"He actually touched my hand when I handed him the key," Brittany was saying, her voice full of worshipful awe. "He touched it. Oh my Gawd! I can still feel it tingling."
"I am soooo jealous," Meghan said. "Did he like, just touch it, or did he, like give you a little rub."
"He rubbed," Brittany said dreamily. "He like totally slid his thumb over the back of my hand. And, you know, he like had this look in his eye while he did it too. Oh Gawd. I think I need to go change my..." She stopped as she saw Ronald standing next to her, listening in on the conversation. She blushed a little, embarrassed. "Oh... hi, Ron," she said. "What's up?"
"Uh... nothing," Ronald said. "What were you two just talking about?"
Brittany was too embarrassed to answer. Meghan, however, was not. "Jake Kingsley just checked in a few minutes ago," she said. "Why didn't you tell us he was going to be here?"
"Jake Kingsley?" Ronald said. "The singer?"
"What other Jake Kingsley would we be talking about?" Meghan asked snootily. "What's he doing here anyway? Intemperance isn't in town."
"Are you sure it was Jake Kingsley?" Ronald asked. "I wasn't told anything about a VIP visit. Maybe it was just someone who looked like him?"
"It was him," Brittany said. "I have every album Intemperance has ever made. I've stared at that face on those album covers a thousand times. Besides, he paid with a credit card. It had his name on it."
"Why didn't we know about this advance?" Ronald asked. "Was the reservation in his name?"
"His name didn't come up until I ran the reservation number," Brittany said. "So you really didn't know he was gonna be here?"
"No, I don't think anyone did. When we know that a VIP is going to be here we generally clear out the adjoining rooms, especially when it's a rock singer. Was he with anyone?"
"He had some slutty looking girl with big boobs with him," Brittany said. "Her name was..." She quickly checked her registration log. "She was someone named Helen Brody. They checked into two different suites up on the top, 1012 and 1014."
"She looked like a total slut," Meghan added. "And she's not even all that hot. I'm totally hotter than she is."
"Totally," Brittany agreed. "Both of us are. I wonder why they're in different rooms?"
"Why would they even be here?" Meghan asked. "Maybe they're gonna make a new video or something?"
"Yeah... totally!" Brittany said. "That has to be it! Why else would he be in Omaha?"
Ronald took a quick glance at the paperwork and the computer registration system. Within a minute he was able to satisfy himself that Jake Kingsley was, in fact, staying in the hotel and that he had paid for two suites with his credit card. The more he listened to Meghan and Brittany speculate about the possibility of Kingsley being here to shoot a music video, the more sense it seemed to make. After all, as Brittany had pointed out, what other business could he possibly have in Omaha?
"What's the name of that chick that does the Intemperance videos?" Megan asked. "Wasn't it Helen Brody?"
"No way, chick," Brittany said. "It's Erica Wilde. I saw her at the MTV awards. She's some fat slut with big-ass glasses. She's also doing the Earthstone and the Nevermind videos."
"Well then who is she?" Meghan asked. "We totally should have asked him when they checked in."
"Totally," Brittany agreed.
Ronald left them to their conversation and continued to his office. He closed the door behind him and sat down at his desk. He flipped through his rolodex and located the home phone number for a man named Jim Stinson. Stinson was the head of the entertainment department at the Omaha Register. As one of the managers of the most prestigious hotel in Omaha it was consequential that Ronald had contacts — albeit weak ones — with several local reporters and media types. After all, when someone famous did visit Omaha — something that happened from time to time — they inevitably stayed at this hotel. Entertainment reporters loved to dig up dirt on celebrities wherever it could be found and employees of the hotels they stayed in were a particularly rich source. This would not be the first time that Ronald had contacted Stinson on an Intemperance related subject. When the band had passed through on their last tour Ronald had provided him with a detailed list of how many girls had gone up to the rooms with the band after the show, exactly what had been ordered from room service, and exactly what the maids had cleaned up from the room the next morning (including an exact count of the empty condom wrappers recovered). This information had been printed in the Register two days later citing "an anonymous hotel employee" as the source.
Ronald dialed the number and Stinson answered on the third ring. They passed a few pleasantries and then Ronald got down to the business at hand.
"Do you know anything about Jake Kingsley being in town?" he asked.
"Jake Kingsley?" Stinson said. "No. I haven't heard a thing. Why do you ask?"
"Because he's staying here in the hotel tonight. He checked in just a few minutes ago with some woman named Helen Brody."
"Are you sure it's Kingsley?" Stinson said. "I haven't heard so much as a whisper about this."
"My two night clerks positively identified him and we have his credit card number and signature on the register. Also the two of them are in two different suites."
"Interesting," Stinson said. "And you have no idea what they are doing there?"
"My two clerks seem to think that he's here to shoot a music video."
"Where did they get that information?"
"I don't know," Ronald said. "Maybe Kingsley told them that."
"I've heard absolutely nothing about Intemperance shooting a video in Nebraska or anywhere else. They've already done all the videos they're going to do from their last album and they haven't even started recording their next album yet."
"I'm just telling you what I heard," Ronald said a little defensively.
"I know," Simpson soothed. "It's obvious there's something going on here. I'll start looking into this. You start looking into things from your end. Find out anything you can. Get a description of this Brody chick from your clerks. Get me a report on what they order from room service. Let me know about any phone calls they make or any visitors they have. Call me back if anything interesting pops up."
"Will do," Ronald said, knowing that if anything panned out from this information Stinson would lay some legal tender on him, maybe as much as a hundred dollars.
Jake's suspicions that Helen had not quite given up her aspirations of instigating a relationship with him were all but confirmed when he let her in the door to his suite an hour after they'd checked in. She had changed into a flowered summer dress that clung to her body, accenting her curves and her femininity in just the right way. The material of the dress was very light and very thin, the hem falling to just above her knees. The way her large breasts jiggled as she walked into the room told him that she wore no bra beneath it. Her hair was still damp from the shower she'd taken and the smell of freshly bathed female came drifting in with her.
"Thank you for inviting me, Jake," she said casually, as if her appearance hadn't been custom designed to give him an erection.
Jake smiled, fighting the urge to lick his lips. "No problem at all," he said. He waved to the couch in the sitting room. "Won't you sit down?"
"Thank you," she said, going over and taking a seat. As she sat, the hem of her dress rode up quite high on her thighs. She didn't bother pulling it back down.