"I thought it was Esmerelda," Meskin said bitterly. "And who the hell cares what her name is? They come and go faster than the damn guests. I think this is a union plot or something."
"What should I do, Mr. Meskin?"
"Keep searching. I'll call every room from nine up and see who needs linen."
Wearily Marvin Meskin began the process. As he went about this irksome task, the lobby elevator door dinged open. His quick eyes went to it, hoping it might be that lazy Esmerelda. He couldn't understand it. Everyone said Filipina help was top shelf.
The woman stepping off the elevator was not Esmerelda. Meskin's eyes followed her through the lobby anyway. She walked with a kind of loose-hipped undulation that wiped Meskin's mind free of his cares. He had never seen such a set of boobs on someone that young. She was quite a piece of work in her tight yellow skirt and yellow fingernails. Like a voluptuous banana. Meskin wondered what it would be like to peel her.
Someone picked up the line, breaking into Meskin's banana-flavored fantasy.
"Yes, this is the front desk," he said. "I was just wondering if you've gotten fresh linen for today. No? Well, I am very sorry. We seem to be having a busy day. I'll get right on it."
Thirty calls later, Marvin Meskin put down the desk telephone to find a man was hovering only inches away. He had not heard him approach the front desk.
"Yes? May I help you in some way?" Meskin asked, his nose wrinkling at the man's all-black ensemble. If a T-shirt and slacks could be called an ensemble.
"I'm looking for a guy," the man in black asked.
"I'll bet you are," Meskin said dryly.
It was the wrong thing to say, and on an ordinary day Marvin Meskin would never have allowed those insolent words to escape his lips, but he was in a bad mood and the man in black was not dressed like a traveler. In fact, he looked as if he had slept in his clothes.
But he had said it, and the wrongness, the utter and complete boneheadedness of the comment was brought home forcefully to Marvin Meskin when the skinny guy in black lifted his thick-wristed hands and clamped first one on Meskin's shoulder and then the other on his throat.
That was all. There was no other sensation. Not of floating. Not of flying. Not even of dislocation.
Yet somehow Marvin Meskin found himself on the other side of the front desk, his back crushing the deep-pile royal blue lobby rug and his left arm straining to come out of its socket.
Way up there where the oxygen was, the skinny guy was calmly and methodically using one terrible hand to slowtwist Meskin's going-numb left arm. His other hand rested on his hip. One of his feet-Meskin had no idea which was planted irresistibly in his windpipe, restricting the flow of air.
"Gasp," Marvin Meskin gasped. "Hack! Hack!"
"You'll have to speak up. I didn't hear the answer to my question."
Meskin could not recall a question being put to him, but he signaled with his flailing free hand that he would be delighted to answer.
"Let me repeat it," the skinny guy was saying. "The Iraiti ambassador was dropped off at the Embassy Row Hotel two days ago. The front desk there told the FBI that he never checked in. I double-checked, and what do you know, it was true. Since the FBI understood he was in the habit of being dropped off at the Embassy, according to the ambassador's driver, that means he was pulling the old duck-and-dodge-something that should have occurred to the FBI, but didn't. Your establishment is the closest to that one. Ergo, your establishment goes to the top of the list."
This made perfect sense to Marvin Meskin, so he nodded in agreement. The action scratched the man's shiny shoes. Meskin's five-o'clock shadow appeared around noon. He hoped the desecration was not noticed.
"Okay," the guy in black was saying, "now I ask you if you'd know the Iraiti ambassador if you saw him." And the shoe withdrew.
"I'm a faithful watcher of Nightline," Meskin said hoarsely. He started gulping air in case the shoe returned. It did not.
"He check in two days ago?"
"Yes, he did."
"Check out?"
"I'd have to examine our records."
At that moment the bellboy stepped off the elevator. He started at the sight of his employer being held down on the royal-blue rug.
"Mr. Meskin, should I call the police?" he asked from behind a potted rubber plant. "Say no," the skinny guy said flatly.
"No," Meskin said, really wanting to say yes. But those deep-set eyes promised certain death if he disobeyed.
"Did you hear that?" the skinny guy asked, directing his deadly eyes toward the bellboy.
"I don't work for you," the bellboy said bravely.
"Go look for that maid!" Meskin yelled.
"I found her. I found all of four of them. In the storage room."
"All? What the hell are they doing-playing strip poker?"
"No, sir, they appear to have been strangled."
"Did you say strangled?" the skinny guy demanded.
"Union dispute," Marvin Meskin said quickly. "Nothing for you to concern yourself with. We run a discreet hotel."
The skinny guy frowned. "I'd say this is more than union trouble. Let's look into the ambassador first. I see dead bodies all the time."
"I'll bet you do," Marvin Meskin said as he was hauled by one arm to his feet. Weak-kneed, he stumbled back behind the counter and went to the computer. The skinny guy followed close behind him.
"There's something wrong with this computer," Meskin said, trying to call up the name. The amber screen was misbehaving. The letters and symbols were wavering as if written in disturbed water. "I can't get it to straighten out," Meskin complained, banging the terminal.
"Just a sec," the man said, stepping back.
The amber letters reformed, readable once more.
Meskin looked over his shoulder. The skinny guy stood, his bare arms folded, about twelve feet away.
"Hop to it," he said.
And Meskin hopped to it.
"We have an Abdul Al-Hazred in Room 1045," Meskin called out.
"So?"
"So that's the name the Iraiti ambassador uses whenever he takes a room here."