The face in the mirror wasn’t his face at all. It was a Halloween mask of flesh-colored plastic with a big, dopey grin and slits for the eyes, nose, and mouth.
Louis took a startled step backward, stumbled over the attaché case. Grabbing the drapes to check his fall, he nearly yanked them off their runners. It had to be some sort of bizarre practical joke. Someone must have dragged him sound asleep from the alley, stolen his suit and put the mask on his face. But who? His friends weren’t the type. His wife was too lazy. Louis reached around to grab the mask’s elastic band. He couldn’t find one. Instead he found a large, tender lump.
He tried to pull the mask off. The mask wouldn’t budge.
The damn thing was glued to his face.
The desk clerk sat in his little yellow alcove and grinned across the curving yellow counter at his guest, his elbow propped on a Chicago phone book that looked old enough to have Mrs. O’Leary listed. The grin kept growing on his face, and a laugh worked its way in gruff chuckles from his belly.
“It’s what?” he finally whooped.
“It’s glued to my face,” Louis said.
The desk clerk’s elbow didn’t like the phone book. It searched around in lazy circles, found a comfy stack of See Chicago brochures and settled down. “Musta been some costume party,” he said. He was a barrel-chested man in a black-and-white checked shirt, the sleeves rolled up on massive forearms. The hair on his arms was curly, and almost as thick as the hair on his head. It was a large, fleshy head with little toy ears. The stubble on his face was dark as coffee grounds. “Yes siree, musta been a real roof-raiser.”
On the curving yellow counter was a postcard carousel leaning like the Tower of Pisa, shedding postcards onto the blond carpet. Against a blondwood wall stood a soda-pop machine. Brass reading lamps sat on blondwood end tables. Between the end tables sat a sofa. On the sofa sat a blonde. She was lounging in pink culottes and a lavender blouse, using her tapestry shoulder bag as a pillow.
The blonde winked at Louis. Then she giggled through her nose as though she smelled something funny. Louis set his attaché case down, turned back to face the clerk. “Look, all I know is, I was sleeping in an alley last night and this morning I woke up in one of your rooms, and my suit was gone and I was wearing this T-shirt and blue jeans, and this mask was on my face...” He paused for breath. “...and I can’t get it off.”
“Maybe I can,” said the clerk. He reached across the counter and made a grab for the mask. Louis dodged the clerk’s thick fingers.
“Easy, pal. I won’t hurt you,” said the clerk. “Not on purpose.”
“It’s not coming off without taking the skin,” Louis said. “Believe me, I tried. It must be some kind of super glue, like the one they advertise on TV.”
The blonde rose a bit awkwardly from the sofa, slouched her way over to Louis and took his arm. Her eyes looked like pebbles in mucky ponds of eyeshadow. Her plump lower lip drooped lazily over a chin that would have looked too small on a bird. “Hi,” she said. “My name’s Mimi. Listen, Lou, that stuff’ll wear off. Just give it a couple of weeks.”
“How did you know my name?” Louis said. Before she could answer, he eased his arm from her grip and picked up his attaché case. “Oh, never mind.” Pondering, he fingered the mask’s plastic contours. “Maybe I could soak it off. No, wait. I’d probably drown.”
“How about some nail polish remover?” suggested Mimi. She reached into her shoulder bag.
That was when Louis’s attaché case started ticking.
The clerk, whose nametag identified him as Rodney, eyed the case. “Whatcha got in there, hot watches?”
Louis shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Go on,” said Mimi. “Tell him, Lou.”
“Tell him what?” Louis said.
Mimi faced Rodney, her droopy lip forming a well-cushioned grin. “There’s a time bomb in that case.”
“There is?” Louis gulped.
“Cut the act, Lou.” Mimi gave Rodney a glare, curled her lip. “Get on that phone and call the guests down here. Tell ’em to bring all their valuables. Tell ’em there’s a bomb and if they get outa line, Lou and I are gonna blow the stucco off this dump.”
Rodney started to chuckle, and ended up coughing into his fist. His eyes edged over to the attaché case, then blinked their way slowly back to Mimi. Finally they settled on the telephone.
He picked it up and phoned the guests. All three of them.
“Good boy, Rodney.” Mimi checked her watch. “I hope they move fast. We’ve only got nine minutes.”
Louis had bent and was easing the attaché case to the floor.
“Don’t put it down!” Mimi cried. “It’s triggered to blow when the handle’s released. You’re acting like an ass, Lou. Get with the program.”
Louis straightened cautiously. His hand had cramped gripping the case’s padded handle. Behind the mask, sweat streamed down his face in the hollows where there wasn’t any glue.
Mimi cracked her gum loud enough to jar her teeth loose. The noise made Rodney flinch. “If it blows you go with it,” he pointed out nervously.
“Lou and I don’t care anymore. We’re tired of being poor. Aren’t we, Lou?”
“Listen, lady—” said Louis.
Mimi cut him off. “If I were you, Rodney, I’d open that cash register.”
“Yeah. Right. Sure, Mimi. Okay...” Rodney punched a button and the computerized register’s drawer shot open. With trembling hands he gathered the bills, passed them over the counter into Mimi’s open shoulder bag.
The guests began arriving in the lobby. There was a fat middle-aged man whose suit looked as though he had slept in it. He handed over his fat brown wallet as though he were Santa Claus and Mimi an orphan. Next came a young woman with raven pigtails, glasses shaped like TV screens, and about half a ton of photographic equipment slung over her denim-clad shoulder. The young woman nearly strangled herself handing over her cameras. She was followed by a stocky young man in pajamas and bowling shoes. His prized bowling ball wouldn’t fit in Mimi’s shoulder bag, so she settled for a hundred bucks from his cheap money clip.
When the guests had hastily departed through the lobby exit, Rodney said, “Okay, dammit, turn that thing off.”
Mimi checked her watch again. “Relax. We still got three whole minutes. I’ll turn it off when Lou and I are safely upstairs in my room.”
“In your room?” sputtered Rodney. “What the hell kinda hideout is that?”
“The perfect kind,” grinned Mimi. “If the cops come, we set the bomb off. Be sure and tell ’em that when you call ’em. Okay?”
Louis could barely breathe behind the mask. In another few minutes it wouldn’t matter, though. In another few minutes he’d be blown to kingdom come. “Would somebody listen? I—”
“Come along, Lou. And remember, don’t set the case down.” Mimi spun on her heels, marched from the lobby. Louis, on shaky legs, followed her down the corridor to the rear stairway.
She took him to the room he’d woken up in. She led him inside and locked the door. A skeletal young man was seated stiffly in the armchair. He was totally bald, his lean face pitted and shockingly pale. On his long, pointed nose sat a pair of wire-rim sunglasses. He was wearing a suit several sizes too large. It was Louis’s suit.
The skeletal man’s smile was as charming as a surgical incision. Without rising from the chair, he offered Louis his hand. It was a bony hand covered with little red bumps that looked like chicken pox. Louis declined to accept it.
“Lou,” Mimi said. “This is Axel, my boyfriend.”
The skeletal man, still smiling, said, “I trust you have recovered from that bump on the head. I apologize for that, but I feared you might wake up and foil our plan.”