IT TOOK A MOMENT for Oliver to recognize the man loitering by the employee entrance as he sped up the ramp in search of a parking space. He had to assume the man didn’t recognize him either. Otherwise the general manager of the Harrington Hotel would have risked more than a single sheepish glance in either direction before inching his right index finger up his nostril for a quick, surreptitious dig.
After parking and locking his car, Oliver hurried down the dank stairwell of the hotel’s parking garage. Sherman was waiting for him by the door, each of his manicured hands now a sanitary distance from his nostrils. He’d swapped his customary monochromatic suit in favor of stylish jeans, a black turtleneck, and a fitted Red Sox cap. Somehow he seemed shorter in street clothes, but no less imposing.
Oliver smiled a greeting that Sherman either missed or ignored.
“Follow me,” he said, ushering Oliver through the doorway. “I need to show you something.”
Oliver did as instructed, pausing to clock in and wondering as they walked what sort of bad news awaited him. Had there been another robbery? Had Sherman somehow discovered that Oliver was playing make-believe in the ballroom when the last one went down? But once inside the security closet, Sherman commandeered the only available chair and began clicking through a complicated maze of screens on what appeared to be a brand-new computer. In the liquid crystal glow of the monitor, his pinched expression had melted into one of boyish animation. As improbable—nay, impossible—as it seemed, Sherman was positively giddy.
“The technician should be done about now,” he said as one black-and-white image flickered into the next. “What you see here, Oliver, is a real-time shot of the hallway on the fifth floor.”
A bearded guy sucking a lollipop stepped into view, then reached up to adjust the camera angle.
“That’s Chuck,” Sherman said. “He’ll be here most of the night installing cameras and tweaking software.”
“I don’t understand. We’re spying on guests now?”
“Not spying—surveilling. And it’s not on the guests. It’s for them.”
“Is that even legal?”
“Perfectly.” The grainy image of Chuck consulted a handheld device. As he used his lollipop hand to tweak settings, the image appeared less grainy. “We’ve had cameras in the lobby for years, as well as in the workout room, the parking garage, the laundry room, and the employee break room.”
“I thought those were all dummy cameras.” Everyone did. It was a running joke among the hotel staff.
“Oh no, the cameras are real. They just weren’t recording anything. Not until tonight, anyway.”
“So …” Oliver said, telegraphing his punch line with an inviting grin, “… does this mean I don’t have to make my rounds anymore?”
As usual, Oliver’s attempt at humor boomeranged over Sherman’s head unnoticed.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You will obviously need to monitor the screen whenever possible, on the lookout for any suspicious behavior. Chuck will even show you how it all works—protocol, passwords, all of it. It’s implausible to think you can simultaneously patrol the grounds and babysit your computer. That’s why we plan to record everything, in case there’s another, you know, incident.”
“Are we going to install cameras in guest rooms too?”
This time Oliver’s grin was overly ripe, conspiratorial, yet completely unseen. Sherman was still staring at the screen as if he were afraid he was going to miss something, as if he expected a masked burglar to step off the elevator and beat Chuck senseless with his own lollipop.
The tiny room had gone uncomfortably silent. Oliver wasn’t sure what to say, so he just watched the jerky images on the monitor as Sherman continued to scroll through more screens, experimenting with the controls and managing to access various video feeds. It dawned on Oliver that it wasn’t the silence he found so unnerving; it was the intimacy. He’d never spent so much time in such close proximity to his boss. But now he was trapped in a tiny room, close enough to hear the slight rattle of Sherman’s breathing, to see the graying sprouts of stubble littering his cheeks. The casual clothes didn’t help either, nor did the overdose of expensive cologne obviously applied to mask the accumulated staleness of the day.
Then the door opened behind him and he had to flatten himself against a filing cabinet to save his kidney from being impaled by the doorknob.
Sherman swiveled in his seat and said, “Oliver, meet Chuck. Chuck, Oliver.”
Chuck saluted with what remained of his lollipop—a tacky pink nub clinging to the end of a soggy stick.
Oliver waved and said, “Nice to meet you.”
Chuck stared at Oliver before finally squinting at him and saying, “Don’t I know you from someplace?”
“I don’t think so.”
“No, man. I know I know you from somewhere. You a friend of Barry’s?”
“Well … aren’t we all?”
Oliver didn’t really consider Barry his friend, or even his manager, for that matter. The truth was, he didn’t really consider Barry much at all. But that was not the kind of information he wanted to volunteer with Barry’s uncle sitting two feet away.
Sherman stood and arched his back until it popped. “Where are we, Chuck? You about finished?”
“Hallways are done,” he mumbled and slid past Sherman to commandeer the seat behind the computer. “Just need to check the feeds from the lobby, restaurant, loading dock, front desk, and outside entrances.”
“Well then,” Sherman said. He looked longingly at the image on the monitor, proud and expectant, but certain that all the real fun would start as soon as he left. “I guess I’ll leave it to the two of you.”
In one long motion Chuck waved over his shoulder, deposited the gnarled lollipop stick behind his ear, then opened another and popped it into his beard-fringed mouth. Sherman motioned for Oliver to follow him into the hallway. Once outside he lowered his voice to a whisper.
“One last thing, Mr. Miles. This needs to be our little secret. Not a word to anyone. Understood?”
“Okay, sir. But really, who would I tell?”
“Well, for starters, your co-workers.”
“Oh, so you mean nobody else knows about this?”
“Just you and me and Chuck. And I’m counting on you to keep it that way, Oliver.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sherman tilted his head and pumped a little more air into his whisper. “And I do mean anyone, got it?”
Oliver nodded.
His boss clearly had someone particular in mind, but Oliver couldn’t process any of that just yet. Something had clamped down around his fingers, inched forward into a firm grip, then began to pump. It was a handshake, the executive kind—weighty, significant, the kind of handshake reserved for generals, governors, conspirators, old friends. But all Oliver could think about was the hand itself—that one spelunking finger in particular—now gripping his, and all those nostril germs migrating antlike from Sherman’s hand to his own.
He nodded again and tried to pry his hand loose. But Sherman held on. His relentless eye contact implied a pact, a newly minted brotherhood, and the alarming intimacy of a new deal. Although Oliver was left to wonder what he was going to get out of this deal, and what he might have to give up.
• • •
Oliver washed his hands four times and applied sanitizer twice. On his way back to the security closet he paused near the front desk to listen to the rattle of Mattie’s adding machines. It was hypnotizing, more musical than he would have imagined, like a chattering lullaby. Or maybe he just needed a nap.
Back in the security closet, Oliver stood in the doorway and watched as Chuck toggled between two screens—one that revealed live feeds from various floors and another filled with some hieroglyphic programmer language. Eventually he landed on a screen that revealed a black-and-white image of Mattie sitting at her desk. On screen, she rattled a pencil between her teeth and studied a long ribbon of adding machine tape.
“Whoa,” Chuck said. The fake leather chair squeaked as he sat up a little straighter. “What’s her story?”
“Her name is Mattie, Matilda actually.”
“On second thought, this project may take longer than anticipated.”
Chuck tapped a few quick commands and the camera began to zoom in on Mattie. Oliver stared, simultaneously mesmerized by the image looming larger on the screen and wanting it to stop. Not that he minded getting a closer look at Mattie; what bothered him was Chuck getting a closer look. When her face filled the entire screen, the security tech began smacking his lips around his lollipop. Or maybe he’d been doing it all along and Oliver was just noticing it more. Either way, he had to fight the urge to slap it out of his mouth.
“Mah-teel-dahhh …” Chuck said, no doubt intending it to sound sexy. “Turn to papa … turn to papa …”
Who actually says stuff like that? Apparently bearded, lollipop-loving security technicians who smelled like yeast and secondhand smoke, because he kept saying it. Without taking his eyes off the screen, Chuck tapped a few keys and the computer simulated the sound of a camera shutter.
“Did you just take her picture?”
“Just testing the equipment, big guy.”
“Well I’m not sure snapping photos of employees is such a great idea, especially without their consent.”
“Hey, feel free to jog up to floor number five and strike a pose for me.”
“I think I’ll just hang out here.” Oliver meant this to sound menacing. But the journey from his brain to his vocal cords had a neutering effect on his words.
“You sure? Might give me a few minutes to go introduce myself to Mah-teel-dahhh.”
“I’m sure the hotel has some sort of policy against employees fraternizing.”
“Sounds like that’s your problem, not mine. I don’t work here.”
“What do you call this then?” Oliver exaggerated a sweeping gesture meant to encompass the vast geography between the computers and the most remote camera on the top floor. But Chuck was still staring at the screen, playing with different angles, snapping more photos.
“A black-ops mission,” he said. “I’m a ghost, Oliver. A phantom. General Sherman paid me in cash. So according to the IRS, I don’t exist.” Chuck zoomed in on Mattie’s right hand, then her left. “Hmm, interesting.”
“What’s that?”
“See there? No ring.”
“What difference does that make?”
“To guys like us, it could make all the difference in the world.”
Oliver didn’t know what offended him more—Chuck’s soft-core voyeurism? Or the fact that he’d just assumed some sort of fraternal union between the two of them?
“Aren’t you about done here?”
“Not quite,” Chuck said. “I’m supposed to show you how everything works.”
Chuck was a surprisingly thorough instructor. In a few short minutes he’d armed Oliver with enough passwords, procedures, and confidence to navigate the entire system. But when Oliver began taking notes, Chuck told him not to bother.
“Why not?”
“Nobody ever really goes back and watches these things.”
“You obviously don’t know Sherman.”
Chuck gave an I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it shrug. When he’d finished his tutorial, he gathered all his notes and instructions and tucked them into a fresh manila folder. Then he stapled his homemade business card to the outside, handed it to Oliver, and said, “You think you got it?”
“I guess so,” Oliver said, his newfound confidence already waning. “But can I, you know, call you if I get stuck?”
“Yeah, sure. You can call.” There was something mischievous in Chuck’s delivery. He paused on his way out to jiggle the doorknob, then added, “And don’t forget to lock the door when you leave.”
“Oh, right, the equipment. I guess this is pretty expensive stuff.”
“Nah, it’s mostly secondhand crap I pieced together. But didn’t I hear your boss tell you to keep this all hush-hush?”
“I guess you did.”
“Besides, you don’t want anybody to catch you staring at Mah-teel-dahhh.”
Chuck thought this was hilarious. Oliver didn’t; true maybe, but not funny.