“It’s 202,” I said automatically. Now you see? This is the beauty of keeping up those skills. In a crisis situation, I had only to open my mouth and a fib flopped out. An unpracticed liar can’t always rise to the occasion like I can.
She let herself in through the Dutch door, moving with surprising speed. The door snapped shut behind her. I folded the hangers across my left arm and walked on with apparent purpose, heart thumping. I rounded the corner and broke into a trot. I found the stairwell and headed up the stairs two at a time. I didn’t dare risk the hotel elevators. I pictured Mrs. Spitz notifying Security, guards swarming the exits in search of me. By the third floor I was winded, but I kept right on climbing. I passed the sixth floor, gasping, thighs burning, knees feeling like my kneecaps were about to pop off. I finally staggered through the door at the landing marked “8” and found myself back on familiar turf, one bend of the corridor away from my room.
I let myself into 815. I flung the contraband uniforms across the back of a chair and collapsed on the bed, which was now neatly made. I had to laugh while I lay there, trying to catch my breath. Mrs. Spitz better have her hormone levels checked or her medication adjusted. She was going to get herself fired if she continued to mouth off at Corporate. I half expected someone to come pounding at my door with demands and accusations, an itemized accounting of the lies I’d told.
I got up and crossed to the door, where I slipped on the security chain. I spent the next few minutes trying on stolen uniforms. The first was the best fit. I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. The skirt was big in the waist, but it didn’t seem to matter much with the tunic pulled over it. Pinned to each tunic was a ruffle of white, which formed a sort of collar once it was buttoned into place. The tunic itself had a little puff to the sleeve. Color wasn’t bad. Worn with bare legs and my running shoes, I looked like I could clean a bathroom in nothing flat. I changed back into my jeans and hung my uniform in the closet. I wasn’t sure what to do with the two remaining uniforms, so I folded them together and stuck them in the desk drawer. Before I left the hotel, I’d find a place to put them.
I ate a room service lunch, fearful of venturing out into the hotel so soon. At two o’clock, I went out into the corridor on a prospecting expedition, checking the general layout of the floor. I located the fire extinguisher, two fire exits, and the ice machine. A house phone sat on a console table across from the elevators. In the utility alcove at the end of the hall, I could see two linen carts angled into the space. I walked down there and spent a few minutes acquainting myself with available equipment. Extra irons and ironing boards, two vacuum cleaners. Beyond the alcove was a big linen closet, lined with shelves stacked nearly to the ceiling with clean sheets and towels. I could see cases of toilet paper and short towers of plastic pallets containing the miniature toiletries. Nice. I was liking this. An armload of towels usually provides good cover for getting into a room. I found a plastic door placard reading Maid in Room, which I snagged while I was at it.
Having exhausted the possibilities, I went down to the gift shop and bought a book to read. 1 was forced to choose among fifteen torrid romance titles, which was all the hotel stocked. I paid for a handful of miniature Peppermint Patties, pausing in the lobby only long enough to ring Laura’s room. When she answered, I murmured, “Ooops, sorry,” and hung up. Sounded like I’d caught her in the middle of a nap. I whiled away the afternoon, reading and napping. In a spectacular failure of imagination, I ordered a room service dinner that was a duplicate of my room service lunch: cheeseburger, fries, and diet Pepsi.
Shortly after seven o’clock, I stripped out of my jeans and donned my sassy red uniform. I wasn’t crazy about the bare legs with my running shoes, but what could I do? I stocked my pockets with peppermints and took the two remaining contraband uniforms from the drawer where I’d hidden them. I tucked my room key in my pocket and headed for the fire stairs. Going up, I paused on the tenth floor long enough to hang the two stolen uniforms in the utility alcove. I didn’t want the other maids inconvenienced by the theft.
The twelfth floor was laid out identically to the eighth, except that the utility room didn’t seem as well stocked. I grabbed a dust rag and a vacuum cleaner, found an electrical outlet in the corridor, and began to vacuum my way toward Laura Huckaby’s room. The carpet was an extravagant meadow of geometric shapes, triangles overlapping in a bright path of high-low gold and green. Vacuuming is always restful: slow, repetitive motion accompanied by a low groaning noise and that satisfying snap when something really good gets sucked up. Never had the wall-to-wall carpet been so thoroughly cleaned. I was working up a sweat, but the effort did permit me to loiter at will.
At 7:36 I heard the elevator ping and a room service waitcreature appeared with a dinner tray. He headed toward 1236; the tray balanced comfortably at shoulder height, he knocked on her door. I vacuumed in that direction, managing to get a glimpse of her when she let him in. She was barefoot and looking bulky in a hotel robe with a nightie hanging down below. The loungewear suggested she was in for the night, which was good from my perspective. The waiter emerged moments later. He passed me without remark and disappeared into the elevator without acknowledging my existence. On the off chance that Laura would have a visitor or head out to meet someone, I stuck to my surveillance.
When I tired of vacuuming, I took out my dust rag and got down on my hands and knees, dusting baseboards that apparently hadn’t been touched for years. Sometimes it’s really tough to picture the boy detectives doing this. Periodically, I tilted my head against Laura Huckaby’s door without hearing a thing. Maybe if I barked and scratched, she’d let me in. Other hotel guests came and went at intervals, but no one paid me the slightest attention.
Here’s what I’ve learned about being a maid: People seldom look you in the eye. Occasionally someone’s gaze might accidentally glance off your face, but based on the interaction, no one could identify you later in a lineup. Good news for me, although even in Texas I don’t think impersonating a maid would be classified as a crime.
At 8:15 I returned the vacuum cleaner to the linen room and armed myself with a supply of fresh towels. I returned to 1236 and knocked, calling out “Housekeeping” in clear, bell-like tones. Worked like a charm. Moments later, Laura Huckaby opened the door a crack with the chain in place. “Yes?”
Without eye makeup, her hazel eyes seemed soft and pale. Her complexion was made ruddy by the faint rash of freckles previously masked by foundation. She also had a dimple in her chin I hadn’t noticed earlier.
I directed my comment to the doorknob so I wouldn’t seem uppity. “I’m here to turn the bed down.”
“This hotel offers turn-down service?” She sounded appropriately startled, as if the idea were ludicrous.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She paused and then shrugged. “Just a minute,” she said. She closed the door. There was a delay of some minutes and then she released the chain and stepped aside to let me enter.
I was interested to realize how much I could take in through my peripheral vision. How vain could she be? I could have sworn she’d paused to put on her makeup again. The tangled auburn hair had been freshly washed and still clung to her head. Warm, damp, shampoo-scented air wafted from the bathroom. I set the clean towels on the counter near the sink and then moved into the bedroom area and closed the drapes. The television set was turned on with the sound turned down. She’d tossed her room key on the desk. Immediately, I began to scheme to get my hands on it. I could see from the disarray that she’d been lying on the bed with the telephone pulled close. Maybe she’d received the call she’d been waiting for. There was no sign of the duffel bag as far as I could see.
She took a seat at the desk with her magazine. She crossed her legs, and I caught just a flash of bare skin. Her right ankle and shin and all the way up to her knee was a sooty mass of old bruises, turning green at the edge. Had her fifty-some companion been beating the shit out of her? It would certainly explain her icy treatment of him and her obsession with her appearance. Her dinner tray still sat on the desk in front of her, a crumpled white cloth napkin tossed carelessly across the dirty plates. Whatever she’d ordered, she hadn’t eaten much. Though it was ostensibly my job, she seemed embarrassed to have me in the room, which actually worked to my advantage. She ignored me for the most part, though she would flick me an occasional self-conscious look. I was beginning to enjoy my invisibility. I could observe her at close range without any pesky personal exchanges. Was that the shadow of a bruise on the right side of her jaw, or was I imagining things? What kind of guy was she with? From all reports, he’d pounded Ray Rawson to a pulp, so he might have pounded her, too.