by Harry Bryant
"I'm working on it," I said.
The room was dark, and I should have noticed that the shades had been pulled as I had wandered along the open-air balcony in front of the second-floor rooms. I hadn't been up here yet after checking in earlier, and this place wasn't so classy that the maids would do a turn-down service at the end of the day. They left the curtains open in the rooms, and the guests closed them when they checked in. I had been thinking about other things.
And now I was wondering if I was going to be pissing blood later.
So many things to think about.
I heard the zipper being pulled on the duffel, and a small flashlight clicked on. The biker let out a low whistle. "What have we here?" he asked no one in particular as he dumped the contents of my duffel out on the table near the window. He played the light across the scattered clothing, my toiletries bag, the small camera I had packed along, and the narrow stacks of plastic-wrapped twenty-dollar bills.
"It's—" I started, but my sentence was cut short by a quick jab to the kidneys again. The left one, this time.
"Hang on, Brace," the biker said. "There's probably a very good explanation for this." His light flicked in my direction, the beam dazzling my eyes. "So let's hear it."
"Fuck you," I said. I jerked my head toward the guy behind me. "And him, too."
The light went steady, shining right into my eyes. I closed one eye and turned my head away so that I wasn't completely blinded. As it was, I was still seeing spots.
"You sure you want to go with that?" the biker asked. "After I reminded you about being smart."
"I'm not the one breaking and entering. And assaulting."
"So?" he asked, and I didn't bother answering his question. The light flicked back to the table, cataloging the contents of my bag again. The biker moved closer to the table, and just before the light clicked off, I saw his gloved hand moving toward the stacks of bills. In the darkness that filled the room after he put his light away, I heard leather creaking.
"Go home," he said when he was done putting things that didn't belong to him in his pockets. "This is your only warning."
"Who's warning me?" I asked.
"Hey, Clint, can I hit him for that?" a deep voice behind me asked.
Clint laughed. "No, Brace. Not tonight."
"Tomorrow?"
"Maybe," Clint said.
"I'm busy tomorrow," I offered. "How about the day after?"
"You won't be around the day after tomorrow," Clint reminded me.
"Maybe," I said.
My eyes were beginning to adjust to the gloom in the room. Clint was a darker blob against a not-quite-as-dark background. The tall one—Brace—was standing between me and the TV on the table next to the wall opposite.
"Go ahead," Clint said to the guy behind me.
Brace moved, and my head rocked against the comforter. He had slapped me with his meaty palm, which didn't hurt as much as getting a kidney pounding with his fists, but it wasn't a love tap, either.
In any case, my skull was better suited to getting banged around a bit than my kidneys.
I growled, giving Brace the impression that he was pissing me off, which was the reaction he wanted to hear. I heard his feet shuffle on the carpet and the leather of his jacket creaked. But before the big man could punch me again, the light clicked on.
Clint wandered over to the bed, shining the light right in my eyes. I turned my head away, and he grabbed my hair to hold me still, and brought the light up close. I pinched my eyes shut, and he twisted his hand in my hair, pulling my head back. "Go home, tough guy," he hissed. "You're not wanted here."
He released his hold, and my head flopped against the bed.
The light went out, and Clint moved away from me. "We're done," he said to the bigger man. "Leave him."
I remained still, and the door opened. They were briefly outlined against the glow from the lights in the parking lot, and Clint glanced back into the room before he closed the door. "Thanks for the donation, asshole," he said as he shut the door.
And then I was alone in the room. Slightly poorer for the interaction, but I knew their names now, at least. That was something, right?
I put the chain on the door after they left, and leaving the lights off, I peeked out around the edge of the curtain. I didn't spot them in the parking lot for a minute, but then the lobby door swung open and the pair came out. The shorter guy was laughing, and they wandered around the edge of the building and disappeared. A few minutes later, I heard the sound of motorcycles starting up, and a pair of bikes drove past the hotel lot shortly thereafter, heading up Bell toward the highway. Toward the Rose.
I went into the bathroom where I shut the door and turned on the light. Peeling up my shirt, I inspected the damage. There were going to be bruises tomorrow, but nothing that wouldn't fade after a few days. I splashed some water on my face, and then stared at my reflection for a long moment.
Assholes will be assholes, I thought. Mr. Chow had said it like it was some sort of Zen truism. Not quite a koan, because there was no puzzle to decipher, but like one of those maxims that inextricably explained the whole universe via some esoteric subtext. It took me a few years to figure it out what he meant.
I switched off the light in the bathroom and went to turn on the light in the other room. I inspected the scattered contents of my bag, verifying that the smaller of the two assholes who had been in my room had, in fact, taken all the money I had in the bag.
Three grand.
I made a mental note to get it back before I left Los Alamos.
I wandered out of sight of the hotel, and in an empty parking lot of a chiropractor's office, I did tai chi for awhile. Cleaning my head and loosening the tightened muscles of my back and neck. The sky got darker, and the temperature dropped a bit. The smell of salt got stronger in the night air, and I saw a few bats fluttering around aimlessly before the sky darkened enough to hide them.
Mr. Chow had led a group of us every morning in the yard at Tehachapi. At first, he had been the only one who looked like he knew what he was doing, and often the Brothers had made catcalls and obscene gestures, which he steadfastly ignored.
The rest of us—and in the beginning, it had been me, Dicky, Tattoo Bob, Wang and Chung, and Lin—did our best to mirror his glacial and graceful movements. Very quickly, I had realized that the movements were only part of what Mr. Chow was doing. We were learning how to quiet our minds and passions. How to focus our energies on what was truly important and vital to our well-being.
I was learning tai chi from Mr. Chow because I owed him my life. I had pissed off a noisy black man named Lando, though I never did find out what had set him off. Not that it mattered much in those days. I was a fresh fish, and he probably just wanted a piece of me to prove something to the rest of his gang. I was in the showers—by myself, not having realized that the room had cleared out—and suddenly there was Lando, with a shiv he had made from a mattress spring and a plastic spoon.
And then Mr. Chow showed up, moving like a ghost. Lando had turned, slipped sideways, and then fallen, bleeding from a self-inflicted puncture wound in his neck. Mr. Chow had pressed a finger to his lips, and then vanished as quickly as he had appeared.
Just like that. Me, standing there naked, and a big black man, bleeding out in the prison shower. When the guards showed up, Lando was dead and I was still in shock.
Much much later, I learned that Lando had been bumping Mr. Chow in the cafeteria, trying to make the older man drop his tray. He never succeeded because Mr. Chow always saw him coming, but it had been a tiresome game.
Assholes will be assholes, Mr. Chow had said when I had confronted him.
I got extra time added to my sentence because of that, I pointed out.
No, Robert, he said. You would have died in that shower. Instead, you got more life. That is a gift. What are
you going to do with it?
You're an asshole too, I said.
See? Already, you are taking advantage of this gift to become more enlightened.
Every once in a while, I still missed him.
The only cars in the parking lot at Rye were my Mustang, a pair of vehicles near the back that probably belonged to the staff, and the blue and white SUV that had been parked down the street earlier in the evening. I stopped near the edge of the lot and watched the uniformed officer shine his big flashlight into the interior of my car. The lettering on the side of the SUV identified the vehicle as belonging to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office, and the inquisitive deputy was a medium-sized man with a bit of a gut and a big flat-brimmed hat.
I watched him look for excuses to mess with my car for awhile, and then I dug out my keys and tapped the alarm button on the remote two times. The alarm on the Mustang shrieked once, and then went quiet, but it was noisy enough to spook the deputy, who jumped back from the car. He swung around like he was looking for the hidden camera crew, and his wiggling light finally swung in my direction.
"Can I help you with something?" I asked as I approached. My hands were empty and visible. I had slipped my keys in my back pocket.
"Who are you?" he demanded, shining the light at my face.
The parking lot was lit by sodium lights in each corner, and while it wasn't the brightest of lots, it was bright enough that the light in the face was unnecessary, but apparently, it was my night for getting flashlight burn on my retinas.
"I'm the owner of that car," I said, raising a hand and blocking his light. "Is there a problem here?"
I should have gone around the block and come back when he wasn't poking around my car, but I was tired, and I didn't want to give him time to work up some excuse to have the car towed. Not that it would be all that good of an excuse, but once the car was off the lot and in the hands of a towing company, it would no longer be his problem. Assholes, remember? The world was full of them, and Los Alamos's share were rapidly making themselves known.
"Let me see some ID," the deputy said.
"No," I said.
"Excuse me?"
"Is there a problem?" I said again.
"There will be in a second," he said.
"Probably. Especially after you violate my Constitutional rights protecting me from unlawful search and seizure."
"Hang on. Now listen up . . ."
"Uh-huh," I said, waiting for him to get to the point. And when he didn't, I prompted him. "I'm listening . . ."
He lowered his flashlight, and flicked it toward the car. "That's your vehicle," he said.
"That's what I said."
"You've been drinking."
"Not that you can tell," I said.
"I saw you come out of that establishment there."
"Not recently, you haven't," I said. "You were too busy looking through the windows of my car to notice that I walked all the way down this block from Bell Street."
"No, I mean—"
"Oh, you mean, earlier, when you were parked across the street?" I nodded. "Right. Right. But if I came out of this bar then, what car did I get into?" I gestured at the Mustang. "Mine's still here. And I'm not in it. Kind of tough to pop me for drunk driving when I haven't even gotten in my car yet. Should I go back into Rye and count to ten and come out again? Will that be enough time for you to go hide?"
He started walking toward me, his flashlight beam playing across the pavement between us. "Okay, asshole, that's enough of that."
I waited until he got close enough and then I raised a hand to stop him. He did, and I noticed that he had made no move toward his sidearm. "What's the message?" I asked tiredly.
"What message?"
"The one you're supposed to give me," I said.
"What are you talking about?"
"You're less than ten yards from me," I pointed out. "And your gun is still secured. If I was a real threat, I could get over there, take your flashlight from you, and severely beat you with it before you could even get your gun out. Which means you're either an idiot, or you know who I am and you've got something you want to tell me. I'm going to be polite and assume you're not an idiot."
He shuffled from foot to foot for a second, and then he clicked off the beam on his flashlight. "Good night, Mr. Bliss," he said. His gaze wandered over my shoulder. "And I hope your drive back to LA tomorrow is pleasant."
"Thank you, Deputy," I said. "But I'm probably not going back to LA tomorrow."
He smiled at me, his teeth gleaming in the light of the sodium lamps. "I'm delighted to hear that," he said.
"Why am I not surprised?" I asked rhetorically.
"I'll be seeing you," he said.
"I'm sure you will."
He walked over to his car, got in, and noisily drove out of the parking lot. I remained where I was, and watched him make his dramatic departure. Only then did I turn and look toward the bar behind me.
Standing out back were a pair, smoking cigarettes. I recognized Freesia, and the dude standing next to her was an older man with a scraggly white beard, wearing a cook's apron.
I waved. They waved back. I got into my car and drove back to the hotel.
This town, was the last thought running through my head when I crawled under the covers on the lumpy bed and tried to box the pillow into a comfortable shape.
CHAPTER 10
I slept in, and after examining my bruises in the bathroom mirror, I showered and put on a clean shirt. I finished putting away the few items from my bag that I wasn't going to need during the day, and then I went down to the lobby to check out the choices on the breakfast table.
"Good morning," Dolly sang out as I came into the lobby. Her hair was plaited into a single braid today, and her blouse was the color of the morning sky after a night of cleansing rain. Her lips were shiny and rosy, and they looked a lot moister than the tiny poppy seed muffins laid out in precise rows next to the coffee urn.
"Good morning," I responded.
"Do you sleep well, Mr. Bliss?" she asked.
I was about to respond when the door to the back office opened, and a gnomish man in an ill-fitting suit poked his head out. He mumbled something unintelligible to Dolly, who nodded her head, and then he stared at me for a few seconds. He had bushy eyebrows and a layer of grey hair that looked like it had been shellacked to his head. He mumbled something that was probably supposed to pass for genial office conversation, and I smiled and nodded as if I agreed wholeheartedly. He disappeared back into the office, shutting the door behind him.
"I thought gnomes turned to stone if they were exposed to sunlight," I said.
"He's not a gnome," Dolly said. "He's the night auditor."
"There's a difference?"
She smiled at me as she finished shuffling together a stack of printouts. "I slept well," she said. "Once I decided to go to sleep, that is." She gave me a knowing glance as she took the stack to the office where the gnome was hiding out.
There hadn't been any blood in my urine when I had pissed before taking my shower, so I had that going for me.
I busied myself with choking on a couple of the mini muffins, washing them down with large gulps of tepid coffee. It really was a shitty continental breakfast, and I wondered why I was bothering when I could go anywhere else in the world and do better.
And then Dolly came out of the back office, and I remembered why I was hanging around.
"Any big plans for today?" she asked brightly.
"Wandering around town and seeing the sights," I offered.
"That'll take ten minutes."
"Maybe lunch, then."
"Ooh. Don't rush yourself."
"I'm just killing time until happy hour anyway," I said.
She blushed lightly. "Oh, I have something for you," she said. She bent and
opened a drawer near the floor and rummaged around inside. "Here it is," she said as she found a folded brochure. "There was a woman who stayed here last month whose husband was staying at Hidden Palms," she said. "We talked about it quite a bit. I think she was a little lonely and not quite sure what she was supposed to do, and so she was happy to have someone to talk to. I asked her about the facility, and she got me this."
The brochure was professional and filled with bright pictures of stress-free people and scenic vistas.
"Thanks," I said. "I'll give this a read."
On the back was a phone number for making appointments and other information about the Center. I tapped the number. "You don't suppose I could use the phone?" I asked.
"No need," she said. "You have an appointment at 2pm."
"I do?"
"Your personal assistant called this morning and set it up."
"She did?"
"She did."
"She's very efficient."
"You only hire the best." She gave me a bright smile.
I liked seeing that smile. "Did she use my name when making the appointment?"
"Of course." She caught the slight twitch in my mouth. "Was that bad?"
"It's fine," I said, smoothing over my momentary concern. Wilson would find out about the appointment, or he wouldn't. No point in worrying about it now. "Do I have any other appointments today?"
"As a matter of fact, you do," she said. She slipped a folded card out of the pocket of her slacks and placed it on the counter next to the brochure. "You have reservations at this restaurant at six."
I picked up the card and read the name and address printed inside. Underneath were neatly printed directions to the restaurant from the highway. It was in Santa Maria, up the road a bit from Los Alamos. "For one?" I asked.
"No," she said.
"Fancy place?"
"You don't need to wear a jacket," she said.
"How about pants?"