The Omni had twelve floors, and I was on eight. Improvise, improvise, improvise. I hit the stairs at a gallop and didn't even hesitate to go up. I got up to ten before the voice in my head telling me I was a pussy took over. Improvise, improvise. Then it hit me...like a ton of bricks. If I got to 918's balcony, I could just drop a floor and try to brain her with something. But what? I'm in a hotel for Christ's sake.
Then I saw the housekeeping cart. Without thinking, and trying like hell to ignore the pain in my back, I pulled three of the wheels off the cart and wrapped them in a towel. Then I tied this up to anoher one pulled into a cord, and the second to a third pulled the same way. A whole second set of questions hit me then. How do i know 918's occupied? What about it they just don't let me in? And I can't jump from balcony to balcony across the floor, 'cause I can tell by how far the doors are away from each other in the hallway. I guess I could go up to 1018, and then 1118, but I better knock on this one before I lose my nerve. I twisted the handle of 918, and when it wouldn't budge, I knocked three times, increasingly louder. No answer. Fuck.
This lyric kept bustin' through my head too, something like "We've got to move these...refrigerators...we got to move these color TV's..." Move fridges? Sony's? What the hell? The click happened just then, on a cart, ya move 'em on a cart. Uh-huh, "...custom kitchen deliveries.." I got to it immediately, just like when you run across some crazy notion that you know will work. Besides, I saw it in a movie, the one with Pacino and De Niro playing cop and bad guy. Long-ass flick, too. "Heat". I grabbed the cart and tried pushing it. The screech and the scarring I just pulled on the Omni's pretty hardwood floors was enough of an answer. Wrong move, dipshit. Minus three wheels. I ran down to seven and looked for a cart, and couldn't find one. Same for six and five.
Now, when someone tells me about finding God or something like that, I think to this moment. I go up to eight and said out loud at the landing, "Jesus, I hope there's a cart here." I open the door and see my stripper buddy at the other side of the hallway, lighting a cigarette and waiting for the elevator. I took one step with all my force and the overhand windmill of my towel hammer popped her once in the crown of her head, the brunette one. Naw, I didn't kill her, there's no way I was that lucky. But I was quick enough to take the room card-key off the floor and haul ass for 818. God works in fucked-up ways, if you ask me. Sometimes he delivers in ways you can't complain about, and others he's just stays out to lunch. The card for 818 opens the door no problem, except for the one laying on the floor. My old buddy Johnny Kotara, who I jumped with in the 82nd Airborne, who I used to go whoring with down in Juarez, and who always managed to keep up smile on his face, was now minus a face. Not to mention the left half of his torso. I know a world of shit when I see one, and it was time to haul ass. Lots of ass. With as much speed as humanly possible.
818's roomcard falls to the floor and I truck out towards the stairs. Then I realize I got a problem. Naw, strike that. One huge fuckin' Puff-the-Magic-Dragon dilemma. No stripper girl lying by the elevator door. For what felt like the umpteeth time today, I hit the stairs in a dead run. The needle's still screaming for something or another, and that helped inspire me to haul ass, just as much as my multiated buddy in the suite upstairs, or the beautiful brunette that happened to be a witch or monster or somethin'. I run across Sunchase Drive from the hotel to Brie's, and hop behind the wheel of my Blazer.
The cloverleaf's coming up on me, and I can't decide which way's best. Never Eat Shredded Wheat...Never Eat Shredded Wheat...Never Eat Shredded Wheat. Screw it, I'm running South, down to the Mexican border if I gotta. Besides, Dallas has five million people in the area. I'm just another one. Interstate 35 comes up and I jack up the speedomater as the first rays of sunlight come thru. Then I remembered that song earlier was called "Money For Nothing" from Dire Straits. Dire Straits? Try crappin' in my boots for a little while. Right now I think I'd prefer "Walk of Life".