Through several evenings, the Night Porter tried to get somewhere with the enigmatic “Unpaid Bills” files. He would’ve to put his feet up on the Reception desk’s reassuring oak surface and catch up on what’d been the latest thing in interior decoration nearly thirty years earlier. The past had recently become much more appealing than the present or future. But the security camera flashed a red message in semaphore: Management is Watching You.

Management had become intolerant of goofing off, which used to be a Night Porter’s job description. Read, scribble, doze, do whatever you want…just be there, so the night can’t get a toehold on the hotel.

Hourly rounds, once onerous, had become a welcome break from the files.

‘These people spend the night and then disappear the next morning,’ the Night Porter thought, as he shuffled along the 11th floor’s palm tree-patterned wall-to-wall carpeting. ‘It’s a metaphysical form of shoplifting.’

This woman, who signed the Register as Mrs. A. Frendix, seems to have floated away.

The ice cube machine in the niche said, “What’re you talking about? We didn’t go nowhere.”

‘Stay calm,’ the Night Porter thought. ‘Ice machines don’t talk.’

“Lucky for me I’m not an ice machine.” A woman stepped out from behind a red-and-white dispenser just as twenty pounds of freshly minted cubes crashed into the holding pen. “I’ve kept it quiet back here for a long time. Just like everyone else.”

The Night Porter had never noticed the crawlspace behind the ice-cube dispenser. The security cameras were blind to it.

“Nice and quiet back there,” the woman said. “No one ever bothers us.”

“Hey,” the Night Porter said. “You can’t just live in a hotel’s parallel universe dimensions and not pay for it.”

“Wrong,” the lady said, and wagged a fingernail lacquered a sexy liverish shade of red.

Went up to her Suite with an Unidentified Man at 10:37 p.m. Unidentified Man left the lobby at 11:13 p.m. All she left was an unmade bed and a $2 tip on the nightstand.

Whatever was in this suitcase seized by The Management didn’t cover the cost of the four nights “Mrs Zeelout” spent in the Dave Alexander Suite.

Don’t let the Cheerleader looks fool you, whoever you are. This unidentified woman threatened the Parking Lot Attendant with an ice-pick before she peeled out and vanished..

***

Fatture non pagate, parte 2

Per molte notti il portiere di notte aveva cercato di venire a capo dell’enigmatico schedario di fatture non pagate. Voleva posare i piede sulla superficie rassicurante del banco della Reception e aggiornarsi sulle tendenze d’arredamento di decenni trascorsi. Il passato era diventato più interessante del presente e del futuro. Ma la telecamera trasmetteva a intermittenza un messaggio rosso: La Gestione ti spia.

I managers erano diventati severi in quanto al bighellonare, che una volta era l’essenza del lavoro di portiere di notte. Leggi, scrivi, dormicchi, fa’ come vuoi… basta che la notte non si prenda possesso dell’hotel.

Le ronde, prima onerose, ora costituivano una gradevole tregua dallo schedario. ‘Passi la notte e sparisci la mattina dopo senza pagare,’ pensò, strascicando i piedi sulla moquette dell’undicesimo piano. ‘Costituisce una forma metafisica di taccheggio.’

La macchina dei cubetti di ghiaccio nella nicchia disse, “Ma che dici? Non siamo andati da nessuna parte.”

‘Stai calmo,’ pensò il portiere di notte. ‘Le macchine del ghiaccio non parlano.’

“Per mia fortuna non sono una macchina del ghiaccio.” Una donna spuntò da dietro il marchingegno rosso e bianco, e una valanga di cubetti appena formati scrosciò nel ricettacolo d’acciaio. “Sono stata zitta qua dietro per molto tempo. Come tutti gli altri.”