All that was done now and the cast had shrunk to thieves and captives.
The night man was pliable, as Miami Joe had promised. Miami Joe knew Chester from his nights at the hotel; he would do as he was told. It was one of the reasons Miami Joe covered his face. The mask smelled like piney ointment and pushed his breath back at him, gusting up hot and rotten.
Arthur nodded toward the bell on the desk, a signal for the night man to ding the clerk. When the clerk emerged from the offices, Miami Joe was upon him, one hand over his mouth and the other jabbing the nose of the .38 beneath the man’s ear. One school held that the base of the skull was the best spot, the cool metal initiating a physical reaction of fear, but the Miami School, of which Joe was a disciple, liked below the ear. Only tongues went there and metal made it eerie. There was an alarm with a wire to the police station, activated by a button beneath where the guest book rested. Miami Joe stood between the clerk and the button. He motioned for the night man to come around so Pepper could watch him and the clerk.
“Elevator on four,” Freddie said.
Miami Joe grunted and went into the back. To the left was the switchboard, where an unexpected visitor waited. Some nights the switchboard operator’s friend kept her company. They were eating pea soup.
The weeknight operator was named Anna-Louise. She had worked at the Hotel Theresa for thirty years, since before it was desegregated, routing calls. Her chair swiveled. She liked the night work, joking with and mothering the succession of young desk clerks through the years, and she liked listening to the guests’ calls, the arguments and arrangements of assignations, the lonely calls home through the cold, cold wires. The disembodied voices were a radio play, a peculiar one where most of the characters only appeared once. Lulu visited her at the switchboard some nights. They had been lovers since high school and around their building referred to themselves as sisters. The lie made sense when they first moved in, but it was silly now. No one really cares about other people when you get down to it—their own struggles are too close-up. The women screamed, then shut their mouths and put their hands up when Miami Joe aimed the gun. To the right was the manager’s office. “Get the key,” he said.
Pepper brought the clerk and the night man into the office area. Miami Joe stood by the wall of iron bars that separated the room from the vault, far enough away to cover both the men and the women if they tried anything funny. He didn’t think that was going to happen. They were rabbits, quivering and afraid. Miami Joe’s voice was level and calm when he spoke to them, not to soothe but because he thought it more sadistic. He felt the erotic rush he always got on jobs, it kicked in when the caper got going and dissipated when it was over and then he didn’t remember it until the next job. Never could get ahold of it when he wasn’t thieving. It told him his idea for the job and its practical execution were in harmony.
When the elevator door opened, its two occupants saw a lean young man at the desk in a silly mask looking at them. He mouthed hello. Arthur swept around, his gun out. He waved the elevator operator and the passenger out of the cab and directed them behind the registration desk. By now Pepper had taken the key to the manager’s office from the clerk and was conducting the four other captives into the room.
Rob Reynolds, the manager of the hotel, had arranged a nice refuge for himself. There were no windows, so he created them—tasseled curtains, identical to those in the finest suites upstairs, framed painted Venetian scenes. After the afternoon rush, he liked to think that was him under the hat, steering a gondola down salty boulevards in silence. The overstuffed sofa matched the ones in the lobby, though this one endured less wear and tear; one man’s naps and quickie fucks with past-due long-term residents couldn’t compete with the weight of hordes. Autographed photos of famous guests and residents covered the walls—Duke Ellington, Richard Wright, Ella Fitzgerald in a ball gown, long white gloves up to her elbows. Rob Reynolds had provided exemplary service over the years, the standard amenities and the secret ones. Late-night smack deliveries, last-minute terminations via the Jamaican abortionist who kept two rooms on the seventh floor. It was no surprise, in some quarters, when the gentleman turned out to not be a doctor at all. In many pictures, Rob Reynolds shook hands with Hotel Theresa’s celebrity visitors and grinned.
Miami Joe checked the desk drawer for a gun—it had just occurred to him. He didn’t find one. He asked the clerk where they kept the cards that tracked the safe-deposit boxes. The young clerk had gone by Rickie his whole life but now wanted folks to call him Richard. It was a tough haul. His family and those he grew up with were a lost cause. New acquaintances switched to the nickname as if they’d received instructions by telegram. The hotel was the only place they called him Richard. No defections so far. This was his first real job and each time he walked through those front doors he imagined he stepped into himself, the man he wanted to be. Clerk, assistant manager, top dog with this office to call his own. The day after the heist, a porter called him Rickie and it stuck. The robbery cursed him. Rickie pointed to the metal box. It sat on the desk between the phone and Rob Reynolds’s nameplate.