read over the sergeant’s shoulder. A bright overhead light reflected off their silver badges, making Jack blink and squint as he approached.

  “I’d like to report a kidnapping,” Hitchcock said.

  “Kidnapping?” the sergeant turned his head slightly toward them, but his eyes stayed locked on the paper.

  “Yes. This boy’s aunt has disappeared.”

  The sergeant’s eyes caught up with his face. He looked directly at them. “Hey! You’re Alfred Hitchcock. Look, Larry. It’s Alfred Hitchcock.”

  “Really,” said the thin policeman, still reading. He blew a tiny whirlwind of steam from his coffee.

  “Yes. Yes, I am.” The director smiled.

  The sergeant did not. He pressed his lips together and squinted at Hitchcock. Then he leaned to the side to look around the director at Jack.

  “What makes you think his aunt was kidnapped? Maybe she went for a walk or something?”

  “The kidnappers left a note,” Hitchcock said.

  One of the sergeant’s eyebrows arched up at this. He unfolded his arms just enough to extend his right hand, palm up. After Hitchcock and Jack had stared at his calluses for several seconds, he snapped his fingers, twice, then laid his palm up again.

  “The note?” said the sergeant. “May I see it?”

  “I’m sorry. No,” said Hitchcock.

  “No?” The sergeant recrossed his arms. The gesture made his badge flash again.

  “No. I’m afraid it was rather too large to bring,” said Hitchcock.

  “I see.”

  “It was written on a bedsheet.”

  “A bedsheet?” The sergeant’s voice curled up at the end, like a damp piece of paper.

  “Yes. In chocolates.”

  “Chocolate.” Now his voice was flat.

  “Chocolates,” Hitchcock corrected. “The note was written in little chocolate bonbons, on a bed, room five sixty-two, the Fairmont.” The overhead lamp cast little pinpricks of light where perspiration had beaded up on his forehead.

  “Hear that, Larry? He says the note was written in chocolate.”

  “Maybe it was the Easter Bunny who kidnapped her, Harry,” Larry offered.

  “The Easter Bunny!” Sergeant Harry said. “Hey, Larry, that’s good!”

  “Gentlemen,” Hitchcock said, “I assure you this is no laughing matter.” Hitchcock took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. He could do nothing about the flowers of dampness blooming around his collar.

  “No. Kidnapping is quite serious,” Harry said. “Anything that involves the police is serious. Or it should be.”

  “Quite.”

  “You know, I used to live in LA,” Harry said.

  That seemed like a random, unrelated statement to Jack. Still, he piped in with a squeaky “Me too,” hoping that might help smooth over the tension he sensed in the room. But the sergeant ignored him.

  “Used to read the Hollywood Scoop all the time,” he said, staring at Hitchcock.

  “Oh?” Hitchcock sounded curious.

  “Even appeared in it once. Right after I removed a horse from a dressing room.”

  “Oh.” And now contrite.

  Jack found it hard to follow this conversation. But the sergeant was looking at Hitchcock like the director had something to do with this story. Jack tugged Hitchcock’s sleeve. “Wait,” he said. “Did you put a horse in a dressing room?”

  Hitchcock twisted the handkerchief in his hands. “It was merely a pony.”

  Bam! The sergeant slammed his palm down on the desk. “It was a Belgian draft horse, and the room was narrow. Horses get nervous backing up, you know. Took two officers to get the job done. One in front. One in back. Guess which I was.”

  “Hey,” Larry said, “is that why they call you Harry Horsepi—”

  “The studio
wouldn’t even pay the dry cleaning bill,” Harry interrupted.

  Hitchcock stood straighter. He balled the handkerchief into his fist. “That was meant to be a private joke,” he said. “The police were not intended to be involved.”

  “But we were, weren’t we?” said Harry. “Just like when you released your jewel heist movie and the police were called to arrest a gang of ‘cat burglars’ in Beverly Hills, only to find it was a room full of kittens in prison uniforms.”

  “I admit the studio publicity departments get carried away at times. But I think it unfair that I be held responsible.”

  “You have a couple of films coming out this year, don’t you?” Harry asked. “See, I still keep up with the Scoop.”

  “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” said Hitchcock, “and The Wrong Man.”

  “That first one is a remake,” the sergeant stated. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.” The director’s collar was stained with sweat. He really is afraid of the police, Jack thought. It must have taken a lot for him even to walk through that big oak door. But now Jack just wished they would walk back out.

  Harry laid his hands flat on the counter and hoisted himself up to tower over Hitchcock. “I saw the original. It’s about a kidnapping. Kidnapping! In Switzerland.” He pointed an accusing finger at Hitchcock. “Where they make all that chocolate!”

  This wasn’t going at all the way Jack wanted. He planted himself in front of Hitchcock. “You said they’d help.”

  The sergeant looked at Jack and sighed. “How old are you, kid?”

  “Eleven.”

  “I’m not gonna waste any police time on this, but I’ll send the kiddie patrol around, just to be safe.”

  “Kiddie patrol?” Jack asked.

  “Youth services,” the sergeant said.

  Now Jack’s shirt collar felt damp. And cold, like an iron noose.

  “Alice Trapp from YS is in the back,” Larry said. “Want me to get her?”

  “That’d be great,” said Harry.

  Larry disappeared down a dim hallway behind the desk. Jack caught Hitchcock’s eye and nodded toward the exit, but the director shook his head no.

  The clop, clop of footsteps echoed from the hallway, along with a murmur of voices. The only words Jack could make out were “Chocolate note!” The director stared at the ceiling. As the footsteps got closer, he took Jack’s arm.