Segment 17: 4 Beds on Christmas Eve/New Money in the Penthouse Suite (1959) – Part 4

written, edited, and produced by Viktor Devonne for 2 Night Stay
performed and recorded by Charles Stunning

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transcription:

Realizing the late hour, Margaret held her breath as she entered the next room. The penthouse. Usually this required two maids and sometimes took upwards of three hours depending on the condition left by the previous guest. If her memory served, it had gone unused for the last month, so this was clearly a special occasion for someone.

As she wheeled the cart in, she was greeted by a small dog, sitting quietly and attentively at the door, perhaps waiting for someone to finally come in. This was a small caramel, deep brown, and white colored beagle, and Margaret searched her memory for a split second as to why that seemed so familiar.

He sat beside a set of luggage—a beautiful robin eggshell blue, monogrammed “A.F.”
The table next to the door was adorned with a valuable hand muff, a fortune in white fur.

This well-behaved dog was the one she saw in the lobby earlier in the night.
“Rudy!” came a voice from the bedroom. Margaret stood still in her tracks. The voice was feminine, clearly older, with a mezzo-soprano sing-song affectation.

Nearly waltzing in with a cigarette holder and tumbler likely to be full of gin was a cheerful woman of about sixty. Her vertical line Dior dress was a warm shade of cream, her hair pulled tight to her scalp like a sensible Lauren Bacall, and a white, glittering smile that rivaled a starlet.

“Oh, hull-oh!” she said cheerfully. “I’m so sorry my dear,” a New England accent coming forth, “I know the man at the desk said you were still handling the rooms but we just had to get ourselves settled, you know.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Margaret nearly curtsied out of the queenly nature suddenly permeating the space, “I can return later if this is not a good time.”

“Oh, no,” the woman waved her hand in Margaret’s direction as she settled herself in a lime green shell chair, wrapping a stocking-clad leg underneath her. She tapped the cigarette in her hand towards the tray on the table next to her. “I’m in _your_ way after all. Rudy!” she sang.

The beagle jumped in her lap accordingly, and faced Margaret as she pulled the cart into the living room area of the suite. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Angie,” the woman puffed on the cigarette, energetically. “Never cared for ma’am from the…” While she stopped short of saying “help,” it was clear. She shut her eyes, ashamed, and continued in an accent more acquainted with Astoria, “Sorry, my dear. New money is rude money.”

Margaret caught herself in a laugh, and the woman scrunched her face in joy and pointed, “See, there, that’s better.” Margaret began pulling forth sheets from her cart’s middle drawer.

The woman with new money looked her over, and a few more puffs later, she said, “You know, I was a laundress until about four years ago. We’re not so different. I worked on my feet day and night for twenty years.”

Margaret, not quite sure what to say in response, managed “Oh, I see.” She just couldn’t bring herself to be so familiar, despite “Angie”’s insistence. “Is madam staying here for the full week of holidays?”

“We’ll see,” Angie sighed with a hint of sadness and then brushed aside for a brighter lilt,

“You know I do love this hotel. I’ve only just been able to afford it, you know. But I’ve been coming here for three years now. It’s important, you know, to have traditions.” Angie let her drink down to gently rub the back of her neck. “You’re new.”

“Just six months, madam.”

“Angie,” the woman repeated gently. “Or Mrs. Fenton if you really must.”

“Mrs. Fenton,” Margaret echoed, grateful for the alternative.

Mrs. Fenton rolled her eyes with understanding, and clicked her tongue in her mouth, attempting to dislodge some memory from lunch in her teeth. “Six months. So you’re part of the new crop. They were shut down, nearly completely, for a year and just can’t keep the staff since.”

Margaret nodded. She had management instructions to never discuss the year the hotel was dark.

Mrs. Fenton pressed on, “You know about that, don’t you,” she brought her head lower, trying to make eye contact with Margaret as she selected pillowcases.

“Yes, Mrs. Fenton, but it’s really not my place to—“

“Oh, nonsense.” Mrs. Fenton heaved through her own smoke. “We’re just the same.”

“As you say,” Margaret politely but unconvincingly agreed.

Margaret passed Mrs. Fenton with the cart to approach the beds.

Quickly on her feet, Mrs. Fenton followed her into the next portion of the penthouse. Rudy claimed the chair for himself, in her absence.

“You know about the accident,” Mrs. Fenton, getting a touch bristly. Even she knew this was grossly inappropriate, but she demanded confirmation.

“I do,” sighed Margaret, not looking at her, “I read all about it.”

Momentarily satisfied, Mrs. Fenton cleared her throat in celebration and toyed with her lavaliere necklace.

“I know you think I’m rude. And I’m sorry for it.” Mrs. Fenton gently folded one hand under her other elbow, keeping the cigarette in reach of her mouth.

“No, madam—Mrs. Fenton,” Margaret said, somewhat distracted by the noncooperation of the fitted sheet. She pressed her hands firmly on the mattress and mused that there was a sect of guests who insisted on speaking with her when she was caught in a room with them. Most of them were dead, but a good portion were the living and rich who wanted to impress upon the lower class that they could still connect with their meager counterparts.

This one, however, was so aggressively vital—like they had been imprisoned for twenty years and just could now see the sun and the moon and yet impatient that they couldn’t get both at the same time. Mrs. Angie Fenton was desperate for attention, likely a miscreant of both worlds—the rich, the poor—if neither would claim her.

Indulging her, Margaret looked up at Mrs. Fenton, who hadn’t taken her own eyes off of her, and said “Are you here in town to see family?”

Mrs. Fenton’s eyes twinkled in silent consideration. “In manner of speaking, honey.” Her voice was lower, more contemplative.

Sensing she may have just hit on Mrs. Fenton’s favorite monologue, Margaret stilled her tongue, and for several moments, the only sounds were the fluffing of down pillows.

Mrs. Fenton had lit another cigarette, her last in its final stages of smolder now discarded in another crystal tray by the bed.

“It’s not like the papers said, you know,” Mrs. Fenton said, apropos of nothing.

“Ma’am?” Margaret murmured, doing her best to get a small spot of a strain on the carpet.

“The floor didn’t just cave in,” Mrs. Fenton said, her voice slower and deliberate. “It was pulled up.”

“Ma’am?” Margaret repeated, half listening.

“But the bodies still fell through to the lobby.” Mrs. Fenton sighed, almost in wonder.
Margaret’s full attention was caught, and she awkwardly stood back up and slowly padded her apron down. “I see.”

The air was now nearly solid with tension, and Margaret considered she may have been hoodwinked after all, and this vibrant, uncultured new money would turn out to be some damned spectre of a lost soul.

Mrs. Fenton looked at Margaret sympathetically. “I’m sorry, my dear. This is why I don’t get those invitations for Sunday luncheon at the women’s auxiliary.”

Margaret gave a crooked but sensitive smile to the woman before her. “Quite alright, Mrs. Fenton. I’ve finished the bed, though, and will need to handle the bathroom if that’s alright.”

Mrs. Fenton’s manic energy clicked back into place and she was suddenly Mame Dennis again, “Oh my yes, of course! I’m just chewing your ear off and you have work to do.”
Margaret breathed relief, and went to wash down the sink, toilet, and tub.

Mrs. Fenton however fluttered after her, and leaned in the doorway to watch. Margaret continued on, attempting her normal duties more often done in solitude.

For many minutes, the only thing shared between the two women was the sound of a washcloth against porcelain, and the cranks of faucets on and off.

Margaret turned to Mrs. Fenton, who was dreamily looking ahead, past her.

“You got kids, Margaret?” Mrs. Fenton said suddenly, still looking beyond her.
Margaret hesitated, quite certain she had not given her name. “…Yes. I have a daughter.”

“Apple of your eye and all that.” Mrs. Fenton muttered, still dazed.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” Margaret attempted to leave the bathroom. Mrs. Fenton returned to the present moment and moved aside for Margaret to exit and then return shortly with new towels.

Mrs. Fenton clicked her tongue a few times absentmindedly. “Listen,” she said, her cheer once again on holiday. “I’ve been looking for someone when I come here. I don’t know if you’ve seen him.”

Margaret was adjusting the towels on the rack, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fenton, I don’t see many of the guests once they check in. I’m right before or right after them.”

“No, no,” Mrs. Fenton smiled sadly, looking at her cigarette withering away. “Not a guest. He worked here. Few years ago. But I don’t know if he’s still…” Mrs. Fenton paused until Margaret returned her gaze, “Still here.”

Margaret’s eyes shifted away. Feeling herself go all goose flesh, she exhaled slowly, and tittered.

“He worked in the restaurant,” Mrs. Fenton continued, looking directly at Margaret, “Your man at the front desk won’t talk to me about it. I can’t get anyone to talk about it.  But I got an idea you know what I’m talking _about_.”

Margaret did not respond.

“Worked the Byron party.” Mrs. Fenton went on, with a grave passionate stillness.

“The Byron…” Margaret knew the story. Local politician holds a self-congratulatory party on the second floor in the ballroom. Guests are having a grand time and an interruption comes mid-celebration. The floor cracks apart and bursts, killing the partygoers and the staff. The hotel shuddered for a year, nearly everyone who survived would then quit, and the investors in the hotel had their hands tied with insurance and payouts to the grieving.

“I’ve seen a lot of these… previous guests,” Mrs. Fenton said, dancing spectacularly around the specifics. “People stay in this hotel long after they check out, right. You know what I’m talking about.”

Margaret found it useless to not admit it. “Yes, ma’am. There are a number of… extended stay guests at the hotel.”

“Now I don’t know why that is,” Mrs. Fenton squirmed on the doorframe, repositioning herself in an awkward attempt to look casual. “And that’s really not my concern, you know. But my boy was here. And he’s not now. And I wanna know why that is.” Mrs. Fenton’s voice began to tremble with emotion verging on irritation, “And I wanna know when this place is crawling with ghosts, my boy isn’t here for me to see on Christmas Eve. I wanna know why that is.”

Margaret’s heart sank, and her eyes began to well. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know who stays and who doesn’t. I don’t know why some… people aren’t here.”

“Well,” Mrs. Fenton propped her chin on a wavering back of her hand. “I just think it’s all a little unfair. A little unfair for me to come all this way and him to not…”

Margaret moved forward, with an instinct to comfort through her, but Mrs. Fenton pulled back, slinking into the bedroom, past the bed, and towards the living room. Margaret caught up to her, back in the lime green chair, her dog out of sight. Mrs. Fenton was now sobbing, clutching her face with the inside of her elbow and burying herself in the plush cushion. “I came back to see him,” she cried.

Margaret put a hand out to Mrs. Fenton’s shoulder, and nearly stumbled over when she instead fell forward, onto the chair. Mortified, Margaret lurched up, ready to apologize for her fall onto a bereaved old woman.

Instead she found herself alone. Terrified, she fell onto her backside, facing the chair and looking at it like it had transformed into a serpent. Pulling her body back with her arms, she bashed her head against the dresser behind her. She searched the room with her eyes from her current, floorbased viewpoint.

She did not see Rudy. The ash tray next to the chair was empty, missing the telltale cigarette bits of an oft-smoking guest. The suitcases by the door were gone. The ermine fur muff that she knew had been there, was not on the side table by the door.
Margaret fumbled to get up, looking frenzied and ridiculous doing so, but no one was present to see it. She grabbed the cart and shuddered herself out of the room, and into the hall, hearing the door clack in the silence of the floor.

Breathing heavy in these many months having experienced the unusual and the tragic, Margaret scarcely recalled being at more unease. Feeling her way down the hallway with one hand clutching the cart and the other dragging across the wallpaper, she returned to the elevator and before she knew it, she was back on the lobby floor.

Emerging from a haze not unlike Alice in the looking glass, Margaret pushed forward and was soon in view of the front desk. She huffed in reassurance that the everlasting grimace of Mr. Farrell remained. However, she caught herself short of leaping at him, and praising the stars for his presence when she saw he was speaking with a constable.
The officer’s eyes made their way to the flustered Margaret. “Miss,” he said, waving a gloved hand to her to come closer, “We’re going to need to you stay here right now, until the folks upstairs leave.”

Margaret was lucky to not let loose a baffled obscenity. What next?

She saw the officer was writing down a statement from Mr. Farrell, as she slowly moved closer to the desk and then behind it.

The officer’s voice came into earshot, matching the blurry image Margaret was still attempting to get in focus.“And she did not come back downstairs after she checked in?”

“No, sir.” Mr. Farrell spoke as eloquently as Margaret imagined he always could. “She checked in, and insisted on going straight to her room.” He paused. “The penthouse suite.”

“Mmhmm,” the officer wrote something worthwhile in that sentence, down on his pad. Margaret edged closer to Mr. Farrell.

“I informed the madam that her room was not yet decent for her, but she insisted.” Mr. Farrell gave a passing gesture towards Margaret. “The maid had not yet prepared it.”

“Doesn’t look like she made it up there anyhow,” the constable clucked.

“Sir.” Mr. Farrell nodded.

Margaret, as if having finally returned to the earth, was still taking it all in. “Mr. Farrell?” she squeaked out.

His face the usual calm gray, Mr. Farrell continued looking at the officer. “Margaret,” he said. “The penthouse, have you finished it?”

“Yes, Mr. Farrell,” Margaret said on the verge of incredulity.

“Mrs. Fenton will not be requiring it. We will be sealing the second floor for the evening.”

“The second floor—“ Margaret attempted to guess.

“The ballroom.” Mr. Farrell confirmed, now looking directly at Margaret. “There has been an incident.”

Before Margaret could gasp or clutch at her throat, the constable cleared his own and continued on, “We’ll have the body taken down in the next hour once we’ve got her settled. What a pity for this on Christmas.” He looked at Margaret, “Miss, I would suggest you not be present for that; they’ll have to bring her through the front door to take her to the coroner’s. It won’t be nice to look at.”

“Did she…” Margaret managed out, “Did she leave a note?”

“No, miss. Very odd situation, it all being said. Ma’am was wearing a full eveningwear dress and jewels, had all her bags with her….” He paused and looked back at Mr. Farrell.  “How’d she get her bags up there anyway? She had three or four of them.”

“The… the bellman…” Mr. Farrell said, almost stumbling over his words. “He’s just gone off for the night. I can find out where he was when all this… this happened.”

“That’s right queer,” the constable frowned. “I’d hate to think she had help with this.”

“No, no, that’s right,” Mr. Farrell offered quickly, “The bellman wasn’t here. I helped her to the elevator, and she… she insisted on going up alone. She said she would handle her own bags when she reached the top floor. She was quite certain she could handle it.”

“A woman her age,” mused the constable. “Strange for her to say so.”

Margaret shifted her eyes to Mr. Farrell and the constable, whose face looked unconvinced.

“She didn’t get to the top floor, you know,” the constable went on. “She went as far that… Per-sah-fae… that…” he checked a few earlier pages in his notes. “Persephone ballroom.” The officer’s eyes widened, “yeah, hey, that’s the one which—“

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Farrell said, his face in some pain.

“And that’s, that’s right above right here I guess,” said the constable, pointing towards the ceiling. “That’s where the floor broke open.”

Mr. Farrell was silent for a moment. He gestured towards further into the room, towards the center before the desk, and the fireplace. “Over there. That’s the center of the ballroom, above there.”

“Huh.” The constable said, clearly thinking of the headlines he could just barely remember. “Crazy. Bet you glad you didn’t work here then, huh.”

Mr. Farrell stiffened slightly, but spoke plainly, “I did, sir. I was behind this very desk that evening.”

Margaret’s mouth fell open, taking into the consideration the horror her ornery co-worker must have witnessed. “That’s… just awful, Mr. Farrell,” she exclaimed. He did not look at her.

“Well, you two stick around if we need more questions answered,” the constable flipped his notebook closed and began towards the elevator. “And, miss, if you can make sure that dog gets a walk soon.” He pointed towards the closed office door. “I don’t want you two to get stuck with a wet floor on top of all of this.”

Margaret turned her head to Mr. Farrell. He nodded. “It appears, Mrs. McCaculey, there’s a dog who’ll need someone to take home and be watched over for a while.”

As the sound of sirens neared, Margaret and Mr. Farrell stood behind the front desk of the Gilman Hotel, quietly and without much to say on the matter.

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Segment 16: 4 Beds on Christmas Eve/The Well-Dressed Corpse in Room 512 (1959) – Part 3

written, edited, and produced by Viktor Devonne for 2 Night Stay
performed and recorded by Charles Stunning

in memory of Madeline and Eileen

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transcription:

Margaret exhaled slowly as the lift ascended.  It was far too early to be running out steam when she had hours of laundry ahead of her, but this Christmas Eve was already wearing her out.

Upon the ding, the elevator shuddered into place and the door opened to reveal the fifth floor.  The plush indigo carpet alerted Margaret that indeed she was on the right landing; things were a tad nicer these stories up.

Admiring the swirls of renaissance-inspired murals as she passed the rooms, she nearly lost her train of thought before she reached the end of one narrow wing.  On the fifth floor, the rooms were considerably larger.  She knew she had to concern herself with the kitchen, the two bedrooms, and the lounging space.   Farrell’s suggestion of “four beds to make up,” was increasingly unlikely.

A waft of cigarette smoke reached her as she opened the door, her keys steady in the lock, her wrist nearly pulled from her socket as she lurched forward.

She soon surmised that she hadn’t been the one to open the door; in front of her was a stately gentleman in a black waistcoat, ivory shirt, hunter green breeches, and a trail of blood going down his forearm.  Behind his monocle was a strict, unwavering eyeball, and a twitching bushy moustache that matched his silver, slicked hair.

“And so,” he said with a great deal of dramatics, bringing Margaret forward and slamming the door, “We have our final suspect.”

Margaret blinked, slowly at first and then with increasing rhythm.  She stuck her chin out like a chicken sensing a cleaver nearby.  “…Suspect?” she uttered, her own voice causing her to stiffen her body.

“You’re full of shit, old boy,” came a chortle that gasped from well-worn lungs.  “You’re honestly accusing the maid?  How cliché can you get?  The butler was off?”

Margaret, still not entirely sure where or when she had gotten herself into, was still putting her optics into focus.

“She’s going to faint,” came a nervous British voice assigned to a dowager countess, each syllable wavering.  “You’d better get her to the couch before she’s the next to go.”

“Nonsense, “ said yet another voice.  Nebbish, filled with brandy, and squinting through spectacles two prescriptions beyond him.  “Get her out of here before she sees something.”  He quivered and flittered his fingers away from his thin frame, “Maid, maid, we do not require service right now!”

“I’ll say,” said the breathy redhead out of detective novel.  “You got any smokes, doll?”

Her hand still clutching the keys, Margaret  let her eyes wander left to right and then left again.  The rest of her body failed to catch up.

“No, I don’t suppose she does,” came yet another voice.  This one was German, well-to-do or pretending well, and something of the sidekick variety if this was a scene from Hollywood.  He lit a match, stuck his tongue deep into his cheek and shook his shoulders.  “She’s on the clock.”

Bloodied Forearm pushed Margaret forward into the room, and she heard the door open again behind her.  Giving a swift once-over to the hallway, Forearm, seized the service cart and drew it inside the room before closing the door again, and locking it from the inside.

Countess sauntered forward, a bit braver now that she was aware she outranked this new woman in class, and took Margaret’s arm with a lavender gloved hand.  “Come, child, “ she brought her further still into the room, “You should sit.”  A fainting couch that was entirely out of place in the room and took entirely too much space for the wall it was assigned, was soon under her.

“Terrific,” clucked Breathy Redhead, “She’s in on the party now.”  She took a drag of her own cigarette and downed her tumbler of brown liquid.

“It’s fine, it’s perfectly fine, it’s just fine,” muttered Spectacles, who favored a flask that he sipped at feverishly.

“Now, listen,” said Sidekick, not particularly intimidating but kneeling down to meet Margaret’s pale, baffled face.  “You got yourself into this, so we’re gonna need something from you.”

“I’ve got it,” said Forearm, clutching a towel from the cart and administering a crude tourniquet.  “Search her.  Make sure she doesn’t have anything on her.”

Sidekick cracked his fingers and gave a smirk.  With a leering sense of purpose, he brought his stubby digits to Margaret’s waist.  Margaret slugged him.

“Ow!” Sidekick fell backward.  “She hit me!”

“We saw,” nodded Redhead, who brought her eyes in line with the shellshocked Margaret, “You clean, kid?”  Margaret opened her mouth to reply but realized she had little to bring to the interrogation.  “She’s clean,” Redhead rolled her eyes, and chewed imaginary gum.  “It’s ok, kid, you’re safe.”

Margaret’s mouth came together tightly as she presented a note of skepticism.

“You call the cops, lady?” stuttered Sidekick, managing to get back to his full height of 5’2.  He searched for the hat that Margaret had sent flying off him.  He fluttered his overcoat, clearly overheated by the situation.

“No,” Margaret said.

“If she had called the cops, she wouldn’t have come in here,” reasoned Spectacles.  “Right?”

“Right,” Margaret offered.

Lungs , who had been quiet for the proceedings thus, chuckled.  “She makes a good case.”  He went towards the bar and weighed his scotch and soda ratio.

Forearm was gritting his teeth, his monocle having fallen during his wound-dressing.  “Well, now what?”

The room fell silent, apart from the ice in Redhead’s glass.

Margaret was slowly regaining the feeling in her legs, and took the scene in.

One dining chair was turned over, a scattered place setting surrounding it.  Margaret’s eyes trailed over the wreckage, leading her to still more to pick up after.  A burgundy spill, from the upturned wine glass, complimented the plentiful Cornish game hen, only partially eaten, staining the auburn carpet.  A sample of gravy brought Margaret’s view beyond her hosts and led to a pair of unmoving, somewhat crooked legs.  Enclosed in a stylish Italian fabric, these legs led to the rest of a decidedly unenergetic body.

“Gracious…” whispered Margret.  There was a dead man on the floor in room 512.

Margaret’s body bolted upright at such a speed and unexpected velocity, it managed to send Sidekick backward yet again, clutching his nose, now bloodied.

“Aghhh,” moaned Sidekick, “Sie ist eine verdammt frau!” He reached for his breast pocket for a handkerchief.

Margaret stumbled forward, still a bit uneasy, to reveal the length of the body.  The well dressed corpse on the floor in room 512 was a man presumably in his 50s, clutching a serving fork in his hand, covered in blood.”

“Brandy?” offered Lungs.

Margaret, still looking forward at the unknown man, took the glass in her hand and had a mighty sip and then coughed.

“Better,” nodded Lungs, patting her back and moving to the loveseat.

“He’s dead,” sputtered Margaret, still clutching the glass with both hands.

“Yes,” the Redhead said, closing her eyes in mild frustration, “We know.”  She wore a gold lace dinner gown, with pearl accents.  The shop owner had told her she looked like a glass of champagne when she walked in it.

“How did he—did you—who found—“ Margaret began a little late in the sentence to choose her words carefully in full view of a presumed murder.  Or, murderers.

“We were having dinner,” sighed the exasperated Countess, dismissively motioning towards a well-lain dinner table set for six, with a gap missing.  Each of the five remaining  place-settings showed signs of mid-meal.  A spilled wine bottle was the only sign of distress, having poured onto the center of the table and onto one of the opulent, cream-colored cushioned chairs.  Countess was now seated in another, untouched from the wine, but her light blue frock suggested she may have been in the chair now a crime scene.

Each plate, filled with a hen, a pile of walnut stuffing, and peas showed signs of imbibing.  The hotel’s chef holiday meal, Margaret realized, although she thought it also came with a cobbler.

One wine glass was missing from the table, which was presumably now on the floor by the well-dressed man.  No sign of struggle furthered the scene, as Margaret saw that each chair was pushed back just enough to allow each guest to stand, likely to question why one of their party was gasping for air on the floor.

“You’ve got all the pieces together, kid?” Redhead smirked, “Or you need to fingerprint us?”  She found herself leaning against a portly upright piano to the left of the dinner table.  There really wasn’t enough space for one, but the management had insisted it gave the upperclass rooms sophistication.

Forearm was staggering about, bringing the fallen chair to its familiar position, and sorting through the utter carnage that was the salad fork comingling with a soup spoon.  Sidekick was balling up his hanky to fit his nostril.  Spectacles was waving his flushed face with a small brown booklet, his shoulders raised as high as any noblewoman.

Margaret shook her head slowly.  She had to admit she was stumped.  “What killed him? The wine?”

“So we think,” Forearm said, a touch more friendly now that he was mid-clot.  “He got up, yelling about poisoned wine while we were eating.”

“He was in hysterics!,” added the Countess.  “Waving that… that fork about.  He stabbed him!”  For the events, she certainly wasn’t tremendously bothered, more disappointed the evening took this turn.

Forearm gestured to his wounds, clicking it in place for Margaret that he was the victim of the well-dressed man’s wrath.  “Or it was the chicken,” Forearm said, wiping his hands with the edge of the tablecloth.

“Well, mine was a little undercooked,” Redhead chimed in.

“I say we have another drink,” grunted Lungs, who managed himself off the couch and lunged for the bottle.  One might suspect he had this suggestion frequently.

“How can you trust the scotch?” scoffed Spectacles, gripping a napkin to the corner of his mouth.

“I brought the scotch,” countered Redhead, who rose her own glass in the air.

“What’s your point?” Spectacles sucked his cheeks inward, and let one eyelid dip.

“Now, you listen to me, you temperamental little toad,” said Redhead coolly, wearing a dangerously tight smile.  She took a slender finger and poked Spectacles beneath adam’s apple just so to make him gag.

Margaret discreetly put her glass of remaining scotch on to the coffee table.

“Alrght, alright.” Forearm grumbled, stilling their tongues, if not Lungs’ pour.  “This isn’t getting us anywhere.  Now you listen,” he turned to Margaret, “I know you just work here, but you’re gonna get us out of this.”

“I am?” Margaret wondered aloud, increasingly bold in her incredulousness.

“That’s the idea,” said Sidekick, just now summoning courage to look Margaret in the eye again.  “We need out of here.  And… him.  We need him out of here.”

“But the police—“ Margaret might as well have not bothered.

“The police will not be called.” Forearm said, firm but more assuring than threatening.  “This man cannot be found by police.  None of us can be stopped by police.  We all need to leave this city by midnight.”

Margaret all but burst into tears at the prospect.  Five murder suspects, one of whom was, well, German, were demanding her help to get five floors down with a corpse without Mr. Farrell at the front desk so much as clearing his throat.

“But who…” Margaret pressed on.

“That’s not important now.” Forearm continued, adjusting his monocle.  “It could have been any one of us.  But that’s a risk we’ll have to take.  We need to get on the ferry, and we need this man with us.”

“Listen, kid, you got a way out of here except for the elevator?” Redhead was clearly interested in moving this along.

“I… No, I don’t think so.”  Margaret’s eyes widened as  Countess began to pull the cloth from the table, the rest of the glasses spilling and the plates collecting in the corner as they slid off onto the mahogany.

“What are you doing?” Margaret insisted, gaining immunity from the ridiculousness of the proceedings.

“We need to wrap him up,” reasoned Countess, who draped the fabric over the well-dressed man’s body.  It’s obscene.“

“There are linens,” Lungs pointed out, with a wave towards the cart.  “We don’t need to strip the tables…”

He trailed off, and each of their heads slowly turned to the service cart.  An escape plan was in motion.

“You take the legs,” Forearm exclaimed, positioning himself over the well-dressed man’s torso.

“You cannot be serious.” Spectacles breathed so contemptuously, it was practically an aria.

“The legs,” Forearm growled.

Spectacles’ eyes grew wide over the frames, and  heshook his head sadly.  All his upper body strength was in his penchant for Proust and here he had to lift the legs.  He did succeed, however, and they managed to drag only the well-dressed man’s fingertips on the floor as they brought him to the cart.

“Towels,” gasped Spectacles, holding the well-dressed man’s increasingly rigid limbs.

Redhead pulled the towels off the top of the cart, which left a space between the front and back handles.  Presumably the body could be situated thusly.

Forearm managed to get the well-dressed man down on the cart’s top shelf.  “And what about these?” asked Spectacles impatiently, nodding towards the legs still in his hand.

“Bend them over the handle.  We can cover him in a sheet.”

“I have that,” exclaimed Countess, helpfully waving the tablecloth.

Spectacles let the legs fall naturally, bending at the knee, underneath which met with the cart’s brass handle.  Like an inverted coffin, he thought blackly.

Redhead snatched the tablecloth from Countess and brought it up in the air to cascade over the cart’s morbid centerpiece.  Countess yelped at her portion of the action being literally yanked from her, but she relented.

Lungs took the additional towels that Redhead had let drop to the floor, and placed them somewhat recklessly on the lumps.  “Masterful!” he exclaimed just barely balancing.

Margaret shook her head at this perversion of her cart’s duties.  “And then what?”

“Out the door,” pointed Forearm.

Spectacles took the front of the cart and began to back up.

“No, wait.” Margaret said suddenly.  “You can’t just take him out the front door.  Mr. Farrell is at the front desk.  He’d never let the cart leave that way.  You’d be caught.”

Everyone sighed with the exasperation of a school child told to sleep before St. Nick’s visit.

“Is there any other door?” asked Redhead, clutching the side of the cart to prevent overflow.

Margaret searched the patterns on the floor for advice.  “The roof…” she started.

“We are not King Kong, lady,” muttered Sidekick.

“The basement,” Margaret realized out loud, “The basement has the door that leads to the street.  There’s a storm cellar door that brings you to the alley behind the building.”

“The basement,” echoed Forearm, with some defeated sarcasm, “Which we somehow have to get to despite whats-his-name in the lobby.”

Margaret considered.  “There are fire stairwells that lead from the second floor to the basement.  You just have to get off on the second floor and go down that way.”

“And our friend here?” motioned Lungs, four drinks in, towards the cart.  “How will he do on stairs?”

“There’s a laundry chute,” Margaret continued her thought, pressing on like some sort of determined irish setter. ”  This would be fun if she was being played by Ann Harding and this was set on the Nile.

“A laundry chute,” Spectacles repeated, turning nearly green.  “You cannot be….”

Forearm silenced him with a look.  “Where?”

“On this floor,” Margaret sounded almost excited, “Management doesn’t want guests to see laundry carts on this floor, so we have a chute on the top three floors.”

“Small favors,” remarked Redhead.

“Let’s go,”  said Forearm.

“Coats!” reminded Countess, reaching for a fur.  They took turns holding the tablecloth in place over the well-dressed man so they could gather themselves together.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Forearm, regretfully.  “We won’t be able to help you with that.”

“I can… I can manage.” Margaret really didn’t suppose she had much alternative.

“Oh!” stammered Spectacles, nearly forgetting a valise tucked to one side in the corner.  He gripped his brown notebook, and tucked it into his pocket.  Margaret saw now that it was a passport.

“Shall we?” Lungs clasped his hands together in preparation.

Redhead opened the door and craned her head to ensure their mission featured no witnesses, and they were off.  Margaret stepped ahead of the cart, perhaps as a lookout; they failed to assign parts.  But she stayed several feet ahead of the ghoulish parade behind her.

Forearm and Sidekick pushed and pulled the cart, as Lungs escorted Countess who chose this moment to be frail enough to require such an escort.  Redhead and Spectacles grimly managed either side of the cart, somewhat like pallbearers.

A turn to the left, and Margaret ushered them into a small room with a large steel trap door on the side of the wall.  Held tight by springs, Margaret clutched the handle in her hands, turned and pulled it back to reveal an unfriendly gaping maw that smelled vaguely of lye and ammonia from the fathoms below.

“Drop him,” said Sidekick plainly.

It took four of them to lift the well-dressed man and angle him to the hole in the wall.  “This is so disrespectful,” muttered Spectacles.

“I didn’t think you liked him that much,” noted Redhead, genuinely touched.

“I don’t.  I deserve better than this.” Spectacles reasoned.

A heave-ho and the well-dressed man was well-sent to the great big laundry cart in the basement.  Sickening thuds aside, he seemed to take the trip rather well.

Countess gave a quick sign of the cross, and Margaret closed the door, letting the latch’s sound echo in the room’s tight quarters. “And now?” Sidekick coughed, relieved rigor mortis had not yet set.

Margaret opened the door leading to the main corridor.  She pointed.  The stairwell was behind the large wooden door down a few steps.  Exchanging nods, the others stepped away from Margaret as she contemplated her fate.  She could, at this point, run screaming.  She could make her way to the ever-somber Farrell at the front desk and tell him to phone the constable.  She could merely walk herself out the front door and call it night.

She clutched the cart, sullied from that of a well-dressed dead man’s former residence, and made for the elevator calmly.

She heard the last of her captors exit out the fire stairwell door, and make their way to the basement to retrieve the corpse of their friend, acquaintance, family member, or enemy.

If she ran, they could follow her.  They could find her and her daughter and enact revenge for her failing to take their coerced accessory to murder with good humor.

Entering the elevator, she turned to face the buttons inside.  With a short acknowledgment she still had one more room to dress for the night, she pressed the lobby button.

A brief eternity later, she was back on the first floor.  She pushed the cart ahead of her, looking at her surroundings for some sense she was perhaps dreaming or at least the brunt of a hoax.  She passed the front desk, as Farrell stared at the paper.   “Hello, Mr. Farrell,” she called.

“Mm.” Farrell grunted, sipping his tea cup, and his eyes never seduced upward.  “Yes.”

She was moving the trolley forward, but she looked at him as if she was on a track and pulley.  You stupid, selfish man, she thought with a sense of amazement, and perhaps a sense of envy.

Margaret found herself at the service elevator, and lifted her head to the ceiling.  Lord, what say ye, on this the night of your son’s blessed birth?  Do I help a group of gangsters get away with possible murder?  Or, after all this, would an inquest find it was a mere chicken bone that led to these spurious decisions in the dark.

She pressed “down,” and sorted such introspection into To Do Later.  She was not sure she was pleased that she was shortly met with the faces who took her direction all too well.

Forearm and Sidekick were yanking the ungiving body of the well-dressed man out of the overside laundry bin beneath the chute, as Spectacles took another sip from his personal supply, Redhead examined her nails, and Countess and Lungs exchanged pleasantries about how good the game hens were_ otherwise._.

“Your jacket,” said Forearm, pointing at Sidekick.

“Wahnsinnig! It’s six degrees out there!” Sidekick objected as Redhead and Lungs made the decision for him, yanking his beige overcoat off him.  They placed the well-dressed man’s arms through it, and despite the appearance that the coat was now more a ladies’ summer jacket on the dead man, it suited their needs enough.  Lungs provided a hat—Sidekick’s—for the body, and they all but had a suitable impression of a living man with them.

“The exit?” asked Forearm.

Margaret led them to the storm door, which then would lead them to the street.  The cold quicksilver of snow flurries touched Margaret’s eyelashes for the first time in hours, and she nearly got sentimental.

Forearm and Sidekick lurched the well-dressed man in disguise, over the few steps and out the door, into an uncertain night.

Lungs and Countess passed Margaret as they made the short climb into the cityscape.  “Thank you ever so,” said Countess, giving a wide smile, “Your hotel is just lovely.”

Lungs held out an envelope, and smiled broadly like an uncle doting on a favorite child, “For your trouble.”

They disappeared into the black.

Spectacles, not beholden to that of a cart and corpse any further, flitted by Margaret and managed to bitch one last time about the evening’s misadventures.

“Thanks, kid,” said Redhead as she blew a puff of smoke and crinkled her nose at the exposed weather.  “You did good.”

“Was he…” Margaret took a stab at absolution, “at least a bad man?”

Redhead pressed her lips down on the cigarette and nodded.  She puffed, and exhaled one last time.  “Just the worst.  The absolute worst.”

“And who…” Margaret was just no good at finishing sentences tonight.  “Who did it,” she stammered.

Redhead raised an eyebrow, and tightened her jaw into a bemused smile.  “Who wouldn’t?”  Redhead flicked her cigarette into the hazy out of doors, and patted Margaret’s cheek before disappearing into the night.

Margaret stood there for a moment, feeling the chill in the air, and then reached for the door’s handle, pulling it tightly.  Gathering her senses and wits, and allowing the last passage of time to glide gently–if slowly–off her shoulders, Margaret returned to the service elevator, and back to the first floor.  She felt the envelope given to her by the man she thought of as Lungs, hold place in her apron’s pocket.

She collected a few additional pieces for her work, as a dead man had been interred in her linens only a few moments ago, and brought herself back into the lobby, passing the indifferent Mr. Farrell at the front desk.  She contemplated an utterance to test his reflexes, such as a “Merry Christmas, you old grouch!” but the time to do so came and went as she re-entered the guest elevator on auto-pilot to find what she could do about room 512 in her shallow reservoir  of time.

Ding, and she was back on the luxurious fifth floor, careening her cart towards the room signaling the madness she just managed out of.  She emitted a pitiable sigh as she turned the key, waiting to spot the signs of unrest and her undoing.

Perhaps predictably, she found no sign of murder, of a dinner party gone wrong, or even that of a German.

The liquor table as stocked.  The beds hadn’t yet been slept in.  The bathrooms smelled pleasantly of daffodil.  There was no potentially poisoned Cornish game hen, stained chair cushion, or weaponized serving fork.

Marveling at the room’s utter transformation from the chaos she witnessed earlier, Margaret considered her options, took her cart, and closed the door.

In the hallway, she patted her apron pocket expectantly, and let go a small gasp.  The envelope Lungs had given her remained.  She pulled it out, and revealed a week’s wages.

Margaret McCaculey stood there, quite still, quite speechless, and closed the envelope.  She returned it to her apron’s pocket, and walked—quite bewildered—to the elevator.

While she had made an assortment of guesses during the last set of moments pressed upon her, she was provided one Christmas gift she could not assign a giver.

Segment 15: 4 Beds on Christmas Eve/Dominoes (1959) – Part 2

written, edited, and produced by Viktor Devonne for 2 Night Stay
performed and recorded by Charles Stunning

in memory of Eric Heppel

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transcription:

Margaret entered the service elevator, once again tucked away from the public view, and felt the mechanical latch as it banged metal to metal. The platform rose in its familiar way with the gentle rumble, and a dissonant ding signaled the door about the open. Margaret pushed the cart into the second hallway of her evening, and noticed the lights suffered a dismal dim too early for the hour.

According to the note, the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Hestings was imminent. 210 had checked out earlier that morning and it was time for a new arrival.

Margaret opened the door with her set of keys, and pushed the door with her backside, to bring the cart into the room. She felt for a switch while she leaned back, and the room was suddenly brightened again.

“Damn and blast,” a voice moaned behind her. She exhaled sharply and prepared for any number of things.

When she turned, she was more surprised to see a man in a tuxedo fidgeting with a cufflink.

“Harold,” came a soothing, yet scolding, feminine voice.

“I’m sorry, Gracie, would you please?” The man’s voice was warmer now.

Margaret watched as the man put out his left wrist, helplessly, as the gentle voice’s owner—a stunning woman at about 35 in a light pink chiffon gown—assisted. Holding a handful of fresh bedding, Margaret held her stance—and her tongue—for the moment.

“Harold, why do you insist on…” the woman, presumably Gracie, trailed off with a laugh. It filled the room, bouncing off the walls with a comforting vibrato. Her fingers, while more delicate than his, were by no means more adept at the cufflinks. He took the opportunity to sweep her into his arms.

Room 210, clad in a mint green pale paisley wallpaper, was lit by lamps covered in a soft yellow fabric. Margaret squinted. She hesitated to interrupt the couple, and she wasn’t so certain she could.

She managed to squeak out a, “Madam?” and while the volume was such that the five feet should’ve been sufficient to carry it, Harold and Gracie St. Cloud would not be responding.

Margaret realized there need be no further ceremony to the proceedings, and trudged along forward as cheerfully as she could. She had heard of the St. Clouds, and while she had never made their acquaintance—now or at the time of their lives—she knew what was to come.

Gracie held her husband’s face in her palms as she gave him a chaste but meaningful kiss. “We are going to be late.” He held his waist towards her, intimating a request for a change of plans, but despite a wry smile, she was unmoved. “We’ll be home in four hours, Harold. You can hold tight.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Harold laughed, squeezing her hindquarters, no doubt smothered in a girdle and padding, but all the same alluring.

Margaret pulled the cart towards the bed and began the process, musing at the unfamiliar couple’s intimacy, and sneaking looks throughout their display.

Gracie was clasping her own bracelets, having finally managed to get Harold’s cufflinks in order. Her deep chestnut hair, nearly red in the light, was fabulously styled with exotic combs likely from her husband’s findings. Her soft peachy skin, powdered and rouged, contrasted deeply with her long eyelashes and cotton candy lipstain. She was prettier than the newspapers showed.

Harold St. Cloud was slightly older, graying perhaps prematurely, but who could imagine him under stress? The man was famous on Gilman Street, having made his fortune on the backs of the significantly unfortunate. The factory, Margaret recalled, was still in business but had a massive publicity campaign in the recent years, promising to make up for their failings.

Margaret stretched the sheets across the bed and maneuvered around the still flirting couple. While Margaret wasn’t certain what time it was for them, she knew she still needed to complete yet another two rooms after this. She would not have the time tonight to be a fly on the walls for these beautiful people, much as she would love the moment to sit, crochet, and snack on a pile of licorice taffy—to watch history unfold.

“Still too involved in themselves to notice someone like me,” Margaret muttered. The newcomers traditionally ignored her, either out of insistence of their vigor or still unaware of their state. The St. Clouds however had been living in a cloud of their own for more than thirty years. That was unusual.

“A-ha,” cooed the delirious Gracie, “And they say she has to spend ten days in jail for it!”

Harold gave a knowing guffaw. Margaret surmised the gossip would take them at least a few minutes, so she backed the trolley to the second room of the suite.

“Oh, heavens,” Margaret gasped, clasping her chest. She was face to face with a young girl in a white cotton dressing gown. This be a Vincent Price horror, she would have sooner guessed than a stop on her rounds.

The girl, the spitting image of her mother, was obviously Beth St. Cloud. The daughter of Harold St. Cloud, radium king of Gilman Street, had her own claim to fame and kitchen table gossip.

“Hello,” she said, smiling.

Margaret stood perfectly still, her oxygen disagreeing with her bodily requirements. She stared directly at the girl, a pleasant little thing of fewer than 10 years. Her pudgy cheeks gave way to a friendly grin, her hands holding a gently loved stuffed rabbit. She was sitting on the edge of a tempest-tossed bed.

“I said, hello!” the young thing spoke up, on the verge of laughter.

“Yes, hello—“ Margaret stammered. Would that she was better prepared, she properly de-bugged her eyes, and permitted a docile smile. “How are you, young lady?”

“I’m not a lady!” laughed the girl, ready to be cast in a Darby O’Gill picture, “I’m Beth!”

Margaret nodded slowly. This was a new development. She looked behind her for a moment to see if perhaps Beth’s parents would now be in a frenzy that some crazy maid from three decades in the future was suddenly in the room out of nowhere, talking to their child.

“Oh. They won’t,” Beth assured Margaret.

“Won’t…?” Margaret asked, slowly turning her head back to the little girl.

“Won’t see you. “ Beth nearly rolled her eyes in the obviousness, “They’re dead.”

“Oh.” Margaret stopped herself from finishing a sentence she would barely understand beginning. Another new development.
“I understand.” Margaret lied boldly. She pushed her cart further into the room, nearly parallel to Beth. Her hair was blonder than her mother’s. Her eyes were her father’s. Her tone and general understanding of the nature of things seemed beyond that of her youth.

“You have work to do,” sighed Beth on the verge of a tantrum collapse. “You always have work to do.”

“I—“ Margaret scanned her memory for any fragment that may aide her in this moment, “I don’t think we’ve met, Beth.”

“No. Not you.” Beth’s rag doll body protested contrary to her want. “All of you. You all come in here and have to clean and I have no one to play with.”

Beth had met other maids in the hotel over the years, Margaret realized; probably several who were not prepared for a precocious ghost child demanding a round of jacks while her dead parents laughed mindlessly about the latest Mae West scandal.

It was December 1927 forever for Beth St. Cloud, age nine and a half– forever.

Margaret looked up at the wall, both relieved and disoriented to see that the clock’s ticking did not match any furthering of time. Perhaps, after all, she had a moment on this Christmas Eve to sit with Beth.

“Dominoes?” Beth said, trying to make a guess at Margaret’s mind, which she gleefully recognized had paused all this grown up distraction of cleaning.

“Dominoes.” Margaret repeated, nodding. Within what seemed like seconds, Beth had produced a collection of ivory rectangles with ebony black dots.

“I play first,” Beth said authoritatively. “I have double nines.” She presented the corresponding piece as if she was a grifter playing an ace previously hidden.

Shortly, chains of domino pieces covered the lower half of the unmade bed, the comforter of which had been peeled back for their playing space.

“That’s not a two,” laughed Beth, “that’s a four! You can’t play that! I win!”

Margaret, who was all but certain she had in fact played a piece with two dots, had to consider she was being hustled by a nine year old. “You win,” Margaret relented.

“Is it Christmas Eve?” Beth asked suddenly, as if it just occurred to her.

Margaret took the abruptness in stride, all things considered, “It is. You should be in bed. Santa won’t come if you’re awake.”

“Santa won’t come if I’m asleep either,” Beth said with the cynicism of a Wall Street broker.

“Oh, now…” Margaret didn’t know how to argue the realism of Santa Claus with a child who already knew if there was an afterlife. “That’s not…”

She had nothing.

“It’s okay,” Beth clucked her tongue, world weary before the age of ten. “Daddy got me everything anyway. But I never get anything new.”

Margaret considered, no, likely if these specters were in some sort of time loop, they would experience the same familiar year-end treats that 1927 had to offer and no later. Beth seemed to be quite aware of the limitation, and Margaret was lucky enough that the novelty of a second person paying attention to her outweighed the limitation of the ever-present domino set.

“You should go,” Beth muttered, defeatedly.

Startled, Margaret knew this was true, but had expected a tug of war when she broke the news to Beth. She had certainly not expected Beth would beat her to it.

“I should.” Margaret said.

“I’ll be nice to the new guests, don’t worry.” Beth said, with a fresh innocence, “They won’t be afraid of me.”

Margaret contemplated quietly. “You do scare them sometimes,” she smiled, well aware that when Beth didn’t get her way, the guests of room 210—and sometimes 211—suffered for it.

“I know,” Beth sounded almost sorry as she collected her dominos and returned them to a velvet sachet.

“But we played a game,” Margaret said, understanding. “So you’ll be good.”

Beth gave an expression that made Margaret laugh; Beth had made no such promise. But it was understood. She would be good. Beth shuffled out of the bed, her feet now on the floor as she stumbled over to her mother’s sewing bag before the dresser.

“Before you go…” Beth said.

She handed Margaret a set of scissors that gleamed like silver. A robust, intimidating set, they brought Margaret’s hand down a few inches in pure heft.

“Please.” Beth looked directly into Margaret’s eyes so deeply, the blues blended.

Margaret put her fingers around the scissors and stood up. The ever nonpromising handbag was soon home to them. “I’ll take them,” she said with a sincerity she really knew better of.

Margaret tucked Beth into bed, handing her one of many dolls in her collection. The sheets pressed down, the comforter returned, the pillows in order, Margaret kissed Beth goodbye on the forehead, and blessed her own selfish lucky stars she was not scheduled to work New Year’s Day.

She sponged the bathroom sink, and refilled the tablet of soap. Collecting all her things, she stole a look at Harold and Gracie St. Cloud, still mid-embrace. Six days was an impossible accumulation of time for such malice, such violence. This couple, as close as Paul and Joanne, as they ignored the very presence of their young child, near-waltzing in the living room, chuckling about their tickets for the new Kern and Hammerstein next Thursday—they would never make it.

New Year’s Day 1928, the family of St. Cloud became legend. The rumors persisted young Elizabeth Ann took the scissors to her parents and then herself ten minutes before they were to go out. The motive was the parents failing to stay in the hotel room with her to play games all night, and instead they were to visit the at the plant. That night they were celebrating a new collection of glowing watchfaces St. Cloud Inc. was set to announce, and would cause the death of hundreds of the women who helped manufactured them. Harold would avoid the lawsuits and public scrutiny, and the seats, row C, at Showboat would stay empty that Thursday night.

A final look, Margaret vainly searched for an explanation for the murders in the motionless faces of Harold and Gracie St. Cloud. Surely they knew, or would know. Harold lit up a cigarette, and Gracie selected one of several options for mink coats. They headed toward the door, and Margaret paused, cart in her hands, tears welling in her eyes. As they began to disappear out the door, Harold turned a moment and looked at Margaret directly.

As time, and assumedly space, held still for Margaret in this instance, her latest in eyes meeting her own when she didn’t expect them to—Margaret felt her stomach drop. Her own blue eyes lost all periphery; the walls, the floor, her better judgment, and saw simply Harold’s face.

His face was one of pain, of sadness, of well-worn understanding what he could not fix. He was a bastard, and he knew it, and could do nothing for it. His legacy was lodged uncomfortably with those who he hadn’t given a damn about; the people of the world he would instead exploit. For all his evils, for all his damage to the community, a look of hardened regret pushed through at Margaret in the stillness. “She didn’t do it,” he said. He stared forward at her, “Beth didn’t do it.”And with that, he turned again, with his time—space to follow—returning to its supposedly natural state to his wife as they laughed at something she said about Garbo and Swanson, and left into the night.

Margaret felt the air warm upon their exit. She didn’t need to look in the next room to confirm Beth wasn’t there. She didn’t need to check her bag for the scissors.

She leaned her back against the door, and pushed out back into the hallway, and allowed it to close behind her.

She continued pushing forward, secure in the unprovable thought, the unfulfilling awareness of Beth’s innocence, asleep behind that door. She stared down at the floor as she pushed the cart forward to her next room.

Music used in the recording:

• “Sulking” – William Rosati

Segment 14: 4 Beds on Christmas Eve/Room 101 (1959) – Part 1

written, edited, and produced by Viktor Devonne for 2 Night Stay
performed and recorded by Charles Stunning

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transcription:

The bitter cold continued to permeate the walls of the foyer, up the stairs leading to the lobby.  A more piercing winter was known to few as this one raged on with its snow and wind on this Christmas Eve.

Margaret stomped her feet, soaked with the melting snow, at the top of the stairs, relieved to see a light going in the lobby fireplace.  She stood in place as she shook the residual white nuisance from her altogether unsatisfying coat.  She peered around the lobby, which glowed from the embers in the hearth.

Clomping her boots to the front desk, she was greeted with the mirthless eyes of Farrell, who was just as compliant to work Christmas Eve.  He presumably had no one who could love him enough to rather the night with.  Farrell’s wrinkled, thin face, slowly acknowledged Margaret’s presence at all as he blinked slowly behind his spectacles.  “Margaret,” his dry lips permitted him to gasp out.

Margaret did her very best to be of cheer; “Merry Christmas, Mr. Farrell!” she said with her characteristic whimsy.

“Yes,” was Farrell’s only reply, as he seemed to flicker like a Cinemascope projection, his eyes darting back to the newspaper splayed out on the desk.  He was traditionally a man of few words, as Margaret had come to expect.

“How has your day been so far, Mr. Farrell,” Margaret pressed on for community, as she made her way through the increasingly slim crevice in the desk towards the employees-only area.

“Yes.” Farrell muttered.  “You have four beds to make before 6.”

Margaret pressed her mouth into a self-pitying smile and nodded down, suppressing a grim laugh.  “Yes, Mr. Farrell.” In these sixteen months working at the hotel, this exchange all but verged on comparably romantic.

Margaret maneuvered to the private room beyond the front desk, where she was to leave her coat and collection of scarves, to dry.  She kicked her boots off, and found a sensible pair of brown shoes next to the coat hanger, which she would soon strap on.  Beneath her coat, an immaculately ironed navy blue and chocolate brown uniform came forth.  Heavily fashioned with off-white doily material, she was topped with a crocheted hydrangea that much resembled a series of moths feeding on her lapel.

She paused to check any ladders in her tights before she returned to the front desk, which had little change in atmosphere.  She smoothed her already flat apron, her fingers pushing at the starchy brown fabric, and attempted another round of conversation.

“Mr. Farrell, will you be needing any tea before I go?”

Farrell bristled.  Begrudgingly, he lent her both eye contact and a weak smile.  “Please.”

A Christmas miracle, Margaret marveled, as she headed towards the employee kitchenette.  Emerging in ten minutes time with a heaping cup of instant tea, she set the saucer before Farrell.  She allowed five seconds to pass for a weary “Thank you,” to be heard and she was off.

Once in the bedding room, beyond the view of the general clientele, Margaret gathered together her items.  She pulled the clean, folded laundry from their respective cubbies and shelves, prepared the evening before, likely by a maid with better luck to have the night off.  Well aware that all service was on her shoulders this evening, even if Jeffrey the doorman handled the incidentals, she settled herself for a long evening of solo work.  However, she had only just over an hour to set the four  beds Farrell warned her about.

As she walked past the hat rack where her drying coat stood proudly, she clasped her hand bag from the floor, lifting it to the cart, and rested it on the linen.  The brick red and pine green crocheted bag contrasted with the ivory bedding in color, wear, and likely price tag.

She gripped the cart’s front handle and pushed it forward.  One might as well start with the first floor.

Margaret passed the front desk again, as she walked towards her first charge.  She intended a friendly smile at Mr. Farrell at the front desk, but saw him otherwise engaged with a guest.  This guest, yapping dog and all, was a woman about sixty, twice the age of Margaret, and a fur coat that would have paid for Margaret’s daughter’s new clothes for five or six years.  That ermine muff was no small treasure, either.  “Twelve weeks piano lessons,” Margaret made a quick currency translation in her head.

The dog, a small caramel, deep brown, and white beagle, was fascinated at the cart and gave exasperated barks as Margaret passed him and his mistress.  Margaret permitted a momentary reminder of the Christmas wish that Emily, her daughter, had made – well aware, it was to go unfulfilled a further year.

The first room on her list was 101.  It was a small room, typically held for the hourly guest; a man who was on business and needed a place to bathe and freshen himself before heading out into the world.  Sometimes Margaret would see a young woman enter the room first, and she did her best not to stare too long or make assumptions, much as they were.

Margaret clasped the ring of keys in her hand, and searched the appropriate.  She soon has the latch open, and then the door.  A rush of floral perfume filled her nostrils.

“Hi Maggie,” said a warm voice.  Older, wiser, and ever-stuck in a mode most sultry, the voice belonged to an Eva Waggoner, who was no stranger to the room, or to these halls.

“Miss Waggoner,” Margaret nodded as she shuffled into the room and closed the door after her.  “Merry Christmas to you.”

Eva was dressed, or somewhat undressed, in a snow white negligee, immodestly wrapped with a sheer, thin fabric masquerading as a robe.  She kept one hand perpetually on her hip and the other holding a never-ashing cigarette.

She was, as you might imagine, quite dead.

Room 101

“Miss Waggoner, you’re looking well.”  Margaret was never one to leave conversation out of the air, and despite what she presumed her differences with Eva Waggoner might be, she refused to be rude.

Eva exhaled in boredom, a cloud of smoke from her lips instantly vanishing before it had a chance to swirl upwards.  “You know, I’m thinking of leaving this place.  Starting over somewhere.  West, perhaps.  Phoenix.  Colorado, maybe.”  She stared upwards, giving her greatest Lauren Bacall, as her finger tips gently padded her pin curled hair, slightly askew but quite fetching.  She could never get it to set right these days.

“That sounds lovely.  A clean start.”  Margaret began with the sheets.  Pulling the set of slept-in fitted sheets, a divine recent addition to the inventory, Margaret looked beyond any soil marks, wishing them away.  It made it easier to handle the materials if she never considered what went on in the beds she changed.

“A clean start,” Eva murmured in her one woman show.  She thrust her shoulders to the side as she danced gently, the muslin robe catching the movement and lingering in the breeze.  She stared at the vanity , watching her lips pout around the drooping cigarette.  She was now Dietrich.

The vanity’s table, every inch a Hollywood star’s, was strewn with cosmetics and atomizers.  “It’s no good here, Maggie.  The men, they’re just too much.”  Eva picked up yet another rouge.

“And for so little in return,” Margaret hummed, sweeping the sheet flat.  She grabbed the pillows from the headboard and began to switch out the covers.

Margaret peered over a pillowcase under her chin to see Eva comparing a strand of pearls and a ruby pendant.  Eva’s eyes went to Margaret, “Well, it is a special occasion, you know.”

Eva returned to her own reflection.  The pearls.  Margaret took the cue and laid the pillow down, making her way to Eva.  Eva smiled like she would at a loving sister, and let the pearls—considerable wages, Margaret knew—fill her hand.  Margaret sighed at the touch of the beads, and dismissed a jab of envy.  She arranged the necklace properly and lifted them over Eva’s head, and placed them tenderly on her cool, pallid skin.  “Thank you, Maggie.  You’re sweet to me.”

Margaret smiled, sadly, staring at the two of them in the mirror.  This glamorous almost-was and this simple, modest never-could; they seemed like something out a before and after.

Eva turned and began her work again, as Eva purred some Dinah Shore hit, spraying herself with eau de something or other lilly and magnolia, and practicing her Hayworth.

he perfumed air went stale for a moment.

“Oh, Margaret,” Eva called out.  She never called her Margaret.

“Yes, Miss Waggoner?”

“I’m terribly  sorry but I do know I left some awful mess in the bath.  I just can’t be sure what I was thinking.  But I do apologize so profusely.”  Eva’s usual lightness enriched by her smoky, husky voice was near-eternal but presently in conflict with a vulnerable sincerity of apology.

Margaret steadied herself.  Room 101 was unpredictable, as was Miss Waggoner.  She was warned by the most words Mr. Farrell at the front desk had ever spoken to her to expect this sort of thing in several rooms in the hotel.  After the first week of work, his steely disposition and his expectancy of her own longevity in the field clicked into place. But she had proven him wrong.

In these months, she had seen flashes of utter horror, and collected in herself a commendable willpower she hadn’t thought possible.

Gathering her cleaning items, Margaret politely smiled at Eva, “I understand, Miss Waggoner.”

At least, she considered, it wasn’t the carpet this time.

Eva’s face, sullen and near gray, brightened again and she flashed a terrific smile – Harlow—before returning to her quiet singing and primping.

Knowing she was on a time table, perhaps Margaret wasn’t as meticulous as she could have been; she was better at the beds anyway.  But knowing she needed to at least get most of the blood off the tiles even if it made them a subtle shade of brown as she mopped the towels in circles, she persisted.  The laundress in her shuddered at the now useless cloth as she dumped them in her cart’s secondary compartment.

Wiping clean the tub’s rim, the splotches came up rather easily; she must have arrived just in time.  The steam from the water as she flushed out the majority of the muck, filled the room and to distract herself, Margaret envisioned one of those fancy spas the ladies go to on Sundays.

She turned off the faucet and let the remaining steam aide in her sponging  off the sink, and mirror.  She gave a quiet prayer, and returned to the sleeping quarters.  She dusted and patted down the overstuffed chair, refilled the pencil holder and paper for the desk, and looked around for any further concerns.

Eva Waggoner was now dressed.  She stood tall in a smart two piece Maisonette; black and aqua with exquisite detailing.  “Maggie, are you all set?  I’m meeting Joe in a few minutes.”  She was bent slightly, examining her seams in her stockings; a passable Marilyn.

Joe, this time, Margaret thought.  She deserved a happy Christmas Eve, so she was glad.

“Yes, Miss Waggoner.  You have a lovely evening.  I’ll be seeing you.”

Eva laughed, “Unless this one sweeps me off my feet and takes me to Charleston with him—or Chicago, maybe!”

“You never can tell, Miss Waggoner.”

“Can you see them?” Eva said, distracted by her own visage in the mirror, her voice full of hope.  She twisted her bare arms towards Margaret.  Repulsive gashes up and down her wrists marred Eva’s exqusiite skin.  She had clearly attempted to cover them in the makeup and powder, but the lascerations were far too deep.  They were, after all, what had killed her.

Maragret exhaled, and collected her senses in time for Eva’s eyes to catch hers.  She smiled gently.  “You look marvelous, Miss Waggoner.  No one will know.”

Eva squealed, her beautiful face tightening in schoolgirl joy, an emotion one might feel reserved for someone a good twenty years younger.  “Thank you, Maggie.”  Eva pressed her hands into Maragret’s, and squeezed.  “This is for you.”

“Oh, Miss. Waggoner, I can’t,” sighed Margaret, regretfully now clutching the ruby pendant Eva had chosen against for the night.

Eva was already back the vanity, fluffing her hair.  “It’s all settled,” she said casually, “It’s my gift to you.”  She turned again, her eyes full of promise and her body movement near triumphant.  “Merry Christmas, Maggie.”  For once, Margaret couldn’t place the actress.

Margaret shyly tucked the pendant in her handbag, well aware of what was to be.  She gathered herself and manuevered her cart to the door.  “Merry Christmas, Miss Eva Waggoner.”

Eva turned and posed in the mirror still humming, “Rings and things and buttons and bows…” as the door closed behind Margaret.

Margaret began down the corridor, the cart gently bruxing.  The towels inside had by now lost their spotting.  The flecks of gore Margaret could not have avoided in her cleaning, flicked away, leaving no trace.  She felt for her bag, already knowing the pendant was no longer there.

A man in front of her–well dressed and with a Clark Gable mustache– smiled slightly as he made room in the hallway for her to pass by, and return towards the lobby.  A few feet beyond him, Margaret heard the key in the door, room 101.

“Merry Christmas, Miss Eva Waggoner.”

• Music used in the recording:
  “Menilmontant” – Latch Swing; via Free Music Archive
  “1940’s Slow Dance” – Doug Maxwell; Media Right Productions
  “Hawaiian Blues” – Johnny Dunn’s Original Jazz Hounds via 78 Project

Segment 12: Historical Record part 3 (2015)

written, edited, and produced by Viktor Devonne for 2 Night Stay
performed by Dick Move, Iris Explosion, Seedy Edie, Johnny Caligula, Viktor Devonne, Sarah Tops, and Noctua, with Jack Barrow
engineered and recorded by Dick Move

• LISTEN ON ITUNES
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transcription:

NARRATOR: Ethan and Joshua Abrams have continued success with the Gilman Hotel in the 40s, enjoying a boost from the war, and the town’s advancements in industry.

LESLIE DAVENPORT, investigative reporter: The Gilman Legacy Foundation has continued to make money, CEO after CEO, and they’re really splitting their time between philanthropic, good for press type work, and also this hotel which, while cute and all, why do they care so much?

LAURA GRIFFITH-KELLY, Gilman Legacy Foundation president: The Gilman Hotel remains one of the foundation’s main priorities because it was a priority of our original figurehead, Lionel Gilman.  It is not a pet project, it is a continuation of one of his great visions: a place to call home when you are away from home.  The Gilman Legacy Foundation, and I, understand this principle.

CHARLY VILLAQUEZ, magazine editor: It does seem a little odd and I think they welcomed the chance to have the Abrams just handle things for a while.  They are well-to-do bachelors, with Joshua known for his work in the shipping industry, and Ethan who has a very successful home renovation and decorating empire.  These are smart, shrewd, capable men and history has chosen to sort of rewrite their contributions to these eccentric millionaires who bought a hotel for a lark and ditched it as soon as disaster struck.

NARRATOR: One of the first things that they lost was a friend.  One of the longterm guests of the hotel, Natalie May Dashett helped create a series of radio jingles that welcomed sailors, families, and newlyweds to the location.

They really were enterprising in their marketing; they wanted it to be a destination hotel.  And they succeeded.

Dashett would eventually abandon them, leaving an alleged tab, and a hole in their trust.

DAVID HANDLER, author: She was a Hollywood actress who got in trouble with the studio.  I wouldn’t exactly call her famous.  When she saw her chance to leave, she took it. 

Natalie May Dashett sketch by Fishy Business

NARRATOR: While the Gilman Legacy Foundation counts Natalie May Dashett as one of their hall of fame guests due to her success in radio and a burgeoning film career, her absence also left questions.

FELIX SCOTT, contributing reporter: She disappears.  No trace.  Another one gone.  And No one cares.  No one questions it.  No one investigates the hotel.

GRIFFITH-KELLY: Miss Dashett was a prized guest at the hotel.  I have heard the stories about her, but as far as the foundation is concerned, she was a friend of the Gilman, and she left due to personal family reasons.  The film industry wasn’t for her, the business wasn’t for her.  We certainly aren’t going to fault her for that, and I consider her debt to the hotel, if any, paid in full due to her work with us.

DAVENPORT: Natalie leaving upset the brothers.  In Ethan’s diary, he called it a massive betrayal. 

NARRATOR: Ethan Abrams’ diary, which was published in the 80s, is set to be republished next year with more information about his time as owner of the Gilman.  Much of the original text was excised from the first printing, and assumed meddling of the Gilman Legacy Foundation.

GRIFFITH-KELLY: I don’t know anything about that.

NARRATOR: The diary gives one of the few glimpses of a horrific evening in 1954.  While neither Abrams brother was on location, Ethan discusses the aftermath and trauma of on December 6^th.  It was the date of mayor-elect Lucas Byron’s inauguration celebration.

News from home shook me to my core.  I leave for the hotel tomorrow morning.  The entire second floor ballroom has been nearly snapped in half, with patrons of Byron’s party falling to the lobby floor.  I have been informed that nearly all of them are dead.  Joshua is chartering a plane from Switzerland, but I will likely be there before him.  I cannot imagine setting foot on such a sight.  William likely crushed.  Devastated. 

NARRATOR: The William that Abrams wrote of, identified in other passages of the diary as his lover, was in fact killed in the disaster.  One of the rotating head waiters of the hotel’s restaurant staff hired, William Fenton  was working the party when a tremor brought the second floor to a screeching halt.

HANDLER: The structure beneath the ballroom floor gave way.  It happened in such a way where reports indicate it was an earthquake or some sort of gasline explosion, but it was centralized to that single room.  No other floor was affected; in fact no other part of the second floor was affected.   It is weird.  I’ll give you that. 

NARRATOR: In later examinations, and studies done by structural engineers and analysts, the exact way the ballroom cracked and shattered is physically impossible, and despite all efforts to explain, the Abrams were left with an insurance nightmare.  The Gilman Legacy Foundation representatives stepped in and handled many lawsuits quietly, and when someone attempted to goad the press into sensationalism, their complaints would go quiet almost as quickly.

From the diary of Ethan Abrams:

The building stands.  I expected that I would come to rubble.  One is able to quite comfortably get around, despite the wreckage.  The ballroom has been fractured, creating small islands, preserved by the beams of the hotel.  Guests in the middle of their waltz given an unholy end to their evening. 

NARRATOR: The number given to the press and public is that of 214 souls lost.  This comprised nearly two dozen service people who were staffed for the event and were in the ballroom at the time, or in the lobby and affected by the debris and victims falling from the ballroom above.  Other guests and service people who were just outside of the room on the same floor, or in the kitchen quarters, were unaffected, and in fact only heard the commotion and panic of the guests who survived, not the incident itself that caused the disaster.

DAVENPORT: It’s a panic.  The bellhops are seeing the sky fall down.  People are bloody, scrambling down the stairs screaming, running out on the streets, expecting to the see the end of the world, but everyone else is fine.  They assume it must either be a gas explosion or it’s an earthquake, or something that everyone else is experiencing.  But no one else is.  Just the Persephone Ballroom.

NARRATOR: The disaster gives signs of both and implosion and an explosion,   with the floor ripped in twisted gashes, like vines. 

VILLAQUEZ: One major figure however isn’t in the ballroom, but he is included in the tally of 214.  The mayor-elect, himself, Lucas Byron was found dead in his bedroom with a woman not his wife.  They’re in bed, and they look like they’ve been in an earthquake.

SCOTT: The rest of the hotel is unaffected.  The walls are fine.  Not a single guest knew anything happened until they heard the screams from the ballroom.  No one on that floor even heard it happen.   How did someone on the sixth floor, in fact two someones, have injuries from the tremor when no one else did.  And if they were in the ballroom when it happened, how did they get to the sixth floor penthouse, take off all their clothes, and still get in the mood to (bleep) until they succumbed to their injuries?

NARRATOR: The mayor’s wife, Verna, survived the accident by nature of her being on the second floor terrace with other guests of the hotel.

VILLAQUEZ: Story goes that Verna Byron didn’t even run back in when the guests were screaming.  Everyone who was with her did, but she stayed on the terrace.   The police happened upon her; she has just stayed sitting on a bench while all hell was breaking loose and the other guests were coming out of their rooms to find out what happened.

NARRATOR: Dr. Rebecca Mortinelli–

DR. REBECCA MORTINELLI, PSYCHOANALYST: Shock can come in many forms.  What was probably happening in Verna Byron, although I have not studied any doctor’s records on her, may have been a temporary paralysis that prevented her from getting up.  Knowing her husband, her friends, she could not face it.

NARRATOR: The Abrams would leave the Gilman the following year, with the suggestion it heavily affected their relationship.  Ethan would go to Chicago and Joshua would relocate to Europe, constantly on the move.  Within the decade, the legal aspects of the accident would be all but a memory and the hotel acknowledged those lost with a solemn memorial when the ballroom was refinished.

VILLAQUEZ: The inspection on that ballroom floor probably took at least five different independent companies. 

NARRATOR: More hits would continue.  The press coverage was overwhelming but the guest registry was bleak.  Longterm guests would move out, saying they could hear the accident in their sleep, despite not having heard it when it happened.

During one of its frequent dry spells, in 1975, three young broke into the construction site of the Lucretia Coridor, located on the 5^th floor and temporarily blocked off.

DAVENPORT: One of the tenants of the Gilman Legacy Foundation is that the hotel is kept in consistent working order.  The Lucretia Corridor was shut down for almost four months in the winter of 1974 into 1975.  The guest list was still pretty low so it was low priority.  The lights were going out all over the floor, issues with the pipes, and there was no active property manager.  So it was days before a maid discovered them.

NARRATOR: Three unrelated young men between the ages of 19 and 23, were found with gas tanks and matches, with the consensus made by the police department that they were there to burn down a portion, or all of the Gilman hotel for unknown reasons.  Despite one major scorch mark on one wall, the rest of the hall was untouched, and the floor, despite being coated in gasoline did not ignite.

SCOTT: These kids weren’t known by the hotel staff as guests, and they somehow get in with gas tanks, all the way to the fifth floor, unnoticed, or let in by an employee.  But instead of torching the place, they decide to burn it only  a little bit and then hang themselves altogether in a dark hallway  with rope they apparently decided to also bring.  for kicks.  because why?

NARRATOR: The police ruled it a joint suicide, with the intent that they would hang themselves as the fire caught on, but it failed to.  One of the young men, Anthony Martinez, was the son of Carolyn Maitland-Scheer, grandniece of the ill-fated Calvin Maitland, who dubiously owned the hotel in the 20s.  She maintains she has no idea why her son was at the hotel that evening, and declined to participate in this program, except with the following written statement:

The Gilman Hotel remains a subject of pain for my family.  I have no interest in continuing to revisit old wounds, but know this: my son Anthony had never been told about the hotel, never been brought to the hotel, or lived fewer than 20 miles from the hotel, ever.  I continue to relive the pain of the last decision he ever made.   While he was drawn to that location with his friends, he had no malice in his heart.

NARRATOR: Mrs. Maitland-Scheer declined to sue the Gilman Legacy Foundation for the accident, despite rumors she met with attorneys.

In the midst of a Hollywood love affair of haunted house books and poltergeist blockblusters, the Gilman received notoriety for its alleged connection to the supernatural, and what was widely referred to as the ghost of Denise Schonheit.

The hotel received a bump in interest when serial killer Edgar Corbin turned himself into authorities in 1982, having stayed at the Gilman off and on for two years, and chose his victims in the area while he stayed there.

DAVENPORT: So Corbin says he used the hotel as a cover, somewhere to stay when he was looking up people to kill.  The Gilman legacy foundation tries to cover up that he was staying there, but he came to the police station; he said what he did, how he did it, where to find them, and what room he was in so the cops can find his stuff. 

NARRATOR: Via Corbin’s official police statement,

WhenI was sitting in my room, I would shake and cry.  I wanted to stop.  I knew I had to stop.  But I kept going out and finding them.  I was afraid to stop.  But I heard her.  I heard her voice and she would say to me, “Don’t hurt them anymore.”  And I saw her.  I saw the true face of innocence.  I cried.  I knew I could never hurt anyone else ever again.  Because she would know.

NARRATOR: Corbin, who confessed to the murder of 7 people, was not even on the suspect list of authorities, and led them to his stash of trophies taken from his victims, which was left at the Gilman.  The Gilman Legacy Foundation lodged a formal complaint against the TV network BloodstainD for its heavily fictionalized TV movie featuring a serial killer fitting Corbin’s description being a ghost in the hotel he used to scout victims.  Corbin in fact did not die at the Gilman; he died in prison in 2004, and while Corbin was forthcoming to the details of his murders, it is unclear if he ever killed anyone at the hotel itself.

Requiem sketch by Fishy Business

Also in 1982, and presumably unbeknownst to Corbin, proto-darkwave and synth-metal band The Last Boys holed up in the hotel for weeks at a time, writing and recording the demos of what would become their first album. 

After achieving considerable success at home and abroad, the Last Boys would become most known for its connection to the Gilman, when lead singer Requiem was found dead of a purported overdose, several years after their initial booking.

VILLAQUEZ: Requiem became known for their shock rock antics.  They played into the “Hail Satan” trends of the 80s, courting opinion that they sold their soul, that they were a vampire–

DAVENPORT: In 1986, the hotel stops accepting new guests except for the longterm residents—basically people using the hotel as an apartment building, which it got into the habit of doing because it wasn’t making a lot of money except in longterm guests, or 1 night… or 1 hour guests…

GRIFFITH-KELLY: The Gilman Hotel was never closed to guests in the 1980s.  This is a story that persists despite the foundation’s insistence. 

SCOTT: They were shut down for health code violations.  It’s a verifiable fact.

GRIFFITH-KELLY: I’m sorry; I don’t know anything about that.

VILLAQUEZ: February 15^th, 1986.  Requiem is staying there.  They quit the band, they quit the tour.   One night they get ahold of some bad smack and the next day, the headlines say “Rockstar Dead.” 

GRIFFITH-KELLY: I would also like to make sure we mention that in 1982, the Gilman Legacy Foundation helped sponsor the productions at the Diamond Pond Community Playhouse.

NARRATOR: Coming up,

DAVENPORT: They saw an opportunity–

GRIFFITH-KELLY: We aren’t looking to erase history–

HESPERWOLF, spiritualist: I knew when the phone rang who he was.  I knew why he was calling. 

NARRATOR: … when we return to Historical Record: Secrets and Skeletons.

Natalie May Dashett

Catch some backstory on one of the characters of 2 Night Stay:

• http://nataliedashett.wordpress.com

Natalie May Dashett sketch by Fishy Business

via Gilman Legacy page:

One of the Gilman Hotel’s most glamorous residents was certainly Natalie Dashett and she has acquired a renewed interest in this modern age.

An anonymous fan of her work in radio serials such as Dark Pier and films like Lovebirds has created a well-intentioned tribute page to the actress.  We inquired to the fan his or her connection to the actress but have not yet received a reply.

Natalie left the business in 1951, but before she did, she was a friend to the hotel and recorded numerous commercials for the Gilman during WWII.

The Gilman Legacy Foundation, as part of their heritage reconstruction project, requests anyone that has a certain lead of Ms. Dashett’s current wherabouts or previous wherabouts, to please contact us directly.

Gretchen Violetta played Natalie May Dashett in The Dead Sexy Hotel in 2012.