It was a jarring stop. Jack took stock. He was lying at an angle on his back on the mountain of toilet paper. Nothing seemed broken. He pushed a few rolls to the side with his feet and found the floor. The door felt solid and thick when he banged on it.
“Help!”
A muffled voice called back from the other side, then went silent for a minute or two. The door swung outward. Jack blinked in the light of the lobby.
“Good evening,” Hitchcock said. He peered into the closet. “Have you changed your room?”
“Very funny,” said Jack.
He was about to tell the director about the shadowy figure, when Mr. Sinclair stepped up beside him. A roll of toilet paper tumbled down the pile and out the door, leaving a trail behind it. It unwound between the bell captain’s feet and bumped the wall across the hallway with a soft thump.
“Boy,” Mr. Sinclair said, “the lobby is not the proper place—nor, indeed, is anywhere in the hotel—for a game of hide-and-seek. Though I’ve no idea how you got into a locked closet in the middle of the night, let us add this to the list of amusements that are forbidden to you. I have responsibilities here, and they do not include opening rooms that should remain empty.” With that, he pulled the key from the lock and stuck it into his pocket. “Furthermore—”
The ding of the elevator bell around the corner interrupted him. Hitchcock started toward it.
“Going up?” Shen asked.
“No, thanks,” answered Jack, dragging the director away.
Several calls rang out from the elevator. Judging by their insistence and repetition, angry customers waited on higher floors. Shen shrugged, pushed the door closed, and went to answer the calls.
“I waited forever for that elevator to come,” Hitchcock said. He frowned at Jack.
“Please, Mr. Hitchcock,” Jack said. “I need your help. There is no one else.”
Hitchcock’s frown softened.
“Now see here,” the bell captain began. He was holding the roll of toilet paper. It trailed like a tail behind him and around the corner. The director silenced him with a gesture. Hitchcock picked up the toilet paper trail and draped it around the bellman’s shoulders. “Hadn’t you better get this mess cleaned up? Your guests expect better organization at a hotel like this.”
“But—”
“I’ll take charge of the boy.” Hitchcock led Jack away by the arm. Once they were out of earshot of Mr. Sinclair, Hitchcock asked Jack what had happened.
Jack told him as the director led him across the lobby and down a stairwell.
“So this person eluded you?” Hitchcock asked.
“Yes,” said Jack.
“I wonder how,” said the director.
“I just told you.”
“Indeed.”
Jack trailed Hitchcock to the Tonga Room, one of several restaurants in the hotel. A forbidding Polynesian tiki statue glowered from the other side of the door. Little flames burned in its eyes. The room felt humid, as if one really were vacationing in the tropical locale the décor mimicked. The restaurant was built around an indoor pool, with a boat docked on the far side for the band. The sarong-clad hostess guided them around the pool to a thatched bamboo hut. She set down two glasses of water. “Your waitress will be right with you,” she said.
Hitchcock pushed Jack into the booth. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”
A knobby lump squished into Jack’s thigh. He took the lump from his pocket. The praline pecan chocolate stuck to the brass button he’d found in the suite. He separated the two and set them on the table.
Jack dipped his finger into the water and wiped the bits of chocolate from the button. He’d almost forgotten he’d found it, with all the excitement. His thumb glided across its cold smoothness. It wasn’t from anything he owned. Maybe it was his aunt’s. There were no marks or emblems on it. His reflection stared back at him, captive and alone in the inscrutable brass.
Jack wondered why the director was taking so long. What was he doing? He’d said he’d be right back. The waitress came and went twice. Jack was just about to go looking, when Hitchcock heaved himself down in a chair opposite, his back to the entrance.
“I’ve had a little talk with the lobby staff,” said Hitchcock, his breath slightly labored.
“Oh,” said Jack, looking past the director. As he did, a suavely dressed man and an older woman entered the place. The man was small, not much bigger than Jack. But the woman stood tall and sturdy, in a wide-hipped, broad-shouldered sort of way. Something about her reminded Jack of an ox. He had a brief impression that they were looking at him, the man from under his hat and the woman from behind her large round glasses. They must recognize Mr. Hitchcock, he thought. They were seated opposite Jack and Hitchcock, on the other side of the pool. They continued to stare. Then thunder crashed and an artificial rainstorm fell from the ceiling into the pool. The boat drifted to the middle of the water as the band began to play, obscuring the couple from view.
The waitress came again. “Ready to order now?”
“Brandy for me. Hot milk for the boy,” Hitchcock said. When she had gone, he turned to Jack. “No one on staff saw your aunt leave the building. None of the elevator operators took her aboard after she went up earlier.”
Jack bit into the praline. He smoothed out the pleated paper cup and set the half-eaten chocolate on top. “I don’t see how anyone could have gotten her out without someone noticing. Aunt Edith is hard to overlook.”
Hitchcock’s pudgy finger tapped his chin. “Perhaps they took her out in a large suitcase or steamer trunk.”
“I don’t think so. She is a pretty big woman.”
“Several large trunks, then.”
“Sever—” Jack threw Hitchcock a horrified look. “No . . . ,” he stumbled. “I don’t see how they could have. . . . I . . .”
Hitchcock frowned. “See here, how long were you gone?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes,” Jack said.
“No, of course you’re right. Even an expert could hardly dismantle her in fifteen minutes. Let alone clean up the mess.”
“In the movies they could,” said Jack
“But there’s no relationship between filmic time and real time,” Hitchcock said. “In the cinema, time moves at the whim of the director.”
Jack’s stomach felt knotted and wrung. He thought he might be sick. “Then where is she?”
“My dear boy, if your aunt was too large to leave the hotel unnoticed, and no one did notice her leave, then there is only one possibility.”
Jack understood. “She’s still inside the hotel.”
“Quite.”
“So we should be able to find her pretty easily,” Jack said as the artificial rainstorm diminished.
“It’s a big hotel,” Hitchcock pointed out. Their drinks arrived. Hitchcock put the hot milk in front of Jack. “Drink that up. It’s good for you. Just like medicine,” he said.
Jack took a sip. It tasted bland and uninteresting, though the cup warmed his cold hands. He looked around the table for honey or sugar to add to it, but there was none. So Jack dipped the praline pecan into the hot milk, licked off the melted chocolate, and took a sip of milk. He alternated sips of milk and nibbles of chocolate. Soon he stifled a yawn.
“I suppose we could request a room by room search,” Hitchcock said, “but I doubt the management will allow it, which means we’d need to involve the authorities to make them do it.”
Jack stared through the director. “Belgian draft horses,” he said. He put his head on the table.
“Yes,” said Hitchcock, “it seems the authorities are not currently an option.” His lips pursed in thought. “I suppose one could pull the fire alarm, and then go through the crowds to see if your aunt is there, but it is all too likely that she is restrained in some way. . . .”
“Mmmmm,” Jack said. The tabletop cooled his cheek. The grain of the wood wavered and danced before his eyes. The world gently rocked. The movement was p
eaceful.
“There is really only one thing to do,” said Hitchcock.
The sturdy woman and the well-dressed man stared at them from a table across the pool. The director’s words seemed to be coming out of the man’s mouth, but Jack couldn’t make out what they meant. It seemed odd, but he was just too tired to think about it. He closed his eyes.
“Sleep on it?” Hitchcock said. The director sighed heavily. “Not quite what I had in mind. Wake up, young man. . . .”
But just like that, Jack was dead to the world.
JACK STRUGGLED TO OPEN HIS eyes. They felt painted shut, like the windows of an old Victorian on Alamo Square. The intricate design of the brocaded sofa he slept on imprinted itself on his cheek. Mr. Hitchcock must have deposited him back in his aunt’s suite, unloading an inconvenient problem before returning to his work.
The phone rang. Jack wanted to sit up, but the sound pinned him to the cushion like a moth on a corkboard—right through the center of his head.
The receiver clicked out of its cradle, and a sonorous voice said, “Good moooorning.”
Jack squinted into the bright sunlight streaming through the curtains. It looked like Aunt Edith’s sitting room but a bit larger, with different art on the walls. Stacks of books and files stood neatly arranged on the desk. Jack could make out the largest title, D’entre les morts.
“Yes, Alma. I prefer the French novel to the African. . . . We’ll need the screenwriter quite soon. . . . Anderson, I should think, unless you’ve someone else in mind. . . .”
Jack’s brain was swimming through wet cement. A bulletin board leaned drunkenly against the wall. Photographs covered its surface. In one the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge thrust up from a heavy fog bank like the rigging of a haunted schooner. In another the lonely finger of Coit Tower pointed accusingly skyward. But Jack did not recognize any of the Spanish missions or the odd little camera-shaped building at the edge of a cliff.
“. . . checking a few potential locations later. It’s a marvelous city for a murder.”
Murder? Could Aunt Edith have been murdered? Jack hoped not. As many times as he’d wanted to do that job himself, he wouldn’t wish murder on anyone.
“Is Joan there? I need to discuss Alfred Hitchcock Presents with her. . . . Yes. . . . As I do you. . . .”
Silverware clinked against a plate and brought a whiff of something that turned Jack’s stomach.
“Joan,” Hitchcock continued, “these stories you’ve sent. Not one of them will do for next season. . . . They simply aren’t grisly enough. Our audience has come to have certain tastes. . . . Keep looking. Think Woolrich or Dahl . . .”
Jack’s tongue felt like it had sprouted fur over night. Metallic fur. His arms were corpse-stiff, but he was finally able to move them. He rubbed the patterned ridges on his cheek.
“. . . and these actresses—could we find someone who has traveled the road less pampered? Beautiful, yes, but someone who has seen the ugliness of life. . . . This lot aren’t actresses, Joan. They’re poodles. Pampered poodles!”
Jack wiped drool off his chin. Oh, gosh! He’d drooled on Alfred Hitchcock’s sofa. He tried to erase the little puddle with the heel of his hand but succeeded only in pressing it into the fabric. He moved a pillow to hide the evidence.
“. . . by this afternoon. Yes.” Hitchcock hung up. “Good mooorning,” he said.
A rolling room service table sat next to the director’s desk. Hitchcock grabbed a covered plate from it and set it on the coffee table in front of Jack. The warped reflection of the room in the silver cover made Jack’s stomach spin. He leaned over.
“Last evening’s events have you overwrought,” Hitchcock said. “Perhaps we can get one of the staff to call your school and say you are ill.”
“I’m not enrolled. Aunt Edith said it was too late in the year so I’d have to go to summer school.” Jack took a breath—half sigh, half groan.
“This will get you on your feet and make you feel better,” Hitchcock said, removing the silver cover from the plate.
“Ugh! What is that?” Jack asked.
“A traditional English fry-up,” Hitchcock replied. “Had it specially made. Eggs, blood pudding, kippers, kidneys, and a special side of bubble and squeak.”
Jack’s legs finally began to work, though the effort cost him. He ran unsteadily for the bathroom. When he got there, he practically dove into the toilet. Just in time. He didn’t have much in his stomach, but what was there spewed out in a stream of burning chunks from his nose and mouth.
Hitchcock came in. He rubbed Jack’s back in a slow figure eight. “There, there,” he said.
The gesture was the same his mother had used whenever he was sick. Just as he was thinking his mother would also hand him a moistened washcloth, a pudgy hand holding a wad of toilet paper dipped into view. Jack wiped his mouth, blew his nose, and dropped the tissue into the bowl. “Mom used to call this bobbing for porcelain.” He laughed a little.
Hitchcock helped Jack stand and flushed the toilet. “You see. I told you some good English food would make you feel better.”
Jack closed the toilet lid and sat down. With nothing in his stomach, he did feel better.
For a moment or two.
“Why did you let me fall asleep?” he asked, suddenly panicked.
“Let you? You were out cold. It was nearly one a.m. You must have been exhausted.”
“We have to find Aunt Edith,” Jack said. “They could have taken her anywhere by now.”
“Do give me some credit,” the director replied. “Once you were safe in my rooms, I tipped the staff handsomely to keep watch for your aunt. As you say, she is a hard woman to miss. And word of a generous tip spreads fast. With so many eyes watching, she won’t have left the building—in whole or in parts.”
“So what do we do now?” Jack asked. He stood and rinsed his mouth out at the sink.
“We?”
Jack pressed on. “I need your help.”
“You need the police,” the director said.
Jack looked him in the eye. “Belgian draft horses.”
The director bit his upper lip. “I believe I shall be quite tired of those three words before too long.” He tapped his fingers against his trousers. He sighed. “Did you notice if anything was missing?” he asked.
“Only Aunt Edith.”
“We have the chocolate note, but I believe in these cases there is usually an indication of the kidnappers’ demands. Did you find a ransom note?”
“I didn’t look.” Jack’s mouth tasted like a movie-house floor. “I really didn’t know what to do last night. I guess we should search my aunt’s room. Besides, I need to brush my teeth.”
• • •
In Aunt Edith’s suite Jack tried to look at the rooms with fresh eyes. The décor was quite modern and dramatic—the spindle-legged couch where Jack slept, the hi-fi console with the built-in shelf neatly housing Caruso and Liberace albums.
“I don’t see anything missing,” Jack said. “There isn’t really anything to steal out here anyway. Aunt Edith kept anything valuable in her bedroom. She didn’t trust the maids.”
Hitchcock cruised into the master bath while Jack surveyed the bedroom.
“The shower curtain has been pulled from the bar,” the director called.
“That was me,” Jack said, “when I fell last night.”
The chocolate message still occupied Aunt Edith’s bed. The crystal bowl lay overturned, two half-eaten chocolates glued to its side.
Jack checked Muffin’s cage. He had plenty of food and water, though he kept sniffing at the chocolates Jack had put on the dresser the night before. Jack opened Aunt Edith’s jewelry box. Muffin chattered and ran back and forth in his cage, and kicked some of the cedar shavings at Jack with his hind legs. “It looks like her jewelry is all here,” Jack called.
“Does your aunt have a handbag?” Hitchcock said from the bathroom.
“She has a few. She keeps her favorite
slung over the bedpost. It’s still there.”
“I have it on good authority that her most important things will be in that handbag. Do check it and see.”
Jack dumped the contents of the handbag onto the floor. “Ick! Used Kleenex . . . a coin purse.”
Some ticket stubs from a place called Peter Pawn’s Neverland. Wrinkle cream. Spot cream. Eye cream. Skin firmer. Skin smoother. Face powder. Lipstick. More face cream. A bunch of envelopes held together by a blue paper clip, including a bill from Ransohoff’s department store and the hotel bill Jack had given his aunt the day before.
“Hey! Look at this!”
Hitchcock joined Jack as he pulled a fat envelope from the others in the clip. There was no address, but a slip of paper and a stack of cash were sticking out. The paper was plain and white, folded to the same size as the money. A note was written in a big, cursive hand. It read:
We’ll agree to $200,000.
Bring it to the noon service at Mission Dolores on Monday.
And let’s not play games, or I’ll be forced to end this job immediately. She’ll be dead and you’ll be blamed.
Yours,
S.
“A classic ransom note,” Hitchcock said. He took out the money and handed it to Jack, checking the envelope for anything more. “A rather peculiar place for it, though. Monday. That’s today!”
Jack counted the money. “There’s ten thousand dollars here.”
“As I said, most absurd,” Hitchcock said. “If you were a kidnapper asking for two hundred thousand dollars, would you ignore ten thousand dollars right in front of your face?”
“Maybe he didn’t see it.”
“It’s green and crisp. A criminal would smell it before opening the bag. Besides, it was in the envelope with the ransom note. But why they left it remains, by all accounts, mysterious.”
“More than mysterious,” Jack said. “It makes no sense at all. Still, the ransom note is clear enough and shows a way to solve that mystery.”
“Yes? How?”
“Ask them at noon when we drop off the ransom.” The idea filled Jack with dread. He had none of his father’s courage. He’d rather just stay in his room and draw, but it was clear the only way to go, and to stay out of the Fogbottom orphanage, was forward.
A Hitch at the Fairmont Page 6