Room 412 (J. Michael Norris - Baton Rouge, LA)

          When Harold Barmore took the job of night desk clerk at the Boutique Français, a small hotel off an alley in the French Quarter, he’d thought it would be a good place to catch up on some reading, some writing, and maybe some sleep. One of his roommates, Peter, worked late nights at a hotel himself, and he’d told Harold that on slow nights, especially during the week, he could often sneak in naps. Living with three other roommates in what was supposed to be a two-bedroom apartment in the French Quarter meant that Harold constantly ran up on someone he’d rather not run up on, and usually not how he’d like to run up on them—either one of the boys he lived with, drunk and stoned and partially naked, or one of the girls the boys brought home, generally in the same condition. Though that could be more embarrassing.

So yes, when Harold Barmore saw the advertisement online that read Small Hotel needs Front Desk Clerk. Night Shift. 10PM-6AM. In Person. No Calls., he was sold.

And when Mr. Barblue, the plump, red-faced man with strained arteries who owned Boutique Français met Harold Barmore, he was sold as well.

Now, that’s not because Harold Barmore was the best candidate for the job. No, not in the least. Harold, you see, had almost no practical experience in the workforce. He had canvassed for a political action group for three months when he first moved to New Orleans from Baton Rouge a couple of years ago, for a group called “Save Lake Ponchatrain.” After that, he ran a register for five months at a bead and t-shirt store in the “upscale” outlet mall down by the river. Recently, he’d decided to give it a go at Delgado Community College where he was currently studying, and incidentally failing, English Literature.

(It wasn’t that Harold didn’t like to read. No. Harold loved to read. He just didn’t like to dissect others’ writings in an attempt to label and identify the parts. In short, he didn’t think reading Hemmingway should be like cutting open a frog to find the spleen).

Harold, however, had something no one else applying for the position had: he had shown up. Harold Barmore was, in fact, the one and only candidate for the job.

Boutique Français held a reputation in the city for being a place popular with tourists, one of those places that had faux aged plaster on the walls and upcycled fixtures salvaged from the wreckage of Katrina, a place where a visiting trustifarian might tip you twenty bucks to bring their bags up to their room. Rumors around town said ghosts haunted the hotel, and that it was quite possibly the location of the murder of one of the city’s most notorious voodoo priestesses. (Or was it one of the city’s most notorious dark witches? Or maybe vampires? I don’t know, but you get this gist).  

These reasons, of course, would generally pull a large pool of applicants from those living in New Orleans, especially the hospitality professionals in and around the French Quarter. But no, despite such appeal, only Harold Barmore applied for the night desk clerk position at the Boutique Français. No one else showed interest because of the way the last two night desk clerks had left their employment there: through the window of room 412.

Thrown, apparently.

That is, at least, what the newspapers were reporting. They said it might be a serial killer (or killers) or even some sort of ritual sacrifice. Speculations around town, especially those spread by the nighttime tour guides, said that the infamous voodoo priestess or witch or vampire that had been killed there had come back to life to stake out revenge. In truth, no official police report had been published, seeing as there was an investigation ongoing. And, as the proprietor Mr. Barblue assured Harold, the police were quite certain the incidents were unrelated.

“Quite certain. Besides,” he whispered near the end of their interview, “the second might have just been a suicide. That Tommy Martin always did wanna make a name for hisself somehow. This was probably the only way he ever would.”

Harold Barmore understood the sentiment—he was going to make a name for himself as well.

“Besides, any publicity is good publicity. We’re busier now than we’ve ever been, thanks to those ghost tours and all these rumors.” Smiling a greasy, bearded smile, Mr. Barblue dabbed his brow with the stained handkerchief he kept in his breast pocket and continued, “So, I hope that won’t be a discouragement to you coming on here.”

“Of course not.” Harold was trying not to seem too excited or too anxious about the job, but it came out fast and loud. His mother had always told him that he was too cocky for his own good. He decided to make a joke. “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.” He smiled with one side of his mouth, and Mr. Barblue laughed quite a bit too hard, ending with a series of painful coughs that swelled Mr. Barblue’s neck red, making Harold wonder for a moment if he might be having a heart attack.

***

In Harold’s third week at the hotel, he decided to give up on bringing a book or trying to catch a nap and resolved to just do some writing on his current novel. Or novella. Or short story. Whatever it was going to be. Harold had underestimated the activity of a hotel in the French Quarter in the middle of the night, and every hour brought at least five or six new groups to check in. And generally just as many to check out, sometimes in as short as twenty-five minutes.  

Often older men arrived with their much younger “nieces” wanting to stay the night.

“In a room with two twins, of course. We don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

(No, we wouldn’t. Though leaving forty-five minutes later might give, at the very least, an unusual impression).  

It wasn’t really that much quieter than being at his apartment, except at the hotel he didn’t have to hear the guests going at it. That was a plus. And he was getting paid; $10.50 an hour seemed a small fortune to him, especially after spending the last year living off a student loan and the occasional cash his mom would slip him when he visited home.

She’s always slipped him a little advice as well. “You can’t just be a writer; you’ve got to get a real job, Harold.”

So while Harold could come up with a brilliant sentence or two between guests, he certainly didn’t have enough time to concentrate on reading. Writing was much easier than that. Sometimes the break to check in a new arrival would add verve to his writing, help him move the plot along.

One such night, he sat chewing the end of his number two pencil, debating on the eye color for his main character, when one of those interruptions he felt were so fortunate happened. Just as Harold decided to give his heroine bright green eyes so the reader would know she was special, the front bell chimed, letting Harold know someone needed to be buzzed into the lobby. .

Pressing the button, Harold wondered what might be on the other side. A drunk? A couple? A throuple? It was then something happened at the Boutique Français that Harold Barmore had never seen before and would never see again—a woman walked in, alone.

And this wasn’t any woman, mind you. No. This woman was hot. This woman was tight-red-dress-and-five-inch-heals of burning coals. This woman was five-foot-seven-inches of long black hair on fire. This woman was tits and ass and everything in between. Harold sat transfixed, amazed, awed.

Her heals clicked across the terracotta tiles as she sauntered to the desk, her left eyebrow raising impossibly high as she stared through Harold’s head. “What ya writing?” she asked.

“What?” Harold looked at her red lips moving but could barely hear what they were saying.

“I said, ‘What are you writing?’” She made sure to move her lips with precision, punctuating the words, and then pointed to the pencil and yellow legal pad in front of Harold on the counter.

“This? Nothing. Just some story I’m working on.”

“Ah. A soon-to-be-famous writer.” She eyed Harold up and down. His lipless mouth stood agape. His large, unassuming face palely rested atop his too-thin neck. His round body slumped forward, as if it were tired from carrying its own weight. “Let me guess. You have a heroine with green eyes?”

“Yes!” Harold’s eyes widened, filling the entire lenses of his glasses. “I mean, I just decided that--how did you know that?”

“All soon-to-be famous writers have heroines with green eyes.” She continued looking at Harold for a moment, then waved her credit card in front of his face. “And I’ll need a room. With a king.”

“Oh. Yes.” Harold looked down at the screen in front of him, typing “1” into Guest and “king” into Bed.

412 came up on the screen, blinking. Under Find Other Harold typed “Y” and waited. The cursor blinked for a moment, then No Results flashed in front of him.

“Problem Dorothy Parker?” The blood red lady drummed her blood red nails on the counter.

“Who?” Harold stared at the computer a little longer, thinking about what Mr. Barblue had said two days before after the black and yellow police tape had come off the door and the new glass had been put in the window.

“It can’t sit empty forever kid, so rent it if it comes up. I’m not in the business of holding open rooms for nobody, no matter what. Got it? But whatever you. Don’t go in there. Never go in that room.”

“I said,” the woman repeated, “Problem. Dorothy. Parker.”

“Oh no. Sorry. No problem.” Harold took the card from the woman. “Is this your correct name?”

“Isabelle. Isabelle Bellanger.”

***

Later that night, Harold’s pencil skittered across the yellow pad as he dozed away, just in the middle of the perfect sentence about the perfect girl, something sure to be a hit with his future fans. She would be the nouveau heroine, with no need for a man to rescue her. A real post-post-modern gal.

But before sleep could catch him all the way, the phone on the desk rang, jolting him up.

“Hello?”

“Is this the front desk?” The voice of the woman from earlier purred through the phone.

“Yes. Front desk. How can I help you?”

“Oh good, my favorite writer. How’s it going? This is Isabelle Belanger. Room 412. I need some room service.”

Harold glanced up at the industrial clock on the wall across the lobby. It was 4 a.m. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have room service this late.”

“Mmmm. But I’m so very thirsty up here alone in my room. Just so all alone. Are you sure you don’t have a thing you can bring me?”

Her voice stirred something deep in Harold. The phone shook in his hand.

“Well,” he said, “there is a vending machine down the hall from your room. You could-”

“Would you be a dear and get me a soda, then? I’m already in bed and it’s so cold. So cold all alone in my bed. And I don’t want to get up.” There was a long pause. “And I’d so like to see you again, Harold.”

Harold’s throat suddenly felt dry. “Um, I don’t know. I’m not supposed to leave the desk.”

(And he wasn’t supposed to go to that room. Mr. Barblue had been very clear. Besides, he knew what had happened to the last two night desk clerks and didn’t want to tempt fate).

“Oh, don’t be scared, Harold. I need you to come, you know, help me out.” A soft moan came through the phone.

Harold felt himself growing hot between the legs.

“I promise,” she said, “I’ll make it worth your while.” 

A mass seemed to expand in Harold’s throat. “Okay,” he said, his voice shaky, “I guess. Give me just a few minutes.”

The phone went dead.

Harold scribbled a note on his pad. Back in 5 mins or less. He taped it to the window on the front door then took the small elevator up to the fourth floor.

***

 

The fourth-floor hallway was dim, the lights flickering. The old wooden floor beneath the carpet creaked as he snuck softly down to the soda machine, making sure to step carefully. He didn’t want to wake the guests—that would mean hell to pay at this ungodly hour.

He bought a Diet Coke—he figured Ms. Belanger would be that type—and he crept to her room. The door seemed bigger than the rest, made of a heavy wood. The “412” hung a bit crooked. Harold knocked lightly on the door.

“Hello?” he said gently. But there was only a dark silence. The lights flickered in the hall again. Harold knocked harder, and the door opened slowly, seemingly on its own.

Across the room by a tall window sat Isabelle Belanger, wearing nothing but a loose silk robe opened to the sides. Her beauty in the dim light overwhelmed him, and he felt his legs buckle. She motioned for him to enter.

Harold shook his head. “Um, sorry, but I’m not supposed to enter your, um, I mean guests’ rooms. I’ll just put this down here.” He placed the soda can gently at the threshold.

Isabelle spread her long legs. “You sure you don’t want to put it down her?” Even in the dark he could make out her eyes as they gazed at him, almost glowing. “You’re not scared of me, are you?”

“No, it’s just I’m not supposed to come-“

“You can come in. I promise it will be okay.” Isabelle motioned again, this time with her hand resting on her knee.

Harold looked each way down the hallway, watching the lights flickering, but hearing no one. How much trouble could this be, really? Mr. Barblue will never know. He felt a strain in his pants. Harold picked up the soda and entered the room.

“Now that’s better,” Isabelle said. “Come over here and let me see you in the moonlight.” She reached over and spread open the curtains of the window.

A chill crawled up Harold’s back. “Maybe I should just-”

“Come over and let me look at you.” The words pulled Harold forward. As he got closer he could see a slight smile on Isabelle’s face. Her eyes flashed in the darkness. “Stop.” She put up a hand.

“Stop?” Harold froze.

“Yes. Put down the soda and take off your shirt.” She flashed her teeth.

“But what if I-”

“I said take it off.”

Harold placed the soda on the carpet with a shaking hand. The deep carvings of the antique bed seemed like faces in the blackness. He looked around at the dark red velvet wallpaper as he unbuttoned his shirt. This room was quite different from the rest, fancier and overflowing with red. He dropped his shirt on the floor, then looked back at Isabelle.

She stood up and dropped the robe to the floor, her skin white as ivory against the darkness of the room. “Now come here.”

Harold stepped forward. He could feel her heat before he reached her, a heat of his own straining between his legs. But as he reached a hand to touch her, something grabbed him from behind. It was large and hairy. A hand came over his mouth, and he felt rough whiskers on the back of his neck. Something large came around him, pinning one arm to his side as a rough hand grabbed his other arm and pulled it close to his chest. He saw the reflection of a giant man in the window and felt breath hot on his neck.

“I told you not to come into this room, Harold.” It was Mr. Barblue’s voice. “It’s a shame none of you can follow my instructions.”

Isabelle threw back her head, laughing. Mr. Barblue’s laughter joined, shaking Harold as his arm was wrenched tighter behind his back.

“And such a shame to lose the next Steinbeck,” Isabelle said before pulling a small rope out from under the chair she’d been sitting in and deftly looping it around Harold’s legs. “Perhaps it’s all for the best. We don’t need another one of those.” She jerked hard, and the rope snapped tight around his ankles. She nodded to Mr. Barblue.

“Please,” Harold screamed, “I didn’t mean to disobey you!”

“But disobey you did,” the two said in unison.

They stretched Harold out, Isabelle pulling on the rope and Mr. Barblue yanking Harold’s hands above his head. Harold tumbled back but stopped just before he hit the floor, so he was floating in the air. They swung Harold back and forth three times, then let go. Harold closed his eyes, then felt his back thud against something stiff, but with a loud crack he continued, opening his eyes to see a brick wall receeding quickly, Mr. Barblue and Isabell smiling at him from a ruined window.

His body twisted and turned in the air, flashes of a starry sky, a brick wall, and an empty street rotated over and over and over and over.

The last thing Harold Barmore saw was the sidewalk rushing up.

***

The next day, Mr. Barblue called the Times-Picayune early in the morning.
            “Yes, I’d like to place an ad for a front desk clerk, please.” He wiped a handkerchief across his sweaty forehead. “Yes, yes. Another ad please. For the night shift.”