Thank goodness. We’re leaving, thought Jack.
But when he turned to go, his arm didn’t go with him. Hitchcock held it, anchoring Jack to the spot. The director continued to stare at the ceiling, a pained but resolute look on his face. Jack tried to peel Hitchcock’s hand off his sleeve, but he couldn’t budge the pudgy fingers.
Alice Trapp rounded the desk. “This him?”
She wore a plain beige overcoat atop a beige tweed suit. The sensible hat pinned to her head had a narrow brim, from under which tufts of brown hair were peeking, like wary mice from their holes. She was of medium height, medium build, and, Jack eventually thought, medium-rare intellect. This he decided by the way she held strictly to the rules, in this case spelled out to her by the clipboard clutched in her hands. She dug in a few pages.
“Parents?” she said.
Jack didn’t answer.
“Parents?” she repeated.
“Deceased,” Hitchcock said.
She glanced at the director and made a small check mark on the page. “Legal guardian?”
Hitchcock again answered. “Kidnapped.”
“Allegedly,” added Harry with a frown.
“Allegations are your department, not mine,” said Alice, making another check mark. She turned more pages forward and back on the clipboard, and read, “ ‘If no parent or legal guardian is available, the minor shall be conducted to the Youth Guidance Center.’ ” She turned to Sergeant Harry. “You want me to take him there?”
“Youth Guidance Center?” Jack said. “Is that an orphanage?”
“Don’t be a silly willy,” Alice said, like he was a baby. “It’s more like a waiting room. Somewhere for you to stay tonight while we process you.”
“Process me?”
“Until we find a placement for you,” Alice said. She looked again at her clipboard, licking the tip of her finger, swiping through the pages one by one. “Oh, look. You’re in luck. A bed just opened up at the Fogbottom Home for Boys.”
Jack pulled against Hitchcock’s grip, but his shoes got no traction on the smooth gray path to the door.
The director cleared his throat. He fidgeted a bit. After a moment he pushed Jack toward Alice. “That might be for the best,” he said.
“What? No!” Jack cried. He stared at Hitchcock, but the director wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Alice held the clipboard against her side with her elbow, leaned forward, and took Jack’s free hand in both of hers. “Don’t worry, little boy,” she said. “I’m here to help.”
Just looking, you would think she was gently cupping Jack’s hand in hers, a gesture of caring and support. But pulling against her grip was like trying to pull your foot out of deep mud without losing your shoe.
Hitchcock said again, “It’s for the best.”
The sergeant grunted and turned back to his paper.
Alice reeled Jack in a little closer, murmuring, “There, there.”
The director shuffled for the door.
“Wait!” Jack cried.
Every eye in the room curved toward Jack. He had their attention, but what should he do with it? The seconds stretched out. Jack looked from one face to another. What were the magic words that would get him out of here?
Sergeant Harry’s badge flashed again in Jack’s face. Harry Horsepie, he thought. He smiled and looked Hitchcock right in the eye. “I haven’t said my lines yet.”
“Lines?” the policeman said.
Jack turned to the sergeant. He rocked his right foot back and forth, on the outside edge of his shoe, and stared at the floor. “Yes. Um. How did they go? Oh, yeah.” He opened his eyes wide and put on a little pout. “Please come to our hotel, or the bad guys will kill my aunt and I will be . . . I will be . . . Oh, yeah. I will be alone in the cruel world at the mercy of . . . of . . . things.” Jack turned to Hitchcock. “Did I do that right? I couldn’t remember all the words we rehearsed. Can we go to the hotel and get pancakes now? Aunt Edith and the reporter will be waiting.”
Hitchcock stood, openmouthed, his twisted handkerchief dangling uselessly at his side.
“I knew it!” The sergeant set down his newspaper and clapped his hands together. It sounded like a freedom bell to Jack. “Another stunt. Out of here, both of you. Now.”
“But . . . ,” Hitchcock said.
The sergeant picked up the handset of the phone and shook it at them. “And I’ll be calling the other precincts. If you or this kid pull this anywhere else, we’ll be coming straight to your door. Falsifying a police report is a crime.”
“And you were going to abandon that child here,” Alice added. “That’s . . . That’s . . .”—she released Jack’s hand and paged through her clipboard—“child abandonment!”
Hitchcock turned on his heel and rushed from the room. He pulled the door open so hard it stuck at the far end of its swing.
Jack followed, but when he turned to pull the door shut, he saw Alice making notes on her clipboard.
“Child labor. Child endangerment. Attempted abandonment. I’ll need the big book to see what else. That man is a menace and shouldn’t be let near that little boy. The Fairmont Hotel, you said? I better check it out tomorrow.” She slid her pen beneath the clip. “Besides, it would be a shame to waste that opening at Fogbottom.”
HITCHCOCK HAILED A CAB. He got in and slammed the door. The car tilted to the side where he sat. Jack had to scramble to the other door to get in before the taxi left.
Hitchcock was still shaken but seemed to calm down as he mopped his sodden brow. He folded his damp handkerchief precisely in half four times. When he stuffed it into his pocket he was fully composed.
“I suppose you thought that was clever,” he said. “That woman wanted to help you.”
“Into an orphanage,” said Jack. “Who would find Aunt Edith then?”
Hitchcock shrugged. “The police—”
“Didn’t believe us. They wouldn’t do anything. They didn’t believe you.” The taxi turned off Stockton and up the steep incline of California Street, full of silence. Jack tried to make himself calm, but it wasn’t easy. He wondered how the director regained control so easily. “You were going to leave me,” Jack said. Before I had answers. Before I could even ask the questions.
Hitchcock moved his right wrist next to Jack’s left and made a little jerking motion like he was trying to pull away but couldn’t. “Young man, I am not sure I like the handcuffs you’ve clapped on me.”
“Handcuffs?”
“Metaphoric ones, with links forged of guilt.”
Jack imitated the same jerky motion with his hand. “They look more like Belgian draft horses and convict kittens to me. Look, the police would be helping if you hadn’t messed with them so often before.”
An uncomfortable silence rode between them the rest of the way to the hotel.
The whole scene had shaken Jack badly. He took out his sketchbook, hoping the soft shish of pencil on paper would calm him. He put a few marks on the erased image of his father but quickly gave up. He didn’t need the frustration right now. Capturing bravery when he felt so afraid seemed a futile undertaking.
His mother smiled up at him from the opposite page. He wanted to crawl into the picture and scratch it out in equal measure. Could you feel fury and love for someone at the same time? Could you be at once hurt by their external absence and comforted by their presence inside you? But the portrait of Mom’s laughter inspired him. He drew a cartoon of five cats in handcuffs in the margin. It helped some.
The taxi dropped them at the corner of California and Mason Streets. Opal was coming out of the hotel entrance next to Blum’s. As Hitchcock entered, she glanced at the director’s back. She caught Jack’s eye, tapped her ring finger, and mouthed the question, “Married?” Jack shrugged. Opal gave an exasperated sigh as she stepped out into the fog.
Jack usually took Shen’s elevator on the north side of the hotel. It let out closest to his room. But Mr. Sinclair glared at him from the bell desk,
standing between the door and the north elevators. Jack didn’t want another confrontation with him tonight.
“Let’s take the south elevators,” Jack said.
“You may go however you wish, young man. I shall be taking the one that is closest to my rooms. I have no desire to walk the length of the hotel hallways, stepping over room service trays and shoes put out for a shining,” the director replied.
Jack looked toward Mr. Sinclair again. Now he was glaring with his arms crossed and his mustache quivering slightly. That was never good. Jack headed south, his shoes making raspy noises on the carpet. He’d see Hitchcock upstairs again anyway. Shen’s elevator was usually so slow, Jack might even arrive first.
In the elevator on the way up, Jack thought about what to do. Mr. Hitchcock would know. Maybe it was best to give him a little space so he would see how he just had to help Jack now.
The elevator dinged. “Fifth floor,” the operator called. “Watch your step.”
Jack walked down the hall toward Aunt Edith’s room. There weren’t many room service trays in the hall, and no shoes at all. He passed a tray with a steak chopped up into pieces and small silverware, the remnants of some child’s meal. A waste, really. He wondered how many residents at the Fogbottom Home for Boys would love to have those scraps, or even the meat still on the bone. He needed to find his aunt right away. He needed Mr. Hitchcock to help.
The corridor at the Fairmont formed a giant square. You could walk around and around if you wanted to, passing the same rooms and features over and over. When Jack turned the corner of the square where his aunt’s room was located, he noticed the hall lights had burned out. He picked up his pace. He wanted to be at his aunt’s door when Shen’s elevator opened. He didn’t want Hitchcock to slip into his own room and lock the door. Would he even answer if Jack knocked? Maybe he should have stayed with the director after all. What if Mr. Hitchcock abandoned him? What if he called the lady from Youth Services and convinced her to come get Jack? Jack jogged faster down the hall.
He was relieved to see a figure squatting by his aunt’s door in the shadowy hallway.
“Mr. Hitchcock, thank goodness,” he called.
At Jack’s call the figure sprang up. But something was wrong. He wore white coveralls and was far too short to be Hitchcock. And too thin. He turned to look at Jack. A white ski mask covered his face. He pulled something out of the door lock and ran.
“Hey!” Jack cried. “Stop!” He ran after the man.
Jack pursued him into the stairwell. The stairs wound round and round, like switchbacks in a cave. If Jack had had a rope, he could have rappelled down the four-foot space between the flights. The man ran down the flight below Jack. Jack leapt over the railing from one flight to the other, hoping to cut him off. But the space between the flights was greater than he’d thought. His foot caught on the railing below and he landed badly. By the time he got up, the man was dashing through the door at the next landing.
“Stop!” Jack called, and followed.
A door slammed.
Did he go into a guest room? They’d all be locked. He couldn’t have gotten in unless he was a guest. Was he? Had he had time to find his key, insert it into the lock, and turn it before Jack had rounded the corner? Jack began trying doorknobs. As he tried the third one, the door flew open. A woman stood there, wide-eyed. She was young, and pretty, like Marilyn Monroe. She wore a pale pink robe and had a towel wrapped around her head.
“You’re not Walter,” she said.
“Um, no,” said Jack.
“Where’s Walter?” she said. “And what were you doing breaking into my room? Are you some kind of Peeping Tom? Walter? Walter?” The pitch of her voice rose to a screech.
The door across the hall opened. A man in a business suit with his tie undone and two drinks in his hand stepped into the hall. “For crying out loud, Ethel,” he said, “keep it down. I’m right here. . . . Who’s this?”
“A peeper, that’s who,” said Ethel.
Walter made a grab for Jack, but he didn’t want to spill his drinks, so Jack easily evaded him. But more people were coming into the hall.
“Catch that peeper!” cried Ethel.
Doors up and down the corridor opened. Jack retreated from the growing crowd of hotel guests, until his back came up against an unopened door. A sign on it said EMPLOYEES ONLY. Jack turned the knob. It was unlocked. He jumped in and fumbled for the lights.
It was a utility closet. Mops dripped grayish water into a sink in one corner. A maid’s cart rested in another. Pipes of varying sizes, some thicker than Jack’s waist, crowded vertically in a third. No one was in here, and there was no way out. The man in white had escaped some other way. Jack turned, cracked the door open, and steeled himself to play a game of dodge the tourists when a muffled grunt and a metallic clang sounded from the pipe corner.
Jack pushed the door shut and tiptoed toward the pipes. Closer, he saw that they extended up and down through the ceiling and floor via a large hole. The pipes formed a barrier that would keep anyone from falling into the hole accidentally, but a small person could squeeze between them and find himself in a sort of shaft. Jack pressed his eye to the space between the pipes. He saw a shadowy figure two floors below squeezing back out, presumably into a closet on that floor.
Jack flattened against the wall, snaking his collarbone, then his chest, then his whole body into the ersatz shaft. This was no different from doing the chimney at Mystic’s Cave. Technically, he should have had a rope. He had just thought that, when he began to slide down the slick pipes. He pushed his back up against them and pressed one foot against each wall, a few feet in either direction from the corner. His legs were extended too far for him to get any leverage to climb, but he could work with gravity, controlling his downward movement. This was a one-way trip. The cold pipes jammed into his back, the occasional bell end, where one pipe met another digging against his vertebrae. He wall-walked down two floors.
It was awkward work getting out of the shaft. Fortunately, on this floor there were horizontal braces that held the pipes to the wall. Grabbing one, Jack kept from sliding farther while he monkeyed out of the shaft and onto solid floor.
Just as he touched down, the lights went out and the door slammed. Jack dove for the door.
And nearly knocked himself out with the force of his impact. The door was locked.
Jack was trapped.
“HELP!” JACK BANGED ON THE door, rattling the knob to no avail.
No one heard him. This was just another closet on another floor. Despite the commotion Ethel had caused upstairs, guests usually kept to their rooms, and the walls at the Fairmont were thick. Maybe if he were out in the hall someone could hear him. But he wasn’t. He was stuck until someone wandered past the door.
Jack had felt alone since Mom’s death, but never like this, isolated with no one else around. No one who would miss him. No one to look for him. Even in the darkest cave, he had a buddy, usually Schultzie, who’d make a fuss if Jack strayed too far. Would they open this closet months from now and find a mummified boy, curled up in the corner? Now the heat of the chase turned cold, a perfect nest for fear.
Jack flicked on the light. As he suspected, this closet mirrored the one two floors above. A similar sink stood in the same corner. But against the other wall, from floor to ceiling, rose a skyscraper of toilet paper rolls.
Jack examined the door. The dead bolt was thrown. It gleamed solidly in the crack between the door and the jamb. He traced the sharp zigzag of the keyhole with his finger. A maid with keys dangling at her waist could easily have escaped if she were somehow locked in. But Jack had no key. And he couldn’t pick a lock. The only thing he could think of doing was to keep going down, in hopes of finding an unlocked door.
But when Jack peered down into the shaft to figure the best way to descend, he got a surprise. The light from his floor illuminated the shaft a few feet down, where the pipes veered off horizontally in different directions. The sha
ft they created didn’t continue. Jack lay down on his side and again squeezed his body past the pipes, but only to the waist. Hanging partially into the room below, he could just make out a small sliver of light coming from under its door. The drop from ceiling to floor was much higher than typical. It was the lobby level, where the grand ceilings and high columns were meant to impress incoming guests. Jack judged that if he shimmied down the pipes as far as he could, then dangled from the horizontal leg of their L shape, he’d have a drop of six or eight feet from his toes to the floor below. The door there might be locked, but more people milled about the lobby, so someone was bound to hear his calls.
Jack hauled himself back up into the locked room. The drop wasn’t too far, but the landing worried him. A marble or concrete floor would be bad enough, but who knew what might be stored, unseen, below? Jack searched the room, hoping to find a rope or electrical cord. But there was nothing. Two floors above, dirty sheets sat in the laundry bag of the maids’ cart. If he had those, he could make a sort of rope. But there was no way up.
Here there was only a tower of toilet paper.
A huge tower.
Of soft toilet paper.
Jack kicked out the bottom rolls, and the tower toppled. Using his outstretched arms, he bulldozed the toilet paper toward the pipe shaft. Down they tumbled, a snowfall of soft white cylinders. Jack imagined them piling up in a drift below. He scurried after the last roll, sliding down a pipe like a fireman down a pole.
He came to an abrupt halt at the L. He lost his balance, if ever he had it, and hurled over the side. He was falling headfirst. Suddenly he saw his mother saying “Don’t break your neck” the first time he went spelunking with the Schultzes. He had just enough time to cover his head and wonder if he’d have to apologize to her in death—before he landed in a mound of soft. He did a sort of uncontrolled somersault onto the pile and slid down. His feet slammed against the door.
A Hitch at the Fairmont Page 5