Mini-Bar Spy

They used to tell me I had the perfect face for the job. Average. Anonymous. Forgettable. The kind of guy who blends in anywhere.

That was thirty years ago, and they weren’t wrong. I’ve spent my life walking in and out of rooms where I wasn’t supposed to be, taking things I wasn’t supposed to touch. But that’s the job. Working room service at the Watergate.

It’s a good cover. Nobody notices a guy in a hotel uniform rolling a laundry cart down the hallway, restocking minibars. Most of the time, nobody even looks me in the eye. Which is how I like it. Anonyous.

I’m on the twelfth floor tonight, and the routine is the same as it’s been for decades. Vodka, gin, whiskey. Everything in its place. Open the fridge, swap out the empties, close it up again. My hands work without thinking.

But my mind’s drifting elsewhere. Has been a lot lately. I used to tell myself the job was important. That I was part of something bigger.

There was the Watergate break-in, back in ’72. I wasn’t one of the chuckle-heads who got caught. I scoped out the office weeks before the plumbers. I bugged the phone lines and sized up the safe. When the Op went sideways, I watched the fallout on TV like everyone else.

A senator who thought he was meeting with a whistleblower up in 1603. I tucked a recording device into the vent and a camera behind the wall sconce. I was in and out, before they checked-in. The meeting made the front page of the Post. You won’t find the clippings in my scrapbook.

Foreign dignitaries are the easiest. They like their long showers, room service, expensive whiskey, escorts. I’d snapshot their notes while they were out at some fancy function. I’d rummage their luggage, maybe tweezer a hair from a comb or a toothbrush. The DNA samples always went to the same PO Box. Don’t know who picked it up. Geopolitical blackmail wasn’t my department.

I’m not James Bond. I don’t have a license to kill. Just a license to observe, listen, and take. I shaped the world in ways I’ll never fully understand.

I’ve watched presidents fall, and dictators rise because of what I pulled out of a hotel room safe. I’ve seen laws passed, wars started, peace treaties signed, and alliances broken because of a photograph, bug, or trace of physical evidence I snatched for the company.

I’m standing at the window in 1224, looking out at the city. The Potomac in the distance, reflecting the glow of the office buildings that never take a night off. My youngest left for college last week. She wrapped me in her arms before she got in the car, hugging me tight. She said, “Give yourself a break, Dad. You work too hard.” She still doesn’t know what I do.

I wasn’t around when my kids were growing up. I told myself we’d have time to catch up later. But later’s finally here, and they’re out the door.

Was it worth it? Was rummaging through the lives of strangers, collecting secrets that changed the course of history, better than havin’ a nine-to-five? The house would be whisper quiet all those nights I’d come home after midnight. I never made it to a recital. Or a soccer game. I got real good at missin’ birthdays. Too late to put all that back in the bottle.

So here I am.. Walking hallways, restocking minibars. Pretending I didn’t spend the best years of my life building a legacy out of other people’s problems. Vodka, gin, and whiskey in the mini-fridge. And a covert surveillance cam in the lamp on the bedside table. Everything in its place.