“Señor Martinez!” The desk clerk followed them up the stairs. “Another package has arrived for your friend!” The chief, having had more than enough of Mr. Paulson, did not much want to go down to the office to collect yet another package. Not one of the packages that had arrived so far had contained a change of clothes or socks, and after a few days trapped with the hygienically challenged roommate, Martinez was about ready to hose him off in the parking lot and leave him tied to a bumper to dry out.
“I’ll send him down to pick it up,” Martinez sighed.
“Oh, I left it beside your door,” the night auditor smiled, just glad to be of service. “I knocked on the door, but no one answered.” If Martinez had been hoping that Mr. Paulson would stay in the room to take a shower and clean his laundry, he was disappointed to hear that the room was empty. Finishing the last few stairs, he spotted the new package leaning against the wall beside his door. About three feet long and made of Styrofoam, it was the sort of box that one might ship frozen foods in, being well-taped and labeled perishable. The return address was a seafood company in Alaska. Martinez took a deep breath of fresh air and opened the hotel door.
Dragging the Styrofoam shipping box into the hotel room, fuming slightly, he was impressed to find that Mr. Paulson had not only allowed the cleaning crew to tidy up the room, but that the bathroom door was closed, and he could faintly hear music playing from inside. The mirrors in the room were slightly steamed over, and the place smelled of soap and cheap complimentary shampoo. Hanging in the little dressing room that adjoined the bathroom, Mr. Paulson’s suit was sheathed in plastic, freshly returned from the dry cleaners. How on earth the strange man had managed such a feat was beyond Martinez, but he wasn’t about to go asking questions. If Mr. Paulson sat in the dry cleaners in his dirty boxer shorts waiting for his suit to be finished, that was just fine by the chief. Standing just inside the door, a little stunned, Martinez couldn’t help an awkward chuckle of his own. The bathroom door opened, spilling what sounded like Barbara Streisand out into the room, followed by a clean if not ruddy, and rosy-skinned Mr. Paulson with a little white hotel towel wrapped around his waist. Singing along to Streisand, he failed to notice Martinez at first, and the chief caught a glimpse of Mr. Paulson’s most remarkable identifying feature, a huge “212˚” tattooed over his pot belly in the classic old English script of inner-city gangs. Working with gang task forces for years, he was familiar with the territorial application of area codes as identifiers, but Mr. Paulson had a temperature listed above his rounded belly. While Martinez struggled to understand the significance, Mr. Paulson noticed him in the mirror and stopped his singing. “Oh, uh, sorry.” He mumbled, becoming slightly bashful.
“Noooo!” Martinez backed towards the door, slightly overjoyed. “No, I didn’t realize you’d be… Uh, I’ll just let you have the room to yourself.” Realizing that he was still dragging the Styrofoam packing crate with him, Martinez leaned it up against the wall. “Uh, package arrived for you.” He realized that he was standing in the doorway, letting all the cool air out. “I’ll just…” he wondered what he would do. “Yeah, I’ll go ahead and head down to the bar for a few minutes, let you get yourself all dressed.”
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Mr. Paulson was entirely ignoring him, however. Smiling softly at the package, he chuckled again, this time, a little more impishly.
Martinez joined O’Connor in the lounge. For lack of any legitimate leads, happy hour did seem like a good idea. As the case continued to dead end repeatedly, he felt his chances at a positive review slipping, and he was sad to admit that finding Mr. Paulson cleaning himself up had somehow become the highlight of what would undoubtedly be his last investigation. Heavy-hearted, he ordered an imported Mexican beer and a shot of chilled tequila and nestled in beside O’Connor and his frilly fruit salad cocktail. “Why’s it blue?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s the color of a urinal cake.”
O’Connor nodded and shrugged. “It might just be made of urinal cake, I don’t particularly care at this point.”
“Still no calls from Mary?”
O’Connor slowly shook his head. “Radio silence, boss. At this point, I feel like we can rule out the possibility that she just dropped it in the pool.”
Martinez nodded solemnly. “When Katherine and I—”
O'Connor raised his hand to stop him right there. “I'm not about to take relationship advice from a divorcee in some roadside dive bar.” He took a sip of the layered blue cocktail, careful not to swizzle the straw around too much. “This shit is already far too country western song for my tastes.”
The chief nodded. He raised his shot glass. “To not having a dog in the first place.”
O'Connor hung his head. “I have a down payment on a litter from a Malinois breeder in Tucson.” He shook his head slowly.
Martinez decided it was probably better not to talk for a while. He downed his shot and settled in beside the sergeant to watch the redhead wipe down the bottles behind the bar.
Mr. Paulson joined them before the silence got too awkward. He announced his arrival with a perfunctory chuckle and set his briefcase on the floor beside him. He had the video game controller assemblage tucked into his armpit, keeping it obscured while he took the stool on O'Connor's other side.
“Would you feel better if you knew where she was?” He asked, seemingly slightly annoyed.
Both Martinez and O'Connor were intrigued. For a mid-level cubicle dweller, he had remarkable access to information.
“Can you check on her?” O'Connor asked. At this point, he would settle for a postcard. Having a great time, wish you were here.
Paulson slid his project aside and hefted his briefcase up on the bar. Angling it away slightly to hide the screen it powered up with the same strange sounds. Mr. Paulson clattered away at keys for a while. He snatched the Sergeant's phone off the bar and set it on a small, rubberized mat like a miniature helipad cabled into one corner of the keyboard. He chuckled at something, and read a few things. He let slip a single cluck of approval as he slapped the laptop and closed the briefcase. “You have nothing to worry about. She's in Palm Springs with no signal and an unsent text message pending, presumably telling you where she's at.” He replaced the briefcase on the floor at his side and returned to tinkering with his toy.
“You found her? Can you send her a message?”
Mr. Paulson scowled at the sergeant. “You have forty-two unreceived text messages and nineteen voicemails. Let's not make this any creepier than it already is, Sergeant.”