BOOKS BY K.W. CALLAHAN
THE SYSTEMIC SERIES: DOWNFALL
THE SYSTEMIC SERIES: QUEST
THE SYSTEMIC SERIES: DESCENT
THE SYSTEMIC SERIES: FORESAKEN
THE SYSTEMIC SERIES: ASCENSION
THE M.O.D. FILES: THE CASE OF THE GUEST WHO STAYED OVER
THE M.O.D. FILES: THE CASE OF THE LINEN PRESSED GUEST
PALOS HEIGHTS
Text and image copyright © 2015 KW Callahan
All rights reserved
* * *
For my dear grandmother. I think she would have liked this one.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Allen Doddsman sat waiting in the dark on a bed that was firm, yet comfortable. The only light came from the television as it shape-shifted shadows across the hotel room walls. He hoped that not turning the lights on would help him get back to sleep faster.
There was nothing on television at this time of night – morning, he mentally corrected himself – and he’d settled for the local weather to keep him occupied and half awake while he waited.
His anger and impatience were growing by the minute. He hadn’t expected this type of service from a hotel of the Lanigan’s stature.
“Good god, what’s taking so long?” he exhaled softly, massaging his forehead with thumb and middle finger.
Seconds later there was a knock on the door.
“Finally,” he muttered.
Standing, he took a moment to tidy himself, smoothing his rumpled clothing. Then he took a deep breath and selected a few choice words to impart to the delivery person.
He walked over to the door and reached down to turn the handle. He heard the lock click open.
“Sure took you long enough,” he managed to get out before the door slammed him hard in the face.
The shock and force of the impact sent Allen reeling back. He stumbled, arms flailing wildly. He felt himself step on something – his shoes at the end of the bed. He grasped air and then went over, landing on his back.
A dark figure was on top of him before he could recover his wits. The shadow form stomped a foot down into the meaty part of Allen’s gut, just between the ribcage and pelvis. It knocked the air out of him and he found himself struggling for breath. But before he could regain it, the shadow form was kneeling beside him, picking something up off the floor and slipping it around Allen’s head.
A noose suddenly tightened around his neck. He felt it squeezing his airway closed as he gasped for breath. The stranger’s foot was back on him now as the shadow form stood from its knelt position. It used Allen’s soft midsection as leverage to pull the noose ever tighter. With each attempt Allen made to inhale, the noose slid ever tighter, like a slick anaconda constricting itself around him.
Between the shock of the situation and lack of oxygen, Allen hardly knew what was happening. A wave of sheer terror swept over him as he now realized that he would never again regain the breath that he was fighting so hard to recover.
He found himself scrabbling at the smooth fabric digging into his neck, but it was buried, sunk snugly into the soft flesh so that he couldn’t get his fingers beneath it. Next he moved his hands to the shadow figure’s leg that was bearing down on his abdomen, shoving what little oxygen remained out of his lungs. His fingers tore at the stranger’s pants, but this only made the stranger pull harder on the noose, driving his foot deeper into Allen’s mid-section.
Allen made one last effort to gasp for any sort of breath, but opening up his throat only made him cough, wheezing out the last of his precious oxygen as the stranger’s weight bore down upon him. It was like someone squeezing the last bit of toothpaste from a depleted tube.
Allen’s eyes watered, his vision blurred, his head dropped back onto the plush carpeting of the hotel room floor, but his neck still bulged upward from the noose’s constrictive pull. Finally his fingers straightened stiffly, pulling away from their grip upon the stranger’s leg. His hands shook convulsively, fluttered, and then quieted, falling limply at his sides.
The stranger kept his grip tight on the noose for several more seconds, the force of his pull lifting Allen’s head up off the floor and holding it there before he let go, allowing it to fall back to the floor with a soft thump.
CHAPTER TWO
The blast rattled the windows to the point where I thought they were sure to shatter.
I’d lived downtown in big cities before, so I was used to the sounds of the urban landscape. Sirens, laughing, screaming and yelling, the bangs of trash trucks at five in the morning, even the occasional gunshot were nothing to rouse me from a healthy slumber, but I recognized that whatever was going on outside was definitely something outside my direct realm of experience.
As the rumble subsided, it was followed by a most beautiful orange glow. It filtered its way between my closed curtains and lit up my room as though it were mid-day.
I shielded my face with a pillow, moving it slowly aside as my eyes began to adjust. The light faded to a dull glow, then stayed. Whatever was going on outside was continuing, although on an apparently lesser scale.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I slid out of bed and walked over to the row of windows that faced out over the street. I peeled one edge of the curtain aside and stuck my head around its edge.
Across the street, and several stories below, I could see the roof of the old Wescott Department Store building ablaze.
Wescott’s – a fixture in downtown Chicago since 1889 – had closed its doors several years ago during a downturn in the economy. The building was now being converted into high-end condominiums.
Another smaller, yet still violent explosion issued from the fire that now engulfed the entirety of the 15-story building’s rooftop. A fireball rolled slowly upwards until it peaked, almost level with my room on the 21st floor of the Lanigan Hotel. I pulled the curtain in front of my face to shield it from the light. I could feel the heat from the fire pulse through the thin fabric.
As the fireball disappeared into the night sky, smoke began billowing upward. The wind slowly wafted it up close to my window before rolling it down the street toward Lake Michigan.
The last thing I saw before my view was completely obscured by the smoke was people congregating on the street twenty-one stories below. They were spilling out of the Lanigan’s main entrance – the only entrance open at this time of night – and stopping to cluster into small but growing groups.
I heard another explosion. I couldn’t see its results this time, but I could hear chunks of debris lightly pattering against my window.
I took a deep breath. It was time to get to work.
That was over a year ago. It was my first night as the new M.O.D. or “Manager on Duty” at the Lanigan Hotel.
We evacuated 1639 guests from over 1200 occupied rooms that night. Nothing like trial by fire…literally.
It turned out that part of the renovation of the Wescott Building included replacing the aging roof, a process that involved a lot of very flammable materials. With March in Chicago bringing far from what many might consider typical spring-like temperatures, some lug-nut working on the roof – and apparently in a hurry to punch out for the day – had forgotten to shut off his portable heater. It being near a bucket of tar-soaked rags, the rags had eventually ignited. One thing led to another – the “another” in this case being a stack of nearby propane tanks. Soon the entire roof was ablaze with barrels of tar aflame and propane tanks exploding like miniature atom bombs.
We managed to get the Lanigan completely evacuated – with only minor issues (a few
overly excited hearts and a couple dramatic grandmothers) – in just under 45 minutes. And lucky me, I became acquainted on a first name basis with a number of our guests…most of them calling me by the first foul name that came to mind as I met them at the hotel’s main entrance on their way out to the street, bidding them a cheery good morning and my sincerest of apologies for their inconvenience.
* * *
A chirping noise sounded in my ear. It was too early and too damn cold outside for it to be anything but my phone. I fumbled reflexively in the darkness, knowing instinctually the exact spot on my nightstand where my manager on duty cell phone would be. As my fingers touched its rubber gripped exterior, I caught a glimpse of the red emblazoned numbers on the alarm clock – 2:12 am.
I flipped open the phone. “This is Robert, go ahead.”
No matter where I was, what I was doing or what the time, I made sure I never sounded tired. I kind of liked people thinking that I never slept. In a world where your work is there 24/7, I felt it gave me an advantage of sorts.
“Hi Robert, this is Kristen at the front desk. Room 11-121 is calling about their dry cleaning.”
Then silence.
“Okaaaay,” I drawled.
“Um, yeah…what should I do about that?”
“You’re calling me at two in the morning about dry cleaning!?” I wanted to yell.
But I kept my cool. I always kept my cool. That’s what a good manager does.
“Laundry department is still closed,” I said as calmly as I could, “so go ahead and contact the housekeeping runner. Give him the room number and send him to security to pick up the valet laundry key; then he can pick up the clothes and deliver them to the guest.”
“Copy that. Thanks.”
“No problem.” I tossed the phone back on the nightstand and rolled over, fluffing the pillow. I took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh linen scent and feeling the smoothness of pressed linen against my face.
I loved living in a hotel.
Kristen had joined the 3rd shift team as a supervisor about a month ago. I wasn’t going to give her a hard time yet, but I sure as heck was going to remind her to check with the proper departments before calling the manger on duty at two in the morning.
I had almost drifted off again when the chirping of my phone jolted me back. It was now 2:16 a.m.
“This is Robert, go ahead.”
The nasal-toned voice of one of the communication department’s phone operators said, “This is Joyce in communications. The guest in room 11-121 says he’s been waiting for his dry cleaning to be delivered for nearly twenty minutes. He has a meeting at seven this morning and wants to make sure he has his clothes.”
“They’re on their way,” I said as pleasantly as I could.
Ah yes, the glamorous life of a hotel M.O.D.
If I’d learned anything over my years in the hotel business, it was that it paid to be nice to the phone operators; otherwise, they could make your life a living hell.
In a property of the Lanigan’s size and stature, being the M.O.D. was no joke, even though it might seem like it on a night like tonight. As a matter of fact, being the M.O.D. in a hotel of just about any size is no joke. There is plenty of responsibility that comes with the job. Sometimes that responsibility meant reuniting lost kids with their parents and escorting passed out guests off the lobby furniture and back to their rooms. Other times it meant acting as resident photographer and historian for curious tourists, or hotel billing clerk after the 9-5 crew in the accounting department had headed home for the day. Just about every imaginable duty could – and eventually would – fall upon the M.O.D.’s plate.
I was the hotel “everyman” – I was everywhere, saw everything, helped everyone, and I loved every minute of it.
Take it as it comes is what I always said. Accept the thank you cards expounding my helpfulness from thoughtful guests. Accept the vein popping, red-faced, shouting-at-the-top-of-his-lungs guest who I’d just informed would be staying at a lesser hotel because we were overbooked. Accept the screaming guest who’d been overcharged for parking. Accept the accolades when I then resolved that issue. It was all just part of the job.
It was 1800 rooms filled with every sort of person from every walk of life. 1832 rooms, suites, and penthouses to be exact. A snapshot of the world’s travelers all crammed into 26 floors – one entire square block of downtown Chicago.
Amazingly, the Lanigan used to contain almost double that number of rooms back in the day. A renovation in the late 1940s knocked out most of the walls between the miniscule rooms in an effort to bring the Lanigan name back to what it had been during its prime in the earlier part of the century. And it had worked…at least for a while.
Add to those rooms, three full-service restaurants, a lounge, an exercise and fitness center, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, four ballrooms, a salon and barber shop, a street level full of world-class shopping venues, and tens of thousands of square feet of meeting and convention space all set within a hotel that had been a downtown landmark since shortly after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and you had the famed Lanigan Hotel.
All this was under my realm of control. It was my job…my workplace…my home.
CHAPTER THREE
To: [email protected]
Subject: 10/27 M.O.D. Report
THE LANIGAN HOTEL
CHICAGO, IL
MANAGER ON DUTY REPORT
Friday, October 27
Weather: 58/42 Partly Sunny
Occupancy: 94%
Arrivals: 427
Departures: 374
Event Resume:
Lake Ballroom (all day) – Acorn Electric Convention
6th Floor Meeting Rooms – Oak, Elm, Sycamore – (1 p.m. - 3 p.m.) – Prop. Ops. Dept. all staff training sessions
Blue Velvet Room (Noon - 2 p.m.) – CIP Staffing luncheon
Sky Ballroom (8 p.m. - midnight) – Vishna/Punjab wedding reception
Grand Ballroom (7 p.m. - midnight) – Scott/Fitzgerald wedding and reception
***
While I do indeed live at the hotel – and between the M.O.D. phone and my physically being in the hotel, I’m available at just about any hour of the day or night – that doesn’t mean I’m technically always on the schedule. My usual days off are Wednesday and Thursday.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday are the busiest days in many hotels. Between weddings, receptions, parties, arrivals on Fridays and departures on Sundays, the weekend for an M.O.D. can be a blur of people, places, and events.
Many factors can affect the schedule of a hotel manager. From holidays and localized sporting events to festivals, storms, conventions, seasonal occupancy trends, and the location of the hotel itself, it takes time to become accustomed to occupancy fluctuations and trends that can affect a hotel and its staffing needs.
Take for example an airport property. Severe weather – especially in the Chicago area – can be accompanied by hundreds of cancelled flights and thousands of stranded travelers. An expected twenty percent occupancy rate can become a sellout situation in a matter of hours. In turn, what might have required a staff of ten room attendants to clean the following day, suddenly becomes a staff of forty or more, leaving an M.O.D. to spend a large portion of his day or night planning, calling, re-organizing, and scrambling to add staff in various departments, dealing with upset and weary travelers, and helping a beleaguered front desk staff of two to do the job of what might normally be handled by five or six.
When an M.O.D. has a night or two off, it typically means that a front desk supervisor or other department manager is left to fill in. Such replacements usually don’t have the skills, knowledge or inclination to do the job as the regular M.O.D. might. This can leave all sorts of issues for an M.O.D. to deal with upon returning to work after a two day respite. For me personally, I am often more inclined to work six or seven days a week rather than have to face the situations left by replacements.
The first indication
that I was stepping into a hornet’s nest on this particular Friday morning occurred when I sat down at my desk and opened my email. I saw that the M.O.D. report from yesterday was short – too short – even for a slow Thursday. The specifics were there – arrivals, departures, occupancy rate, group and event resume – but that was it. This meant one of two things; either this was the first night in the history of the Lanigan that there had been absolutely no issues, or there had been issues that supervisor Kristen didn’t want to make public on the “all staff” email address upon which the M.O.D. report was sent.
I was putting my money on the latter.
I rolled my office chair back from my desk and walked over to the honeycomb of staff mailboxes located in the back office. My office was located between the main front desk area and the extra office space that made up the front desk management offices, break space, and copy room.
Tom Hanson, our general manager, wanted me as close to the action as possible.
I could see a bundle of paperwork sitting in my cubbyhole mailbox. I pulled out the stack and flipped through it quickly.
There were several guest comp requests, a fresh packet to review for today’s resume meeting at which we discussed incoming groups and events for the week ahead, and of course, individual M.O.D. add-ons for yours truly.
I glanced at my watch. It was 7:55 a.m. I didn’t have time to deal with these items now, so I tossed the pile of paperwork on my desk and headed for my 8 a.m. breakfast meeting with general manager Tom. I’d learned early in my M.O.D. career not to start delving into matters from which I couldn’t easily extract myself when I only had minutes to spare. Sometimes they were just better left for later.
The Case of the Guest Who Stayed Over (The M.O.D. Files Book 1) Page 1