In every life there has to be a worst day. Am was hoping this was his. What had Nietzsche said? “What doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger.” But then Nietzsche had never worked in the hotel business.
Two guests had been murdered in his Hotel. Detective McHugh had displayed a facsimile of the suspected murder weapon to the press, and had identified the knife as Hotel California cutlery. Because the assailant hadn’t brought the knife in from the outside, the press later announced that the deaths were the result of an interrupted robbery. The burglar had entered the room while the couple was in bed, and the speculation was that he hadn’t known they were in the room. There was a struggle with the male victim, a prominent Bay Area attorney, and afterward, no doubt in a panic, the knife wielder had stabbed the Jane Doe to silence her screams. It had originally been assumed that the woman was the lawyer’s wife, a theory based on the one-carat-plus diamond on her ring finger, but later it was learned that the lawyer, a man identified as David Stern, was unmarried. Because it was believed the woman's wallet had been removed from her purse, her identity was still in question.
In an effort to keep Hotel guests from panicking, it was reported that the criminal had fled the scene the day before. Am wished he had done the same. There wasn't anyone else who could speak for the Hotel. No one was stupid enough. Kendrick and the owners could not be reached in their inviolable retreat, and Am knew it wouldn't be proper for the Hotel to respond to double murders with a “No comment.” Melvin Carrelis, the Hotel's legal counsel, had cautioned Am to speak in generalities and appear very sympathetic. He was advised to refer as much as he could to the police, decry the basic sickness of society, and try to avoid referring specifically to what had occurred at the Hotel. The plan was for Am to read a short statement, answer a few questions, and then encourage the reporters to let the police conduct their investigation without interference. Two words into his statement, Am was deluged with questions.
There is a taint of scandal associated with even the poshest of hotels. The business of selling rooms isn't perceived to be quite as respectable as selling insurance, or groceries, or bonds, or flowers. Beyond all the sanitized-for-your-protection sealants, hotels are among the most human of all environments. They are ports of call, destinations, and offer an allure more salacious than salubrious. One manager had once confessed to Am that he could never quite shake the feeling that he wasn't working so much for a hotel as for a bawdy house.
The reporters' thoughts ran along those lines. They voiced their speculations in baying voices. Could the woman have been a prostitute? Were drugs a problem at the Hotel? Did criminal elements frequent the place? Am tried to hide behind the flag of the Hotel being on the National Register of Historic Places, but the media weren't visibly impressed. Their attitudes seemed to suggest that this was a hotel, and despite the purported vintage of the inn, it was just another outlet of a business that smacked of sex, and licentiousness, and a general laxness of morals. Scant hours had separated a suicide from a double murder. The reporters wanted to know what other terrible things were going on at the Hotel.
Even after Am finally freed himself from the reportorial questions, there was still the deluge of staff and guest inquiries. Extra personnel were assigned to cover the phones, and Am had Brown's Guards send as many uniforms as possible to present an image of ample security. Additional staff was also called in, with the end result of much trumpeting but little in the way of cavalry. A special room had been set up to try to handle the crisis, a place only for Hotel staff. It wasn't so much the setting for strategy sessions as a fire auxiliary.
Public Relations Director Ben Cooper had been putting the Hotel in the society and travel pages for years, but when asked by Am to try to keep the Hotel out of the spotlight, or at least to soften the lighting, Ben announced that the only thing worse than bad publicity was no publicity at all. Am's double take went unnoticed.
“The biggest knock from the locals is that we're so old,” he said, “so staid. San Diegans think that nothing exciting ever happens here. This might wake them up.”
Ben rubbed his aquiline nose thoughtfully and looked rather pleased with himself. There had to be a correlation between permanent brain damage, Am thought, and too many public relations releases. He could just imagine the tone of Ben's proposed piece: “The Hotel California, voted one of the hundred best hostelries in the world by the Travel Writers Association, located on the famed Riviera of the west, the La Jolla Strand, and situated in San Diego County, which American meteorologists have labeled as the only 'perfect climate in the country,’ was host to an exciting double murder yesterday.”
“I’d like to clear whatever you send out, Ben.”
“Certainly, Am. No such thing as bad publicity, you know.”
What about a hepatitis outbreak in one of the restaurants? Or a convention of child abusers? But Am let the rebuttals die in his throat. Ben had probably been repeating his catechism for forty years. It wasn’t the time to tell him about the emperor’s clothes.
Phones kept ringing, and staff kept yelling questions at Am, most of them unnecessary. Few people were willing to make decisions themselves. Sharon was Am’s biggest help, willing to use her own judgment. When she called out to him, he knew to listen.
“I think we ought to look into this one,” she said, hanging up the phone. “It’s the Bob Johnsons.”
Huns. Mongols. Vandals. Congress. Words that invoke fear. Bob Johnsons now had that same hold on Am.
“They’ve organized into what they call posses. They’re going around the Hotel trying to solve the murders.”
Instead of wearing silver stars, they had on their My Name Is Bob Johnson name tags. Am would have prayed to St. Julian, or even Procrustes, but he had the feeling neither was listening.