Unauthorized Vacation: Damn Salesmen!

Hardly anybody at the Holiday Inn (airport-Charlotte, NC) paid any attention to him when he pulled in.  There were the usual Hispanic groundskeepers that stare at every car as if they might be undercover immigration officers but those guys are so ubiquitous that nobody pays attention to them.  He glanced around the front lot and definitely didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary; just the usual mix of mid-level business travelers and rental cars.  Some employees were coming and going on their menial errands but that is expected at a hotel that serves as a center for business meetings, luncheons, and the bustle of travelers to and from the airport.  There were no empty parking spots available in the front lot but he wouldn’t have chosen one there anyway.  He circled the hotel looking for anything out of the ordinary and, not finding anything, he chose a spot close to the lounge entrance of the hotel.

            He knew the layout of the hotel even though he had not been a registered guest in over fifteen years.  Some remodeling had occurred but the basic format had remained the same.  Due to his budget, he had spent the night at a motel further down the strip but the Holiday Inn, being neither a luxury nor a roach trap, provided the anonymity that he needed on that particular day.  His outward appearance was as usual which made him stand out at the motel that he could afford.  Casually dressed in a long-sleeved button down shirt, new pair of Levi’s jeans, and a comfortable pair of Hush Puppies, he was either suspected of being a police officer by the nefarious guests where he had been staying or, due to his clean-cut appearance, as an innocent traveler that would make a great target for a robbery.  Neither of these perceived roles suited his needs for the matter at hand. 

            Driving the white, four door Honda Accord completed the image of the casual traveler. He wasn’t going to register as a guest at the Holiday Inn however, he only stopped there on his way to Charleston, SC to make a last phone call to the mother of his children; another one to the journalist; and, possibly, a call to the Puerto Rican Department of Justice.  He certainly didn’t have time to be bothered by anybody else; he expected to go through the usual formalities with the front desk over using the house phone for the calls but felt that they would either imagine that he was a guest or a visitor of one of the guests and relinquish the phone to him without question.  He could have used one of the two cell phones that he had in his possession but was suspicious that the one actually belonging to him was being traced and he knew that the one stolen from the police officer when he escaped WAS being traced.  With his recently acquired ATT pre-paid phone card, he was just going in to make his anonymous calls with an anonymous card in an anonymous hotel located in an anonymous city.

           

Entering the hotel, he looked to his left to notice that the lounge wasn’t open yet but was being set up.  Good, I’ll have a drink when I finish these calls.  To his right were two college aged men dressed in clothing directly from the Prep School catalog and holding what appeared to be brochures in each one’s hand.  Except for the different colors of their Izod shirts, they were identical in appearance; more anonymity in the background of hotel life that lends itself to all sorts of characters that really don’t get paid much attention by anybody else.  He noticed them though and immediately ascertained that they were a distraction to be avoided, Goddamned magazine salesmen…probably gonna try to stop me and sell me a subscription to fucking ‘Boys Life’ or something to ‘help’ pay for their fucking cause whatever it is.

            He assumed the posture of a busy person that didn’t want to be bothered with peripheries.  Walking past them into the lobby area, one of the Prep School twins greeted him with “Good Afternoon”.  He grudgingly responded with a nod of his head.  Passing them, he couldn’t be sure if it was Tweedledee or Tweedledum that asked him for a moment of his time.  He responded that he was busy and one of the twins asked him what his name was.  What the fuck do these magazine salesman need to know my name for?  Something about their tone made him turn around.  One of the twins opened the brochure packet and showed him a flyer while the other pulled out a wallet with an encircled star pinned to it.  He rapidly comprehended that these were not ordinary magazine salesmen, especially as the flyer had his picture on it and was entitled “Wanted by the U.S. Marshal Service…James ‘Buddy’ Spratt…Fugitive From Justice”. 

            “Do you know this man?” one of the twins asked while the other was still holding the badge up halfheartedly as if to avoid attention from the other guests.  “Well, that would probably be me.” Spratt said.  The twin with the badge stated, “We are U.S. Marshals, could you please turn around and put your hands behind your back?”  The other twin pulled out something that looked like a badge in an almost forgotten attempt to prove that he too was a law enforcement officer.  Spratt turned around and allowed one of the twins to frisk him.  That twin removed everything from Spratt’s pockets and politely asked a hotel employee for a plastic bag to put his belongings in while the other finally found a pair of handcuffs and gently placed them on Spratt’s wrist.  One twin asked him to sit down on a nearby bench while the other made a discreet phone call.  The shorter twin sat down beside Spratt while the other just stood after the phone call.  There was no conversation between any of them.  Spratt sat there with his mind racing, trying to calculate the events that might immediately be forthcoming.  The twins seemed a bit nervous as if they were a little unsure of themselves.  Then, the fucking world exploded.

           

The quiet background noise of the hotel lobby was shattered with the ear piercing screams and wails of five police cars; federal and local; marked and unmarked, immediately followed by the door crashing entrance of eight adrenaline filled, husky men mixed with a couple of guns pointed at a casually dressed anonymous man that was already handcuffed, and in the custody of, one of the Prep School twins.  All of that testosterone and adrenaline with no venting point resulted in confusion of what to do next.  These hardened cops weren’t going to just stand there so it was decided that each one of them would go up to Spratt and introduce himself in the most vulgar way possible while letting him know that each had personally lost sleep looking for his ass and that he was now on his way to a lifetime in prison, if they had anything to do with it.  “Get this piece of shit out to my car,” screamed one of the Marshals who appeared to be in charge of the ‘operation’.

            Once in the police car and mostly away from the prying eyes of the hotel patrons and employees, the verbiage worsened.  There were eternal moments of quietness interrupted by shattering screams of several officers at once with all of them demanding answers to their separate questions at the same time until the Chief Dickhead in Charge calmed everybody down and informed them that he would be the official screamer of questions.  “You know how long we’ve been looking for you motherfucker!?!  I don’t give a shit!! Where is the gun at? What fucking gun!?!  Where is the girl at!?!  What fucking girl!?!  Where is the cop’s cell phone!?!  In your hand you stupid fuck!!  Where is his badge at!?!  Why did you beat up those two cops!?!  What the fuck are you talking about!?!  Dickhead slams the door and many moments of relative quiet passed while every one of the officers were on a cell phone walking around the parking lot like an army of robots with no pre-programmed destination.  Some were talking to their superiors…others to their wives…yet others to journalist giving ‘exclusive but confidential’ information regarding the arrest. 

            Suddenly the door opens and Spratt is assaulted by Dickhead’s screams once more, “How many felonies do you want me to charge you with motherfucker!?!  If it was up to me…none!  “Stolen car, stolen credit cards, escape, and assault on police officers…I could put you away forever!!”  Whatever, motherfucker!  The door slammed and dickhead leaves once more.  Dickhead and his partner, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Detective assigned to the Joint Fugitive Task Force, come back to the car and sit in the front seat.  Dickhead asks, “How the hell did a skinny fuck like you beat up two cops, steal their money and ID, and escape?”  “Didn’t happen that way!” Spratt proclaimed but Dickhead is accustomed to every prisoner crying innocence and changed the subject to the moment of arrest.

            “Those dumbfuck rookies got lucky as hell today…you did too Spratt.  If I had been the one to find you, I would have put a bullet in your ass.  Lucky motherfuckers…just standing in a goddamned hotel lobby when Spratt walks up to them and practically says, ‘Excuse me officer, could you please arrest me?”  “Don’t worry though, we got you and now your ass is mine!  I’m not going to charge you with the stolen car or the credit cards but I’m sending your ASS to Puerto Rico and you’re gonna have to deal with them about why you beat up two of their cops!”  Spratt was driven to the local jail and booked in as a fugitive from another jurisdiction to await extradition proceedings back to the State of Idaho.