The Case of the Guest Who Stayed Over (The M.O.D. Files Book 1)

by K. W. Callahan

  This was my role-playing.

  Take a guy that knew nothing about me, put him in a place he knew nothing about, with a security guard that was bigger than both of us combined, and have a little fun with him.

  Today, I was playing the tough guy hotel manager.

  “What’s your name?” I asked Sulky.

  He remained silent, just starring down at the floor.

  “See that chair over there?” I pointed at a lone chair with a few electrical cords strewn around it and a tattered coiled rope at its base.

  Sulky looked glumly over at the chair.

  “That’s where I left that last guy like you. He only took us for a hundred bucks, and I left him tied here overnight.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sulky muttered.

  I looked over at Jerol. He had an almost indiscernible smirk on his face.

  “You wouldn’t think something like that would happen at a place like the Lanigan, would you?”

  Sulky looked at me. “That’s because things like that don’t happen,” he mumbled.

  “Oh, they happen, you just don’t hear about them.”

  He looked at me, almost curiously.

  “Let’s say a piece of scum like you comes into a place like this and rips us off. And let’s say we bring that scum up here and stash him for a night or two…or longer. Then let’s say we let him go. What’s he going to do? File a complaint at the front desk? Go to the police? We have connections at the police department. Who do you think they’d believe; a well-respected hotel manager or the guy that’s ripping off restaurants for free meals? How are you going to prove we did anything to you?”

  Sulky was quiet. I was beginning to think this wasn’t working when I saw a single teardrop run down his face and get lost in the scruff.

  I peered closely at him in the dim light.

  “Are you crying?” I said.

  He sniffled. “Don’t leave me up here,” he mumbled.

  I was momentarily at a loss for words. I was expecting anger, resentment, denial, maybe even an attempt at escape. I really didn’t think I’d rattle the guy this much. I figured that maybe this would just waste enough of his time to make him think twice before trying to hit one of our restaurants again. Now he was crying?

  For once, I really didn’t know what to say.

  “Umm, yeah okay…we won’t leave you here this time,” I stammered.

  He seemed to ignore my words.

  “I have to get back to my mom,” he choked out through several more tears.

  “Your…mom?” I said, unsure if this skuzzy looking guy had just said what I thought he had.

  “She’s sick,” he said, wiping away more tears. “I can’t leave her for long.”

  I didn’t really believe him, figuring this must be some sort of ploy to get himself out of the situation, but I thought I’d play along.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Tommy.”

  “Tommy what?”

  “Philstein. Tommy Philstein.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  He pulled a wallet from his pants pocket, produced an Illinois driver’s license, and handed it over.

  It indeed read: “Tomas P. Philstein.”

  I was also surprised to find that he was only 23 years old.

  “So what’s wrong with your mom, Tommy?”

  “She’s sick. Been sick for almost two years now,” he sniffled. “Dad’s been dead for almost five. I quit school to work so that I could take care of her. I got a job as a waiter at a restaurant, but they fired me because I’d use my breaks to go home to check on mom. So I got a job as a bike courier so that I could stop by home more often, but it doesn’t pay very well. Not nearly as good as the restaurant did.”

  He used his shirt sleeve to wipe a few more tears away, but his voice was still shaky, now more with anger than with sadness.

  “I hate restaurants now. HATE THEM,” he said through gritted teeth. “I don’t even eat most of the food I order. I just pack it as meals for mom.”

  He lifted his shirt to show a small pouch affixed to his chest with more food in it.

  “See?” he pointed at the package. “I don’t even eat your lousy restaurant’s food,” he broke down again, in sobs this time.

  “Jerol,” I said looking at the giant of a man watching this pitiful scene, “you can head back downstairs now. Thanks for your help.”

  “You sure?” he said, still watching Tommy warily.

  “I’m sure.”

  He reached over and shook my hand.

  “Interesting working with you,” he said.

  “Yeah,” was all I could say.

  It had been an interesting day for me as well. And it was about to get more interesting.

  I don’t know why I said it – maybe it was because all the crying was making me uncomfortable – but as Jerol left, I suddenly blurted out, “Tommy, do you like football?”

  He seemed as caught off guard by the question as I was asking it.

  “Uh…yeah, I guess so…sure.”

  “Let’s go see if the game’s still on. Sound good?”

  “Okaaaaay…” he drawled uncertainly.

  I’m sure he was wondering if it was another one of my wacky ruses, but he seemed willing to go along with it. So I led him out of the owner’s suite and back to the service elevators.

  On the way, I said, “Tell you what, since you hate restaurants so much, why don’t we go to my room.”

  He stopped short, looking at me uncertainly.

  “No, no,” I laughed, “nothing like that. I live here, that’s all. And if you’d be as uncomfortable back in the restaurant as they’d likely be seeing you there, I just thought we could finish up the game in my room…if it’s still on that is.”

  “Okay,” he shrugged. “I can’t stay long though. I have to get back to mom soon.”

  “Sure,” I nodded. “No problem.”

  I don’t know why I was doing this. I just had a feeling about the kid. I got the impression that maybe there was more to him than this skuzzy first impression.

  ***

  I opened my room’s mini-fridge and peered inside.

  “Beer okay with you, Tommy?” I said, looking back over my shoulder.

  “Sure,” he nodded, giving me a slight smile, the first sign he’d shown that he could do something other with his face than just frown.

  “Guess we lucked out on this one. Game’s going into overtime.”

  “Guess so,” Tommy agreed, as he stood gawking around the room. “Nice place,” he added.

  “Thanks,” I said. “It serves the purpose.”

  “So you live here all the time?”

  “Yep. A hotel never sleeps, and I rarely do either, but it’s a place to hang my hat.”

  “Wow,” Tommy said wonderingly. “I never really thought about actually living in a hotel.”

  “It’s certainly a unique experience,” I said. “But it’s one you get used to, just like everything else in life.”

  I handed him a beer.

  “Thanks,” he nodded.

  “Have a seat,” I motioned him to one of the overstuffed sofa chairs nearby.

  I grabbed the remote and sat down on the sofa across from him.

  “Tell me more about yourself, Tommy.”

  “Well,” he said, “I actually grew up in Michigan. My dad was a farmer and my mom was a nurse. We didn’t move to Chicago until we lost the farm and mom decided she could make more money in the big-city hospitals.”

  He took a sip of his beer and continued. “I guess dad just didn’t know what to do with himself in the city. Without the farm, he seemed lost. He started spending more and more time at the bars, and pretty soon he was in the hospital. He died about two years after we moved.”

  I felt bad for offering Tommy the beer after hearing that, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Like I said, mom was working at a hospital while I was in high school. After graduating, I applied to a nearby commu
nity college and I was studying computer programming until mom got sick and I had to quit. And that’s about it.”

  A cheer from the stadium crowd on the television tore our attention away as a Chicago running back suddenly broke a tackle and dodged another as two defenders careened into one another.

  Tommy and I both jumped from our seats, yelling in excitement as the ball carrier made a weaving forty yard sprint. We were just about to high-five as he neared the goal line to score the game-winning touchdown, when he fumbled the ball. A Packers player promptly picked up the ball and returned it for a game-winning touchdown of his own, spiking the football in celebration as the team rushed the field to congratulate him.

  We both stood there in stunned disbelief.

  Finally I said, “Well, that’s about right.”

  “Kind of wish you’d left me tied to that chair up there after seeing that,” Tommy grinned.

  “Yeah,” I smiled, slightly embarrassed, and then gave him a pat on the back.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  To: allstaff.lanigan@sharedresorts.com

  Subject: 10/30 M.O.D. Report

  THE LANIGAN HOTEL

  CHICAGO, IL

  MANAGER ON DUTY REPORT

  Monday, October 30th

  Weather: 57/39 Cloudy

  Occupancy: 85.6%

  Arrivals: 823

  Departures: 154

  Event Resume:

  Blue Velvet Room – (noon - 4 p.m.) – American Whole Life Insurance annual training seminar registration

  3rd floor Vista Rooms I, II, III – (all day) – Hollingston Cooling Systems meetings

  6th floor Meeting Rooms – Oak, Elm and Sycamore – (all day) – United Title and Trust training sessions

  Sky Ballroom – (all day) – MGC (Midwest Gamer Convention) welcome station and registration

  Grand Ballroom – (8 a.m. – 4 p.m.) – Modern Pharmaceuticals Corporation presentations

  Note: All employees are reminded that they are welcome to attend work in full costume tomorrow in celebration of Halloween as long as it’s approved by their department head. Costumes are expected to maintain an air of decorum and abide by the expectations of professionalism upheld by the Lanigan Hotel.

  A staff costume contest will be held during lunch, at which time a winner and two runners-up will be selected and prizes will be awarded. Second and third shift staff members can participate in separate contests held during their own lunch hours.

  ***

  There are a lot of people who hate Mondays; however, depending upon the particular department, many employees in the hotel business learn to love them. For the front desk, banquet, and catering departments, Mondays were usually the calm after the weekend storm. Meanwhile, the trickle of weekend billing questions, started to become a steady stream for the finance department on Mondays, and property operations typically had plenty of empty rooms into which they could get to fix issues after the weekend or put out of order temporarily to conduct more major repairs. And with the majority of checkout rooms having been cleaned on Sunday, housekeeping often looked rather favorably upon Mondays unless they had “hung” rooms.

  A “hung room” was our hotel’s term for rooms that housekeeping might not have the ability to clean due to a particularly heavy checkout, being understaffed, or because of an end-of-month labor budget issue. These rooms were left “hanging” or un-cleaned from Sunday and would then have to be picked up over the following day or two, as long as occupancy levels allowed.

  Today wasn’t one of those Mondays though. With the gamer convention coming in hot on the heels of a relatively busy weekend, almost all the hotel’s various departments were going to be slammed. We were bracing ourselves for the worst.

  Soon after the football game ended yesterday, Tommy had headed home. Therefore, I went back down to the Navigator Club where I found Jay in quite a state. In fact, the whole restaurant was in quite a state. Jay was arguing with the man in the bear costume about whether the fumble was legit. The majority of the Green Bay fans were at the bar, their party going strong. The beer hat guy was trying to find a way to somehow funnel leftover beers at empty tables through his dangling straws.

  Besides all this, there was the fact that to help quell his disappointment at the loss, Jay had ordered a Pirate Ship (on my tab of course). There were now several other party participants of the female persuasion at our table fumbling with straws as they tried to get their fair share (or unfair share, depending upon your outlook) of the drink, while simultaneously attempting to avoid igniting their golden-dyed locks on the flames shooting from the ship’s cannons.

  It was all just a little too much for me, so I did an abrupt about-face and retired to my room for a night of more football and the end of the stockcar race which continued until almost eleven due to several green-white-checkered flag attempts at a finish.

  Amazingly, I managed to sleep until almost noon on Monday. It must have been a combination of the beer and the blackout curtains; but whatever it was, it was great. I hadn’t slept so well in years. I wondered how Jay was fairing.

  After I showered and dressed, it was almost one. I decided to head down to the street level arcade to grab a bite to eat at Vitantonio’s Café. After all the drinking yesterday, I wasn’t in the mood for a huge lunch, so I just ordered a chicken salad sandwich, a small bag of potato chips, an iced tea, and a granola bar for desert. I took my food and sat down at one of the few small indoor tables that had been set out in the arcade area and where I could do a little people watching.

  Today, passers-by were bundled up against the late-October chill. Coats were cinched tight, collars were tugged up snugly, and umbrellas were wet and dripping. I loved times like this. While they were few and far between, being able to just sit for a few minutes, watching all the people pour through the arcade was a treat. Some were just passing through, using this section of the hotel as a warm, dry shortcut between streets on their way to work. Some were guests doing their vacation shopping while at the hotel, and others were area workers just killing a few minutes window-shopping while on their lunch breaks.

  So many people, so many characters, so many lives and stories. It was fun to watch them, to think, to wonder, and to invent my own stories for the people I saw.

  The stories…that was the great part of working in a hotel…all the stories. Real or imagined, every day was like a new book, with each hour a chapter being written by the people coming and going. And like a great book, the sequel would be written the next day, with a follow-up the day after that, and then another, and another, in an endless procession of ever-changing characters and story lines. Each book was different, yet each book was somehow the same no matter when it was written, where or by whom.

  The jingling of my phone cut short my thoughts.

  “This is Robert,” I answered.

  “Hey Robert; it’s Kristen. How are you?”

  “Good. What’s up?”

  “Oh, just checking up on you. I got your message yesterday and wanted to touch bases.”

  I watched a hunched elderly couple in rain-dampened overcoats shuffle past. “How’d everything go last night? You didn’t miss me too bad did you?”

  “Well, I have to say, I wasn’t quite sure how to get by without my strapping superhero around to hold my hand,” she laughed. “But I managed.”

  “I get that reaction a lot,” I snickered. “But I’ll be here tonight to help guide you through the storm of gamers that are bound to be on you like white on rice.”

  She exhaled loudly on the phone, “Yeah, I’ve heard about them. They get loaded up on caffeine and then start getting all grabby with about any girl that’s got a pulse.”

  “Well, you’ll have your Superman to protect you tonight…as long as those guys don’t have any kryptonite.”

  She laughed. “You know what? I wouldn’t put it past them. They’ve probably managed to buy some online somewhere.”

  “Anyway,” I said, unwrapping my granola bar while I talked,
“be prepared. They’ll be in full force, and I’m sure in full costume as well. Get here a few minutes early so we can have a pre-shift meeting with the staff to ensure they’re prepared for what’s coming. I don’t want any giggling or snide comments about our guests’ attire getting us into trouble.”

  “Sounds good,” she said. “I’m off for a nap. See you tonight.”

  “Sleep tight,” I clicked off my phone and took a bite of my granola bar. I chewed for a moment and then popped my phone back on and dialed housekeeping.

  “Good afternoon, housekeeping, this is Ana. How may I be of assistance?” the department dispatcher answered.

  “Hi Ana, this is Robert, the M.O.D. Can you have someone from public space stop by the arcade level and change out the entry rain mats? They’re a mess.”

  “Sure thing,” she said, “I’ll contact the public space manager right away.”

  “Thank you,” I said, hanging up.

  I could see through the glass entry doors that it was raining harder now and the mats were really taking a beating. Were it night time, the doors would be locked for security purposes and we could have just run a carpet cleaner over them and left them to dry, but during the day, we had to switch the mats out and take them upstairs to housekeeping to have them cleaned and dried there. It made me think about how quickly winter was approaching. The arrival of cold weather would mean snow, ice, lots of ice melt, wet marble floors, and plenty of mess from dirty shoes and boots tromping through our beautifully maintained arcade area. Tom would be moaning about the marble floors looking dull and how we needed to polish them more. Housekeeping would be complaining that it wasn’t worth the effort with the bad weather and ice melt negating their efforts. And I’d be stuck in the middle.

  I looked at my watch. It was only half past one. My internal clock was all screwed up from the night shift schedule. I needed to kill some time and maybe try to take a nap like Kristen, but I didn’t see that happening since I’d slept so well last night.