Sandy broke into the room next to his during lunch. Best time really. Most of the housekeeping staff was off for their break. There was one lone cart in the hallway but the woman must have been in the room that was at least ten doors away. Besides, the design of the Breezes Hotel, gave privacy to anyone trying to break in. Each room on the first floor had a semi private porch; second floor had their balconies on an angle as well. This angular shape extended from the sliding glass, inside the rooms, and over to the doors in the hallway. The hallway reminded Sandy of those carefully cut pieces of wood that could hold windows up in old houses. The boards were cut like narrow stairways with notches out of them. The effect at Breezes was perfect. As soon as you went up to a door, you were out of sight of anyone coming down the hall.
One employee was in the hallway but he was walking away. Sandy had come out of his room silently and looked around. He listened then went over to the neighbour’s door. He pulled out a piece of cracked plastic. It was the same size as a credit card and more importantly it had the same thickness and pliability. The Canadian Blood Service had started to send him replacement donor cards every month. They were perfect for opening doors with the cheap locks that the Super Clubs resort had at Runaway Bay, Jamaica. Sandy knew it would get him through the door within ten seconds. The card was cracked because he had used it on his own door the first day of holidays.
Sandy was sure of two things. He was pleasantly surprised by two other events. These four occurred during the next ten seconds.
ONE: He gently forced the card between the door and the wooden doorframe. As usual, the frame was made of good wood but too thin to resist the effect of a ‘Wonderbar’, a small crowbar that Sandy did not have with him on this trip. He didn’t need it. Back home, he had a couple, including a dramatic black one. The Ottawa Citizen’s reporter, Ian McLoud, had pretended to be impressed with the camouflaged tool when he did a story on Sandy. Although not named, Sandy had been the character on which McLoud had based a crime series. Privately, Sandy felt the use of the small, concealable crowbar was too showy. Besides, if you had to resort to damaging the doorframe, you just were not professional.
The latch had a bar that locked the door mechanism. It was like a tree trunk that slid along the back of the larger, tree trunk door latch. At Breezes, the doorframe did not allow the lock to work, as it should. The doorframe should have prevented the bar from sliding all the way into the doorframe. It did not. The hollowed out area, where the door closed into the frame was too big. The bolt of the door nestled in the hole and it effectively kept the door closed. That was one of its two purposes.
However, the smaller piece of metal, that was supposed to keep the larger bolt from moving, also slid into the hole in the doorframe. Anyone with a credit card AND the knowledge to slide it between the door and the frame, could jiggle the door and open it. Sandy broke into the room of the rich couple from West Palm Beach. He knew he could.
TWO: Sandy had one of his two pleasant surprises. The operation, which would never be known to the hotel staff, did not take ten seconds. It took only five.
THREE: The room was empty. This was the second of the two things that Sandy knew for sure. This conclusion was based on the fourth and final event; the other pleasant surprise.
FOUR: The two American couples that had adjoining rooms, were heading to Florida that afternoon. They had left their keys among other forgotten items in the room. They had asked an employee to help them and he was walking away to try to get a master key. The pleasant surprise for Sandy was the conversation he was having with the four. Having heard their pleas to the hotel staff, Sandy wordlessly walked up to his neighbour’s room, and pulled out the mangled Canadian Blood Service Card.
"Is that a master key?" asked the helmeted one. Her hair was perfect. Probably half a can of spray daily, he thought. Judy was accustomed to using a card to open hotel doors. Slide it down the right way and the light turned green and the door unlocked.
Sandy though about the meaning of the term master key and agreed. "Yes, in a sense".
"Retired". Also in jest. Sandy never did this for a living. Plus, you never fully retired from your practising your abilities. Bill came out with a bottle of French Champagne and Donna said that Sandy and Becky should have it. In all of the excitement, Sandy hadn’t realized that Becky had come out of the room and had joined them in the hallway.
"To what do we owe the honour?" Becky asked questions like bad lawyers in courtrooms. She asked when she didn’t know the answers. No one knew what to say.
"I broke into their room".
"Well, I’ll have to get some ice for the Champagne then!"
As the conversation generated into goodbyes and the exchanging of e-mails, the hotel employee returned. He didn’t have a key but he did have an apology.
Another awkward silence.
"We found the key," Sandy said. It had been found of course. Inside the locked room.
Originally Posted : 170204
