No one came to the door
after several knocks.
I had spoken to the
guest an hour before and announced my arrival time. Taking for granted that
doctors are never early, some guests wander off, but I wasn’t early. This was
serious. Unlike the case when a travel insurer sends me, when guests call and
vanish, I don’t get paid.
Some guest sleep
soundly. I phoned the room; no one answered. I called the concierge to ask her
help; before I could interrupt she cheerfully offered to phone the room and
hung up. She came back on the line a minute later to announce that, sadly, the
guest hadn’t answered, but she would be happy to take a message.
Sticking my business
card in the door frame, I returned to the lobby and wandered about.
Occasionally, for mysterious reasons, guests decide they must meet me
downstairs. I look like a doctor in an old movie with a white beard, suit, and
doctor’s bag, but no one took the bait.
I struck gold in the
hotel restaurant where a man leapt up from a crowded table and hurried over. He
began reciting his symptoms until I suggested we wait for some privacy.
When asked why he wasn’t
in his room, he answered that he was hungry but that he had “told the hotel”
where I could find him. He pointed to a desk clerk who was busy checking in a
family.