The Wary Stepson

They drive on the right side of the road in Austria. And by right, I mean left. I thought it was all inversed in Europe.

Riding in a cab to my hotel, I wondered what the border crossings were like between two countries that drove on different sides of the road.There'd have to be a sign, but in what languages? The language of each country involved? Some countries have two languages. Maybe this is why everybody takes a train.

Your mind goes weird places when you're tired.

My vacation package included two nights at the Vienna Marriott which, once inside, looked like every other Marriott on Earth. I checked in and went up to my room, a surprisingly large affair for a non-suite. I dumped my bags on the bed and spent a few minutes getting my computer set up and connected to theinternet . It was harder finding local stores and businesses I wanted than it would have been in the states. I eventually got some addresses, particularly the one for the Ambassador Hotel, and then changed into my tourist teenager costume.

Since I was a teenager already and not far removed from an actual tourist, it wasn't a very long road to transformation. I put on a denim jacket and flipped the collar up like all the jackasses in school wore their collars, and put on a Yankees cap that I couldn't remember getting or ever wearing. I just needed to partially obscure my face, and this was as good as I figured I'd get. I then took most of the clothes from my suitcase so it'd be lighter, zipped it up, and took it out of the room and out of the hotel.

Outside, waiting for a taxi, I spotted what looked like a drug store across the street that was still open. I crossed the street and went in, struggled to get over how everything was slightly different than it should be, and eventually found the reading glasses. I tried a few pairs on, checking myself out in a small mirror affixed to the top of the shelf through obscured vision. I bought the only pair that didn't look like grandpa glasses, and a bottle of Coke, then grabbed a cab over to the Ambassador Hotel.

If I got the timing right, I'd get there about 20 minutes before Nathan Comstock would. I couldn't be sure how long it would take him to go through customs or to leave the airport, but I figured the variable only spanned about 40 minutes either way. He most likely had more than 25 certified checks on him, knowing that if they were in his baggage and were found by customs he'd be in a bit of trouble. He'd be nervous and a bit jumpy, probably wanting to get out of the airport as soon as possible, not stopping at the Duty Free to get some low-price Vodka or waxy chocolates. Amy had wanted chocolates, where was I going to find good ones? Was she even serious? Seems like if I'm in Austria I should come back with something, though I shouldn't get a giant "I was in Austria" poster in case I decide not to tell my mother about all this. Last time I talked to my mom on the phone, she said she'd probably be home on Saturday. That gave me tonight, Thursday, and Friday to sort all this out and have everything back to normal or else deal with the notion that I'm not actually dreaming all this and this is actually my life.

When I was dropped off at the hotel, I slipped on my new glasses, made sure my collar was correct (and by correct I mean wrong), and got out of the car playing the part. I looked all around through the near-midnight darkness at the darkened shadows of buildings in a stupid bewilderment. After I got over my pretend awe, I rolled my suitcase into the hotel lobby and thought to myself how much nicer this seemed than the Marriott. The floors were black marble and gold-appointed columns supported 30 foot ceiling. There was a regal-looking bar at one end, a few sauced-up patrons enjoying their imbibements. I was quick-checking my sight lines, making sure Comstock, the one person in this whole continent who would recognize me, wasn't here. Confident that he wasn't around, I made my way to the check-in desk where a singular young blond woman was manning the station.

I knew she'd speak English, but I asked her anyway.

"Yes," she said in a lightly absurd accent, "Welcome to the Ambassador, how may I help you?"
I was bending my knees slightly so I'd look shorter, widened my eyes and tried to retract my cheek bones to look younger. This lady had to empathize with me or this would all fail miserably.
"Um, yeah," I said, keeping my vocal cords relaxed to raise the pitch of my voice, "is my step-dad here yet? We took separate cabs from the airport and I don't think our cell phones work here so I cant get a hold of him, so can you see if he checked in or whatever?"
The woman pursed her lips for a moment, then asked if the name was in his name and what the name was.
"Comstock," I said, "Nathan Comstock."
Her fingers danced across a keyboard while her eyes scanned the computer monitor sunken into her side of the desk.
"I'm sorry, no," she said, "he hasn't checked in yet."
"Oh," I said, sadly. "They were asking him some questions at customs, I guess it's taking longer than I thought. Can I go up to the room and wait there?"
"Not until the person the room is reserved for is here to check in and confirm payment details, I'm afraid."
I tried to look passively annoyed, and said, "Oh, I guess I'll wait for him, then."

I crossed the lobby and sat down in a marigold sofa, making sure I was visible to the woman at the desk and that I could see the entrance. I sat, visibly impatient for half an hour. On a table next to the seat was an emptied highball glass with a few ice cubes on a cocktail napkin, a stirring straw laying beside it, and a discarded plastic card room key. I swallowed hard, not believing my luck, then discretely slid the card from the table and pocketed it. For a few more minutes I sat in boredom, poking through my pockets and playing a Snake game on my cell phone until I saw him.

Nathan Comstock, my school principal, the man who was somehow connected to me and the guy who killed a cop in order to get to me, walked through the front door of the hotel. He looked defeated and deadly tired. After twelve hours and two layovers in two continents, he probably wasn't in too good a mood. He had on a gray suit and a long overcoat and dragged his small, carry-on size suitcase toward the desk.

When I saw him, I made a face that said, "finally" that the woman at the desk saw, then followed my eyes to Comstock.

Comstock went to the desk and began checking in. I slowly got up and, making sure there was never a direct line of sight between him and my face, stood slightly to his right a few feet behind him and watched him go through the routines.

My heart was pounding like a jackhammer. I was standing three feet from the only man for a thousand miles who knew who I was, and I couldn't let him know I was in the country, but I had to stand right here so the lady would buy that I was this guy's kid or else there was no way I could get into his room later. I drew my hat lower and bent the brim slightly to hide my eyes, but if he turned and looked at me outright, there'd be no disguising myself.

He's just gotten his credit card back and the woman at the desk slid him a pair of room keys in a paper folder. I heard her say, "elevator" and "fourth floor," then as he turned right to head toward the hallway with the elevators I walked past him on his left. I made a stupid grin at the woman at the desk, then fell into step behind Comstock once he was a few feet ahead. He turned into a hallway and stopped at a bank of elevators and hit a button, I walked past him on down the hall, stopping after the hallway turned again. I felt Comstock glance at me as I passed behind him, but he didn't seem to think anything of it. Around the corner I heard the elevator chime, doors open, then close. I waited two minutes, then left my suitcase there in the hall and walked back to the lobby, past the elevators, and pulled the useless room key from my pocket and held it in my hand as I brought it up to the same woman at the front desk.

"This one doesn't work," I said.

The woman frowned slightly and took the card, set it aside on the desk and drew a new blank card from a stack near the keyboard. She swiped it through a small device and punched four numbers on a keypad atop the device. She did it so fast I couldn't track her fingers. She handed me the fresh card and said, "Sorry about that, sir. This one should work."

"Thanks," I said, taking a step back, then forward again. "What was it..." I said, visibly trying to summon something from my memory, "Fourty-twenty....?"
"Fourty-seventeen" she said with a glance at her screen.
"Ah, I was thinking twenty-seven," I said with a chuckle and shaking my head in disapproval of my brain's capacity.

I said thanks and goodbye and went back to the hallway, past the elevators, around the corner, and grabbed my bag. I found a side exit near a closed restaurant and hailed another cab, and returned to my own hotel, pinching between my thumb and right index finger a working key to Comstock's room. Room 4017.

I slipped the glasses off and let my eyes adjust to being able to see things clearly again, and rubbed the bridge of my nose just as I had noticed Comstock doing almost a week ago. I smiled in satisfaction, reflecting that I'd now managed to con my way into Comstock's bank account, home address, email account, and now a hotel room. I'd done all of it with minimal planning, coming up with most of it -- save for the email thing -- as I was doing it. I wondered, if it was this easy, why weren't more people doing it? Con artists go on and on about skills and tradecraft, but I was just a seventeen-year-old and it was coming to me like second nature. I suppose we all have our aptitudes.