The Hotel Detective (17 page)

“I'm a member of the police reserve in Barstow,” said Bull. “Seems to me it's time I invest in all of you the power of a
posse comitatus.

“Latin,” he said a little less loudly. “Means something about being a force of the county. Now why don’t everyone raise their
right hand and swear after me.”

There was a rustling in the crowd and a raising of hands. Bobbi Johnson reluctantly disentangled herself from Carlton and
raised her arm. Carlton did the same.

Bull cast his red eye around the room, saw that every Bob Johnson hand was up, then said: “I, Bob Johnson…”

The echo followed.

“…vow that I will do my best to find this murderer…”

Out of synch, but gamely, the voices repeated the words.

“…and see that justice is wrought.”

Bull’s sentiments concluded by all, he shouted, “Let’s form into posses and get that son of a bitch!”

Being told that there were vigilante Bob Johnsons roving around the Hotel was a frightening thought for Am. He kept imagining
wannabe Dirty Harrys moving around in packs, looking for a murderer.

“Now, who was it,” Am asked Sharon, “who told you about the Bob Johnsons?”

They were hurrying forward in a southwesterly direction. Am hoped that most of the Bob Johnsons were still in the proximity
of the Spindrift Room and could be contained, isolated the way you would a cancerous growth.

“A man identified himself as someone the bellman. I think he said Maury.”

“Cory?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

Am groaned. Cory Corrigan wasn’t exactly known for his accuracy. His nickname was “Wrong Way.” He’d been a bellman at the
Hotel for about twenty years, and it was a foregone conclusion he’d get lost at least once during his shift while helping
a guest to his room. Cory was the Hotel’s version of the United Way, a charity case, but there was a sweetness to him you
rarely found in the human species. Cory wasn’t slow; he was scattered. He’d ask the guests where they’d come from or what
had brought them to La Jolla, and he’d be so engrossed in their conversations that he’d forget what room they were going to
or exactly where they were.

“What’d he say?” asked Am.

Sharon wrinkled her brow and tried to remember his exact words. “He was excited. He said he was outside the Spindrift Room
when the Bob Johnsons came out. They were talking about posses and justice, and they were brandishing forks, knives, and spoons.”

Am groaned again. It wasn’t as if they were storming the Bastille. He motioned for Sharon to continue with her story.

“Then Cory told me he’d followed the largest of the posses, and that they’d ended up at some room.”

“What room?”

“It didn’t make sense. I thought he said the T. P. Room.”

Am nodded and redoubled their pace. He didn’t bother to explain that the T. P. Room was the informal name for the Hotel’s
paper storeroom. Every hotel staff seems to think it is their duty to apply alternate names to everything on the grounds,
to essentially create a second language. To help alleviate confusion, the keys were often labeled two ways, on one side the
proper name and on the other the Hotel vernacular. This was done to maintain the sanity of new employees. In the presence
of guests a supervisor might dispatch a new busboy to the “restaurant supply room,” a location seemingly unknown to the busboy,
but when handed a key the busboy would find two names, one at least familiar to him: the Roach Motel. Housekeeping storage
was called the Doghouse, with spare mattresses found in the Corral. The gardeners usually ate, and hung out, in the Taco Shop.
In some instances the Hotel nomenclature didn’t seem to make sense, but if anyone dug deeply enough, the roots to the naming
emerged. Am had never been able to figure out why the utility room was called the Smoke Shop, until resident guest Wallace
Talbot told him that in the sixties half a dozen employees had been busted for smoking marijuana there.

“T. P. Room?” asked Sharon.

“Toilet paper room,” Am explained. “It’s really the paper storeroom. Hotels will never get an Esperanto award.”

She gave Am a quizzical look, one that called for an explanation. “Just consider the word
double,
” he said. “Every hotel offers a different definition. In some, a double represents two people; in others, two beds; in still
others, just a double bed.”

“Double trouble,” she said.

“And then some,” said Am.

They passed several room service trays on the way to the T. P. Room, Am clucking at every one. “They multiply,” he said. “That
seems to be the only explanation. In every hotel I’ve ever worked, the morning and evening room service waiters claim ‘the
other’ shift shirks their pickup duties. Hotels are famous for their border wars.”

“I don’t think I’m familiar with that phrase.”

“Every department has borders with other departments. There are always gray areas as to who should be doing what, so the departments
snipe at each other. And there are always plenty of civil wars, with A, B, and C shifts doing finger pointing every which
way. I think of the Hotel as a microcosm of the world; the departments are like nations, with temporary allegiances, nonaggression
pacts, and surprise attacks. And just as countries sometimes sever diplomatic relations with one another, departments do the
same. You should try running a banquet when the catering manager’s not talking with the chef, who, in turn, is mad at the
convention director.”

“Do you play the role of ambassador?”

“No. Usually a more important role: fall guy.”

Am held up his hand. They were nearing the T. P. Room, and he heard voices. There had been a number of additions to the Hotel
over the years, and the paper storeroom was part of what was referred to as the old section, a general term that denoted about
half a dozen buildings and a number of stucco structures that had once been guest bungalows.

The Bob Johnsons had ignored the Hotel Personnel Only signs, had squeezed by a chain barrier down a path supposedly reserved
for staff, and were now grouped behind the T. P. Room. Two men, encouraged by the onlookers, were using their hands (their
spent and bent forks and knives had been thrown on the ground) to tear apart the back wall. A plywood board had been nailed
over a hole in its stucco exterior, a board that was gradually giving way. The wooden obstacle had been secured in enough
places that it resisted coming out in one piece—that or the Bob Johnsons just liked the idea of breaking down a makeshift
wall.

“New nails,” announced Bull Johnson, holding up one of the loosened spikes for everyone to see. “No sign of rust whatsoever.”

His announcement was met by excited chatter, cries, and talk that got even louder when the board gave way. One of the Bob
Johnson heads breached the opening. “Give me a light,” he yelled.

Am and Sharon had made their approach without being noticed. “If you’d gone through the front door,” he said, “you would have
found a light switch.”

The Bob Johnsons turned around. Am was disappointed that they didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish, appearing more
annoyed than anything else.

“Besides vandalizing,” asked Am, “and illegally breaking and entering, what do you think you’re doing?”

Bull took the measure of his cohorts. They still seemed to be behind him. “Doing your job,” he said.

“Oh,” said Am. “My job is to tear holes in an old building?”

His sarcasm didn’t draw the blood he wanted; the Bob Johnsons were already too awash in their imaginary blood.

“We heard about the serial murderer,” said Bull. “Tell me this isn’t a good place to hide out.

“Or hide a body,” he added darkly.

As corpse dumping grounds went, it wasn’t a bad spot. The T. P. Room was off the beaten path, secluded from view. Because
of its remoteness, repairing the crumbling stucco hadn’t been a priority.

“Seems strange that a bedboard was used to cover up this hole,” said another of the Bob Johnsons. “Not the kind of patching
material you’d expect from a fancy hotel.”

“If you’d like a tour of some of our more unsightly patch jobs in restricted areas,” said Am, “I’d be glad to make arrangements.
But this is not King Tut’s tomb.”

Am touched the stucco, even got a little dramatic and crumpled some of it in his hand. “This hole has been gradually widening
over the months. There was a water leak. You don’t even have to look closely to see the discoloration. So rather than leave
an open invitation to vermin, we decided to stick up this board until a more permanent repair could be made.”

Most of the Bob Johnsons looked deflated. Their hidden passageway, the secret burial ground, was suddenly revealed as a moldering
paper room. Am led them to the front of the building and used a key to open the door. A few of the Bob Johnsons made a point
of looking into every corner of the room, but most just listened as Am announced there was no serial murderer and there had
been no other murders besides the unfortunate couple. The police were investigating, he said. Any other efforts would be counterproductive
and would only hinder their work.

The Bob Johnsons seemed to take Am's word to heart. Heads downcast, they began to drift away. Only Bull Johnson remained defiant.
Aiming a little kick at the stucco, he announced, “Wouldn't be surprised if you had something to do with this red herring.”

Am made yet another entry in his notepad: “Board up hole in rear of T. P. Room, but
not
until Monday.” The repair was deferred so as to not offer temptation to another group of roving Bob Johnsons before their
scheduled checkout on Sunday.

While he was writing, Am took two peeks: one at his watch and the other at Sharon. His high school basketball coach had said
that only a team that was tired, or losing, or both, looked at the clock. Whenever he acknowledged the time, Am felt he was
close to defeat. It was almost six o'clock, depressingly early for the work that still had to be done. Sharon was a better
sight than the hour. The intern was holding up surprisingly well, better than most of his seasoned staff. Still, she had to
be tired.

“Why don't you go home?” asked Am. “Get a good night's sleep.” The words were offered almost wistfully.

“What are you going to do?”

“Try to talk to McHugh and see what he's learned about the murders.”

She didn’t hesitate: “Count me in.”

The day before, Sharon hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with security, and now she was willing to work into the night.
Am was torn between teasing her about her change of mind and praising her for being so conscientious. His hesitation to act
conspired with the call of his pager.

“Am,” said a cloying voice, “this is Mary Mason. I wonder if you could come help me out in the Spindrift Room. We have a minor
situation. Thank you.”

“Shit,” said Am. He took off with a trot. Attempting to keep up with him, Sharon said to his back, “Mary indicated it was
minor.”

“And she said the Bob Johnsons were an eensie problem.”

Despite his fears, Am slowed to a fast walk. “With Mary,” he conceded, “it could be anything. She makes fiascoes festive,
or vice versa. The staff calls her ‘Typhoid Mary,’ and believe me, the nickname’s deserved.”

“So why don’t you fire her?”

Am had to think about his answer. “It wouldn’t be quite fair,” he said. “Believe it or not, most of the time she’s just the
lightning rod that attracts disaster. Unforeseen things invariably go wrong. When Mary organizes a parade, it’s sure to rain.
When Mary books a fishing expedition, everyone gets seasick. The way I heard it, the whole boat was throwing up their guts
and Mary was trying to get them to sing ‘Kumbaya, My Lord.’ And you know how they have those fire-walks across coals? The
organizer assured us that no one had ever gotten burned, but it was hot-foot central that fateful night, with all the Hotel
limos full of burn victims. The group leader couldn’t understand what went wrong. But he couldn’t exactly blame Mary. Because
she’s so nice, people continue to like her even when everything goes to hell.”

His facial expression was a cross between a smile and a grimace, and Sharon called him on it. “What brings on that look?”
she asked.

“Last month’s luau on the beach. Mary went the whole nine yards. There were hula dancers, and tables of food, and Don Ho on
the loudspeakers. There were mock coconut trees, and banana plants. There were Hawaiian shirts and grass skirts and puka shells
and leis. There was even a pig roasting on a spit. Everything looked great.” He shook his head, lost in the reverie.

“So what happened?”

“She planned everything perfectly,” said Am, “save for one thing. Mary never consulted a tides table. And no one noticed until
too late how the water was coming in. The last anyone saw of the pig, it was floating off to sea, apple in mouth.”

Sharon laughed, then considered the ramifications. “Did the group demand a refund?”

“For that kind of entertainment? They couldn’t have asked for a better show. That’s how it usually works for Typhoid Mary.
The guests somehow leave happy.

“Maybe the staff, too,” Am said, after a little reflection. “We had a pig vigil for a while. We called it our wild boar hunt.
There were watchers and search parties. There were T-shirts made up and rewards offered. We kept it up for about a month.
The lifeguards put out an A.P.B., an all pigs bulletin, on their towers. There were purported pig sightings everywhere. He
was spotted surfing. He was seen driving a stretch limo. He was sighted dining with the mayor. The reports got more and more
absurd. It was almost as though everyone expected the porker to really show.

“Who knows,” said Am, opening a door into the Spindrift Room. “Maybe today’s our lucky day. Maybe the pig’s finally come home.”

If not the pig, then at least the pigpen: the Bob Johnson tablecloths-turned-displays lined the banquet room walls. Bloodied
virgin sheets were never exhibited so proudly. The felt-tip-markered tablecloths featured drawings of where the bodies had
been found, diagrams of where the murders had supposedly taken place, and lists of purported clues.