The Hotel Detective (34 page)

Kris nodded.

Am examined her sliding glass door and the windows and again could find no sign of forced entry. He sighed. “It looks like
an in-house theft.”

“Any suspects?”

“Two, maybe three hundred of our male staff.”

Kris laughed and appeared to relax. She eyed Am speculatively, then altered her pose, leaning toward him, her robe opening
up even more. She held the robe’s belt in her hand and played with it slightly. By manipulating her clothes she added a new
element between them, a tension. It was almost as if she were toying with a ripcord.

“Is one of them you, Am?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything, was hard-pressed to find a proper answer.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

What did most men think when confronted by those Grand Tetons? She had, after all, invited him to ask the question.

“Are they real?” he asked.

“What do you think?” she asked, moving closer.

She was one of those people who had probably picked the right job. Kris Carr was an unashamed exhibitionist. Am couldn’t tell
whether she was really making a play for him or whether she just wanted him to go weak at his knees.

“I asked you,” he said.

She was close to him now. “They were enhanced some,” she admitted, “but I haven’t heard any complaints. The left one I call
MasterCard, and the right one American Express.”

Her announcement came with left and right emphasis, and Am was surprised that she hadn’t named one of them Diners Club. For
a moment he was paralyzed by the sight, but then his hotel training came to the fore. For the second time in a very few minutes
he repeated himself: “Your credit cards are declined.”

The UV light operated on batteries. It was portable but not inconspicuous. Am pretended it was a ray gun, and as he went around
zapping the staff, he tried to make what he thought were appropriate Martian sounds. None of the employees seemed too surprised.
And it was easier, and perhaps more in keeping with his role, to act offbeat and not offer any explanations. If he had played
it as officious, he likely would have seen only half as many hands. Though he spied lots of warts, moles, hairs, and broken
fingernails, he found no lime-green trace of the fluorescent dust.

He was half tempted to look at Kris Carr’s hands. Maybe to get more attention she had faked the crime, but then she didn’t
seem like a woman who lacked attention. It was better to avoid the room anyway, he thought, as in his own mind he wasn’t convinced
it was just her hands he wanted to appraise.

By seven o’clock Am decided that he’d been witness to enough five-fingered failures. Tomorrow he’d do some more scanning.
The tracer powder would last at least that long. He knew that compared to a murder the case was trivial, but he was both miffed
and motivated: this mystery involved not only a theft, but a violation of a guest’s privacy. The Hotel was lucky that Kris
Carr was more insouciant about the thefts than most guests would have been. Maybe she was used to dispensing with her undergarments,
but that still didn’t make the thefts acceptable.

He had almost forgotten about Kendrick’s return, but the note on his desk jarred that suppressed memory. “Please see Mr. Kendrick
before you leave,” the message demanded. Am was sure the operator had taken literary license and included the word
please.

The executive offices were deserted save for Kendrick. He was talking on the phone, a conversation that interested him enough
that he noticed neither Am’s approach nor his subsequent disappearance. There are few instances where eavesdropping can be
condoned, but Am thought this was one of them. By the sounds of it, Kendrick was talking with the company spy.

The conversation lasted almost ten minutes, with the weekend’s events discussed in detail. The goings-on of the staff were
dwelt upon, in particular the activities of “Mis-tah Caw-field.” Being privy to only half the conversation, Am was afraid
the spy would remain unidentified, but in the end Kendrick slipped up when he said: “Thank you for your report, Roger.”

Casper was the spy. What should have been obvious, wasn’t. Belatedly Am remembered that Casper had portrayed Mr. Derry at
the Come as a Guest party. Derry was a regular from Langley, Virginia, and the Hotel staff was convinced that he was a CIA
operative. Although quiet, there was something furtive about him. Roger had worn a raised, dark trench coat and had carried
a walkie-talkie around with him. He must have thought he was pretty clever, coming as the spy guest and being the spy. Those
without teeth sometimes find other ways to bite, and Am felt betrayed. He had always thought of Roger as being a scared little
rabbit. Somehow that seemed preferable to a back stabber.

He crept back down the hall. It wouldn’t do to walk in on Kendrick just now. After five minutes of standing around, Am loudly
retraced his route. This time, as usual, Kendrick was well aware of his presence prior to his arrival.

“Come in, Mr. Caw-field,” he said.

Am entered the office and sat on one of the GM’s uncomfortable chairs. Kendrick sighed loudly, the ten-second variety. “Seems
I can’t go ah-way without everything going to hell.”

Management by second-guessing is the fastest way for an employee to lose confidence, but Am was used to it by now. Rather
than comment, he just looked at Kendrick, who stared right back. It was the straight-backed chair more than Kendrick’s look
that made Am squirm. He couldn’t get comfortable, especially with the pressing in his groin and abdomen area. After several
attempts at positioning, Am removed the source of the problem, the UV light he had crammed into his right front pocket.

“What is that?” Kendrick asked.

“An ultraviolet light,” said Am. He hoped that would be explanation enough, but it wasn’t.

“For what?”

Deciding a demonstration was in order, Am approached Kendrick’s large desk. “I salted some objects with fluorescent tracer
powder,” he said. “The dust gives off a glow. This afternoon I was looking for a criminal with glitz mitts.”

Am clicked on the light and played it over one of his hands. The light offered only a slightly purple hue. “Although you really
can’t see much here,” Am said, “if I had come in contact with the powder, you would have seen…”

Without any forethought, and without any expectations, he swept the light over Kendrick’s hands and suddenly stopped talking.
It was a scene out of an old science fiction film where the radiation victims glowed. Kendrick’s hands looked like a green
toxic waste dump. They were phosphorescent, radiating a key lime glow.

“You!” he said, shocked. Amazed.

Then, with a little more thought and a little more feeling: “You son of a bitch!”

Kendrick didn’t know his bras were in the wringer. “How dare you—”

“You stole Kris Carr’s bras,” Am said.

Taking a deep breath, attempting a defensive dignity, Kendrick said, “What are you talking about?”

Am shook his head. Who guards the goddamn guards? he thought. He kept the UV light on Kendrick’s hands. A strobe questioning
light never worked so well.

“Maybe you can explain away your company spy and your less than ethical tactics. But try justifying your stealing the bras.
I’d like to hear you do that.”

Kendrick tried moving his hands, but Am followed them with the light, their dance of hands and light an odd choreographed
sequence of spotlighted green beacons. Finally, with not a little desperation, Kendrick hid his hands under his large desk.
Given that pose, his protestations of innocence sounded strained. “I have no idea what you are babbling—”

“People don’t change their habits,” said Am. “You worked as a GM for several prestigious hotels prior to coming here. You
were in a position of trust. I’m willing to bet those properties also suffered from some strange thefts and that there were
some oversize bras reported missing.”

Hands still under the desk, Kendrick asked, “Are you willing to bet your job?”

Am thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “I’m willing to bet my job.”

There wasn’t any bluff in his answer. Even Kendrick knew that. “Perhaps,” he said, “we could work out an arrangement …”

Am laughed bitterly, and Kendrick stopped talking. Neither one of them said anything for a minute, both doing their own assessment
of the situation. Am kept the light at the ready, and Kendrick kept his hands under his desk.

“I think it’s unfair,” Kendrick said finally, “that I should lose my career, and my reputa-shun, ov-ah such trivial—allegations.”

It was as close as Kendrick could come to a plea and the first time Am could remember him engaging in something approaching
a conversation, something other than giving orders.

“I work hard,” Kendrick said. “You know that. I put in eighty-hour weeks. I know I am a perfectionist. I know I have the reputa-shun
of being difficult. But I make money, and I make opera-shuns run more efficiently than they ever have before.”

And you and your kind take the soul out of a place, thought Am. You take away what made it special by bringing in a cookie
cutter design and trying to stamp a uniformity that shouldn’t be there. You save a nickel, but you lose a dollar. But you’ll
never understand that. You can’t see that this Hotel needs its quirks and traditions. People come back for those.

“Not everyone wants McDonald’s,” said Am. “We have an original here, not a lithograph, and you’ve never treated it as such.”

The only thing the two men had in common was the Hotel, but neither one of them knew it as the same property. Kendrick was
leaning forward, straining to understand what Am was saying, but he couldn’t comprehend. To him, the Hotel was like any other.
It was a business formula, not a living and breathing thing. It was dollars and cents. And if there was room for anything
else, it was oversize bras.

“I want your resignation,” said Am. “Make it effective this evening, and clear out the office tonight. Your resignation letter
will announce my appointment as acting general manager, and will recommend me for the permanent GM’s position.”

“That’s blackmail,” said Kendrick.

Am shook his head. “No, it’s not. I deserve the job. I’ve earned it, and you know that. Besides, the owners will decide whether
I stay or whether they want to bring in someone else.”

“If I do as you say,” said Kendrick, “do you promise to never men-shun a word of all this?”

“Yes,” said Am, “provided you return the bras you stole, and provided you give me your word that you will never steal from
any hotel you work for in the future.”

“I promise,” he said.

“And I, also.”

Kendrick appeared relieved, but not completely; he looked like a man torn between conscience and self-preservation. “I am
truhsting in your word as a gentleman,” he said.

“You already have that.”

The GM decided he was protected enough to be honest. He didn’t act superior, but he didn’t look beaten, either. Misery loves
company, and he was ready to share. “You will find your victory not so sweet as you think,” he said. “Although I am not at
liberty to divulge what went on this weekend, you will soon be hearing from the owners. And I’m not talking about the old
owners.”

“What do you…?”

Kendrick held up his hand. “I am not being coy, suh. I have already said more than was legal, or prudent. There are certain
contingencies still being discussed, but I figured I owed you that much warning, at least.”

The men regarded one another. There would never be admiration between them, never anything approaching friendliness. There
was a bridge to their perspectives that neither had ever spanned, but at that moment they had at least come to some sort of
agreement.

“We still un-dah-stand our compact?”

Am nodded. Kendrick could have left without warning him, but he hadn’t. A change of ownership would likely mean Am wouldn’t
have a job, as new owners traditionally bring in their own management teams. It was a lot to take in all at once.

“So my reign will likely be short,” said Am.

It was Kendrick’s turn to nod. Am expected to feel bitterness, but he didn’t. There was some sadness, but more than that was
the sense of inevitability. Or was that futility?

“I am reminded,” said Am, “of the monarch who asked his counselors to devise a saying that would serve in both prosperity
and adversity, and they came up with, ‘This, too, will pass.’ Tomorrow I will be the GM of the Hotel California, but this,
too, will pass.”

Kendrick’s head was cocked, like a dog trying to make out an unfamiliar sound. It was clear he couldn’t understand what Am
was getting at.

“I majored in philosophy,” offered Am, “not hotel-motel management.”

“Ah,” said Kendrick, sounding sympathetic for once.

It was the right explanation. “How much time?” asked Am, the resigned terminal patient to the doctor.

“The sale should be final in a hundred days.”

Not much time to pursue the Holy Grail, Am thought. “Then I will have to make those days memorable,” he said. “Like Camelot.”

If things hadn’t changed between them, Kendrick would likely have said, “What does running a hotel have to do with a bunch
of silly knights?” But he didn’t say anything. The agreement between the two men was not rapprochement. They didn’t come away
fathoming each other, didn’t even shake hands as they took leave of one another for the last time, but as Am left the office,
he did volunteer a final “Good-bye.”

Looking up and catching his eye, Kendrick said, “Sayonara.”

When he arrived at the Hotel on Monday, Am wasn’t sure what he should do. For most of the morning he sat in his office. He
wasn’t hiding out, exactly—the faster-than-light Hotel grapevine had already put out the word that Kendrick had up and quit
and Am had taken over, which had resulted in a constant stream of visitors offering their congratulations—but he really wasn’t
doing anything. To Am’s mind, the high-point of his morning was when he raised himself out of his chair and turned his cartoon
of the exasperated clerk and Cassie’s drawing of Procrustes around again. Momentarily, at least, that made him feel better,
but his malaise soon returned. There were things that needed doing, but he didn’t want to do them. He felt deterred by the
unpleasant matters yet to be faced up to, realities oppressive enough to keep him immobile. Most visitors saw his chipper
face, but Am didn’t offer Sharon that same mask.