Hotel Dusk
Adapted & Written By
Kevin Viviano
Based On The Game By
Nintendo™ Gaming Co.
Prologue
Ж
89th Precinct
Friday December 24, 2000
New York City ~ 5:10 PM
A New York City soundtrack plays for those who walk along the streets of Central Park and Times Square. Layer upon layer, noises congregate to construct a great symphony. Lights flicker on every facade as darkness begins to engulf the city. Stores begin to close kicking out last minute shoppers and people begin to head home; at last the city that never sleeps seems to become somewhat silent. The wind is bitter against the cheek; stinging every time it picks up speed, whistling past. The enchanting tones of deep brass carry through each and every alleyway and road.
The date is Friday, the twenty-fourth day of the last month of the year two thousand. It's around five o'clock, quarter after, and a few of the police officers in the eighty ninth precinct have just left, due to an urgent phone call, while the remainder stay and party the night away at the station's traditional Christmas Eve party. At a small corner desk lay a man with a newspaper across his chest, hands behind his head, mouth open, and is stridently snoring. His name is Kyle Hyde.
The police station sits upon a corner not known to many people. It's doors, decorated with twinkling lights and sweet smelling garland, and looking as great as ever on this Christmas Eve night. Inside, there is holiday music blasting from a stereo, eggnog flowing, policemen singing karaoke, and fruitcake being thrown away before it has even been open.
Kyle Hyde is stationed behind one of the few original desks that decorate the inside of the old brick building since it first opened in 1937; nothing on it but a stapler, telephone and a desk lamp that belonged to the original lieutenant way back when. How it ended up on Kyle's desk no one knew. While the party continues inside the precinct, Kyle rearranges himself in his rolling chair trying to relax until he can go home. Years of working the force had made him dead inside.
He slowly brings his hands from behind his head, rubs his dreary eyes and lets out a generous yawn. He peers around the office to make sure that no one is looking towards him and draws a flask from the first drawer of his desk, swigs, and replaces it next to his one month AA chip. That's the farthest he'd gotten before he gave up. He goes to resume his position when someone yells out from across the station.
"Hyde! What the hell's the matter with you? You're not going to join the rest of us?" a drunken man says knowing very well how Hyde would answer if he did – but he doesn't. He just rolls his eyes, places his hands back behind his head and lies back in his chair. Not even a minute later his right eye opens to someone tapping him on his shoulder. A blonde-haired woman – who clearly had adding something a little extra to her eggnog – slides her neatly manicured hands up Kyle Hyde's arm, around his ear brushing his dirty blonde hair, and down his back – Kyle shivering as her nails lightly scratched his skin.
"Hey there Mr. Hyde" she says seductively, Kyle not knowing who she was. "How about you take me over there?" she says pointing her long red fingernails on one hand toward an open office door and tugging Kyle's shirt with the other. "We can clear the desk real quick."
"You're a bit too drunk, babe. Save it for Santa," he replies nodding to Lou Castanza, the lieutenant, who dresses as St. Nick every year. It's his excuse for getting all of the women in the station to sit on his lap while his wife thinks he's out picking up last minute Christmas gifts for the kids.
"Oh, c'mon Kyle," the blonde insists, Kyle still trying to find her in his mind.
"Please. Do me a favor," Kyle says firmly, holding his palm towards her.
The blonde stumbles away from Kyle with a sour look on her face, and towards Lou. She plops herself on his lap as he yells out a big, "Ho, Ho, Ho". In what context nobody really knows. Kyle looks on with disgust and gives his eyes another nice long roll.
"Christ," Kyle says to himself reflecting on the moment, "If I can just relax for two goddam minutes."
He slips into a stable coma for what he felt like was some time until he was at last awoken again by a voice coming from across the office.
"Hyde! Get the damn phone will you?!" Lou bellows.
Kyle groggily opens his eyes as he tastes the sleep in his mouth. He clearly didn't hear Lou's order he just yelled out.
"Hyde! Phone!" Lou says again with more fear. His flushed face and slurred talk showed how drunk he really was too. It seems the blonde was very generous when she visited Santa, and came to him bearing gifts.
Kyle jumps almost completely out of his chair with eyes wide open at Lou's beckon. His deep sleep made him oblivious to what was going on around him – which was no different than any other day on the job for him. He had no idea the phone was even buzzing. He leaps to it with swiftness and clears his throat before he begins to speak.
"Eighty-ninth precinct. Hyde speaking. "How can I hel–"
Kyle's face contorts, startled from the information on the other end of the line and whispers to himself, "What the hell?!" Then after some time yells out, "Bradley?!"
Kyle Hyde slams the phone down on the receiver and rises from his chair leaving a large imprint in the fabric – a stamp showing all of the time he has put into it after all these years. He rushes past everyone still left in the office, grabs his coat from the rack and pushes through the precinct doors so fast that no one even sees him leave.
He rushes down the street as fast as he could; the wind biting at his face, still bitter and rough. His breathing becomes heavy fairly quick and Kyle comes to the realization that he is very out of shape for a police officer. That didn't matter now though. He needs to go fast, faster.
He tries to pick up as much speed as he can, still going down the same street as the precinct. He never appreciated the various buildings that lined the streets of lower Manhattan until now. As he runs he keenly notes how different each one of them is despite how similar they look from far away. Each has their own flare and personality that one wouldn't assume unless they were given the change to compare hundreds of buildings along one street. The lights in some of the buildings looking like the stars in the night sky as they went on and off. He kept a steady pace; panting every other time his feet hit the concrete. He turns a corner at a convenient store whose owner was just closing shop and Kyle nearly took him down as he passed.
"Hey! Watch where you're going! You almost–" the owner starts.
"Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too, asshole," replies Kyle in the most sincere manner he could muster. He continues to thrust forward, the buildings not so significant now as the edge of the city comes into sight. As he draws closer he could see the beautiful shimmer of the Hudson River. He stops to catch his breath and frantically looks around, hands on his knees. His eyes still blurred from running, try to focus his vision. He pans over the night horizon. Left and right, and then left again. He sees a figure in the distance and jets towards it. As he draws closer and the figure comes into focus, Kyle Hyde screams at the top of his lungs, "Bradley!" The figure, standing on a dock, begins to turn his head, his body facing the water. It's dark murky sheen reflecting everything in its path. Its movement as still as death.
Hyde moves in closer to see Bradley clearer. Although his can make out his facial profile, the darkness of night engulfs him in a way that Kyle sees him as a black shadow. Kyle can see though, that Bradley's body is shaking in an almost rhythmic trance.
"Why?" Hyde says in a whisper, soft and sympathetic, and then quickly changes his tone. "Bradley! God damn it, why?!" He sees the figure shuffle, and starts to run toward him. "Bradley don't you move. Get over here," Kyle says, his throat hoarse from screaming.
Bradley turns around with a smirk. "Don't move Bradley!" Kyle repeats, as he reaches for the gun on his belt. He slowly pulls it out and aims.
Bradley steps toward the edge of the dock, one foot off and one foot on.
"Don't, Bradley," Kyle says sternly, his eyes beginning to tear. He feels a warm drop run down the side of his face. His right hand, the one holding the pistol, begins to shake. He tries to steady the movement with his left hand but to no avail.
Bradley moves his other foot. The next thing Kyle realizes, his finger slips, the trigger is pulled, and a shot is fired. Bradley falls into the ice cold Hudson. As he falls in, a faint sound escapes his mouth.
"Mi-Mila," Bradley exhausted. And then he was gone.
Kyle's whole body begins shaking, perplexed at what just happened between the gun and his hand. The weapon falls to the floor, and more tears start to stream down Kyle's face.
"Why…" He couldn't seem to get any other words out. He could feel himself getting angry inside; his sorrow brow reverses position. His breathing was becoming heavier and he was panting now. He could feel his heart curdle and his chest tighten. He tries to scream for help but no sound comes out of his open mouth. He runs to the dock that Bradley was once standing on and looks over the edge.
He's gone. Bradley is gone.
Ж
Cape West Apartments
Friday December 28, 2003
Los Angeles ~ 1:10 AM
Kyle Hyde wakes up a few minutes later, gasping to the point where he is almost choking.
"Just a dream," he says. "Just a dream."
He keeps repeating it as if he is trying to persuade himself, although he knows that it in fact was a dream. He looks at his clock. It's ten after one in the morning, December 28, 2003.
Kyle would occasionally have this same dream, over and over. This would remind him of the night that it actually happened, three long years ago.
"If I have this dream one more time I'm going to kill myself," he hushes.
He pushes himself up from his bed and makes his way toward the kitchen. He opens the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of Grey Goose. He goes for a glass in the shelf above the microwave but refrains. He breaks the seal of the bottle and drinks. And drinks. And drinks.
Ж
Red Crown Office
Friday December 28, 2003
Los Angeles ~ 10:16 AM
In a small trailer-like building there's a hustle of people, each talking on a phone and typing away on a computer keyboard. A man named Ed Vincent answers a phone that has been ringing forever. Ed is a middle-aged man, already balding with too much pride in his work. After getting annoyed at the sound, he finally grunts, and then picks it up.
"Red Crown….What?!...How many?...Yeah, okay. We'll be sure to send it out right away." He turns to his right and yells, "Rachel? God dammit Rachel, where in the hell is Hyde? Can you get him on the phone? Now! This is important."
Rachel simply replies, "Yes sir."
Rachel picks up the phone, and dials Kyle Hyde's cell phone. It rings once. Twice. A third time. After a few more rings his voicemail triggers. "You've reach Kyle Hyde. Leave a message and I'll try to get back when I can but there are no guarantees that I'll get back so don't count on it."
"He always was a charmer," Rachel stated to herself. "He's not picking up Boss."
"Well then leave him a god damn message! Jesus, Rachel, I though you were smarter than that."
"Yes sir." Rachel says as she dials Kyle's number again. When his voicemail comes on, she began:
"Kyle, its Rachel. Ed's really pissed at you right now so if I were you I would answer this phone right away or call back immediately when you get his message. But I know you; you'll listen to it today and get back tomorrow. Ed's going to start taking out on me pretty soon, so for my sake Kyle, please, call him back – now."
Rachel hangs up the phone and turns her attentions back to her computer. A new email just came through.
"Ed, we got an order for five-hundred of item 'B-209'. They need them by Monday. Can we manage?"
"Of course we can manage darling! Money is money right! Tell them no problem and you get a group of people fulfilling that order right away."
"Yes sir."
Ж
Highway Route 50
Friday December 28, 2003
Nevada ~ 4:49 PM
Kyle Hyde decides to take a short drive to clear his head. But what turned out to be a short drive became a long full-day drive to and along Nevada's Highway Route 50. Now, Kyle is traveling down the long, narrow road, surrounded by nothing, in the middle of nowhere. The short blades of grass that are closest to his '69 LTD Wagon on the highway disappear as the land reaches outward. Kyle takes his eyes of the road for a moment to look at the vast environment he is traveling through. Cacti dot the dessert all around. There's but one cloud in the sky. The sun is extremely hot on this day and his air conditioner doesn't work in the piece of crap that he's driving. In fact it hasn't worked for a while now – longer than Kyle could remember. His windows are rolled down all of the way. The hot breeze did feel somewhat refreshing to Kyle's delight.
Good thing the radio worked. Kyle turned it to the first station that got reception and his ears were wide open. Lite music indeed, but they were songs he had never heard before. It didn't really matter to him though. He went along with the rhythm that was playing. Anything to break the silence of this trip would suffice.
After a few songs pass, he tries a different station, and finally a song comes on that he knows: Hungry Like the Wolf. It always reminded him of his senior year in high school because it played at his prom. He knew all of the words too so he could sing along to this one.
Just as he was getting into the chorus of the song: "straddle the line, discord and rhyme, I'm on the hunt I'm after you…",Kyle's cell phone goes off soundly. He blindly reaches for it lying on the passenger seat – trying not to lose his place in the song – looks at who's calling and throws it in the back of the car. He drives.
After a few more hours behind the wheel, Kyle's gaslight illuminates on his dashboard.
"Shit."
He hasn't seen a gas station in miles, and he doesn't see one coming up anytime soon. Luckily though, after about twenty more miles a gas station emerges on the right. Kyle makes note that it seems to be the only one on the highway for as long as he drove today. Odd. For such a long stretch of highway, one would think that there would be multiple gas stations spread along road. He pulls in, begins to pump his gas, and reluctantly goes into the back seat of his car, picks up his cell phone and redials the number for which he has one missed call and a voicemail. After just one ring someone picks up.
"Why haven't you checked-in yet?" Ed asks.
"Please Ed. My head is pounding, stop yelling," Hyde replied. "And checked-in to what?
"Huh. You're hung over again, aren't you? You ask for it you know. You're just like your father. God rest his soul, but it's remarkable how much of a spitting image you are of him."
"Yeah, yeah," Hyde mumbles. "Get on with it."
"Listen up!" Ed yells loudly, just to piss off Hyde. "I got a job for you!"
Hyde sighs in disgust, holding the temples on his head with his thumb and forefinger.
Ed continues, "It's a place called Hotel Dusk. I have a package on the way, and there's an order sheet inside of it."
"And what the hell am I supposed to do at the hotel with a package and an order sheet?"
"You'll see, one step at a time tiger. The order sheet has some items on it I need you to look for. I'll be here to guide you. I'm only one phone call away."
"Whatever you say Ed. I guess I have to accept right? I mean you'll fire me otherwise?" Kyle asked joking around.
"You're a pip Hyde you know that? I'll have Rachel, what is it text? Yes, text you the directions. It's as simple as going there, getting a room, and waiting for the package. Got it?"
"Yeah. Got it," Hyde says, unenthusiastic.
"Good. I'll keep in touch. You can do this Hyde. Don't worry."
Ed hangs up the phone before Kyle can ask him any more questions.
Kyle goes back to the pump, pays for the gas, and pulls out of the station. He continues once again, on the never-ending road.
After a few minutes a text comes through on his phone. He fumbles for the phone – which fell under his seat – and sees the message was from Rachel. He didn't bother to pull alongside of the road because there was no one else on the road. He just stalls the car on the parkway. He pulls out his navigation system enters the address that Rachel had given him. Once again, he was off, but this time to a final destination.
Kyle turns the radio off because the music turned to shit. After Duran Duran that was it; back to the boring music he knew nothing of. He tries to switch between a few news stations but no clear signal comes through. As he continues to fumble with the station knobs, looking to the road and back to the radio, something catches the corner of his eye. He lifts his head to the distraction and found himself staring out his window, not being able to comprehend what he was looking at.
On the side of the road, Kyle saw a girl – just standing there, and staring back at him. She had the longest black hair he had ever seen. He could make out that she had blue eyes and she was wearing a choker around her neck. She was wearing what seemed to be a simple white dress, tattered at dirty at the base, and her hands were clutched in front of her. A single bracelet rests on her left wrist.
After some time of Kyle staring at her, she turns her head away.
Kyle thought for a minute what to do – whether or not to ask if she needed a ride. After contemplating, he figured if she really wanted help – or anything for that matter – she would have come up to the car all that time that he spent looking at her with confusion. Instead she turned to her head and treated Kyle as if he wasn't even there. With that, Kyle pulls away, back on the long road to his destination – Hotel Dusk. He takes one final look at the girl in his rearview mirror and continues looking until he couldn't see her anymore.
"What the hell is a girl like that doing on the highway," he says to himself. And more importantly he wonders, "How did she get here? There is absolutely nothing around here!"
The navigation system brought him to the hotel just as the sun was setting. He pulled up to a moderately small building.
"Hotel Dusk", Hyde reads from the sign atop the rooftop. "Guess this is where I'm supposed to be."
He pulls his car into the fairly small lot and steps out, holding nothing but his briefcase. He stares at the hotel trying to take this all in. It was as simple as a hotel could get. Confined height-wise but spread out far enough, its exterior lined with blue-grey bricks. The letters that made up the sign Hotel Dusk looked small from the perspective of Kyle, but he was sure that they would be grandiose up-close. The u in Dusk wasn't lit, but it didn't matter because it was still light out and the letters were still visible. In a couple of hours though, Hotel Dusk would soon change to Hotel Duk.
From the sides of the building that Kyle could see there were no signs of any balconies to any of the rooms.
"Must be a pretty damn simple hotel," Kyle thinks to himself.
The windows on the outside look over-worn and there were more shingles missing from the roof than were actually on the roof. A titled telephone pole that was barely touching the left side of the building topped off the look. Based on the rows of windows Kyle saw, it appeared to him that there were only two floors to the hotel.
He has to force himself to stop dissecting the details of the hotel as he takes out his cell phone and dials Ed back in Los Angeles.
"Hyde! Have you checked in yet?"
"Almost, Ed. I'm staring at the beauty right now. And the beauty, well, it's not so beautiful."
"What are you trying to say?" Ed replies sounding frustrated.
There was a pause from Kyle's end. "Do I really have to do this? I mean this place looks like a hole in the wall from the outside, I can imagine what it looks like on the inside."
"Hyde, please," Ed says. "Just do the damn job. Is that all? We're kind of busy here today."
"Bye, Ed."
And with that, Kyle Hyde hangs up, takes a deep breath, and begins to walk to the rather large double doors.
Ж
It's been three years since Kyle Hyde quit being a cop, and since then, left New York. He left a group of people that he worked with whom he considered family – but he needed to leave. After departing, he moved to out to Los Angeles to start anew and became a salesman for a small company called Red Crown. On the outside, Red Crown in a sales firm that deals with large orders to big time companies. Just like Kyle Hyde had a desk in the precinct of lower Manhattan, he now has one in the offices of Red Crown. Despite Red Crown being a sales company externally, on the inside, it's something completely different. Ed Vincent is the boss and good friend of Kyle's deceased father. He offered Kyle a job when he heard he was moving to the Golden Coast from the big apple. Ed has a business of the side dealing with unfortunate circumstances. He helps with problems being solved, lost things being found, and justice being served.
From time to time, Kyle helps him out. Not that he really has a choice in the matter. Ed demands and Kyle follows orders like a pup. It makes him feel like he's on the force again plus the pay doesn't hurt. He was a good cop. He likes any opportunity he can get to relive those days when he was doing what he loved.
Ever since he started working for Ed he became close with Rachel, Ed's secretary. She's got short blonde hair and always has makeup on. Therefore, she always looks on spot. Truthfully, if she wasn't going out with the guy she was, Kyle would take her all for himself. He would fantasize about being with her whenever he was never busy at work and had the time to stare at her –and that was almost all of the time. Although Rachel has many features that Kyle adores, what he really loves is her voice. Seductive and beautiful, he nearly cringes every time she opens her mouth. They became so over bonding about Ed's vulgar ways and how much of a grumpy old bag he was. Ed especially took advantage of Rachel when it came to work but what could she – or Kyle – say? If he got pissed off the slightest bit he'd terminate both of them without a second thought. And Kyle just couldn't afford that right now. He was lucky to land this job in the first place. Although Rachel seems to be satisfied with the sleaze ball she's going out with now, she comes on to Kyle all of the time. Flirting with him at work, asking him to lunch, dinner, even showing up at his Cape West apartment to apparently go over order forms and sales inventory which always turns into something totally different…yet, he doesn't want anything of it – not right now anyway.
That night on the docks three years ago, Kyle knelt down where Bradley once stood and made himself a promise. A promise that he would one day find Bradley and they could resolve their differences and the issues they encountered throughout their partnership on the force. That night changed both of their lives.
It has been nearly three years since Bradley disappeared. And Kyle still can't shake the feeling that Bradley is out there somewhere. Someplace…
Ж
Kyle walks to the double doors of the hotel – their size truly intimidating up close. He tries to open them, but they seem to be locked.
He knocks on the door a couple of times.
Nothing happens.
He bangs harder on the doors this time.
With a swift creek, the doors swing open.
