Slow Burn

by G. M. Ford

  She held the mike in one hand while she patted Bunky’s massive cardboard rump with the other. “For those of you just joining us, we are here today and for the rest of this week on a special mission of mercy.” She then stepped to the right and threw her free arm around Bunky’s neck. “We are here on a mission of mercy, a mission to save a life, a mission to save a heart,” she intoned.

  Without warning, she slid down to the far end of the cutout.

  “Yes, heart, Mr. Del Fuego.” The camera panned Jack’s demonic countenance while Lola continued the narration.

  “But you wouldn’t know anything about hearts, would you, now, Mr. Jack Del Fuego, because you don’t have one, do you? At least not in the sense that the rest of us have a heart.”

  Jack kept right on smiling and winking as Lola King stared at the teleprompter and recited the whole poor-littlegirl, 4-H, family-pet nightmare in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Her recitation was punctuated by periodic spasms of lamentation from the studio audience, which had unwittingly assumed the role of the classic Greek chorus.

  “Afternoon Northwest invited Mr. Del Fuego to appear on the program this afternoon, but he refused.”

  “Ooooh,” from the audience.

  “Here with us this afternoon…representing NUTSS, which as most of you know stands for Neighbors United To Stop Suffering, an organization whose sole purpose is to guarantee the rights and safety of our four-footed, our finned, and our feathered friends. Let’s have a warm Afternoon Northwest welcome for…Clarissa Hedgpeth.”

  A recorded version of “Walk with the Animals, Talk with the Animals” blared out of the set as the Hedgpeth woman strode onstage, leading her signature white standard poodle, Bruce. Wild applause.

  She looked like Carol Channing with clinical depression. Same white-haired, wide-eyed wonder, but without any of the fun. Just an abiding confusion. Clarissa Hedgpeth always appeared to be whistling in the dark, as if only her trembling smile held back the impending floodwaters of disaster.

  She waved at the audience. “Thank you. Thank you,” she said.

  Bruce flopped down on the floor at his mistress’s feet and stared stupidly at the audience. His body was shaved and waved in typical poodle fashion, a puff of hair here and a knot there, including a tennis-ball-size hairball at the tip of his tail. The camera panned back to include the coiffured mutt in the shot. As if on cue, the dog lifted his leg and began to vigorously lick his shaved privates. The camera quickly panned back to close-ups of the two women. The audience tittered.

  “I wish I could do that,” said Ralph, pushing a fistful of fries into his already stuffed mouth.

  “You probably ought to try to pet him first,” George suggested.

  They yucked it up, stomping around the floor, repeating, “…pet him first…you better pet him first…” and pounding each another on the back.

  Much as it pained me, I interrupted the revelry.

  “I’m glad you fellas are enjoying your lunch so much, but do you think maybe you could snap it up a bit so Judy and Frank aren’t down there all alone for too damn long?”

  “What are you gonna do?” Ralph complained.

  “I’m going out looking for Bunky.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ for us to do downstairs,” Ralph said.

  “I want to know when everybody comes back and how,” I lied.

  With these guys, idle hands were truly the devil’s workshop. “It’ll take all four of you to do that,” I said. “Write it all down.”

  They gave me the silent treatment as they finished up.

  On the tube, Clarissa Hedgpeth was dripping sincerity and holding forth on the merits of all creatures great and small.

  “Animal liberationists do not separate out the human animal, so there is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They are all mammals.”

  With the possible exception of Lola, of course.

  Lola looked concerned but continued to smile and proffer the mike. Clarissa went on. “During World War Two, six million Jews were killed in concentration camps. But do you realize that next year, over six billion broiler chickens will be slaughtered so that Americans can…”

  I watched as thirty-five years in the business passed before Lola King’s eyes. She could see it. This was the end. If she wasn’t careful here, they’d crucify her for this one. I’d read in the paper about how management had tried to replace her with one of the weather girls and that the ensuing age-discrimination suit had kept them from turning her out to pasture or, even worse, from sending her back to the beginning, doing the inclement-weather spots, standing out in Ocean Shores in her parka, screaming into the mike while an eighty-mile-an-hour gale blew ice spicules up her ass. No, thanks. She jumped in.

  “But surely, Clarissa, you can’t be equating poultry to people. We wouldn’t want our viewers to think that you were saying…”

  Clarissa did her best wide-eyed space princess. “Oh, but I am, Lola. There’s no difference between Bruce and us…”

  Bruce looked insulted. Lola stared to the left of the camera and narrowed her eyes to mere slits as a sudden commercial break cut Clarissa Hedgpeth off in mid-slur. Now for a word from our sponsor.

  George and Ralph wiped their mouths, hiked up their britches, and started across the room. As they walked, I thought I heard little bells, but I was so involved in wondering how many angry letters the station was going to get that I pushed the thought aside.

  I went over to the desk, pulled the phone book out of the drawer, thumbed through it, and began removing pages. As I started to replace both the phone book and the room-service menu, I noticed a gold key on a chain, resting on the bottom of the drawer. The minibar key.

  That’s when it hit me. The goddamn tinkling. I bent, opened the little door, and found what I’d expected. They’d excavated the sucker, taking about half of it and spreading the rest out neatly on the shelves to cover their tracks. Excluding the pop, of course. They’d left all the pop. That stuff’ll kill ya.

  I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face and hands, then changed into a pair of jeans and an old Huskies T-shirt.

  The station must have run seven or eight minutes’ worth of commercials, because when I came back into the room, the program came back from the break, just in time to sign off. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” Lola said. “We’re out of time today, but tune in tomorrow as we continue our investigative report on animal rights. Tomorrow’s guests will be Steven Drew of the NVS—the National Vegan Society— and Konrad Kramer, spokesman for the ALF, which is the Animal Liberation Front. Until then, I’m Lola King and this is Afternoon Northwest.” Fade to black.

  I turned off the tube, stuffed the Yellow Pages into my pocket, and pulled the door closed behind me.

  It was five forty-five when I rolled the Fiat around the circular drive of the Olympic Star and crawled out. Squatting there among the gleaming luxury sedans, the Fiat stuck out like a wart. I handed the nearest uniform the keys and two bucks, then stood on the sidewalk and stretched myself out as he peered dejectedly at the little car. I was still readjusting my lumbar vertebrae while he raced it out into the street and disappeared.

  Across University Avenue, the crew was spread out, doing what it does best, lounging on a set of concrete stairs in between the Delta Airlines office and the side entrance to Rainier Square. I counted noses. All eight of them were there. Five on the stairs. Billy Bob, Mary, and Hot Shot Scott asleep on the upper landing. Forgetting he was undercover, Flounder gave me a small, wasted wave as I turned to enter the hotel.

  George was picking his teeth with a matchbook cover and rocking on his heels at the top of the escalator. As I stepped from the moving track, he lurched over and threw a playful arm around my shoulder.

  “You find the cow?”

  His eyes were bleary; he smelled like a distillery. Having spent the afternoon kicking turds around stockyards and boarding stables, I was in no mood for furt
her fertilizer.

  “Just the part that’s stuck to my sneakers,” I answered.

  If he got the joke, he didn’t let on. “All the pigeons are in the coop,” he reported. I looked around him, toward the tables at the far side of the lobby.

  Ralph had joined Frank and Judy at their table. The cocktail hour was in full swing. Ralph’s movements had that loose-jointed quality he gets when he’s out of it.

  “I want you and Frank and Judy to stick around for a bit. Pay everybody and send them home. Tell them to be back at eight tomorrow morning, looking and smelling good.”

  “How long we gotta stick around?”

  “Seven. Maybe a little after. They’re all going to the same shindig this evening. Once they’re all out and about, you guys can go.”

  He stuck out his hand. I slapped six hundred dollars down on his palm. “Pay yourself while you’re at it, big fella,” I said.

  Even at my most limber and malleable, I don’t believe what George suggested I do next would have been possible.

  I moved to the right, pushed the up button, and waited. Three elevators down, the door opened. I hustled over and stepped in.

  The room had been straightened and the room-service cart removed when I got there. I smiled. Although it made no sense, I was always vaguely insulted when I left a room a wreck and then returned to find it still in disarray. Despite the fact that no one had ever cleaned up after me, I had always been filled with the all-abiding belief that someone should do it. That it was natural and preordained. That whatever little piles and wrinkles I might leave in my wake should miraculously be returned to their previous states, thus eliminating all record of my passing.

  I emptied my pockets onto the sideboard and was removing my jacket when I noticed the blinking red light on the phone. I threw the coat on the bed and picked up the receiver. Following the printed directions, I dialed six-three. An electronic voice said, “You have one message, left today at two-ten. To listen to your message, please push one.” I followed along. And they said I wasn’t a team player. “This is Mason Reese,” the recording said. “Yesterday, you said if anything interesting developed…” He actually chuckled into the phone. “Maybe you better give me a call.” Click. “End of message,” the electronic voice droned. “To listen to this message again…”

  Without thinking, I depressed the button and dialed eight-one-four. I let it ring about twenty times. When I replaced the receiver, the red light on the phone went out and the one in my head went on.

  Sometimes I like to tell myself that, if nothing else, middle age has taught me to follow my instincts. If it feels right, do it. If not, don’t. A creed as simple as that should be easy to follow. And it would be, except for the other guy. My lifelong companion. The one who pokes his nose in where it doesn’t belong. That guy. The one who just has to get in the last word, no matter what. Every time. Always. The one who hits my golf shots into the trees when I’m not looking. Him. He and I took the stairs, figuring we’d be there long before the elevator arrived.

  I stepped onto the eighth floor in time to see a gray-clad maid backing into a room at the far end of the hall, leaning way back, dragging her heavily laden cart over the threshold.

  As I strolled down the carpeted hallway, I tried to figure out what tune she was whistling as she worked. I was sure I’d heard it before. I hummed the melody to myself, hoping that would help. That’s probably why I’d already knocked on Mason Reese’s door a couple of times before I noticed it was slightly ajar.

  Down the hall, the whistling continued. She’d left the cart in the doorway, propping the door open as maids are taught to do. A brown arm reached out and grabbed a spray bottle from the cart and disappeared back inside.

  I won’t lie. My submarine dive horn was blasting in my ears. Ahoooga Ahoooga. Dive! Dive! Every instinct in my body screamed for me to turn around and go quietly back from whence I had come. Instead, I checked the corridor again and elbowed the door open.

  The light from the hall traveled only about six feet into the room, but that was far enough. On the carpet, midway between where I stood and the elegant little two-seater couch against the rear wall, a slick patch of goo glistened like black obsidian in the half darkness. I’d seen it before and knew what it was.

  I used the back of my hand to flip the switch on the left side of the door. It was already up. I flipped it down. Nothing. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my stomach. I would have walked away, I swear I would have, but…

  The whistling stopped. I quickly looked to my right. The cart was moving back into the hall. I could see both of her arms and one foot. In a single motion, without a single thought, I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me.

  I leaned back against the door. The room wasn’t totally dark. A muted luminance filtered under the doors leading to the bedroom. I could see the white plastic DO NOT DISTURB sign on the floor to my right, and I could still make out the wet patch on the carpet. Even better, now I could smell its heady, metallic scent. I kept my stomach in place with a series of deep breaths. I waited.

  The whistling resumed, louder now. It was Abba. “Dancing Queen.” The Hispanic maid was whistling “Dancing Queen.” Talk about a global village. A key scraped in the lock. The door opened an inch before I leaned back hard and growled, “No. Not now. Come back later.”

  I heard the key slide out. I kept taking deep breaths and counted to sixty before turning around and peering out through the magnified peephole. She stood in the hall with her hands on her hips staring at the door. I put my back to the door and waited. Three hundred this time. When I peeked again, she was gone.

  Keeping as far from the slime as possible, I crossed the room and switched on the table lamp. In the harsh light, the slop was no longer black but a deep rust red, sprinkled here and there with bits of what looked like oysters. I decided not to think about the oysters, instead focusing on several small gray-and-white feathers, whose airy arms fluttered in the artificial breeze.

  I used my knuckles to push the bedroom doors apart. The light was coming from under the bathroom door. I walked over the threshold carefully, staying out of the occasional blood trail. The bed had been turned down far enough to expose the pillows, one of which now sat in the middle of the flowered bedspread, its pillowcase gone, bleeding goose feathers from a nasty-looking hole in its striped middle.

  I kept my eyes on the floor and my hands in my pockets as I sidled along the length of the room, my butt dragging across the face of the dresser. No body on either side of the bed. Reaching the far side of the bed, I knelt down, took a deep breath, lifted the bed skirt and peeked under. Nothing.

  I unbuttoned the cuff of my shirt, drew my hand back inside, and used the cuff to try the bathroom door. Locked. I leaned my weight against the door and discovered one of the few drawbacks of five-star hotels. Nothing is cheap. I reached in my pocket and pulled out the electronic key for my room. I knelt by the lock, wiggled the thin piece of plastic into the crack between the door and the jamb, covered my right hand with the cuff again, and gave the door a hard wiggle. On the second try, the plastic key began to bend and then moved forward a quarter inch. With my left hand, I held the card in the lock; with my right hand I tried to pull the door open. Nothing doing.

  Careful to keep the cuff between my hand and the crystal doorknob, I gave it another series of tremors, concentrating this time on pulling down on the knob. With a rush, the card slipped all the way between the door and the jamb.

  I was smiling inwardly as I pushed myself to my feet and jerked the door open. I swallowed the smile in a hurry, using my mouth to breathe instead. Lo and behold, there was the missing pillowcase, presently holding not a pillow but what appeared from the doorway to be the lion’s share of Mason Reese’s brains.

  He sat on the toilet fully dressed, his head thrown back and his mouth wide open as if singing arias to the balcony. The bottom third of his face was starting to show beneath the hem of the pillowcase as the weight of the gl
utinous material dripping from the back of the sack gradually pulled it off his head.

  He’d been shot just beneath the nose. Most of his yellow upper teeth, some still connected to bone, now rested haphazardly on and around his thickening tongue. I reached over and touched him on the shoulder. He was just beginning to stiffen, and the body waved like that of a drunk. I held my breath, not daring to move until the corpse settled down and stopped rocking.

  I left him as I found him, sitting there agape, losing his bag under the bright lights. The door relocked itself as I closed it slowly, then retraced my steps through both rooms to the hall door.

  I leaned against the door again and took stock. I figured this was the point of no return. Sooner rather than later, I was going to have to step out into the corridor. I’d already made up my mind that if I was seen by anyone, I was going to go back to my room and call my attorney and the police, in precisely that order, and then sit down and wait to see who showed up first. I was betting on Jed. These days you can get food delivered before the police show up.

  I cracked open the door and looked out toward the elevators. Nothing. I put my ear to the crack and listened. Again nothing. One…two…

  In one fluid motion I yanked open the door, stepped out into the hall, and shut the door behind me. So far, so good. The smell of rusting iron swirled about my head and then lost itself in the sterile air of the corridor. I turned and beat feet down the hall.

  I took three steps before the elevator bonged. I thought about sprinting but decided against it. I was still seventy feet from the stairway door, so I stopped, put my hands on my hips, and turned around. The cast came out first.

  None of this thumb-and-fingers-sticking-out crap. The doctor had encased the whole damn hand in a five-pound ball of cement. The rest of Lance appeared next, followed by his buddy, Mr. Lincoln Aimes. The sight of me standing in the hall drew them up short. Lance stuck out his left arm, keeping Aimes in the elevator.

  “Go down and call the cops, Linc,” Lance said.