"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," Vinnie said. He took a photograph and left the room. "Let's see what other surprises he created."
His light wavering, Vinnie walked along the balcony, reached the next door, twisted its knob, and pushed with obvious confidence that the door would open.
18
But it didn't, and its resistance startled him. A do NOT disturb sign hung on it. Vinnie turned the knob with greater force, pressing his shoulder against the door. "The others aren't locked. Why is this one?" He rammed against it, the door shuddering.
Conklin restrained him. "You know the rules. We don't disturb anything."
"Then what was that we did to the door in the tunnel? Taking a crowbar to it? That wasn't disturbing anything?" Vinnie slammed his shoulder against the door again.
"Granted," Conklin said, "but an argument can be made that the door in the tunnel wasn't part of the time scheme of the site. What you're doing is wrong."
"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." Vinnie looked at Balenger. "You know something about locks. Can you get this open?"
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," Vinnie said.
"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. "Vinnie, set your walkie-talkie to receive. I'll set mine to transmit."
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 Vinnie's walkie-talkie.
"We're at level three." Rick's voice reverberated from below while a staticky version came from Vinnie's walkie-talkie.
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."
Vinnie's headlamp moved, causing Balenger to look in his direction. Vinnie was inspecting his surroundings. "Hey, there's an elevator in this corridor."
"We're crossing the lobby," Rick's voice said. "While I'm here, maybe I should go into the ballroom and play an encore of 'Moon River.' "
"Please, don't," Cora begged, joking.
"Besides," the professor said into his walkie-talkie, "that music is far too recent for this hotel. Carlisle would never have allowed it. More likely, the tune would have been something like 'On the Banks of the Wabash' or 'My Gal Sal.' "
"Did you know Theodore Dreiser's brother wrote both of those?" Vinnie asked.
"We're approaching the check-in counter," Rick's voice said.
"For God's sake!" Cora exclaimed.
"What's wrong?" Conklin blurted into his walkie-talkie.
"Another rat. I'm so sick of rats."
Balenger heard breathing from Vinnie's walkie-talkie.
"We're at the message slots. They have keys attached to metal discs with 'Paragon Hotel' stamped on them. Almost every mail slot has a key. Except in four twenty-eight."
"What?" Vinnie asked, puzzled.
"There's no key for six-ten, either," Rick's voice said.
"That's Danata's suite," Conklin said.
"Or to three twenty-eight, five twenty-eight, and six twenty-eight."
"Rooms directly above and below this one," the professor said.
"Wait," Rick's voice crackled.
"What's the matter?"
"I heard something."
Balenger, Vinnie, and the professor listened tensely.
"Rick?" Conklin asked.
Something scraped.
"Another damned rat," Cora's voice said. "I think they're having a convention."
"This is bullshit," Vinnie said. Balenger suspected that he was annoyed with himself that he hadn't gone with Cora.
Rick's voice said, "We're looking in the office behind the check-in counter."
Vinnie aimed his flashlight at his watch. "It's already near midnight. At this rate, we'll never finish before dawn."
"No keys," Rick said from the walkie-talkie. "But there are several filing cabinets."
Balenger heard a metallic sound from the walkie-talkie, presumably a cabinet drawer being slid open.
Rick: "Mostly maintenance records. Staff assignments. Bills and receipts of payments."
Cora: "This drawer has a reservation folder. It's empty. There's a folder devoted to which rooms are occupied. That's empty, too. But a lot of other folders are crammed. Guests who used to come here on a yearly basis, any special needs they had, any preferences for particular rooms, flowers, favorite foods. The most recent guest in that category stopped coming in 1961."
"The basic tedious details of trying to run a business," Rick's voice said. "All the paper that got wasted before computers were invented."
"Hell, we probably waste just as much paper, printing everything out."
"They could be down there forever," Vinnie said. "As long as we're just standing around, why don't we try the next door?"
"We should wait till they come back," the professor said.
But Vinnie was already turning the knob. He pushed. "This one's unlocked." The door swung open. Balenger watched him stare into the darkness.
"Looks like the maid cleaned this one. Smells damp, though." Vinnie stepped inside.
And was swallowed.
19
The sound was like wet cardboard being torn. As Vinnie fell, his arms shot up, his flashlight flipping away. He screamed. Something crashed below him.