In the suite of rooms above my restaurant that I call home I’m usually up at five on weekdays, getting ready for the morning show. Weekends find me sleeping in a little longer, till nine or even ten on Saturdays. Because there’d been more than one nightcap in the hotel bar (which we’d closed at three, by the way), I could have used a little extra bedtime that Saturday. But I didn’t get it.
Something—exactly what I wasn’t sure, only that I was dreaming of birds chirping—woke me at a little after eight. I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, and wondered where I was and why I could see sky outside my bedroom window. Sky but no birds.
My head felt as if it was filled with Kleenex. Used Kleenex. In an effort to inject a small element of kindness in an unkind world, I will not even begin to describe what the inside of my mouth resembled.
I staggered to the bathroom and did everything that had to be done. Revived by a hot and then cold shower and the taste of strenuously applied toothpaste and wrapped in a plush terry bathrobe provided by the hotel, I plopped down on the sofa in the suite’s sitting room and dialed room service.
I put in a request for the biggest omelet on the menu, two servings of crispy bacon, toast, and hot coffee, and plenty of it. Then, confident that the ball was rolling, I leaned back against the sofa cushion and began working the TV’s remote control. I flipped through a morass of brightly colored kids’ cartoons; of live, recent, and classic sporting events; movies that I hadn’t liked the first time I saw them; sincere-looking hucksters peddling cosmetics and cures; and screaming-head news channels. Finally, I arrived at a relatively calm oasis, the repeat of last night’s Charlie Rose interview.
Charlie was talking to a Democratic congressman whom, I’m sorry to say, I did not recognize. Charlie asked him if he thought the Dems would reclaim the House in 2012. And—surprise, surprise—the congressman’s response to that lobbed puffball was: “Heck, yes.” From that point, he and Charlie engaged in a somewhat laid-back battle for control of talking points. I’m not sure who won, because a gong announced what I assumed was my breakfast waiting at the door to the suite.
I could almost taste the omelet as I danced across the carpet. Reaching for the doorknob, I exhaled, intending to breathe deeply of the comforting aroma of coffee and eggs mixed with melted cheese, peppers, and onions.
Instead, my nostrils were filled with the overpowering scents of Old Spice mixed with morning cigarette breath.
Eddie “Pat” Patton was at my door, wearing dark gray slacks, a matching gray jacket, a gray Kangol cap, and a nasty grin. He reminded me of an evil Disney rat, specifically, the one threatening the baby in Lady and the Tramp. (If you’ll pardon the digression, it’s always struck me as odd that a company built on the popularity of a mouse would be so quick to demonize rats.)
“Morning, Billy,” he said, taking a step forward, so that his right shoe blocked me from slamming the door in his face. A move perfected by door-to-door salesmen. And cops. “I hope you don’t mind my dropping by. I phoned, but you didn’t pick up.”
“About a half-hour ago,” he said. “Right, Nat?”
“About then.” Nat had been standing to Patton’s left, out of my line of sight. The young muscle with the slicked-down hair who’d been with him after the midday show telecast. Today, he was wearing tan poplin slacks and a cocoa-brown T-shirt that fit him like a second skin. He was clutching a bright red folder in his huge right hand.
“Guess you mighta been on the throne,” Patton said.
“I was asleep,” I said, realizing now that the bird chirp had been coming from the hotel phone.
“Well, I’m glad I took a chance you might be here,” Patton said. He turned to Nat. “Gimme the file, boy. And go wait for me in the car.”
The big man’s mouth tensed. He handed his employer the folder. Then, with some reluctance, he drifted away, presumably to do as he was told.
“This won’t take long, Billy,” Patton said, walking past me into the suite. “Not that you seem to be in any hurry to greet the day.”
“What can I do for you?” I asked, closing the door and following him into the sitting room.
He did a 360 of the room, took in the floor-to-ceiling windows, the French provincial furniture, the Degas prints on the pale blue walls, and the average-size TV monitor. “Looks like an expensive French whore’s boo-dwarr,” he said.
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “What do you want?”
He lowered himself onto the sofa with a combination grunt and sigh, emitting a softer grunt when he leaned forward to place the folder on the coffee table. “You wanna go put on knickers, be my guest,” he said. “I’m in no hurry.”
“I repeat: What do you want?”
“You gonna stay in your robe, Billy, close it up and park.”
He took out a pack of cigarettes and looked around for an ashtray.
“Nonsmoking room,” I said, tightening the robe’s belt and taking the chair near him.
“You fucking with me? You payin’—what?—four or five hundred bucks a night to stay in this antique showroom and they don’t let your guests light up?”
“You’re not exactly my guest, and even if you were, I wouldn’t want you lighting up here. Kill yourself if you want. But don’t take me with you.”
“I’m surprised you’re so gullible, Billy,” he said, slipping the cigarettes back into his jacket pocket. “It’s all bullshit scare tactics, you know. Secondhand smoke. Global warming. Cholesterol. From the white-coat whackjobs who brought us the bird flu pandemic.”
Oh, yeah, he’d be a cherished font of information for our morning show. I indicated the red folder. “That for me?”
He nodded, edging it toward me with one finger. “It took me a while to dig the original out of the boxes of case files I got stacked away. Then getting it all copied.”
He checked his watch. “Aw, hell. I don’t think I got time for you to order up some coffee for me.”
“That is too bad,” I said.
“Price of being a busy man. Just look that over,” he said. “Nothing you don’t know, of course. Just a kinda show-and-tell that I know, too.”