Back in the day, I used to work reception at a high-class resort. It was one of those fancy sea-side vacation spots where the newly minted tech aristocrats and family dynasties would rub shoulders and pout. The tips, when they came, were good and the reception gig paid better than anything else on the island but I loathed the job.
The rich are perpetually displeased people and being at the front desk I was tasked with managing the brunt of their displeasure. The bizarre complaints I would hear on a daily basis would make your head spin. What made it all so much worse was that the resort had a constant smile policy so no matter how dumb the guest’s complaint was — whether it be the sea being too salty for their liking or the air feeling too wet — I had to show my pearly whites and nod in understanding.
It wasn’t just the strange complaints that made me hate that job though.
It wasn’t the strange complaints that made me quit.
Our wealthy clients had all sorts of proclivities that often went against socially acceptable behavior — if not the law. I’ve checked in the most public of traditionalists into the most libertine of events. I’ve seen representatives of democratic states dine with warlords. On one occasion, I helped clean up the entrails of a goat a group of hooded men split in our foyer during a candle lit ceremony.
Working behind that desk I saw a lot, but nothing would ever compare to the day I met the Sugartooth Killer.
That weekend the son of some despot was having his 50th birthday party. To celebrate the occasion, our guest’s father had graciously rented out an entire wing of the hotel. The family traveled with big enough security detail to orchestrate a coup d’etat and had an entourage of servants that arrived two days ahead of them.
For all intents and purposes, the West side of the hotel was completely off limits to all resort staff with the exception of the waiters. Having two armed men guarding the entrance to the West wing wasn’t exactly comforting, but it did mean I only had to worry about half the resort’s guests.
I thought it would be a relaxing weekend.
It wasn’t.
He wasn’t memorable in the least bit. Buzz cut, sunglasses, light blue sports jacket. Just another tourist coming in to pick up their keycard. It wasn’t until he opened his mouth that he firmly chiseled himself into my nightmares.
As he spoke, he enunciated his words with horrible deliberateness. His lips rose as high as they possibly could, as if he wanted me to see. As if he was begging me to address it.
The man told me he wanted to check into his room, but I was completely deaf to his words. All I could see were his teeth. Jagged and yellow and nestled in gums of black — all I could see were his teeth.
It was only once he asked a second time, with his voice completely unchanged, that I managed to get ahold of myself. I checked in the guest, gave him all the necessary instructions and then informed him that the West wing of the hotel was off limits.
In response, he nodded and smiled.
I struggled, but I smiled back.
Behind my desk, off in the corner, there was a stack of sugar and creamer that the night-shift people would sweeten their coffee with. I mainly worked the day shift and I don’t drink coffee, so I never paid too much attention to the condiments.
The guest, however, noticed it instantly.
‘Would you mind?’ he asked, pointing to the sugar.
His breath reeked of gallons of Listerine. The smell was overpowering, but it was much preferred to the diseased flesh it was covering. Struggling to smile, I passed the guest some sugar and cream. He took them and then, with no hesitation whatsoever, reached over the table and grabbed all twenty packets of sugar.
‘I’m a real sugartooth,’ he said, smiling. Then, he tore open one of the sugar packets, emptied it into his diseased mouth, grabbed his keycard and left.
When my supervisor passed by a while later, she told me to smile. By the time my lunch break was coming up my face hurt more than usual.
I started working at the resort at the same time that an old classmate of mine did. He showed less aptitude for work with customers, so management put him in the kitchen. I would tease him about this fact constantly, but we remained on good terms.
Once a day we’d get free food from the kitchen, so when lunch rolled around my waiter friend would grab two plates and join me at the front desk. I definitely wasn’t allowed to eat in the lobby, but there was a stairwell with a shockingly good view nearby where our supervisor never went.
Usually, we would spend our lunches there. The day I met the sugartooth, however, I ate alone.
My friend had a habit of showing up about five minutes before my lunch break started. That day, he didn’t. I figured it was because the kitchen staff was too busy with the occupation of the West wing of the hotel. I figured I would meet my friend somewhere around the kitchen and we would grab lunch from there.
I was correct about the amount of chaos in the kitchen, the amount of food our special guests were ordering was astronomical. Everyone was rushing around, cooking and prepping and trying to keep their job.
My friend, however, was nowhere to be found.
I did meet a different familiar face though.
The employee cafeteria is located in the basement, well out of sight from the guests. The hallways are significantly tighter than the wide-open space of the hotel proper and it’s impossible to pass someone without rubbing shoulders with them. It’s in the tight confines of the hallway leading to the employee cafeteria that I met the sugartooth for a second time.
I didn’t notice him right away. I’m not sure whether I was too busy thinking about the whereabouts of my friend or whether it was simple hunger — but as the sugartooth walked towards me I simply registered his waiter uniform. It wasn’t until we had to pass each other that I recognized the man who had checked into the hotel just a couple hours earlier.
He was dressed like a waiter, but that horrid smile gave him away immediately.
By the time the confusion of why the sugartooth would be dressed like one of the hotel’s waiters clicked for me, all that was left in his wake was a gentle smell of Listerine. Were I a committed employee, I would have rushed over to my supervisor to report the suspicious man who was dressed in hotel uniform.
Whatever time I would have spent reporting issues, however, would be subtracted from my lunch break. I was far too hungry and had far too little love for management to busy myself with the sugartooth. Instead, I made my way over to the cafeteria, grabbed my lunch and made my way back to the front desk when my break was over.
I have spent many nights wondering what would have happened if I did report the suspicious man. Would anyone believe me? Would anything have played out differently? Could I have saved anyone’s life? Those questions have cost me a fair amount of sleep, but I know I’ll never find answers to them.
All I know is that about thirty minutes after I got back to my desk all hell broke loose.
It started with the armed men at the entrance to the West wing getting a message on their radios that made them sprint deep into the hotel. Not long after, a barrage of sirens and flashing lights turned up in front of the lobby. Heavily armed police spread out through the hotel and blocked the main entrance.
The resort was under lockdown, they said.
An assassination had taken place in the West wing, they said.
The memory of the man with the diseased smile was briefly flushed out of my head by the sheer amount of guns present. For a while, I was too scared of some sort of shootout breaking out, but as the police searched through the lobby the memories of the sugartooth squirmed their way back into my skull.
When two police officers came to question me about whether I saw anything suspicious I struggled to finds words past my panic, but I eventually calmed down enough to speak in coherent sentences.
I told them about the guest wearing the baby blue sports jacket and sunglasses. The police didn’t listen with much attention, but when I told them that I saw the guest later in the day — this time dressed as a waiter — their interest piqued.
Suddenly, they wanted to know more about this mysterious guest. Did I have his name? Did he at all mention anything concerning the West wing of the hotel? Was there anything notable about the man that could be used to identify him?
The questions came with great urgency and quick succession. I was about to tell the police about the sugartooth but then — a final question stopped me dead in my tracks.
‘How were his teeth?’ asked a third police officer, standing not far off from the duo that was questioning me. The voice sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until he smiled at me that I recognized him.
It was the sugartooth.
He was dressed as a police officer and looked completely natural in the role, yet his horrid smile betrayed him. I was more than willing to tell the police about the strange guest, yet the moment I met the sugartooth’s cold stare I changed my mind.
There was something in his eyes that gently suggested that divulging information wasn’t a good idea. Both of the officers had their guns holstered but the sugartooth had his readied by his waist. What his eyes couldn’t communicate the pistol underscored.
If I told the police about the sugartooth — I was good as dead.
I stuttered my way through the description; sunglasses, blue sports jacket, buzz cut. That was all I could make out, I said.
There was nothing else of note, I said.
The officers looked disappointed at there being no clear lead, but they radioed in the information regardless. The sugartooth smiled wide once more and then informed the other two cops that he would go check the dock in case the suspect was trying to flee the resort. They nodded and told him it was a good idea, all without looking at him.
Three people died that day and one was found unconscious in the stairwell. The birthday boy, his father and the family’s head of security were found with bullets in their skulls in the presidential suite and, my waiter friend, was found knocked out in one of the hotel’s stairwells.
He had no memory of how he had gotten there. At one point he was getting ready to carry some food into the West wing of the hotel and in the next he was lying face down on cold stairs.
It was a couple hours after my shift ended that the police finally let us go home. I didn’t sleep that whole night. All through the night I kept on thinking of the sick maw of that strange man and trying to theorize about whether he could have been responsible for the chaos that had spread through the hotel.
When I came into work the next day, I found the guilt too strong to stay quiet. I asked for a meeting with my supervisor and told her everything I have detailed above. When I finally sat down in her office, I was sure that the story would arouse some level of interest, but my supervisor listened calmly and even laughed good naturedly at some points of the story.
She didn’t believe me.
By then, there were all sorts of theories about what had transpired in the resort. Some blamed the CIA, some blamed the KGB, some spun wild tales of high precision satellites that could eliminate targets from orbit. To my supervisor, the story about the sugartooth fell soundly into the third category.
I didn’t stay behind that desk for long. About a week after the assassination, I put in my notice and moved off the island soon after. I told everyone that I left the resort because I hated the job — and there was some truth to it. But really, I left because of the sugartooth.
I left because I feared he would come back to smile at me one last time.