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

by K. W. Callahan

  He looked extremely agitated.

  Halloween’s tomorrow!” I wanted to shout. But instead, I just smiled, and said, “How can I help you…” I wasn’t sure whether to address him as “Mr. Glover” or “sir” or maybe even “sire.”

  I went with, “Mr. Glover.”

  Sarah waited patiently beside and slightly behind me.

  Mr. Glover jutted the cell phone out in front of him. Luckily the front desk was wide; otherwise, he would have rammed it right into my face.

  “Listen!” he screeched.

  I didn’t even have to put my ear to the phone to hear moans, groans, and an occasional banshee-like screech issue from the phone.

  “I called my room’s phone on this cell phone and left it off the hook so you could hear this!” This is coming through the wall from next door and I want something done about it immediately! I have the greatest battle our race has ever seen tomorrow, and their king needs his rest in preparation for the coming war.”

  “Are some of your fellow gamers overdoing it a bit?” I asked.

  “Gamers my foot! This is from old farts getting their rocks off! They’ve been at it for over an hour now! I mean, I don’t mind people having a little fun, but this is ridiculous. I saw them going into their room earlier tonight when I came back from dinner. They must both be at least eighty years old. It’s disgusting!”

  “Now sir, you wouldn’t want someone saying that about you, when you’re eighty. I’m sure they have no idea they’re disturbing you.”

  “My ass they don’t! The old lady stopped by a half hour ago and asked if I wanted to join in, but only if I stayed dressed like I am now!”

  I wanted to bust out laughing, but somehow managed to keep my composure.

  “I’m sure they were only trying to be neighborly,” I offered.

  “You think this is funny?” he sputtered angrily.

  “No sir, not at all. But everyone has their own way of making new friends. Maybe this is theirs.”

  He slapped the phone shut and spun around, stomping away.

  “I’ll contact security for you, Mr. Glover,” I called after him. “They’ll handle the issue.”

  I looked over at Sarah, the front desk agent. She was just laughing and shaking her head.

  “Takes all kinds,” she said.

  “That’s for sure,” I smiled, heading back to my office. “And we get them all. Give security a call, would you please?” I asked Sarah.

  I had just sat back down at my desk and was checking our total remaining arrivals, which currently stood at 93, when the M.O.D. phone clipped to my belt, rang.

  “This is Robert…” I answered, looking at my watch. It was 11:03 p.m. “…go ahead.”

  “This is Clarice in communications. We’ve got a flood up on the 100 side of the 17th floor.”

  This meant that the flood was issuing from an area of the 17th floor where room numbers ended in 100-199. This didn’t clear things up much other than to indicate the flood was big enough not to have to give more direction than that…which wasn’t a good thing.

  “Did you call property operations?” I asked.

  “Yes, he’s up there now working on it.”

  “What about housekeeping?”

  “Yes I did…but it’s Saundra tonight.”

  “Copy that. I’ll get up there right away.”

  Saundra was night housekeeping manager John Rodger’s replacement on his nights off. She wasn’t what you would call enthusiastic about having to make the transition back and forth, covering three day shifts and two night shifts each week. This left nights when she filled in for John, running a tad less than efficiently.

  It was time to get Kristen’s mind off her troubles. And I knew from experience that sometimes a little manual labor was the best way to do so.

  I walked over to her desk, “Alright kiddo, let’s go,” I patted her on the shoulder.

  She looked up, surprised. “What…where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  ***

  The Lanigan was kind of like an aging ship. The major differences were that the Lanigan was on land, immobile, and the leaks sprung from within rather than coming from outside.

  Tonight, the leak was more of a deluge. Gallons of water were gushing from the ceiling down onto the maze-like design patterns of the 17th floor hallway carpet between 17-133 and 17-134.

  I could see Bill from property operations up on a small ladder, already drenched in water – soaked head to toe – working on a fix as we approached. Several white ceiling tiles lay crumbled on the floor around him. Pieces were floating in what was already at least an inch of water that was slowly starting to creep its way down the hall past 17-135, 136 and 137.

  “Oh my god,” Kristen murmured as she saw the torrent pouring from the ceiling.

  It was nothing new to me.

  I’d seen so many floods over the years that they had become mundane occurrences. Still, I knew that in such situations, it was important not to act so quickly as to panic the staff – then it just became a jumbled mess of confusion – but quickly enough that the ship didn’t sink beneath our feet.

  Saundra and her housekeeping crew were nowhere to be seen, so I called her on my M.O.D. phone.

  “This is Saundra,” she came back.

  “Saundra, what’s the status of your flood clean-up?”

  “I’m still waiting on a few more guys to get up here to housekeeping,” she said indifferently.

  “Copy…I’m coming up.”

  I grabbed Kristen and we headed for the service elevators.

  “If we wait on Saundra, it’ll be after lunch before she gets anyone down here and half the hotel will be underwater,” I said as we hurried through the corridors.

  “Plus, I’d rather get this handled now when only three-quarters of the occupied rooms are asleep, rather than at one in the morning when almost everyone will be asleep.”

  Up on the 25th floor, it looked like Saundra had called a housekeeping department meeting. The marble care guys were sitting on a bench by the coke machine, several of the floor technicians were lollygagging about down the hall, and Saundra was standing over by the equipment room arguing with one of the night cleaners as to whether he had time to be pulled from his normal cleaning route to go clean up a flood.

  Kristen and I blew past her and opened the door to the equipment room.

  “By the time you two get done debating it, half the place will be under water,” I called to Saundra behind me.

  I started pulling equipment out into the hallway.

  I began with several 75-gallon barrel wet-vacs, then grabbed three smaller 5-gallon carpet extractors, and finally maneuvered the walk-behind extractor with a 30-gallon tank out into the hallway.

  I could see the guys assembling around the equipment.

  I’d worked in housekeeping when I was just starting out in the hotel business, and I’d learned that in situations like this, you don’t give the team time to think, debate, argue or question, you just start assigning roles and get it done.

  Thankfully, I knew most of the third shift housekeeping guys from a stint I spent training in housekeeping the first couple of weeks on the job. I spent a week in just about every department to get a feel not only for the hotel’s layout and each department’s regimen, but to meet and mingle with the employees and managers so that they knew my face and that it meant it was time to get down to business when I showed up.

  Saundra was just standing, hands on hips, watching.

  I didn’t care. It wasn’t my job, but I’d be damned if I was going to let the place flood and then have to relocate dozens of guests because we’d sat on our hands and played nice.

  I assigned equipment and roles and had the guys down to the 17th floor and sucking water in under five minutes. I even had Kristen jumping in, getting her hands dirty working a vacuum wand for one of the barrel wet-vacs.

  Bill had the water shut off, and the housekeeping guys had the place free of standing wate
r before midnight. The carpet was still damp of course, but the day shift would have to deal with doing a little more water extraction and setting up blowers to dry it out completely once guests were awake.

  “Wow!” Kristen said, as we unrolled our shirt sleeves on the way back to the floor’s service elevator back landing. “I’m impressed.”

  “Impressed with what?” I said, not getting her gist.

  We recovered our suit jackets from a room service tray rack on which we’d left them before tackling the flood. I noticed the faint smell of grease as I shrugged back into mine.

  “I didn’t realize you knew how to run all that equipment,” she said.

  “Spend a little bit longer in hotels, and you’ll be amazed what you learn,” I smiled at her.

  “I guess,” she said, shaking her head.

  She took a smell of her jacket.

  “Mmm, french fries,” she groaned. “I’m starving. I haven’t eaten anything today.”

  “Tell you what,” I said, as we got on the elevator, “let’s take a quick stop by the office and then we’ll have an early lunch. I think we deserve it.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I told Kristen to order me a cheeseburger and then sat down at one of our 50s-themed cafeteria’s Formica tables to write a short list of reminders to myself:

  1) Comp reward points to 17-130, 131, 134 for flood-related noise issues. 17-136 gets a comped meal at a hotel restaurant of their choosing.

  I’d been able to explain away or appease with apologies and explanations

  the other noise complaints we’d received.

  I continued with my list:

  2) Email housekeeping regarding treating damp carpet in 17th floor hallway and checking rooms surrounding the flood area for carpet moisture.

  3) Email Gene (the hotel’s director of finance) regarding adjustments to folio and free room certificate for Ms. Strauss.

  4) Email property operations about Bill’s makeshift plumbing repair and the ceiling tiles needing replacement in the 17th floor hallway.

  Kristen was back by the time I’d finished with my list.

  “Good lord! You are hungry,” I said, looking at the tray of food she slid onto the table.

  Minus my burger, she had a double-cheeseburger of her own, slathered in ketchup and mustard. She also had a huge pile of fries, some tater rounds, onion rings, a side salad, and a huge glass of soda.

  “My face is going to look like a teenager going through puberty after all this fried food and grease but I really don’t care right now,” she said.

  “Bet your eyes are bigger than your stomach,” I grinned.

  “Bet you’re wrong,” she said, taking a giant bite of her burger, sending an orangey mix of ketchup and mustard out its back end and onto her pile of fries.

  “Direct hit,” I laughed.

  “Love it!” she said, grabbing a few of the splattered fries and cramming them into her mouth alongside the burger. “Don’t look at me,” she mumbled, hiding her face with an arm as she chewed, “I’m hideous.”

  I laughed aloud and took a bite of my own burger.

  I didn’t really want to broach the subject, but I figured now was as good a time as any.

  “So what’s up?” I asked, rather seriously once I was done chewing.

  Kristen finished chewing, swallowed, and then took a long sip of her soda.

  “I know the whole doctor’s appointment thing is bothering you,” I said. “And if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. But I think you might feel better after you get it off your chest.”

  She looked away for a moment, and I could see the tears start to well up in her eyes, but she held it together.

  “It’s my baby,” she choked.

  I almost choked myself on the bite of burger I had just taken when I heard her say the word “baby.”

  “Baby?” I said.

  What? Boyfriend? Child? I wasn’t sure what she meant by the word, but either way, I wasn’t prepared for her use of it.

  She nodded. “He’s almost eleven now.”

  “Eleven!” I cried.

  I was befuddled and started doing the math in my head. Boyfriend was nixed from my mental list, so that just left child. But if that was the case, just how young was Kristen when she’d had the child? She was in her early 20s. If her kid was 11…the math just wasn’t working out.

  “How…well…wait. Did you adopt?”

  “Of course, silly,” Kristen said, wiping an eye. “I didn’t give birth to him myself.”

  “Oh,” I breathed, relieved. I really wasn’t ready to get into where the conversation seemed to be heading.

  “So, who takes care of him at night?” I asked.

  “Nobody,” she said, apparently confused by my questions, “he’s fine home alone.”

  “Uh…really?” I frowned.

  “Of course. I leave food for him. He has a nice bed, and he knows how to use the potty on his own.” She paused and sighed, “At least he did until just recently.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t that illegal?” I said, still extremely confused. “I mean, can’t you get into trouble for that. What if there’s an emergency or a fire or something.”

  “My neighbors know he’s there. They’ll grab him if anything’s the matter. They’re good people. They watch him when I’m on vacation.”

  “You mean you don’t take him on vacation with you?”

  I was starting to have second thoughts about Kristen as an all-around decent human being, and even more so as a mother.

  “As much as I’d like to, I can’t take him everywhere, can I?” Her eyes were welling up again. “Jeez, what’s up with the guilt trip here anyway?” she choked. “I thought you wanted to make me feel better, not worse.”

  “Sorry,” I said, trying to shake off the shock, “I guess my thoughts about parenting are just different. So what did the doctor say?”

  “He’s incontinent.”

  “Incontinent?”

  “The doctor said it’s not that unusual at this age.”

  “He’s only eleven!”

  “Yeah, but that’s like 70 or 80 or something in cat years.”

  I took a deep breath in an attempt to recover from my idiocy. “Ohhhhh…” I said slowly.

  “Wait…you didn’t think…” Kristen drawled.

  “Well, you said ‘doctor’s office’ not animal clinic and ‘doctor’ not veterinarian.”

  “Yeah, but I’m only twenty-five! How would I even have an eleven-year-old child?” She paused. “And you think I’d leave him alone all night if I did?” She said incredulously.

  “Well…I…”

  “I can’t believe you, Haze!”

  The sadness was fading and the anger building, though it hadn’t slowed her down gulping her food. Her burger-stuffed checks were turning bright red, and she was chomping furiously. Her little blonde ponytail was swinging back and forth as she looked from side to side…anywhere but at me.

  Then it hit me, and the whole thing became rather comical. I’d been sitting here thinking at first that Kristen had some sort of serious medical problem. Then I’d switched over to thinking she was an absentee mother, only to find out that the true issue at hand was a cat that couldn’t control his bowel movements. In the scheme of things, I couldn’t help but see the humor in it all.

  I deserved what I got for what I said next.

  “So is he diaper dependant now?” I chuckled.

  I was surprised by Kristen’s lightening-quick speed. In fact, I never even saw the burger-filled fist coming at me. The punch left a smooth smear of greasy ketchup and mustard mixed across my right cheek, the bun helping to cushion the blow. The frictionlessly slick burger resulted in my barely feeling the punch and actually only made me laugh harder, which made Kristen madder.

  “Did you just punch me with a hamburger?!” I laughed aloud. “Well that’ll get you nowhere fast. What would human resources say?”

  This did nothing to calm the situation.
>
  Kristen threw the crumbled and crushed remnants of the burger down on her tray, screeched her chair back across the tile floor and proceeded to storm out of the cafeteria.

  I was left sitting there, embarrassed, amazed, and laughing to myself at what had just happened, wiping bits of burger and sauce from my face and being eyed warily by several facilities workers on their break.

  I decided the best thing to do was just finish my lunch and give Kristen some time to cool off. I realized that I had not only made light of her cat’s medical situation, which was obviously quite important to her, but brought into question her parenting abilities and even her worth as a human being. Even thinking that someone would be willing to leave their eleven-year-old child home alone at night, was not something one would consider a compliment.

  After disposing of my leftovers, I packed up the rest of Kristen’s food and carried it downstairs to the office.

  After a little searching, I found her back in Jay’s new game room.

  She was in the racing game that I’d been playing earlier. As opposed to guiding the race car nimbly around and through opposing racers’ vehicles as I had tried to do, she was just plowing into the back of them or sideswiping them as she passed, each time resulting in the demise of her own car as it flew to bits in a rumbling “boom.”

  “Remind me never to drive with you behind the wheel,” I joked.

  Her glare let me know I’d done nothing to help get myself back into her good graces.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything up there. I was just confused, that’s all. I’m really sorry.”

  I set the tray down on a nearby desk. “I brought your food down…all but the burger that is,” I winked.

  I saw a slight smile appear on her lips.