The Undead Kama Sutra

by Mario Acevedo

  The street looped past a second guardhouse, this one vacant, and turned into a roundabout in front of the hotel entrance. Dozens of tall palms lined the street and sidewalks. Considering its exclusive clientele, the Sapphire Grand Atlantic Resort looked understated. I expected a gargantuan edifice of Las Vegas proportions that screamed: Look at me.

  The main hotel building was only four stories tall, the rows of dark windows flanking a simple portico. Yet the architecture remained thoughtfully constructed. Its pink marble façade curved toward me, as if leaning forward for an expensive hug.

  A sign pointed to guest parking on the north side of the building. I entered a parking garage, left my Cadillac on the second level, and dragged my roll-along bags inside.

  Once in the hotel, the pretense of austerity stopped. The enormous atrium could’ve been used as a hangar for the space shuttle. The sun’s rays filtered through skylights high above. Terraced gardens with café tables faced the central corridor with its artificial lagoon and schools of koi. Ubiquitous black spheres housing security cameras peeked from the foliage and the corners. Nautical trim and prints of sailing ships decorated the walls and furniture.

  The corridor led into the lobby. Gigantic chandeliers of amber glass hung from the vaulted ceiling. The carpet was plush enough to hoe and sow corn.

  I checked in and went looking for Goodman. I followed a map of the resort, which took me through the lobby mezzanine, across a glassed-in corridor that bridged over the outside sidewalks, and to the adjacent clubhouse.

  The corridor emptied into a foyer. Arrows on the wall read: PRO SHOP, LEFT. GOLF COURSE ADMINISTRATION AND TRAINING, RIGHT.

  I went right, down a hall to an arched threshold with double doors and beveled glass inserts. Both doors were open, revealing a round vestibule lined with office doors. In the middle of the room squatted a wide, circular desk of teak trimmed with brushed aluminum.

  Behind the desk sat a slender black woman, who looked to be in her early thirties. The brushed aluminum nameplate on the desk said that she was Mrs. Mikala Jamison. Sitting perfectly upright, dressed in a tailored business suit that matched the room décor, Jamison looked like she’d been ordered out of an office-supply catalog. She stared at a thin monitor screen. A headset boom jutted around her left cheek. Her manicured fingernails clicked across the keyboard. She had a gold wedding set so heavy and ornate that it would have been the envy of any Babylonian queen.

  Large paintings of fairways at famous golf courses hung along the walls around us. Corporate plaques and trophies filled the spaces between the paintings and office doors.

  The only golf pro I had ever known before, my uncle Pancho, would have found such sumptuous digs beyond comprehension. His office was a plastic crate behind the pro shop at the Fresno public links, where he used to sit, smoke, and hold court.

  I announced myself to Mrs. Jamison and added, “I’d like to see Dan Goodman.”

  She nodded and raised a hand, gesturing that I wait. Her fingers tapped on the keyboard while she muttered in business-speak, as if talking to herself. She clicked some buttons and turned toward me. “And your business, sir?”

  I raised my sunglasses.

  Her eyes popped open, the whites broad, concentric circles around the caramel rings surrounding the dilated pupils. Her aura lit with a luminescent burst of crimson.

  I closed and locked the doors.

  I stepped next to Jamison and swiveled her chair toward me. Cupping her chin, I stared deep into her eyes to strengthen my hold. Her chin was sharp and delicate. Her skin had the texture of a fresh rose petal.

  I gave her another stare. “Is Goodman here?”

  Jamison didn’t answer. She held her breath. I stroked her cheek with my thumb.

  She slowly exhaled. “The colonel is not in.”

  Colonel? Interesting. Goodman was vain enough to use his rank despite being retired.

  “Where is he?”

  Another pause and a breath. I took Jamison’s hand and massaged the web of flesh between her thumb and index finger, to deepen the hypnosis.

  I repeated my question.

  She answered in a whisper: “Chicago.”

  “When is he expected back?”

  Jamison’s jaw muscles tightened. Hypnotic interrogation wasn’t a simple process. Press a reluctant victim too hard and her subconscious could tighten into a protective ball, like an armadillo’s hide. Better to gently coax the answers from her.

  I let go of her hand and touched her neck. My fingertips traced across the tender spots of her throat. Her aura simmered into a low burn of contentment.

  She said, “I don’t know.”

  I looked about the vestibule. “Where’s his office?”

  “Over there.” Jamison lifted a finger in the direction of the widest door on the opposite side of the entrance.

  Figuring the door might be locked, I asked Jamison for a key. She groped in a desk drawer and brought out a key on a ring with the logo of the resort.

  I took the key and was about to tell Jamison to close her eyes when I thought to ask: “Is his room under surveillance?” I hadn’t seen a security camera in here.

  Jamison shook her head. Good.

  I told her to fold her arms on her desk, close her eyes, and lay her head down. I kissed the back of her taut, delicious neck. “Be a nice girl and take a nap.”

  I entered Goodman’s office, a cavernous, opulent space. I expected to find a throne. Tall windows along the far wall overlooked palmettos, myrtle, and a green fairway. His desk was to the right and matched the materials and design of the other furnishings in the hotel.

  The nameplate on his desk read: COL. DAN GOODMAN, RET. U.S. ARMY. Laminated diplomas and certificates hung behind his desk. To the left was Goodman’s “me” wall: photos of himself with other people. The photos were of Goodman in various stages of his life, always a group shot with other golfers. In some of the photos he wore a polo shirt or windbreaker with U.S. ARMY written across the front. He shared the lens with dozens of celebrities: entertainment, business, sports, political. It was as if he had served his military career on the pages of People magazine. In one older color print, a boyish Dan Goodman—in the dress uniform of a West Point cadet—received a trophy from Arnold Palmer.

  At the far end of the photos was a framed certificate of his commission as an officer into the regular army. Next to that was a shadow box displaying awards and decorations. Along the top were rank insignia arranged left to right, from second lieutenant to colonel. Under those were his decorations, two of which surprised me: Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

  How did a career duffer end up with a medal for bravery and another for wounds as the result of enemy action? Who had he played against? Did the Taliban field a golf team?

  His cabinets were unlocked. I thumbed through the files and found tournament invitations, resort brochures, invoices for lessons and equipment, nothing out of the ordinary for a golf pro. Instead of a computer, he had a docking station for a laptop, which was missing. I searched his desk drawers and looked for a note, a business card, a scrap of paper, anything that could point the way forward.

  Nothing.

  I set the door lock from the inside and left the office.

  Jamison snored like a hibernating bear. Her arms dangled to the floor. Both of her feet had twisted out of her pumps and wrinkled the panty hose around her ankles.

  I stroked the top of her head and commanded her to wake up.

  Jamison’s eyes fluttered open. She smacked her lips and straightened in her chair. Her eyes turned toward mine and I gave her a hard stare, to refresh my hypnotic hold.

  “When did Goodman leave for Chicago?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  Her eyes blinked lazily. “Consulting.”

  “For whom?”

  “RKW.”

  I knew enough about current events to recognize the initials. RKW stood for Rockville Kamza Worthington, the military and
security subsidiary of Cress Tech International. Cress Tech built oil wells, highways, shipyards, bridges, airports, pretty much any project measured in the billions of government dollars. The running joke on late-night TV was that the White House was the marketing branch of Cress Tech.

  “What was Goodman consulting for?”

  “Government work.”

  “What kind of government work?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I had to trust Jamison. Victims couldn’t lie under hypnosis. “Where’s he staying?”

  Another “I don’t know.”

  “You have an itinerary?”

  Jamison turned her eyes to her computer monitor. She tapped robotically on the keyboard.

  Goodman’s calendar came on the screen. This week he was in Chicago. Last week…

  I brought my face closer to the monitor to make sure I read the calendar correctly.

  Last week Goodman was in Key West, Florida. And last week Marissa Albert arrived in Key West and disappeared.

  I knew what to do next. I was going to Chicago.

  Chapter

  17

  I made airline reservations for Chicago, but as I hate layovers, the earliest direct flight wouldn’t leave until the next morning. Still, it beat driving. I decided to use the time to check out the hotel and resort grounds.

  I put my contacts back on and visited the pro shop. It resembled the showroom of a BMW dealership, only swankier. After scanning my room key, the clerk signed over a set of Ben Hogan clubs and a red E-Z-GO golf cart.

  While still parked outside the pro shop, I fiddled with the cart’s stereo receiver and scanned channels on the satellite radio. Considering how well-marked the course was, I found the dash-mounted GPS an excess even for this place. Then again, maybe the GPS was a necessity for inebriated and disoriented guests to navigate their way around. Maybe the GPS was also a way to track the whereabouts of every cart.

  With rockabilly tunes twanging from the stereo speakers, I drove past the first tee and began my reconnaissance.

  The front nine holes were north and west of the hotel. Stands of pine and oak, and sloughs with alligators basking on the muddy banks, separated the guest grounds while disguising the less picturesque support buildings. I paused where a narrow road passed behind a green wooden fence. The gate opened to a parking lot. On the left stood a large maintenance shed. Two men in the resort uniform—teal polo shirt over khaki cargo shorts—pushed a riding mower into one of the bays. On the right, a couple of panel trucks—May River Commercial Laundry—backed up to the service entrance on the side of the hotel. Men guided the trucks and shouted commands in Spanish.

  The gate closed by remote control, creaking on steel wheels, moving like a curtain drawn shut to hide family secrets.

  I kept on the cart path to an open area beside the closest fairway. A Bell Long Ranger executive helicopter in bright colors sat on a concrete pad. In the calm air, the orange windsock hung limp as an empty condom.

  Condos bounded the north side of the resort grounds. I turned around and drove the cart to the nine holes south of the hotel. I passed tennis courts, two swimming pools, and a pond watered by a fountain. I continued over a wooden bridge toward the back nine. The course faced east toward Calibogue Sound and Daufuskie Island. A growth of dense juniper—ten, twelve feet high—continued as a straight row from the back of the main building of the hotel to a distance of about two hundred meters.

  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. This place seemed too perfectly neat, except for the big wrinkle that Goodman worked here.

  A narrow asphalt road followed close to the back of the hotel. I couldn’t tell where the road came from but it headed into a break in the junipers to my far left, the entrance to the enclosed area. To the right, pampas grass and sea oats atop sand dunes marked the boundary with the beach.

  I stopped, got out of the cart, and walked until I found a path across the dunes. The beach was a wide, flat stretch of sand. At low tide, the Atlantic surf splashed a hundred meters away. Pelicans dove into the ocean and dolphins broke the surface in graceful arcs. A breeze cooled the air enough that the few people strolling the beach wore long pants and windbreakers. From back here, the resort blended into the clumps of palms and pink buildings stretching along the beach.

  The loud thumping of rotor blades announced a Blackhawk helicopter banking over the water. It entered a descent for an area between the beach and the back of the hotel. Unlike the Long Ranger in its colorful livery, this helicopter was painted in a drab, military finish. The Blackhawk tilted its nose up to decelerate and disappeared over the tops of the junipers. If there was a helicopter pad on the other side of the hotel, why did the Blackhawk land here?

  I returned to my golf cart, walking unhurriedly, like just another casual tourist. The arrival of the military Blackhawk stoked my suspicions about Goodman and the hotel. When I got to the cart, the helicopter rose straight up from behind the junipers. The dense stands of trees muffled the roar of the turbines and rotor blades. The Blackhawk rotated to the south and accelerated, leaving tree branches and palm fronds quivering in its wake.

  The junipers obscured my line of sight and prevented me from seeing anything but the flat roofline of a three-story building, its stucco painted to match the hotel. I’d already seen the maintenance shed. With its forest of antennas, what was this building?

  Thorny rosebushes grew parallel to the path. I found a gap and rumbled through.

  Immediately, my GPS display flashed: OFF COURSE. TURN AROUND.

  Loud beeps shouted from the stereo speakers. I turned the volume down on the speakers but the beeping continued. I mashed the GPS off button but the GPS kept resetting itself. I reached under the dash, found a bundle of wires, and yanked. The beeping stopped and the display went black.

  I steered the cart closer to the junipers so I could study the rear of this building. The few windows on the wall were squinting, horizontal slits. The roof was a jungle of spindly radio whips, clusters of dishes pointed up, and ladderlike masts festooned with pods. Definitely high-grade communications equipment, not the sort of getup you’d need just for HBO. Why all these antennas?

  A small green John Deere Gator truck appeared around the far end of the junipers and turned toward me. I took my contacts out, stored them in their plastic case, and put my sunglasses back on.

  The Gator was a utility vehicle, not much wider than my cart and with an aluminum bed on the back. It halted by my cart.

  The tiny cab of the Gator had no doors. Radio traffic cackled from a speaker. A man in the resort uniform swung his lanky, hairy legs out and stood to face me. The resort logo decorated the shirt and his ball cap. Unlike other employees, he had a special ID tag swinging from a cloth lanyard looped around his neck. The ID tag bore iridescent hologram markings, the resort logo, and his photo and last name: Lewis.

  Coming close, Lewis rested an arm against the roof of my cart. He moved with the confident swagger of an ex-cop.

  “Good afternoon, sir.” He forced the polite tone. Blue eyes contrasted with his bronzed complexion. “Is there a problem?”

  Lewis expected a dumb-ass executive, so I gave him one.

  “Problem? Damn right there’s a problem. It’s my friggin’ game. Sliced my hook.”

  He grinned. “Sliced your hook?”

  “Yeah,” I replied innocently. “Must be something wrong with my clubs.” I leaned over the steering wheel. “My ball went flying this way.”

  Lewis glanced from the distant fairway to the grass around my cart as if doubting that I could have hit the ball this far. “Don’t see it.” He tilted his head and examined my dash panel. “Why isn’t your GPS on?”

  “Is that what this is? Goddamn thing started beeping like crazy.” I pounded the dash panel. One of the buttons popped loose and fell to the floor. “I think it’s broken.”

  Lewis reached and pulled my hand away from the dash. “I’ll take care of it, sir.” He looked over his shoulder back to th
e ruts I had crushed through the roses.

  “Did I do that? Didn’t see them. Sorry.”

  Lewis set his cap on the back of his head. His jaw muscles tightened.

  “What about my ball?” I lowered my voice and pretended that I was sharing a secret. “Listen, I got money riding on this game and right now I ain’t doing too good.”

  “Take a mulligan,” Lewis said with growing irritation. He rapped his knuckles on the roof. “First, you need to get back from the fence.”

  “What fence?”

  “I meant the junipers, sir.”

  But he had said “fence.” “Maybe my ball went on the other side.” I extended a leg to dismount.

  Lewis planted a big hiking boot in my way. The corners of his mouth bent into a frown. “Sir, please return to the path. I’ll look for your ball.”

  “If you cost me this game, so help me.”

  “You got a problem, talk to my supervisor.” He leaned close and sneered. “You rich, dopey assholes think the rules don’t apply. Well, you can stick it up…”

  I lifted my sunglasses.

  The pupils in his eyes dilated into circles the size of dimes. His face went slack and his jaw drooped. Saliva pooled over his lower lip.

  I grabbed his collar and walked him back into the cab of his truck. Pushing him into the passenger seat, I turned his head and fanged him, drinking only enough to keep him docile and quiet. I savored his blood as if it were a chocolate truffle melting in my mouth.

  I took his cap and left him doubled-over. I scooted behind the steering wheel and turned the truck toward the far end of the junipers. Driving close, I saw that they had overgrown a tall chain-link fence.

  I reached the end of the junipers and paused. The tree line turned north. A cinder-block tower with dark windows overlooked the entrance.