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Gideon Kingsley felt his
hotel's sheet, and for once was not appalled. He had been staying here
a month in Budapest, and had put up with slow room service, massages by
people who literally didn't know their arse from their elbow, and
toiletries that might as well have come from a janitor's closet. The
sheets rifled him the most. They claimed to be 500-thread-count
Egyptian cotton, but anyone of his expertise could feel multiple-ply
fibers that only contributed 250 or 125 true threads. He logged a daily
half hour yelling at the staff to get their act together. The whole
staff was immigrant, from Turkey or someplace, and he finally had some
response when he began threatening to deport them. There's Europe for
you nowadays. But the threats were worth it, for now Gideon was feeling
one of the silkiest sheets of his life. The new toiletries in the bath
were of high caliber, in four big ornate jars that actually looked
hand-made. And that knock on the door must be his massage. It was a new
masseuse, an older woman who applied some wonderful tingling lotion.
The hotel had gotten it right, finally. Gideon smiled, for the first
time in a month, and looked up from the massage table. The whole staff
of the hotel was here, staring at him silently. Gideon struggled to
move, but the masseuse had him pinned, and gagged him with cloth. The
sheets had been stripped from the bed, and were being ripped into
lengths. An old man began chanting, and approached Gideon with a metal
hook, closer and closer to his nostrils. Gideon shouldn't have
threatened to ship these people back to Turkey- although he had a
feeling they weren't Turks. |
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