The Night of the Bedbug (English Only)

The Night Manager at the Kenmore Hotel in Manhattan spent his midnight-to-8 a.m. shifts lost in thought, words, stories. His distraction had never aroused comment from the owners. Guests’ strange behavior and petty complaints were usually easily dealt with. 

One early autumn night a woman descended the stairs to the lobby in a flimsy nightgown, hand outstretched .

The Night Manager, call him NW, looked up from his chaotic manuscript, saw breasts a-sway, a dark thicket below, and a possible break in his job’s monotony.

"Bedbugs!" the woman practically shrieked. "I'm itchin' all over."

"Calm down, lady," NW stage-whispered. "You'll wake everyone in the house."

“Stay cool, ma’am.”

"They're prob'ly already awake and scratchin'. I'm callin' the cops."

"Shhh. C'mere and lemme have a look."

The woman coyly covered her bosom with the hand that didn't hold the offending insect and approached the reception desk.

"Looks more like a crab louse," NW said, upon close inspection.

"How dare you!" The noisy guest lunged for the house phone with both hands, uncovering herself once more. The bug fell to the floor, squirmed and wrothe on its back. "Help!" she shouted into the receiver. "Police! Police!" 

Several lights on the switchboard lit up red. Guests upstairs all set to complain about the commotion. 

NW did his best to seem calm and competent. "Madame, I'm sure we can settle this matter in a reasonable fashion,"

"Oh yeah? How?"

NW put the Back Soon sign on the counter. "Lemme inspect the premises."

“Oh I don’t know if I should let strange men into my room at night.”

Her room seemed in order. The sheets, pillows and mattress were clean of noisome parasites.

"So you're callin' me a liar?"

"Oh no, ma'am. Of course not. Tell you what: we'll comp you for the night."

"You can do better than that, lover boy. I also get breakfast tomorrow, and you give me twenny bucks or I'll tell the owner you tried to molest me."

NW knew the owner well enough to know he'd be terminated and immediately replaced.

"Here ya go," he said, and handed over two tens.

The rest of his shift passed uneventfully.

The owner oft waxed irate, but this was something else again.

The next evening however, before he punched in, NW was summoned to the owner's office. "That buggy kook turned me in anyway,' he thought.

The owner was a big man who, rumor had it, had spent time in the jug for assault and battery. His outsized mitts bore whitish scars across the knuckles. "Heard we had us some trouble last night," he began.

"Uh yeah, this crazy lady said she had bedbugs in her room. I went upstairs to check, but..."

The owner guffawed, phlegmatically. "Kid, you done fell for the oldest hotel trick in the hotel book. That kook, as you so rightly call her, is none other than Bedbug Annie. She pulls that con in every burg where she does her kootchie show. Cross-coutnry cops know all about her."

"Yeah? Well aside from the free room and breakfast, she beat me for $20, cash. Think you could..."

"Forget it. Chalk it up to experience. Oh, and you're fired."

"What?"

"Can't have someone up front who don't even got the most basic grift knowledge. She coulda been settin' you up for some much worser scheme, who knows? And you left the front desk unmanned. Don't let the door spank you on your way out."

But it did, anyway.

Despite this professional Waterloo, NW didn't abandon the professional hospitality racket. In 1933, several years after the incident described above, he became Manager of the Sutton Hotel on New York's fashionable Upper East Side. He did some writing there too, whenever he had a minute. And he had a lot of them. Minutes.

The two novels he published earned him considerable notoriety.

Hollywood called, and NW went. The transfer and career change proved to be both good and bad for his career.

The Bedbug sez: Don’t hotfoot it from Tijuana to Tinseltown!” But who listens to bedbugs? You?