“That’s a pretty good left hook you’ve got there. It would be a lot more effective without half a cow in your hand though.”
She laughed. “Yeah, well, you’re just lucky.”
“Hope that’s not in your arsenal of conflict resolution tactics with the staff.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, nailing another race car in the right rear tire and sending him skidding off the track as her own car slid into the grassy runoff, hit a wall and exploded into orange flame. “It’s just been a rough day, and you caught me off guard.”
“Eat some more,” I said, gesturing to the tray of food. “It’ll make you feel better.”
She climbed out of the faux racecar cockpit and walked over to the tray of food I’d set on the desk.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem,” I nodded. “I’m sorry I made light of your cat’s predicament.”
“It’s understandable,” she said. “I shouldn’t be so touchy about the subject, but I’ve had him so long, and it just makes me sad.”
I nodded. “That’s why I don’t have pets. Well, that and the fact that I live in a hotel.”
Kristen laughed as she nibbled on a few fries.
“Good reasoning, I guess.”
“Tell you what,” I said, “you finish up eating. I’m going to check out front and make sure everything’s okay with the desk staff, and then we can take a walk. We haven’t finished our grand hotel tour yet.”
“Sounds like a plan, Stan,” she nodded, diving into her pile of fries.
***
Even on the busy nights, like tonight with the gamers in house, it typically seemed like 2 a.m. was the cut off for most of the issues that I had to deal with. Most arriving guests had made it in by this time. The majority of the guests already in house were likely asleep, and department staff outside the front office were either busy with their work or off sleeping in a closet somewhere.
Of course there were the drunks, the high class escorts coming to meet their “Johns” and the occasional late night call regarding a noisy neighbor. But security dealt with most such issues, leaving me to check up on the progress of night audit reports being run, the computer system reset, write up the M.O.D. report with Kristen, and generally recover from the more hectic first portion of the evening.
Sometimes the recovery process entailed a little tour of the hotel to satisfy my wanderlust.
Every now and again though, when out and about in a hotel this size, you stumbled across someone who had wound up somewhere – or was doing something – they shouldn’t.
Tonight it was both…
***
It was almost 3 a.m. before I wrapped up my check with the desk staff. There were several late arrivals we had to find rooms for. Matching their room type needs with the existing free rooms was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle.
Throughout the day – especially when the hotel was close to selling out – rooms tended to get shifted around. Guests who had booked two double beds might suddenly want to switch to a king bedroom, or vice versa. This typically wasn’t a problem when we had 50 or 100 extra rooms to sell, but in a near sell-out situation, it tended to make things a little more complicated. And as the day turned to night, and inventory started to dwindle, it could leave a front desk manager playing musical chairs with rooms, hoping there wasn’t a guest or two left standing at the end of the song. At two in the morning – with 15 arrivals yet to come in – a manager could be left wondering whether these guests would be no-shows or if maybe their travel arrangements got a little screwy.
Sometimes it was obvious by their booking address. A blizzard in Colorado might have arrivals coming in from Denver a bit delayed. Or if O’Hare was closed due to weather, and there were still 100 arrivals at 1 a.m., it was pretty clear why.
This often presented a dilemma as to whether to go ahead and use available rooms for guests who were standing there waiting to check in or keep the rooms reserved for people who might never arrive.
It was a situation that most managers became accustomed to over time and began to get a gut feeling for. Between the hints in the booking information (for example if a guest booked through one of those last-minute deal finding websites, it could mean that they got a real bargain and may not have much of an incentive to show up) and the frustration of the guest standing before you waiting for a room, it was usually a pretty easy call.
Still, some nights it took a little bit longer to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Tonight was one of those nights, which was silly because we weren’t even close to sold out. However, the gamers had all requested double bed rooms since they could put a table or desk between the two beds and draw their game-board battle lines on either side. This left us with tons of king rooms, but no doubles, and of course our final arriving guests for the night were largely multi-guest families who needed two beds.
But we eventually got it all squared away by using several double rooms that property operations had put out of order earlier in the day for routine maintenance tomorrow.
They’d be pissed about our using them, but guest service – not the happiness of the engineering staff – was the name of the game in this business.
As I stood at the front desk sorting through the out of order rooms, the phone rang.
It was Kristen.
“You can’t even walk the fifteen feet out here to talk to me?” I laughed.
“Soooo full,” she groaned.
“Did you eat all that food?”
“Almost,” she moaned. “I feel like I’m gonna pop.”
“Geez, we’d better get you up and walking before you pass out where you sit.”
“Come save me from myself,” I heard her shout from the back office as she hung up the phone.
I walked into the back office.
“How do you stay so thin?” I asked her as I grabbed my jacket off the back of my desk chair.
The waft of grease that had attached itself to the jacket when I hung it on the room service rack while we dealt with the flood hit Kristen dead on.
“Uh! Can you please leave that here? It’s gonna make me sick if I have to walk next to you wearing that thing.”
“Fine,” I said throwing it back on my chair. I removed my magnet-attached lapel nametag from the jacket and stuck it on my shirt as an afterthought. “Just come on.”
I helped her up from her chair, and we headed out to the lobby.
“Where we headed this time, boss?”
“Back to 2B.”
“Again? I thought we’d seen all there was to see down there.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
From the service elevator back landing, we took a left through a small hallway. We passed through an open sliding steel fire door that separated a linen sorting room from the rest of the hotel and then continued past a large electronic linen scale.
Just for the hell of it, Kristen and I took a moment to weigh ourselves.
“Uh, I gained a pound just from that lunch,” Kristen groaned, laughing and holding her belly.
“117,” I read aloud for her. “That’s nothing. You need a little more fat on them bones,” I laughed.
I stepped on after her.
“193,” she read for me. “Looks like you could do with a little less,” she snickered.
“All muscle,” I nodded, smirking.
From the linen scale, we hooked a right and walked until the hallway opened into a large room. The space was filled with big carts full of pressed, folded, and plastic wrapped linen that were stacked nearly to the ceiling.
It was dark. Just a few exposed light bulbs lit the space. I pointed at one. “Rumor is that this bulb hasn’t been changed since the early 60s.”
“Really?” Kristen said. “Is that even possible?”
“That’s the story, and I’m happy sticking to it.”
“Hmm,” I’ll have to check that one out with property operations. I don’t think it’s actually possible for a bulb to
burn that long.”
“Do what you must,” I said, pressing ahead.
We passed between narrowly packed rows of loaded linen carts and on toward the other side of the room where there was a closed metal door. I knocked on the door and then unlocked and opened it for Kristen.
“One of the property operations locker rooms,” I said as I stepped aside, allowing her to enter.
“Lady present!” I called.
There was no response.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘lady,’” Kristen snorted. “So what’s the story here? You bring me down here to seduce me or so I could just smell the locker room man-stink?”
“Neither,” I said, “although I have to admit the seducing part does sound kind of fun.”
She gave me an evil grin.
“Actually,” I went on, “I brought you down here to show you a part of film history.”
Kristen looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Really?”
“Yes, really. You ever see the movie Resurrection?”
“The one about the alien that hatches onboard the freighter ship and then decimates the crew?” she replied, curious now.
“That’s the one,” I said, as I followed Kristen inside.
She nodded, “Yeah, it was a decent horror flick.”
“Remember the scene at the beginning when the crew has just finished loading the ship, they’ve set sail, and they’re getting cleaned up for dinner? The alien comes in right after and starts ripping them apart.”
“No shit!” Kristen blurted out, then covered her mouth with a hand. “Sorry. That was one of my favorite parts of the movie! They filmed that here?”
“Yep. You’re standing just about where the captain’s decapitated head landed.”
She looked down at her feet. “Wow,” she said in awe. “I can’t believe it…movie history,” she breathed.
“Pretty snazzy, huh?”
Kristen wasn’t paying any attention to me now. She was wandering through the locker room.
The space wasn’t huge. Its walls were lined with gray painted steel lockers with a row of wooden benches skirting their inner-perimeter. The walls above the lockers were painted a fleshy tone that was peeling away to reveal a white base beneath.
At one end of the room were several toilets, urinals, and three individual shower stalls enclosed with dimpled-glass doors.
She pointed excitedly at the center shower.
“This is the shower stall where the first mate gets impaled with the alien’s daggered-tipped tail, right? His guts got splattered all over the door!”
She was opening and closing the door, apparently looking for signs of gut residue.
“You know your Resurrection history pretty well, don’t you?”
She had her phone out and was taking pictures.
“I can’t wait to show my friends,” she said excitedly.
“I thought you might like this,” I nodded.
She gave me a coy look, “Gee boss, you take me to all nicest places.”
“Aw, anything for you, beautiful,” I scoffed, kicking at the floor. “You get your fill yet?”
She snapped a few more shots and gave a little shiver, “Yeah, pretty cool. Kind of creepy down here though.”
“Want to head back upstairs.”
“Sure,” she said, pocketing her phone. “You lead the way. I don’t want any stray aliens jabbing me in the back with tail swords on the way out.”
“Thanks,” I said “’preciate it.”
“How in the heck did the movie crew ever find this spot to film in anyway with it being down here in the depths of the hotel?”
I re-locked the locker room door behind us.
“I don’t know the full story,” I said, “but supposedly some members of the film crew were staying at the hotel since they filmed a lot of the ship segments out on Lake Michigan. One of the director’s assistants mentioned to a hotel staff member that they needed to find a creepy location for the crew locker room scene, and the staff member mentioned this spot. The hotel told the film crew they could shoot down here for free if the hotel got a mention in the credits. So look for the Lanigan’s name at the end of the movie the next time you watch it.”
“Wow,” Kristen murmured. “Pretty cool.”
As we started back through the rows of laundry carts, I suddenly felt a hand tugging at my arm from behind, stopping me.
It was Kristen.
“Wait!” she whispered. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I said.
“Shhh…listen.”
I cocked my head but heard nothing. “Oh, now you’re just letting your imagination run wild. There are all sorts of weird noises down here. Come on.”
“Just wait a second…look…over there!” she hissed, gripping my arm tighter and pointing at a linen cart several rows ahead of us.
I peered through the dim light that filtered between the rows of carts.
I could see a dark, snake-like object hanging from the pearl white corner of a stack of linen.
“What the hell is that?” I whispered back to Kristen.
Moments later, another snake fell from the air and landed on a stack of linen about two feet from the first.
“Alien offspring!” Kristen hissed in my ear from behind, pulling me close.
Her nails had started digging into my arm as she clutched it tighter.
“Boy, for a horror movie buff, you don’t have much of a backbone do you?” I said softly.
We heard some rustling coming from behind the cart, and then a soft groan.
Seconds later, another mysterious offering was sent flying from areas unseen, whooshing through the air and disappearing across from us behind a neighboring row of linen carts. This was followed by a wispy item that landed just inches from my feet.
One of the carts just ahead and to the left of us rolled forward slightly.
Kristen let out a soft “Yelp” and pushed me forward to better guard herself from the spewing alien attack.
The noises suddenly stopped and the alien offensive ceased.
I pulled a set of keys from my pants pocket and used the end of one to hook the object that had landed near my feet, turning and dangling it in front of Kristen’s face.
She took a step back.
“Ugh,” she grimaced.
I tilted the key downward slightly and let the lacy black thong underwear drop to the floor, then loudly cleared my throat.
Moments later a set of curious eyes peeked around from behind the cart that had moved.
“Having fun back there?” I asked casually.
There was a pause, and then a woman’s voice answered, “Well…we were.”
“How’d you manage to find your way down here?” I asked, as Kristen moved to gather what we now recognized as a pair of boxer shorts that had landed on a nearby cart, a mini-skirt on the floor, and the two “snakes” that were actually black socks.
She balled up the clothing and tossed it to the peering eyes behind the linen cart.
An arm reached out to grab the clothing, and the eyes disappeared, but the voices continued – this time a man’s.
“Well, we were looking for a nice spot to…ahem…talk in privacy, and I guess we just kind of…ended up down here somehow.”
There were the sounds of clothes being donned and zippers being zipped.
“I see,” I said.
Kristen and I stood waiting until a form appeared from behind the cart.
Kristen had released her grasp upon my arm, but she immediately reattached herself at the sight of the figure.
It had pointed ears, a greenish-hued face, and wore a long dark cloak.
I peered closer. “Wait a minute,” I said, “didn’t I meet you on the elevator with your gaming buddies earlier today? You were going to do battle with…uh…Agor, or Thor, or…”
“Agathor, enforcer of evil, destroyer of all that’s good and right,” the elfish figure said. “Yeah, that was me,” he said. “S
orry about this.”
A strikingly beautiful brunette in one of the tightest, skimpiest outfits I’d ever seen, slid from behind the linen cart to stand behind the elf. She was a good six inches taller. And if I hadn’t seen her skirt on the floor moments earlier, I would have sworn it was painted on her hour-glass figure.
“Uh, you’re not going to call security or anything are you?” the elf peered at me through the darkness.
I had no intention of calling security, and the fact that this guy had managed to lure a girl of this magnitude down here for his “elfish” intentions, frankly amazed and somewhat impressed me.
“This one of Agathor’s spies you’re interrogating down here?” I asked, nodding toward the leggy brunette.
He grinned impishly, and shrugged. “Yeah…I suppose you could say that.”
“That’s what our rooms are for,” I smiled. “Why don’t you two take it back upstairs?”
He nodded. “Thanks,” he said as he took the girl’s hand and led her out to the hallway.
“Just make sure Agathor doesn’t find out,” I called after him. “I don’t think he’d be too happy.”
I waited until they were gone and then turned around and looked at Kristen.
We both broke into laughter.
I walked over to the linen cart where the elf had been conducting his “interrogation.”
Kristen followed me.
Bed sheets and towels were spilled out onto the floor and the rounded imprints of two butt-cheeks were pressed into the pile.
“Yuck,” Kristen said.
“Remind me to send housekeeping an email to have this cart of linen re-laundered,” I said.
“No kidding,” Kristen muttered. “I have to say though, there is something kind of…I don’t know…kinky I guess, about this place. So dark. So creepy. And all the rows of bedding.”
Her grip on my arm remained.
“Actually, I was kind of wondering if this sort of thing was what you had planned for me down here,” she said softly.
“What kind of guy do you think I am?” I laughed casually. “You’re far too classy to be defiled in such a place. Not to mention, I don’t think HR would look too kindly upon that sort of thing. I’m supposed to be training you, not…well…training you,” I gave her a smirk.
The Case of the Guest Who Stayed Over (The M.O.D. Files Book 1) Page 13