Chapter 8: Death By Elevator

Suddenly we felt the floor jump and tremble. Earthquake, I thought. There was a faint "whump" sound felt more in the chest than heard with the ears. Faint screams came through the heavy closed door. "What was that?" I asked. Down deep inside me I knew whatever it was had been directed toward us.

"Oh no," she moaned in despair, "What now?"

I went to the door and opened it to look up and down the hallway. Screams and cries of pain and terror filled the hallway outside our suite. Where the elevator door had been was now a gaping hole at the end of the hall. Angry flames shot outward. Great clouds of black smoke roiled down the hall toward us. I slammed the door shut and said to her, "Get your boots on and a heavy coat. Find a head covering. Get back into our bedroom where we slept last night and wait with the door partly open." I grabbed a heavy chair and jammed it tightly against the door under the doorknob.

I barely had the chair in place when there came a loud banging at the door. I hurried to the peephole and stared out. Two uniformed police and the concierge who first escorted us to the check in desk stood outside looking grim. "Bobbie," I called, "Jerk this chair away from the door." I plopped myself down in the rented wheelchair.

She did as I said and opened the door. "What is happening out there?" she demanded.

"Madam," the concierge looked at her and at me. "Sir, we have an emergency.

"What happened out there?" I asked

"Witnesses stated they saw you enter the elevator just before it blew up. However, you are here. Who was in the elevator?"

I feigned horror, "That must have been Charles, my attendant and Carl, my bodyguard. Oh no! They are hurt? Where have they been taken?"

"They have been taken nowhere, sir. They are still in the elevator. They are both dead I am afraid. But who would want to kill your attendant? He's just an employee of no consequence." The concierge had all the suave smoothness of a Japanese sumo wrestler.

"Why was he in your wheelchair, Herr Hundley?" one of the Swiss police asked.

"Poor Charles had a relapse and I asked Carl to take him to the doctor." I named the clinic in the note. "I don't know if he checked in under his own name or used mine to expedite payment. I gave him one of my credit cards to use." Bobbie looked at me in surprise. I was glibly winging it. Desperation quickly made me a master of deceit.

The other police officer asked, "Is your phone working sir?" I shrugged and pointed to it. He lifted it off the cradle and waited. He began to speak in German, Paused to listen, then hung up. "There will be a wait of a few minutes before we can get an outside line."

"Bobbie, I feel ill, would you bring me my pills, please." She gave me a funny look and then hurried into the room Daniel slept in and brought out his pillbox. I asked for water and dropped one green tinted pill in my hand. I faked tossing it in my mouth. I palmed the pill dropped it into my lap instead. When Bobbie handed me the water I took a deep drink. I sighed and thanked her.

The phone rang and the police officer answered it. He spoke, listened, and then turned to me. "He used his own identification and your credit card. The clinic wishes to know if their bill would be honored." Bless the mercenary Swiss. Money first.

"Of course," I replied. "Poor Charles. All he wanted to know was why he fainted and had those awful mood swings."

"The doctor at the clinic said he had suffered a head injury some years ago and he also had a brain tumor. If it is of any consolation, he was already dying. He probably had but a few short weeks left. The doctor I spoke to informed me the poor fellow had perhaps two months at the most. They also detected HIV. He would have died of the other causes before the virus manifested any symptoms. He was in the very early stages."

"Oh shit!" I exclaimed, not acting. I looked worriedly at Bobbie. She smiled at me and faintly shook her head slowly no. I told the police officer, "I haven't come into physical contact with him since he shook my hand two years ago when he first came to work for me. He wanted me to refer to him as my valet."

"How did you come to hire him?" the other policeman asked.

"Why Carl recommended him as a friend of long standing." I acted innocently puzzled. "Surely Carl wouldn't recommend anyone not trustworthy."

"I believe in this case he might. According to the people at the clinic he accused your bodyguard of infecting him with the AIDS virus. From their conversation they had been lovers for many years." He smiled at my naiveté.

But Carl is ... was so male. He's all man." I protested.

"Evidently he was all homosexual, also. What do you call it, gay?"

"I must ask, did you have sex with either your bodyguard or your attendant?" He smirked as he asked me.

"Bobby!" I shouted indignantly, "Tell this man what we were doing last night." I put on an offended look.

"My husband and I had good sex that left a big stain in the sheet you're your poor housekeeping service has not changed yet today. We wish to have a baby." She smiled a Madonna smile at me. "We are much in love with each other. We have no need for such perversions." She bent forward and kissed my lips. "Also, we sleep together every night." She switched to German and said something that made both the police blush.

"We wish to take this suite back, Madam, sir," the concierge said.

"Great," Bobbie enthused, "We already decided to check out. The security in this hotel is abominable. What if it had been someone of importance rather than two diseased homosexual nobodies? That would have been terrible." The two policemen and the concierge looked at her in disgust at what they thought was typical American insensitivity. I realized she was striking back at Daniel, Carl and the whole load of trouble we had dropped on us.

She ordered the concierge, "Please send someone up to pack our clothing. We wish to have a limousine with a driver standing by waiting for us. Tell the driver we must go to the American consulate first. The ambassador shall hear a whole earful from me."

I watched the concierge grind his teeth together as he bit back a reply. "Yes, Madam, there shall be two people sent to help you pack. That way it will be accomplished twice as fast." If looks could kill, Bobbie would have been a shriveled corpse at his feet. Right then she was on the verge of complete hysteria.

She continued, venting her feelings on the concierge, "Very well, there shall be a ten dollar tip for you when we leave." To the concierge whose gratuities were normally in the hundreds that was a grave insult. The policemen looked at her again with open disgust of what they perceived to be her callousness.

In a weak voice I said, "She is not feeling well. Please make allowances." They both grunted and left.

As soon as the door closed she locked it behind them. "Oh Charles,..." she started.

"No," I interrupted her, "Daniel

"God, I hate to call you by that pig's name. But I must." She shook her head. "Daniel had not touched me in four years. But he and Carl having sex? I can't believe it. It seems so, so absolutely strange. Carl was always so male acting. Carl has been with the Hundley family since Daniel was quite young."

"Carl probably broke Daniel in, in the first place. From what you have told me it was probably with his father's connivance. Even if his father wasn't party to Carl and Daniel having sex, these things happen oftener than you would think. The rich have a bad habit of not checking references at times when they truly should. I read a newspaper story where a member of the Du Pont family spent thousands of dollars on a background check on a chemist and called the state employment agency for a baby sitter. The young lady who answered the call beat the baby, stole everything that could be carried away and left the child unattended until its parents came home late that evening to chaos.

"You really don't like the rich, do you?" she asked seriously.

"No, you're wrong again about me. I neither like nor dislike the rich because of their wealth or as a group. But I detest fools, especially arrogant blind fools." She winced as I made the statement...

"That was not aimed at you. It was more a general observation." I changed the subject, "Call Sir William and have him send his plane for us right now. We need to get out of here as soon as possible before your, and now our, enemies get closer to us. As of right now, until this is settled I am Daniel Hundley. For better or for worse that's the way it must be."

"Okay Daniel, will you fuck me hard tonight?" Her smile was much softer than her words. The smile faltered as her bravado broke. "Is it evil of me to rejoice in the death of a monster? Is it wrong that I feel nothing about Carl's death? All I know is I am glad we're alive. I need reassurance, your reassurance that everything is alright."

"Call Sir William and we'll start immediately after you hang up." I smiled at her to give her encouragement. "Wait," I added, "Tell Sir William how my bodyguard and my attendant were murdered and my motorized wheelchair was destroyed. Ask him to purchase one and to have the batteries charged and waiting for us in Heathrow when we land."

She nodded with enthusiasm, glad to have something meaningful to do. She picked up the phone and spoke to the operator. She waited a moment, then, "Sir William, please. Roberta Hundley calling." She paused then spoke firmly, "I wish to speak to Sir William Logan-Lawton, please. Now you may either connect us or seek other employment. Is the name Hundley at all familiar to you?"

Bobbie had begun to show a little iron in her make up. "Hello, Sir William, Roberta Hundley here. There has been an awful catastrophe. An explosion occurred here at the hotel and both Charles, my husband's attendant and Carl his bodyguard were murdered. We believe Daniel was the target. We would like to leave here before anything else happens. Could you send your company jet for us immediately?" She paused, and then added, "Also, please be a dear and purchase the highest quality motorized wheelchair available and have it standing by waiting for us when we arrive? You are a godsend. I don't know what we would do without you. That's a dear, bye." She turned to me, "In approximately six hours the Hundley GB jet will be here."