Creepers

"Have it removed? I don't know. Maybe he liked the idea of gradually shutting down the hotel, leaving each room the way it was when its final guest checked out, wanting every room to have a memento that he could visit."

"What a wacko nutjob," Vi

"Yeah, we've come a long way from calling him a visionary and a genius." Rick's face remained stark. "How many other rooms have stories to tell?"

Vi

The others followed, Cora reluctantly. Balenger heard drawers being opened and closed.

"Nothing," Vi

Vi

"An oversight," the professor suggested. "We've all forgotten something when we're traveling. It happens."

"But this isn't a pair of socks or a T-shirt. This is a very desirable overcoat. Why didn't the owner phone the hotel and ask a staff member to look for it?"

"You've got a point." Rick looked troubled. "But I'm not sure where you're going with it."

"What if Carlisle arranged for the owner to be told that the Burberry wasn't here? What if Carlisle made the owner think he'd lost it someplace else?" Vi

After Vi

The group followed. The room was a mess: a pile of used towels on the bathroom floor, the wastebasket full, the bed unmade, sheets rumpled, bedspread thrown aside, a full ashtray on the nightstand, a glass and an empty bottle of whiskey next to it.

"I guess it was the maid's day off," Balenger said.

The professor read the bottle's label. "Black Diamond bourbon. Never heard of it. Must have gone out of business a long time ago."

Vi

"Well, this room isn't a bouquet of roses." Balenger turned. "What's your theory, Professor?"

"Another room with a story. When Carlisle stopped accepting guests in 1968, he could have made sure the hotel was spotless and sanitized. But it looks as if he stopped renting the rooms one at a time and kept each in a kind of suspended state, each room retaining a hint of life."

"Or death," Cora said, glancing back toward the room where they'd found the suitcase.

"Professor, are you suggesting that after Carlisle closed the hotel, he wandered from room to room, looking in at scenes he'd preserved, absorbing himself in the past?" Balenger asked.

Conklin spread his hands. "Maybe to him it wasn't the past. Maybe the riots and his advanced years caused a nervous breakdown. Maybe he imagined the hotel was still in its heyday."

"Jesus," Vi

His light wavering, Vi

18

But it didn't, and its resistance startled him. A do NOT disturb sign hung on it. Vi

Conklin restrained him. "You know the rules. We don't disturb anything."

"Then what was that we did to the door in the tu

"Granted," Conklin said, "but an argument can be made that the door in the tu

"What difference does it make if I smash it? They're going to tear the place down in a couple of weeks."

"I can't allow us to become vandals."

"Fine. Okay." Vi

Balenger studied the lock, which had an old-fashioned design with a large slot. He unclipped his knife from his pocket, assuring the professor, "Don't worry. I won't damage anything." He opened the blade and tried to slide it past the edge of the door to pry at the bolt. "There's a lip I can't get past."

"Can't you pick the lock?"

"I suppose I could get a coat hanger from one of these rooms, make a hook out of it, and try to-"

"No need," Cora said behind everybody.

They turned, their lights merging on her.

"Downstairs, when I was behind the check-in counter, I noticed keys in the mail slots."

"Keys?" Rick chuckled. "Now there's an original idea. What's the door number?"

"Four twenty-eight."

"I'll go down and get the key."

"Are we sure we want to do this?" Conklin asked. "Our objectives were the penthouse and the vault in Danata's suite."

"If the unlocked doors have weird things behind them, I want to know what's behind a locked one," Balenger said.

"Do we?" Cora asked.

"If we don't," Rick said, "then why are we here?"

The professor sighed. "Very well. If you're determined. But you can't go alone, Rick. That's always been another rule. We don't explore anywhere alone."

"Then we'll all go down," Balenger said.

The elderly man shook his head from side to side. "The stairs were too strenuous for me. I'm afraid I'd take forever to walk down and come back."

"And we don't need any heart attacks," Vi

"I seriously doubt there's any risk of that, but-"

"I'll go with Rick." Cora glanced again toward the door to the room that contained the suitcase.

"Use your walkie-talkies." Conklin unhooked his from his equipment belt. "Set one to transmit and the other to receive. That way I can hear you go down and come back. At the same time, I can talk to you without pressing buttons all the time and saying 'over.' "

"Fine."

Rick and Cora each unclipped a walkie-talkie from a belt.

"I'm 'transmit,' " Rick said.

"I'm 'receive,' " Cora said.

"We'll do the same," the professor said. "Vi

Rick and Cora went to the top of the staircase and started down, their headlamps and flashlights making arcs in the gloom.

Balenger heard their footsteps echoing as they descended. A distorted version of those sounds came through Vi

"We're at level three." Rick's voice reverberated from below while a staticky version came from Vi

The footsteps sounded fainter. Balenger peered over the balustrade. Their lights were weak below him.

"Level two," Rick said.

Balenger could barely see or hear them.

Rick's voice crackled. "One. We're starting toward the lobby."

Vi