November 17
Here was your Henry lineup for last night:
Henry 1 – moi
Henry 2 – Lee
Henry 3 – X-Ray
It was dead slow. X-Ray had two calls and Lee and I had three each. I did very little outside of sitting down, taking breaks, and hanging out in PBX with my angels Silvia and Maria.
The first call came right after I hit the hotel at 2200 and that was it until 0335. I was – and this will surprise you – sitting with my feet up when Junior bothered me.
– Control, Henry 1.
I was so excited at having been remembered it wasn’t even funny. Dispatch had even forgotten to send me to lunch; I had merely headed to the EDR at the usual time.
– Henry 1, at your orders, sir!
I emphasized the ‘sir’. Turns out it was a routine guest assist. A Japanese guy with a last name where every other letter was an ‘A’. Then at 0545 I had a noise complaint, and that was it.
The Charlie units were hopping though. It was hooker central. They’d move four out and seven more would come in. Judy said she lost count after the first dozen and Bi-Bob, Redneck Randy and Wally were working harder than an exterminator.
You know, one of the casino shift managers, a nice guy with great hair named Tom, said to me once that we’re going to allow what we’re going to allow, but gee whiz, there sure seemed to be a lot of them hanging around lately. And he’s right. The free market, as it should, is going to run its course, but when they’re everywhere you’ve got to move them out, and there have been a lot more than normal lately.
November 18
It was hooker central again tonight, even in the hotel.
I first spotted this chick when I passed her in a hall. She is young, Oriental and pretty and her guy was fat and middle-aged, but I otherwise didn’t think anything about it.
Then about 0400, I’m dispatched to a guest assist and there she is again, waiting to celebrate the free market with another side of beef, this one about my age. The only delay in getting this lesson in supply and demand going is his key isn’t working.
If I had any criminal instincts I’d be getting a piece of this action, but I don’t. I do call Junior though and tell him to keep an eye on the high rise elevators and look for an Oriental girl wearing a pink top coming out. She’s working and if we can stop here we can move her out and tell her not to come back. Not that it would matter, there would still be a hundred more where she came from, but we would have the moral victory.
I have stopped calculating the Foot on the Desk percentage. After the near 60 percent night, everything else is anti-climactic.
About 0245 I walked into the 27th-floor maid’s room to kill some time and I was met by a houseman named Arthur. Arthur is of indeterminate age, Filipino and is responsible for making sure clean linens get from the loading dock to the maid’s rooms on his floors. He gives me a lot of crap because every time he sees me I am sitting down. When I enter the 27th-floor maid’s room Arthur is there working.
“Good,” I said. “You’re working. I like watching you work.”
“You like watching me work cause you don’t work.”
“Shut up and leave me alone,” I said, getting comfortable and picking the day’s paper, which happened to be sitting on the desk. “I want to read the paper.”
Arthur continued to prattle while I read the sports page.
“Don’t you ever shut up!” I said, pretending to be irritated. “Christ, you’re like a wife!”
I considered the matter a bit.
“At least with a wife I’d get dinner!”
“You want a wife so you won’t have to work.”
“I’m trying to read the paper, goddammit!” I screamed, pulling the paper over my face as if trying to hide.
“Look,” I said, calming down a little. “I could be in a big fight in the next five minutes. You have no idea what this job is like.”
“Yes, I do. You sit down all night.”
“Not all night. Just every three floors. Where there are desks and chairs.”
I got called away shortly thereafter. I told Arthur if I died on this guest assist, it was on him.
Judy had a couple of good lines tonight. Judy is Mary 1 every night. She has red hair, is sorta stout and has a very pleasing, low-key, funny disposition and is one of my favorite people. We were in early briefing when Eric the Monster walks in, late, as usual. Monster went to part-time status a month or so ago at his request because he got a day job doing something or another with air conditioners. He is 25 or so, sorta handsome in a monster kinda way, and usually acts like a four-year-old. He waddles in and is hustling to get ready, tucking his shirt in, getting his weapon, fussing with his belt.
“All right, Eric, you got everything?” Judy asks maternally. “Bullets? Your shoes? Belt keepers?”
I lol’d after the shoes line; Eric was really scurrying around like a kid late for school.
“You know, Judy,” I said. “He’s just like having a kid.”
“I wish he were a kid, that way we could beat him.”
Here is your Henry lineup for tonight:
Henry 1 – OMP
Henry 2 – moi
Henry 3 – Jose
Henry 4 – X-Ray