August 27
Oh baby, the crew was hopping tonight, even before we left the briefing room.
X-Ray, in his role as Henry 1, had come across two sisters smacking each other around on 27 and evidently, they were going at it pretty good because 77Charles ran into the briefing room and commanded “Henry units, hotel, right now! 27th floor!”
I am still not entirely sure what happened. I was manning the gate, though evidently it took a while to find the dad and it was an hour and a half before everything was cleared up. After X-Ray announced he was clear, Junior got on the horn and gave him a “Nice job”, the first time in the memory of man Junior has issued individual officer kudos, though he has occasionally sent a shout out to the whole crew after a particularly trying shift.
For his part, X-Ray modestly noted he had been well trained.
You’ll forgive me for beaming, but the ascension of X-Ray is now complete. In a little over a year he has gone from a wide-eyed trainee dealing with a naked girl in a stairwell to the go-to guy in the hotel. There is simply no one working the hotel racket in Vegas right now turning in better work night in and night out.
It was plain from the start X-Ray would go as far as he cared to in the hotel racket, and he cared enough to go straight to the top, though he’s so modest if you mentioned this to him he’d merely shrug and mention something about the International Henry Units or something equally dismissive.
Everyone, except for us outside units, busted hump all night. I played chauffeur and delivered ice and water and played with my squirt bottle. There were zero calls.
The following graveyard officers, besides me, have signed up to be supervisor:
– White Sox Metzger
– Bi-Bob
– Guy
The head investigator, a really good guy named Mike, said my name is being “bandied about”. Rumors mean squat, of course, until you are told to get fitted for a suit, but I suppose it’s better than having your name inspire fits of laughter.
August 28
I was almost obliged to walk up 24 flights of stairs Sunday morning. Actually, I was obliged to do so, but in a burst of ingenuity managed to both avoid it and fulfill my duty as a Monte Carlo security officer.
I was minding my own business at the four-way at about 0620 or so when a fire alarm was activated on 23. The Henry units responded, of course, and it turned out to be a false alarm, which may lead you to wonder exactly why a false alarm on the 23rd floor of the hotel obliges someone directing traffic to walk up 24 flights of stairs.
MCSD policy dictates that when a fire alarm in the hotel is activated, all stairwells must be checked from the ground floor to one floor above the floor where the alarm was activated. This duty is performed by the outside units.
Since the four-way is close to the exit from the west tower, I headed over, unlocked the door and headed up, not really looking forward to walking up 24 flights of stairs. I had gotten up to the sixth floor when my International Henry Unit training kicked in and I realized I was in the 100 wing, the same wing as the bellman’s elevators!
Well, while MCSD regulations dictate the stairwells must be checked, it didn’t come from Mt. Sinai that the floors had to be checked from the ground up, so I enter the hotel on the sixth floor, take the elevator up to 24, get out, and make my way to the ground floor. I encountered no guests fleeing the raging inferno and was back at my post in short order.