The Woodstone
...
I nodded, "If I have any questions, will you guys be willing to help me out?" I looked at them with a questioning look.
"Sure." They both said. "We'll be happy to answer anything we can."
"And the main office's labor relations officer will be here next week for you."
"I've always believed in keeping as much as we can in house." I said to Mr. Martin. And scored my first point toward disarmament with the union.
Later in the office I got a stern lecture from Mr. Martin about how the union had been nothing but trouble and it was the home office's position that the hotel would be better without it.
"That's all well and fine. But walking into a new job and not even knowing the front desk's phone number, I don't need a strike or something right off the bat. I'm going to see next week if they will give me a month or so extension and try to work through this." I explained.
Finally he nodded. "That's reasonable. I've been listening to them cry for three months with them knowing I was just here temporarily. It hasn't been pleasant."
I wanted to change the subject. "Why didn't you take this post permanently?"
He seemed shocked by the question. But then he took a deep breath. "When I first came up here. I thought about it. I mean it's a gravy job all things considered. The place is booked solid for like eight weeks every year, three years ahead. Even a slow weeknight sees us at nearly fifty percent. The meeting rooms are reserved so much we have trouble finding a free room for our own functions. We even have the pool booked once a month. This place is a hit. It almost runs itself for the most part. A large part of the employees have been here forever, we have several second, and a couple of third generation employees." He gestured out the office window. "It's a beautiful place, they don't build them like this no more. You know that staircase is real solid Italian marble?"
"But..." I said for him as he coasted to a stop.
"But." He sighed deeply. "There is no way I can work in a building that has places in it that absolutely scare me to death."
I watched him shake his head.
"I didn't even show you the storage rooms in the second basement. Or the patio on the roof. I can't even go up there."
"They can't hurt you." I said.
"I know. But I can't even put the key in the lock. I go down that hallway and my hands start shaking so bad, I can't hold the keys."
"Why?"
He got real silent. "I might as well tell you." Mr. Martin sighed. "I had been here, I don't know, a couple three weeks. I went up there to check out a report of somebody messing around on the patio. I was still in denial about the... the ghosts up there. I went to the tenth floor and went to the doors to the patio. And found the door open. I walked out there expecting to find empty beer cans and cigarette butts." He stopped talking and looked out the window.
"What was out there. Some busboy and a cocktail waitress?" I grinned.
"I wish it had been." He almost smiled. "Well, in for a penny... I walked out there, and ... I don't know how to say it. The first thing I noticed was the furniture was different. I looked around, and the bank building wasn't there. I could see the State Capitol building. I just stood there and blinked. Then I looked back at the building and saw Mr. Woodford walking toward me."
"The second owner of the building." I said recognizing the name from the plaque I had read under a picture in the lobby.
"Yeah. But he's been dead for about sixty years." He licked his lips. "It was him, cigar and all, he walked up to me and asked if the music was loud enough. I looked in the ball room window and saw an orchestra on the stage."
"What did you do then?" I felt like I was conducting an interview of a witness to a paranormal event. Then it hit me. I was.
"I froze. I mean I completely froze. Then Mr. Woodford said something else and everything was back to normal. I mean, back to today. The bank was back, and the furniture was like it is now, but I could still smell cigar smoke."
"Sympathetic temporal displacement. They took you back to the nineteen thirties or whenever through a psychic memory of the hotel. You were still here. Since you could smell the cigar smoke, Mr. Woodford and his friends came forward to see you."
"What did they do with the bank building?"
"You saw Indianapolis as they saw it then, that's all, it was actually still there."
"But every time I go up there, I smell cigar smoke."
"I think that's you're subconscious warning you to stay the hell away from the patio."
"And I listen to it. I haven't been near those doors since. And the other day with you and your wife was the first time I'd been on the tenth floor in a month."
I nodded.
"You don't think I'm crazy. I mean, you studied this stuff. Did that really happen?"
"I have no reason to say it didn't, and from just what I've seen so far. This place is really haunted. If not possessed."
"Possessed." He said slowly. His face was completely expressionless. He sighed, "I need to go for a walk. You want to look through the contract and see if you understand everything."
"Sure."
I didn't know it until three hours later. But Mr. Martin went to the manager's suite, packed his suitcase, dropped a note to forward his mail to St. Louis. And left.
