No one pays much attention to the night clerk. We are sort of the invisible pawn in people’s lives.
They come in, check into their room, and forget about us. Especially if we do nothing to stand out. I’ve found that if the guest thinks we are watching television in the back office they assume we are paying less attention to them, and they get more comfortable. The ones who wouldn’t want anyone to remember them, I mean.
Some guests crave anonymity. By offering them that glimmer of hope that we are simply pushing buttons to get back to our show, they relax. They forget about us. They forget that there could be cameras. There are of course. There are always cameras.
Personally, I put on one of those 90’s sitcoms. Just loud enough to hear the laugh track in the lobby, but not so loud anyone can hang out and follow along. Then the screen they can’t see, that’s where I stream the camera too.
We have one watching the lobby. One in the parking lot. Three that cover all the doors to the motel.
Motels attract a different clientele than hotels. Have you noticed? Maybe it’s being able to enter and exit your room without walking past a clerk. It makes guests feel like they have a little more privacy. It does not. Not when I can watch you anyway.
Todd Ryan, he comes every first Friday of the month. He wears a gold wedding ring. His van has one of those silly stick figure families on it. He never parks directly in front of his room. He says he’s an insurance agent and travels for work. He’s a liar. Todd might be his name. I don’t know. But I do know that at 11pm a man in a suit will drop by his room, no matter which one, and leave around 3am. I’m guessing Todd’s wife does not know.
Mary Kate pays cash. She stays two nights at a time. She gets visitors almost every five hours. Her schedule is not as consistent as Todd’s.
Joe has a daughter. Except his daughter looks different every time he stays with us. Different, but always uncomfortable. We see him about twice a month.
Then there are the one off guests. Some are normal, just passing through.
Once a year though, for two weeks, there is no vacancy. Roy Simmons books all our rooms. He declines house keeping. He’s a monster. His guests show up after midnight. They come passed out on the shoulders of his friends. They never leave. I’m still working out the details.
It’s been years. Somehow, those rooms see more guests arrive than they see leave.
Go to the cops! That’s what you want to tell me.
Here’s what you don’t know. This little motel is just inside the border. Mexico is twenty minutes away. Roy Simmons is neither American nor Mexican. He’s from Pablo Escobar’s homeland. His so called guests are from Mexico - and they died before they found themselves on the shoulders of Roy’s friends.
The cops here cannot track these missing persons. They’ve been paid to look the other way. Border patrol would take me away before they could find Roy Simmons or his friends.
Go ahead, insist I call the cops. I’ll be the next guest in that room.
Am I scared? Oh, no. Remember that 90’s sitcom? It works. I never speak to a guest or client with their name. I leave their business to them, and that’s how I keep my job.
The second time I killed a person, I thought I might lose my job. Lucky for me, I had learned a lot from Roy and Joe and Mary. Most people at the hotel don’t want to be noticed, and that’s helpful.
I felt guilty at first, honest. Except they deserved it so really I was doing us all a favor. He checked in on a Tuesday with a young lady. He was a tad smelly, unwashed clothes and greasy hair. He drove a little black sedan with a massive spoiler on the rear - I never understand the need for that.
She was pretty enough, clearly not practiced in personal grooming though. They paid cash for one night and gave fake names. How do I know? Because John and Jane Doe are never real names.
He slapped her in the parking lot. I watched him on the camera. Rather stupid as it was still light out and anyone could have seen him, but like I said, it was a Tuesday and not very busy.
When she left the room hours later, she walked by the front window and I saw her bloody lip. It was new. She crossed the street for the pizza place that was there, and that’s when I called their room. I figured I had just a few minutes.
Turns put it was easier than expected. When he answered I let him know that due to a computer error, they had overpaid. Would he like to come get his extra money back? Well of course he did!
Some things you should know. There’s a utility closet in the lobby, and the door opens up right next to the desk. Tuesdays are always slow. Sleazy men always want money. The cameras in the lobby can be unplugged just by bumping your knee against the wires with enough force, like if I had tripped for example. Greedy men counting money never see the knife
Finally - bleach is the best solution for cleaning up blood.
When the lady returned to their room with their pizza, he was draining into the floor drain in the utility closet and I was emptying the mop bucket I used to clean up the lobby.
She did not leave the room until the next day, and she came by the office rather frazzled. She asked if I had seen him. I was honest. I told her he had checked out the night before but had paid for her room. I handed her the car keys, said he’d left them there.
She refused them, but she still left.
In the end, I’m not sure what made me do it. Maybe it was the way she reminded me of my mom, with her cute little baby bump and obvious signs of abuse.
I don’t regret it. I like to think I’m a bit like the baby’s guardian angel, the way someone should’ve been for my brother and I.
In any case, the coyotes helped me out - the animals not the human traffickers - by eating a good portion of his body before it was found. Officially it was reported as an immigrant that died trying to sneak past the border. Silly, since his skin was much too white for that to be believable. Like I said though, the wildlife helped me out.
Maybe someday I’ll work my way up to the Roy Simmons’ of the world, but for now I’ll settle for keeping the John Doe’s that pass through under the radar.
Look, being a night clerk was not my dream job, but that’s okay. No one really notices me this way.