I shook my head. “We look ridiculous and the clerk can’t sleep forever. Besides, there’s probably a back door for maintenance to use so they’re not carting a bunch of dirty parts through the hotel.”
“I don’t want to sit around here half the night, either,” Ida Belle said. “The longer we’re here, the more likely we’ll run into trouble. The last thing we want to do is get accused of fiddling with the audit, and that’s exactly what people will think if someone sees us here.”
“Okay,” I said, “then here’s what we do. Ida Belle, since you’ve got better night vision, you go out to the parking lot and pull the car up to the front door. I’ll throw open the door and use that spotlight on the table to light up the room. Gertie will take a picture and then we’ll get the hell out of here.”
“What if he chases us?” Gertie asked.
“Naked?” I asked.
“Good point.” Gertie handed Ida Belle the car keys and she hurried off.
I grabbed the spotlight and Gertie got her phone ready to snap a picture. I gave Ida Belle a minute to get in position, then grabbed the door knob with my left hand and the spotlight with my right.
“On three,” I whispered. “One, two, three!”
I flung open the door and shone the spotlight at the ceiling, lighting up the entire room.
Winky and his friend were on a workbench in the middle of the room, but the only parts they were working on were each other’s. They both bolted up from the bench, and Gertie held her finger on the camera button and took about a hundred pictures in a second.
“What the hell!” Winky yelled, signaling our moment to retreat.
I spun around and ran out of the room, Gertie close behind. I could still hear Winky yelling behind us, and then behind the yelling, running.
I burst out of the maintenance room, knocking over the screens, and sprinted over the top of them. I was halfway across the lobby when I turned around and saw Gertie run through the doorway, habit over her eyes, then trip on the screens and slide ten feet across the lobby floor. Winky, who’d been right behind, followed suit and fell on top of her.
I heard a gasp and looked over to see that the missing desk clerk had chosen that moment to return to his job. I ran back to Gertie and grabbed her shoulder, trying to pull her out from under the sagging mass of maintenance man who had her pinned to the ground.
“You’re going to give me that phone, you bitch,” Winky yelled, his hands clutching Gertie’s collar.
I dropped Gertie’s shoulder and started pulling on Winky’s hands, trying to pry them off her robe, then I heard an electrical charge. Winky screamed and fell backward off Gertie, clutching his right butt cheek. I yanked Gertie up from the ground and we ran past the startled clerk and out the door.
Ida Belle stomped on the gas before we even got the car doors shut. The car lurched forward, tires squealing as we sped out of the parking lot.
“He was chasing you butt naked,” Ida Belle said, somewhat incredulous. “I’ve seen it all.”
“We’ve all seen it all,” I said. “That desk clerk is probably going to need counseling. A naked Winky on top of a nun is not for the faint of heart.”
Ida Belle grinned. “Yeah, without having all the facts, that probably looked way worse than it was. What made him jump off? I was afraid Gertie pulled a gun out of that Bible of hers and shot him, but I didn’t hear anything but the shouting.”
“I Tased him,” Gertie said and held up the Taser for Ida Belle to see. “The Bible was underneath me and I could barely get the Taser out and reach around, but just managed. I have no idea where I hit him, but it worked.”
“Right in the butt cheek,” I said. “If you’d been over just a bit more, Winky might have developed more than an eye twitch.”
“Did you get a picture, I hope?” Ida Belle said.
“Oh yes,” Gertie said and lifted the phone. “I held the button down and got a bunch.”
“Oh, goodie,” Ida Belle said. “Now you have a hundred naked Winkys on your phone to cull through.”
Gertie grimaced and accessed the photos. “Oh no.”
“Please tell me you didn’t take a hundred pictures of the ceiling or the floor,” I said.
“No,” Gertie said. “It’s definitely Winky and his pinky. It’s the woman that’s a problem.”
“You know her?” Ida Belle asked.
“Uh-huh. It’s Shirleen’s sister.”
“Oops,” I said.
Ida Belle shook her head. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around one woman wanting that man, much less two, but whatever. We did what she wanted and she has her answer. I’m sure it’s not the one she wants, but our job here is done. Now we just have to hope that clerk doesn’t call the police.”
“Unfortunately,” I said, “I think that’s probably a given. If anyone looks at the security footage and sees the clerk standing right there in front of the fray, the first question will be why didn’t you call the police. Liability and all.”