by Dan Taylor
“Jake Hancock?”
He looks at me strangely. I don’t blame him.
“Sir, are you feeling okay?”
I smile. It feels fake on my face. “Never been better. Is it, Jake Hancock, I mean?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Great.”
I turn, take two steps, and then turn back. “Look, I’m going to level with you. I have no idea where I am, I can’t remember checking into this motel, and can’t remember last night.”
“You and fifty percent of our client base.” Mr. Dry Wit.
“No, not in that way, like when you’ve been drunk and kind of can’t remember last night. I’m drawing a complete blank. I’m struggling to remember my most recent memory.” I pause. My initial explanation of my situation hasn’t moved him to tears of sympathy, so I continue. “You ever been drunk, kid?”
“On occasion. Why?”
“There’s not a trace of vomit in my room. No empty bottles of booze. I didn’t raid the minibar. Nor is there some half-eaten fast food discarded in the waste paper basket or a snoring girl in my bed.”
“So?”
“There’s no way I was blind drunk last night. I could accept one or two of those elements being missing, but not all of them.” I think of something. “Have you been at the reception desk all night?”
He looks over at the waste paper basket, which is overflowing with crumpled empty cans of some brand of energy drink, to answer my question.
“You have?”
“Sir, I can’t feel my face right now.”
“Do you remember me checking in last night?”
He cocks his head to the side, eyes narrowing as though he might be placing me. “No.”
“Okay, then can you remember someone else checking in under this name?”
“No.”
“You responded pretty quickly. Want to take a second to think about it, maybe check what time the party in room two-eleven checked in? To jog your memory.”
He checks the computer. “Eight-twenty-three. Before I was on shift.”
“Aha!”
“What?”
“Doesn’t that sound strange to you? Some guy rocks up at eight-twenty-three, drunk enough to not remember a thing the next day?”
“Sir, I work at a motel. What you’ve just described is our bread and butter.”
“But you’ll at least admit that’s a little early for a member of that crowd.”
“A little, I suppose.” You can’t question the kid’s enthusiasm.
“Who was on shift yesterday?”
“I was.”
I frown. “But you just said—”
“Yesterday morning I was. Gill took the afternoon and evening. Oh, you meant when you checked in?”
“Yes—no. When someone checked in under my name. I didn’t check in.”
“Well you’ll have to talk to Gill about that.”
“I will. Do you have a number?”
“Number?”
Social Security number, pet insurance customer number, the number of cornflakes left in her half-eaten box in her kitchen cupboard?
“Cell number, home number?”
“Oh, I can’t give you that.”
I sigh and take out my wallet. I take out a twenty and slide it across the counter.
He glances at it. “Would you like to check out already?”
“No, this is recompense for the effort it will take you to find Gill’s number and give it to me.”
“Sir, is this a bribe? Because I take my job really seriously.”
“I can see that…”
“Dean.”
“I just really need to speak to Gill about the booking for room two-eleven.” I take out another twenty and slide it across the counter so it’s by the other one.
He swears under his breath and takes them, holds them up to the light, and then pockets them. Then he takes out his cell and starts looking through it. “Here it is. 1-323-0978967.”
“Again, but this time give me enough time to write it down.”
He rolls his eyes. “Should I just go ahead and write it down for you?”
I feign a smile. “You go ahead and do that, Dean.”
He does. I take the Post-It with the number on and thank Dean for his time. He has a piece of advice before I can escape the reception area. “Check out is at twelve, but I think you already know that, Jake. If you wanted my sister’s number, there’s no need to go making up some crazy story to get it.”
“Gill. Is that your sister?”
“You keep playing along, Sir. She’ll like that.”
I have no idea what he meant by that last comment, but it creeps me out nonetheless. “Is there a place around here I can grab breakfast?”
“There’s a diner a couple miles down the highway. Greasy Fingers Diner. I think they do breakfast.”
“Thanks.”
As I run out of the reception area, he says, “And you treat my sister right, you hear?”
I spot a taxicab parked at the other side of the parking lot, a makeshift taxi rank, its target demographic probably men just like me: unsure of and panicked about where he is, experiencing substance-induced memory loss, and running from whoever or whatever he left lying in the motel room bed. Probably knows where I’m headed before I even get in.
I think about the reception desk kid as I run across the parking lot. How old was he, eighteen, nineteen? Was I an annoying mixture of apathetic and pedantic at that age? And as stupid? Nah, there’s no way I’d be unsure of whether a diner serves breakfast.
When I get in, the taxi driver’s snoozing. I prod his shoulder and he wakes with a start. Says, “She that ugly?”
“Who?”
“Poor girl you left in that motel room. But I’m not one to judge.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Most guys tap on the window to wake me. You went ahead and got straight in.”
“I didn’t leave anyone in the motel room.”
“Sure you didn’t. Where you headed?”
“A place called…” It’s slipped my mind.
“Greasy Fingers. I knew that. But it’s polite to ask. Too early to head home and you probably need some time to think.” He starts the car. “Don’t be shy. Feel free to duck down as we pull out of the parking lot.”
I don’t. Driver’s laughing about something as we pull out onto the deserted highway. I appraise his appearance, looking for signs of hard drug addiction: African-American fifty-something, neatly dressed for the profession, mustache that’s freshly trimmed. Nope, it isn’t the world in general that’s entertaining this cab driver right now.
I ask, “What you laughing about?”
“Guys like you never learn.”
“Learn what?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Guys like me never learn nothing. Mr. Profound.
For some reason I feel a need to defend myself. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not the typical customer you’d get at this time of the day, from that particular spot. I’m not married, and as far as I know I didn’t hook up with some girl last night I’d rather forget about than take for breakfast.”
“I believe you. You just fit the bill, is all.”
“How so?”
“Hair’s a mess, if you don’t mind my saying. But I’m not one to judge. Shirt isn’t tucked in, either. Plus, you have the same thing they all have. A telltale thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Desperation in your eyes. You either killed a man last night or you’re wondering what would be best: tell the Mrs. or keep it to yourself.”
“Want my advice?”
“No—”
“Don’t tell her. You’d be a bigger man to bear the burden of the indiscretion all by yourself. Would be a selfish act, telling her. As long as you learn from it.”
“Good advice. Can I ask you a question?”
He nods.
“What if I wasn’t fleeing anything or a
nyone in that motel room, and what if I wasn’t married? What other situations do the guys fleeing the motel at this time in the morning find themselves in?”
He thinks a bit. “That’s a strange question to ask for a man who’s just committed adultery, so I’m inclined to believe you.”
“You should, because I haven’t. And If I had—had sex outside of marriage, that is—I wouldn’t feel the least bit bad about it.”
I wait for him to answer my original question, but I don’t think he’s going to, until he says, “Are you really asking me what you could’ve been doing in that motel room?”
“This might seem crazier than a shuttle full of manic-depressive clowns hurtling towards space, but yeah, I am.”
“Mm, funny.”
“What is?”
“Had me a similar conversation with a man yesterday. Same motel.” He checks his watch. “Near enough same time, too. Bit crazier than that shuttle of clowns you mentioned, though.”
“How so?”
“Man denied my teasing just as you are. But the guy was even talking crazier than you. Had no idea what he was doing at that motel, either. But even crazier than that, if you can believe it, guy didn’t have a clue what he’d done for the last five days.”
“He said what?”
2.
“JUST LIKE I SAID. Guy was freaking out, saying last thing he could remember was his daughter’s or son’s birthday party, then the next memory was waking up in that motel.” He shakes his head and giggles. “Pre-war anyone ever did was get drunk. But you kids these days…”
I barely heard that last part, as I’m freaking out. What was my last memory? This isn’t amnesia, at least what I know of it. I know who I am, just for the life of me I can’t recall the last thing I did before waking up in that motel room. Let me think. I’m currently unemployed, so the days have kind of been blending into each other. Wait a minute? Am I unemployed? No. I got a job as a squash pro. Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound like me. I’ve never played professional sports in my life, let alone a relatively obscure sport professionally. But there are details there. Some club in Bel Air. No, Beverly Hills. The Hills Squash Executive? Order of words seems wrong. The Hills Squash Executive? That’s it.
I start patting down my pockets, looking for my smartphone. Could be that I left it back in the motel room, though I didn’t see it.
“You okay back there?” the driver says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Never been better. Say, can you take out your smartphone and try to find a place for me?”
“Smartphone?”
“One that you can google with as well as make calls.”
“Only got me this.” He takes out an antiquated cell phone and holds it up for me to see. “What place you want to ‘google’?” He taps his temple. “Up here’s all the smarts I need.”
“A place called The Hills Squash Executive, I think.”
His eyes narrow, as though he hasn’t heard of the place. And I’m feeling crazier than ever. “I know a Hills Spa Executive. That the place?”
“Can you play squash there?”
He shrugs.
I’d bet my bottom dollar it is. Something tells me I’ll be ringing that place later.
Back to this last memory. It wasn’t of that place. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been there, apart from for my interview, but even that memory’s a little hazy. I at least can’t picture it. Last weekend I can remember might be a good start. Let me see. Friday is Loaded, their jazz night, on Hollywood Boulevard—the road on which I live. I went there for cocktails and remember chatting to a Southern belle type. I remember thinking that whatever complex she’d developed from being dragged through beauty pageants by her popcorn-chicken-popping mom didn’t mix well with the Pink Gin cocktails she was drinking. Did I tell her so? I remember getting slapped, at least, but it wasn’t necessarily her. Thinking further ahead, I remember taking off my cream pants and discovering a pink stain that I blamed on the young lady who’d mistook Loaded’s standing area for a dance floor as she strutted her stuff, White Zinfandel in hand.
Strutted her stuff? I need to start using more current idioms.
The date? That’s simple. It was the first weekend of summer. I remember feeling a deep sense of dread about spending the next three or four months basting in sweat. So that would make it June the fifth, that Friday.
What happened on Saturday?
Oh yeah. I celebrated my new job with an ounce of weed and binge watched Frasier. It had been a long time since I’d smoked weed, so after a bong I’d filled up too much and hit too hard and for too long, I freaked out. The situation wasn’t helped when I saw how long Frasier’s mullet was in the first season. I remember leaning over my kitchen sink, splashing water onto my face. How can a man that has his shit so together let it get so long?
Nothing after that.
So today must be…
“Sunday,” the driver says.
My heart punches me in the Adam’s apple. “How did you know I was going to ask that?”
“You were mumbling to yourself. Friday, Saturday. Back and forth like that. Figured you don’t know what day of the week it is.”
My heartbeat slows. Phew. “So it’s Sunday?”
Maybe it was just bad weed. I didn’t like the look in that dealer’s eyes when he turned up to my apartment. There was a creepy glint, as though he was telling a joke and I was the punch line.
“It is. Sunday the fourteenth,” the cab driver says.
“Sunday the what? Stop the car!”
3.
“I CAN’T STOP the car, sir. We’re in the middle of the highway.”
“We’re in the middle?” My head spinning from panic and confusion, I look around, find that he means on the regular side, nowhere near oncoming traffic. Still, it’s done nothing to abate my panic.
“You okay back there?”
I look up to find him staring at me in the rearview mirror. He no longer thinks the kids of today and their drug use are funny. Terrifying, in fact.
“No, I’m having a really bad panic attack.”
“Do you have them regular?”
“My first, but this has to be a really bad one.”
“Do you want me to pull over?”
“Will it help? Do you have medical training?”
He pulls over. He doesn’t pull out a defibrillator from the glove compartment and rush out of the car to attend to me. In fact, he hasn’t even left the driver’s seat, and there isn’t a look of concern on his face, but a strange mixture of disgust and sympathy.
He says, “Want to tell me what you took last night?”
“I have no idea.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I wish I knew. Sunday the fourteenth? You sure?”
“Sure as shit on the end of a teenager’s stick.”
I have no idea how sure that is, but I don’t like the sound of it. “Mr., if you’re telling the truth, I have no idea what I’ve done for the last week.”
“Shit, I don’t know where my life has gone.”
“Not like that—regrets, lost loves, missed opportunities and all that jazz. What I’m saying is that I don’t have a single memory from last week.”
He thinks a second, whistles a diminuendo whistle. “Sounds like you might be in a whole heap of trouble.”
I look up. “Why do you say that?”
“A man can get up to a lot of mischief in a week.”
He’s right. I could’ve done anything: robbed a bank, murdered someone, or even bought Boil-in-a-Bag pasta.
I try to calm myself down by telling myself none of those things happened. It works.
He asks, “You no longer white. You feeling better?”
“Much.”
“What you going to do?”
I stare out of the window as I say, “I tell you what I’m not going to stop doing, boiling pasta from scratch like a civilized man.”
“You sure you feeling better?”
; “Ignore what I just said. To answer your question, I’m going to do what I was born to do. Or at least what I got a little competent at by lots and lots of practice and experience.”
“Which is?”
“Investigate.”
I look at him to find him frowning. “Sir, who are you?”
I pause dramatically. “I’m Jake Hancock, former private investigator to the stars, and I’m going to find out what happened to me and what I’ve done for the last week.”
4.
“WHERE YOU GOING to start?”
“The place I told you when I got in the cab.”
“Greasy Fingers? You going for breakfast? Forgive my saying, but you don’t look like you could stomach it.”
“I can’t, that’s precisely why I’m going there.”
He frowns.
I say, “Think about it. I don’t feel hungry at all, which probably means I ate late last night. I never buy the crap they stock vending machines with, but I’m not above going to some diner for home fries and a cheeseburger. Chances are I went there last night. Put pedal to the metal and let’s go find out.”
“We?”
“Drive me there, I meant. We’ll leave the investigating to me…I’ll leave the investigating to me.”
He turns around and starts driving.
I say, “This guy you drove yesterday, the one uttering the same stuff about memory loss and whatnot. Tell me about him.” Despite my not having investigated for six months I don’t feel rusty at all. “Tell me about him.” I’m about to open this case wide open.
“Like I said, guy looked freaked. Even worse than you.”
“Where did you take him?”
“Guy wanted breakfast too, just didn’t know where. Now that you ask, I just realized I suggested Greasy Fingers to the guy. He freaked, said that’s the last place he wanted to go.”
“Strange.” I think a second. “Where did you take him instead?”
“Taco Bell, for the breakfast menu.”
“Mm, even stranger. Let’s back up a bit. What did this guy look like?”
He looks in the rearview mirror at me, as though he might be comparing us. “Well, he was bigger than you.”
“Taller or fat?”
“Fatter. He was sitting and now you are, so it’s hard to gauge either of your heights.”