The Crescent

Chapter 31

Zacari raced to the front desk. "Allison!" But Allison had wobbling jowls, a bulbous nose, and balding red hair, and it wasn't Allison at all. Zacari skidded to a stop.

"Can I help you?" Ed the Bellman asked bitterly.

"Where's Javier?"

"Working."

"Do you know where?"

"Yes."

She waited. She sighed. "Will you please tell me where?"

"I'm afraid I am legally unable to give out that information," he stiffed, returning his gaze intently to the computer. Zacari struggled to refrain from rolling her eyes.

"Come on, man. Please?" she persisted. "Oh, forget it."

Allison heel-toed from around the corner, mumbling to herself and sweeping a manicured hand through a tinkling ring of keys. Her hair, normally finely pressed into its cookie-cutter shape, was frayed at the ends, and hardly a disheveled look for most, but for her, Zacari observed, it was practically a mental breakdown.

"Of course, the day we have the most guests checking in The Operating Room is jammed shut," she groaned. She spotted Zacari. "Hi there, love."

Why is The Operating Room locked? she thought, then, Oh. Baker.

"Hi. Have you tried the door leading to the outside?"

Allison nodded. "Of all things. It's so strange. The ghost tours are postponed until we can figure it out. It's going to be a rough day; that's the main reason people stay at The Crescent. Ugh, and look at that, I've cracked a nail!" She tossed the keys to Ed. "Here. See if you can get the stupid thing unlocked."

Ed grumbled to himself and shuffled down to The Operating Room.

"Do you know where Javier is?" Zacari asked.

"Third floor, I think. I asked him to search the closets for something to pry the doors open if it comes down to it. Oh, could you do me a favor? Could you ask your dad if he could help shimmy open one of the doors? He was pretty handy with that leaky sink."

She suspected no crowbar could pry open the doors to The Operating Room, but Zacari promised to ask for her father's help anyway before sprinting up the staircase.

Just as Allison promised, Zacari found Javier digging through a closet. He stepped back holding two hammers and a length of rope.

"How's rope going to open the door?" she asked. Lela squirmed out of her arms and bounded over to Javier.

Javier grinned up at Zacari. "Point taken," he ceded, and tossing it back into the closet.

She threw her arms around him, and the hammers narrowly missed Lela as the nosedived to the floor. "Hi," she said awkwardly, pulling away. He pulled her back in a brief embrace before she relayed to him everything Will had told her.

"I'm guessing these hammers are useless too then?" he said.

"Probably."

"Well, it works out, sort of. The morgue is the only room we'd have a chance at using as darkroom to develop the film anyway. But how are we going to get in?"

"Will thinks it'll open if we have a key and he's there." She eyed him hopefully. "Do you have one?"

"No," he shook his head. "I only borrowed it when I was filling in for the tour guide."

"Dang." She racked her brain. "Wait – Ed has the keys!"

"Like he'd give it to us," Javier laughed.

Zacari raised an eyebrow. "Who said anything about asking?"

.

Ed The Bellman graciously took an elderly lady's suitcases. "M'lady," he crooned.

Zacari softly gagged from her seat on the sofa. There were a lot of guests spilling into The Crescent this morning. Just as another wave of guests spilled through the front doors, Zacari stood, casually stretched, and made her way towards Ed, Lela in hand. She caught her own ankle with her foot, staggered forward, and flung Lela from her hands straight into Ed's chest.

He let loose a girlish scream.

"Goodness, I'm so sorry," Zacari apologized as Ed flailed around like a seven-foot tall ballerina.

"Oh my," remarked the elderly lady.

"Zacari," Allison scolded, but it came out strangled and broken, and she had to turn away to hide her fit of laughter.

Lela dug her nails into Ed's collar in a stiff-legged chihuahua manner. His girlish scream crescendoed and drew the attention of the entire foyer. Allison tried to look crossly at Zacari, but a smile kept reemerging from her false firmness. Javier approached Ed from behind and unsnapped the ring of keys from his belt and slipped them into his pocket without anyone noticing. He placed a hand on Ed's shoulder and pried Lela from his shirt. It took a few, beautifully long moments for Ed to stop screaming. Marginally more composed, Allison turned back to the scene fanning her pink face with a brochure.

"Ed, are you okay?" Javier said as he passed off Lela to Zacari.

"Fine," Ed said heavily. He flattened his scuffed collar and bored holes into Zacari.

"I'm so sorry," she professed.

"That was dangerously irresponsible of you," Javier spat. Laying it on a little thick, Javier, Zacari thought. Allison tried to agree and broke into another fit of laughter.

"Indeed, it was," Ed said, jumping on the band wagon. "You may have permission to have that rat in the hotel, but it has no right attacking people."

"Geez, you're right, I'm going to go up to my room and think about what I did."

"As you should."

Javier patted Ed's shoulder comfortingly.

"Did anyone see all that?" Ed uttered as she turned away. She hastily turned her laugh into a cough and rushed up the stairs to Room 218. Like an onion peeled away to its pungent, fleshy parts, the black paint was all but gone and the door was imposingly lavender. It'd work its way under Zacari's skin if she let it, but the rise and fall of her father's voice on the other side cut down the effect almost completely, and she pushed the door open fearlessly.

Her father hung up his phone and stuffed it into his pocket. He was already in his uniform of work jeans, a plain, pocketed T-shirt, and steel toed boots laced neatly to their top. He looked thinner for some reason. Zacari watched him reach over for his tool bag. It protested with a that familiar clank and clatter as he began to dig through its contents.

"Oh good," Zacari said. "You're ready!"

He glanced at her. "Ready?" he said to himself, returning his attention to his tool bag. "Where is that damn thing?"

"Yeah," Zacari said. "We're shopping today, remember?"

"Oh yeah, uh – " He scratched the back of his head. "We're going to have to reschedule, Cari, my buddy Chris just called me. He's having issues with his A.C. unit, I've got to go help in out. It's been so hot it'd be a damn crime to not help him fix it, you know what I mean? Aha! Found it."

Zacari deflated. "Oh," she said.

It was incredible how powerful an offhand turn of phrase could be.

"See you tonight then?" she heard herself say.

"Yup. Be good," he said, and slipped out of the room.

Zacari imagined that he turned back, changed his mind and the rest of the day went wonderfully, like he'd promised. But when he didn't return, she climbed into his bed and held Lela and let herself to cry.