CHAPTER 11

“Mr...uh...” The hotel manager glanced at my credit card. “Mr. Byrne, perhaps you’d be happier at a motel up the road.”

I guess I didn’t look like the type of guest the hotel usually catered to. Instead of luggage I had two shopping bags, one from Thatcher’s pharmacy which contained a new set of toiletries and the other from the Army/Navy Store where I purchased underwear, a pair of jeans, and a couple of shirts. I hadn’t shaved for twenty-some hours, I’d been sitting in East Hastings humidity drinking beer, and, though I was not sweating at the moment, patches of stains still splotched my shirt. My breath must have been a nearly lethal combination of beer, salami, onions, and hot peppers. I also didn’t think the manager was the one gently swaying side to side.

“No. I’ve always wanted to stay in this hotel. Can you believe I grew up here and this is the first time I’ve been here?” I answered.

The manager looked me up and down disapprovingly again. “Actually, I can,” he said.

“Of course, living in East Hastings, why would a person stay here? I mean, you’d only need a place if you were from somewhere else--which is what I am now.”

I didn’t drink a lot of beer as a rule but when I did I often got an irrepressible urge to make small talk whenever I’d had a few too many. Thing was, I was awful at small talk.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” the manager answered, not looking up as he searched the data on his console. “Ah, there is a reservation.” He didn’t mask his disappointment. “Would you like a smoking or non-smoking room?”

“Non-smoking please. Of course, I always thought I’d be staying there, but I didn’t, so when I knew I was coming back to East Hastings I thought, great, I can stay here.”

“I see. Exactly how long are you expecting to stay with us?” the manager asked, eyeing my “luggage” suspiciously.

“Well, that’s sort of up in the air. You see my car was stolen this morning, and I’m hoping the police will find it, but until they do I really can’t leave town, at least until my insurance kicks in.”

“I see,” he said.

I think what he really saw was the last thing he needed--a character.

The reservation sheet stopped printing. The manager tore it along its perforated edge and slid it, along with two key cards, across the reservation desk. “I’ll need your home phone please and your signature.”

“Oh, yeah, well see I lost my job and thus my phone, which the job provided, so I don’t have a number I can give you. I am planning to get one, of course, as soon as I’m settled,” I added as some sort of consolation.

The manager wasn’t consoled. He looked at the reservation screen.

“Mr. um...Byrne...”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t want to seem...well, too harsh, but you see we cater to the tour bus crowd, people coming to visit the museums and historic sites. They tend to be a bit older, like things quiet. We provide our guests with an ambience of understated elegance. We’re not used to people simply wandering in off the street--”

He didn’t finish his sentence because at that moment the first wave of one such tour group burst in through the front doors, led by a frazzled looking woman carrying a clip board. She was obviously the tour director. “Peter, daaarling, thank goodness,” she said as she approached the front desk.

“You wait here,” the manager muttered to me before turning his charm toward the tour director.

“Della,” he answered her, moving out from the behind the desk to greet her, taking her hands in his cordially. “I was beginning to wonder what happened to you.”

“Well, we had a little problem when some members wanted to stay longer at the vineyard, which made some of the others feel shortchanged with their time at the mushroom museum gift shop, and they were insisting we go back, which would have thrown us way off schedule--none of them seemed to care at all about the schedule. I mean what’s the point if we don’t have a schedule?”

“I understand completely,” Peter the manager sympathized, “there’s always a few bad apples,” he said, and I couldn’t help but notice the quick, derisive look he threw my way.

“--except when it comes to meal time,” Della the tour director continued, gripping her clip board tightly and shaking it at no one in particular. “Heaven forbid, we’re off schedule at meal time. You should have heard all the griping when we couldn’t find the TGIF. We were only fifteen minutes late.”

“I understand completely. It’s not always easy, is it? Well, we do our best, don’t we? We do our best. However, you may now put yourself in the hands of the Hearthstone. Why don’t we have your group wait in the lounge before I check you in? Come this way,” he said, leading her off toward an open set of French doors at the far end of the lobby. “They can get a drink at the bar and, if they are still hungry, perhaps an appetizer or two.”

She leaned in close to him and spoke softly, but loud enough for me to hear.

“To hell with them, I want a drink.” She turned and put on a big smile for her group. “Everybody, this is Peter and he is the manager here. He’ll get everybody all settled in as quickly as possible. In the meantime, why don’t we all go to the lounge and get comfortable.”

“Right this way,” Peter said, also putting on a big show of hospitality as he led them off.

I took the opportunity to discretely sign the reservation sheet, take my room key cards, and slip away. All I wanted was a hot shower, a clean shave, and a quiet night.