I’m heading off to Comic-Con next week, and that immediately brought to mind one of my favorite places in San Diego: the Horton Grand Hotel. I stayed there a number of times over the years, and I always loved it. It’s a wonderful old place with some fantastic history behind it, as well as a gorgeous, old-school bar perfect for getting away from the crowds.
I actually included the Horton in my Leverage novel, The Con Job, which is set at Comic-Con. Just for fun, here’s a sample chapter from the book, in which the Leverage crew cons their way into the hotel, despite the fact it’s sold out for Comic-Con.
Just a word of advice: Don’t try this yourself. In real life, the Horton Grand folks are much too sharp.
Chapter Five
“You’ve been here before, I take it,” Nate said as he and Sophie walked up to the front of the Horton Grand. They’d left the others waiting in the cab.
“Of course,” Sophie said. “It’s a beautiful place, truly historic. The restoration of the main staircase is fantastic.”
Nate stared up at the building from the corner of Island and Fourth. It looked like something straight out of Vienna, Austria, a classic facade that featured tall windows on the first floor and bay windows with balconies on the second and third. They walked toward a blue awning with the hotel’s name on it and entered the wide, airy foyer. “Did you know that Wyatt Earp used to live here?”
Sophie said. “The lawman?”
“More like the gambler. He owned three saloons while he lived in back in the late 1800s, and every one of them offered games of chance.”
“That wasn’t exactly illegal around here back then, though, was it?”
She gave him a little smile. “He was a scoundrel just the same.”
Only a few people milled about the foyer at the moment. One pair of them was dressed up as Superman and Batman, Nate knew, but versions of them that he’d never seen before. He recognized the two icons, of course. It was impossible to live in America and avoid them. But he didn’t read comics–at least not anymore–and he wasn’t up on any of the changes that might have happened to the characters in the pages of their comics.
Nate and Sophie walked straight through the foyer to the front desk, situated off to the right. There, a tall man in a faded Batman T-shirt and a name tag that read Ray greeted them with a forced smile.
“Hello, how may I help you?” he said.
Sophie stepped up to the counter, removed her sunglasses, and spoke to the man in a flawless Southern California accent. “We’d like to check into our rooms,” she said. “They should be under the name Chris Bucket.”
The man tapped a few words into his computer and bared a grimace. “I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to have any reservation under that name. Did you place it through the convention housing bureau?”
“Of course not,” Sophie said with a nervous laugh. “How do you think that would work out for Mr. Canyon? He’d be mobbed.”
“How are you spelling it?”
“Canyon, as in Grand,” Nate said, pumping up his own obnoxiousness. “How the hell do you think it’s spelled?”
The desk clerk started to scowl at Nate’s attitude, but quickly caught himself. “C-A-N-Y-O-N, sir.”
Nate threw up his hands and turned to Sophie. “They lost our reservation. I told you. I knew this would happen. You put Carissa in charge of tackling hotel reservations. You can’t expect them to be done right.”
Sophie put a hand on Nate’s shoulder to calm him down. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m sure there’s just been a misunderstanding.” She focused her dazzling smile on the clerk. “Isn’t that right, Ray?”
Ray shrugged. “I’m afraid not. The entire downtown area’s been booked solid for months.”
Nate groaned. “We’re going to lose our jobs over this. All of us!”
Sophie leaned in over the counter and spoke to the clerk in a conspiratorial tone. “He worries so much. It’s just that, well, Christian–I mean, our employer–has been going through a rough patch and he is a bit more temperamental than usual. Are you sure there isn’t any way you can help us?”
The clerk gave Sophie a sympathetic wince. “There really is no room at the inn.”
Nate leaned forward over Sophie’s shoulder. “This is ridiculous,” he said to the Ray. “Is your manager here?”
Ray pointed to his name tag. Right below his name, it read Day Manager.
Nate threw up his hands again and started to walk away. He didn’t look back.
Sophie sighed. “Well, that is too bad. We’d heard so many excellent things about the Horton Grand. Our employer was hoping to make this place his headquarters during the show–his man-cave, if you will.”
Nate stormed back and took Sophie by the arm to lead her away. “Well, Mr. Bale’s just going to have to learn to live with it,” he said. “But if he winds up sleeping on the streets this weekend, then we’re all going to end up there. Permanently. Let’s go see if we can find some other place for our batty boss to hang.”
“Wait,” Ray said as Nate and Sophie turned from the desk. Knowing that Ray couldn’t see his face, Nate allowed himself a brief, small smile.
Sophie took her arm back from Nate, who stopped in his tracks, and turned around. “Yes?”
The flustered clerk looked down at her. “I, ah–I just remembered that we do have one last suite left. It’s the manager’s suite, but, you know . . .” He gestured at the name tag on his Batman shirt.
“Since you’re the manager?” Sophie sidled back up to the front desk.
“I can release the room to you, of course.” He gave Sophie a sheepish smile and then let his fingers fly across his keyboard. “Ah, yes. Here we go.”
Nate returned to Sophie’s side. “How big is this suite?”
“About six hundred square feet. It comes with a king bed in the bedroom and a queen sofa bed in the sitting room.” He looked up, chagrined. “I hope that will work for you.”
Nate grimaced, thinking about how they would manage with all five of them crammed into a single room. “It’s going to be a tight fit.”
“Are you sure you don’t have anything else?” Sophie asked, a grateful yet hopeful tone in her voice.
Ray wrung his hands. “That really is the last room we have. We’re entirely booked, and I’m sure you’ll find the same is true at every other hotel within a dozen miles of here. I do hope it’ll be enough.”
Sophie reached over the counter and gave the manager’s hand a squeeze. “I’m sure we can make do.”
