“To get us a couple of cans of bug spray,” she said, and set foot for the entrance to the hotel. “I’ve just had a great idea.”
“Uh-oh,” said Scarlett. “I mean,” she quickly amended when Vesta shot her a dirty look, “that’s great news!”
CHAPTER 15
Garland McNerlin didn’t know where he had to pay attention first. Guests were complaining, his staff needed him, and those horrible flies were everywhere! Pooping on the walls, pooping on the dining room tables, pooping on the gleaming surfaces in the kitchen—not so gleaming now after hordes of those bugs had passed through. All in all, it was as if he was living through his own personal disaster movie, and he didn’t have The Rock to save him! If the Star survived this ordeal, he’d send a prayer to Saint Julian, patron saint of hotel keepers!
“They’re everywhere, sir!” said Christel, his receptionist, a young woman who hadn’t been in the job for more than six months but was still doing an admirable job under difficult circumstances. First a murder, now this. When would this horrible day end?
“We have to do something,” he said as he watched the buzzing of the insects with a panicky eye. His guests were either calling the front desk or complaining to him in person, and he couldn’t be seen doing nothing!
“But who do we call?” asked Christel.
“The exterminator, who else?” But then he remembered that those bug people had dropped by the hotel a couple of days ago and he had signed a contract for a substantial quantity of their bug spray. The problem was that it hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe they had brought a couple of cans with them for their demonstration today? He remembered the police had put them up in one of the rooms after the murder of that prince, and they had even put their giant fly in there for the time being. So maybe they had also stored their product in the room? He certainly hoped so!
And so he hurried off in the direction of the elevator, hoping to find that little stash and empty a couple of cans of the stuff into the lobby to get rid of the pesky pest.
The elevator took forever to arrive, so he decided to take the stairs. Halfway to the third floor he regretted this rash decision, as his heart was pumping like mad and his legs were trembling from the exertion. He still arrived there in one piece and made a beeline for the room where the police had put the bug people before they had been carted off in the paddy wagon. He held his key card against the sensor and the door clicked open. Much to his surprise, he found himself face to face with two elderly ladies he recognized as regular clients of the hotel. Reading from left to right, they were Vesta Muffin and Scarlett Canyon!
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“We could ask you the same thing,” said Vesta in that belligerent fashion that was a hallmark of the lady’s irascible personality.
“I’m the manager,” he reminded her, puffing out his chest a little.
“And I’m a guest of the bug people,” said Vesta.
He piped down immediately. “You wouldn’t happen to know if they brought along some samples of their bug spray, would you? We’ve got a fly emergency on our hands.”
“I know all about that. Those flies are everywhere. And you should be ashamed of yourself, Garland,” she added as she poked his chest with one of those bony fingers of hers.
“It’s not my fault!” he cried, the injustice of this remark stinging him like an adder.
“It’s your hotel, so you must have done something to attract those flies,” she said, and there was a certain logic in what she was saying, he couldn’t deny.
“Look, where is that bug spray?” he asked, feeling that it wasn’t in his best interest, or that of the hotel, to waste a lot of time standing there and arguing.
“They’ve been arrested, you know.”
“Who’s been arrested?”
“Why, the bug spray couple, of course.”
“Do you know if they left their samples behind or not?”
“It doesn’t work, you know.”
“Doesn’t work? What do you mean?”
“My son-in-law tried it on some bugs that have been using our backyard as their personal restaurant, and instead of getting rid of them, more are arriving. Our backyard is full of them.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “It’s bug spray. It kills bugs. It says so on the label.” And since he refused to listen to this annoying old woman even one second longer, he started looking for the cans of bug spray surely these salespeople must have brought along with them. He finally found a suitcase full of them and smiled. “Found them!” he cried.
“Give me a couple of those,” said Vesta.
“Why? I thought you said they didn’t work?”
“Oh, but they do work, only not as advertised.”
He reluctantly handed over a couple of the cans, and then took the entire suitcase along with him. He’d pay the couple later. If they really had been arrested, they probably wouldn’t mind if he used their stash to rid the hotel of a clear and present danger.
He dragged the suitcase out of the room and then down the elevator this time, to arrive in the lobby. He then proceeded to hand the members of his staff who were on hand to try and get rid of those flies several cans of the stuff, and instructed them to apply them liberally.
“But sir,” said the head of his housekeeping department. “Isn’t this bad for our guests?”
“Absolutely not,” he said, remembering the sales pitch Carlos Perks had given him. “It’s only lethal for the bugs, but perfectly safe for humans and pets both. So spray these to your heart’s content, and let’s get rid of those damn flies!”
And to set the right example, he directed a nice cloud of bug repellent at a flock of flies that had chosen the reception desk as their landing strip. They immediately dispersed, and his heart made a little jump for joy in his chest. Victory!
The moment he had distributed all the cans among his staff, he hurried to his office, hoping to put in a phone call to the exterminator. Mostly the guy assisted them when they had mice or rats in the kitchen, or cockroaches or lice or bedbugs in the rooms, but this time he’d have to handle a more mundane pest: a fly invasion!
The moment he swung wide the door of his office, a swarm of the creatures attacked him, and he reeled back in horror. The beasts were everywhere: on his face, in his hair, even in his nostrils, his ears, his mouth! He fell to the floor, and tried to get them off him—to no avail!
“Aaaaah!” he cried in dismay. “Aaaaaaaah!”
And as he lay there, a victim of this attack, he was vaguely aware of four cats traipsing all over him and then taking off. They were the cats he had captured and locked up in his office. More pests! But at least they weren’t as obnoxious or pestilential as those flies.
