Seeing the direction of Ed’s lovely wide eyes, Mrs. Katie Collins spoke over her shoulder. “They are from the genus Ateles. Spider monkeys if you prefer. Take a peek if you like.”
Ed crossed the narrow living room, seeing empty cages under the darkened ones. She raised the first black draping and peered inside.
“I only work with the children,” Mrs. Katie Collins said. “A bit too tall at full age.”
A hot wave of disgusting odor greeted Ed. The stench was made worse as the young black and white monkey inside let out a crying, shrill screech and then a bark. The under tray was dark with pools of dank urine around brown islands of poo. The inside of the fabric was stained as though the little animal had resorted to throwing its bits of food and its own waste this way and that.
“That one’s a bit balmy between the ears,” Mrs. Katie Collins explained pleasantly. “The side cages are the breeders. I don’t work with them, the adults being too big for the village.”
The monkey before Ed went hysterical with a screeching and horsey whining at the sight of Mrs. Katie Collin’s approach. The monkey gripped the bars with one paw, the other ending at a stump. Ed placed her hands over her ears and stepped back through the doorway.
“That’s terrible,” Ed wiped the back of her hands across her mouth trying to erase the smell and cries. “I’m sorry, but… how can you?”
“To save them, to protect them, if you will,” the woman answered quickly, warmly.
“Save them from what?”
“Their wild lives. Uncivilized ways. Also, they’re often hunted for food, if you can believe it. Crazy Mexicans. Clear-cutting also has them on endangered lists.”
“So, you save them by making them into dolls?”
Mrs. Katie Collin’s tightened gaze said that she didn’t care for that.
“My young chippie, no. I preserve them for eternity and give them a dignified town to live in.”
Realizing she had the woman’s hackles up, Ed steered to neutral turf. “They are so cute.”
A thin-lipped smile stretched the paper skin back from the woman’s two rows of uneven and gapped teeth.
“Cute? Yes, but so much more. They’re such social… people. Love of family and all that.
The mums are so caring with their brood and are the natural leaders. The males are entirely useless. As a society, they can be rambunctious, but respond well to discipline.”
“You discipline them?”
“When need be.”
“The one I saw. Missing its hand…” It was a realization, not a question.
“It is a paw. Precisely. Tea is ready.”
Ed scanned the living room, redolent with the scent of spider monkey waste. She turned to the lace curtains leading out to Monkeyville.
“I need to go. Thank you, but…”
“Silly child, take your chair. Tell me, have a fondness for pets?”
‘Sure, but I’ve never had one. I always wanted a puppy. The places I’ve lived wouldn’t allow it.”
“Shame, that. Animals make the best friends. Alive or dead. Every person needs someone to talk to.”
“Yes,” Ed agreed.
“I could gift you one. I’m a bit lopsided with males.”
“A gift? Why I, sure. Wait. Dead or alive?”
“Your choice, darling one.”
“I’ll go with ‘alive.’”
“And I can give you a costume. Any preference?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Suit and tie and hat? Workman outfit? Schoolyard attire?”
Ed chewed in that, twisting the side of her lovely mouth. “Can I think on that?”
“Certainly, dear. Now shall we select your new friend?”
“I think I have. Is the one just inside the door a boy?”
“Yes, he is, but he’s a bit wild and randy. I can suggest one of the more docile males.”
Ed recalled the downtrodden, facial expressions of the one-handed monkey.
“If you’ll tell me how to care for him, what he eats and all, I think he’d be perfect.”
“Your choice. You have my precautions. Let me write down some instructions.”
While Mrs. Collins took up a pen and pad of stationery from the coffee table and wrote out a short list, Ed went to the door where her new pet waited.
“Go ahead, lovely. He won’t bite. Well, likely won’t bite. I’ll get you a loaner leash.”
Ed opened the door to the smells and noise trying to hold down a reflexive gagging. She opened the cage just inside.
“Does he have a name?” Ed called back, pushing the thin-barred door open all the way.
“I number them, love. You’re free to give him a name. His number is forty-seven.”
The sad, uncertain spider monkey was eyeing the open cage door and Ed with equal amounts of fear and curiosity. It inched to Ed’s outstretched hand and gave a long stare before using its remaining paw to turn it at the wrist as though in search of food. Or kindness.
“A darling,” Ed spoke softly.
The little monkey placed one foot in her other open palm, leaned out of the cage, and gave Ed’s forearm a two-armed embrace.
Ed smiled with delight—a rare emotion over the years.
She turned slowly from the room with the black and white furred critter silent and holding on.
Mrs. Collins was seated and holding a tea saucer and cup, which she set on the table. She handed Ed the list of instructions and a long leash of twine.
“He’s wonderful. Thank you.” Ed beamed.
“Have you chosen a name?”
“Yes.”
“It is?”
“Puppy.”
8
Ed and Puppy walked the soft green grass along the landing back around in the direction of their suite. Puppy was clearly pleased to be out and about, merrily scampering side to side, not minding the fifteen-foot leash at all.
The monkey turned in at the stairwell alcove. Instead of tugging on the leash, Ed followed. Puppy led the way to the single door back in the darkness and off to the side. Ed opened it and the two of them ascended narrow metal steps to a second door to the roof.
For Ed, the sky to the north was baby blanket blue. To the south, storm clouds were approaching, a gray bedspread sliding across the jungle ceiling. She closed the door and unclipped Puppy’s leash from his collar. He stayed frozen still for a couple of watchful minutes before dashing off gratefully in this and that direction about the rooftop machinery.
Taking a deep breath of clean, unflavored humid air, she felt its heat in her lungs. Her mind cleared with each successive inhale.
Puppy was climbing the metal supports of the elevated swamp coolers. He rose smoothly without his left paw, his tail in constant use.
Ed walked over to the low stone wall and took in the eastern view.
A single clack of metal on something solid carried over the sounds from the various machines, followed by a grumbled curse.
Ed paid it no mind looking down the stonewall of the Hotel Or. The base of the building was hemmed by a lawn that rolled gently downhill to water that curved and surrounded the hotel.
“The eating fish,” she said, looking from the water to the opposite shore of freshly mowed lawns running forty yards to the skyward climbing, endless jungle.
A new sound carried, and she recognized it. The relentless whine of a riding mower. The whirling sound grew louder with some echoing. Casimir-Senior, the dark gecko, came into view from the mouth of a tunnel off to her right. He began a long line of cutting along the water’s edge.
She turned and looked past the swamp coolers and other machines. Puppy was contentedly exploring. The glass panes of the atrium roof were white splattered and a dozen black and red birds balanced on the glass edge of the one broken section.
Liking the clearing of her thoughts, Ed spoke to the hotel’s design, “A stone castle dropped from the sky into the jungle.”
Turning to the railing again, she watched the lawnmowe
r edge the square sides of two car-size, squat stone pillars and the ramp that led up to them.
“A bridge. Missing the bridge,” she decided, looking to the green field on the other side of the water. Grass-pressed tire tracks ran outward from the hotel to a second distant tunnel.
She walked along the wall until she was directly above the bridge supports, trying to figure where the bridge was. A screech from Puppy was followed by another thwack around the corner. She moved to the sound and a voice throwing out a bitter three-word curse.
“Sodomize this game.”
Passing the last rooftop machine on risers, she saw a woman at the far end of the glass atrium standing on a raised wood deck holding a golf club.
Approaching to within three steps of the deck, she recognized Marlaina the Magnificent reaching into a basket on spiny legs and take out a small gray-red ball. She placed the ball on a tee on the green carpet of fake grass and studied the distance while taking a golfer’s pause, club back, the thick wood head at the ready.
“Give me a moment,” Marlaina said to Ed, not turning.
Marlaina swung the club, and the gray-red ball took flight with the familiar thwack.
Ed climbed two of the five steps and looked the basket over. It was half filled with balls, and an ice cream scoop dangled from a chain. She climbed the remaining steps and followed Marlaina’s hand-shaded eyes to far below. A tethered life ring floated in the water with a yellow flag attached. The water around the hole she had aimed for was roughed up by what Ed knew had to be more of the meat-eating fish.
“I was going to come looking for you,” Marlaina said, teeing up another ball. “But here you are. Good.”
Ed reached into the basket and picked up a ball. It was frozen and smelled like meat. She dropped it and stepped back so the next golf club swing wouldn’t take off her head.
“We need to discuss your employment,” Marlaina said and swung.
When her shot hit the water, the outward ring of its splash went alive with the ugly and mean small yellow fish.
“This place. This hotel…” Ed said.
“I know, colorful, eh. Where to begin. Think of it as a machine more than anything.”
“A machine? Maybe a crazy one, no, a sick one.”
“However you like. Point is, you’re living inside it now but not earning your keep.”
“I was hired to host. You hear what that sick man wanted to do? With a paid audience?”
“That noted, you didn’t satisfy him, and that’s what you’re paid to do. That and being a sexy door ornament.”
“I was only hired to be a hostess.”
“Yes, which is part time at best. You need to do more to earn your keep. I’m thinking your smarts would be helpful in the office.” Marlaina selected another ball and teed up.
Ed watched her swing, search, and curse before she spoke up. “Office work? As in?”
“Light clerical. Have a shitload of back filing.”
The far din of the mower took on an echoing quality again. Ed saw it disappear inside the tunnel mouth to the left. “Leads to the gas station and restaurant?” she asked herself out loud.
“Excuse me, what?”
“Nothing, I’ve never worked in an office. I’m game.”
“Good. Work at the Hotel Or is important. Everyone has to do their part. And work is good for the mind and spirit. If you don’t work, have a job, liked or disliked, you have no worth.”
Puppy appeared, gracefully climbing the wood steps, eyeing Marlaina and her golf club suspiciously.
Ed squatted and gently gathered him up.
“Cute,” Marlaina set her golf club in the bag with others and took up the handle of the basket of balls. “They bite,” she added, glancing at Puppy.
“Only when scared.” Ed mentally read from the list Mrs. Katie Collins had given her.
“I see that one’s got a troublesome attitude,” the woman was eyeing Puppy’s missing paw.
“He’s a child. Been living in a stinking cage for I don’t know how long.”
“Let’s go. I’m sweating like an alcoholic at his first meeting. You and your pet must be, too. You shower and rest. The weekly soiree is this evening, and you need to work it. Let’s meet in the morning and get you started in the office.”
With Puppy in her arms, nuzzling and gripping his remaining paw into Ed’s shirt, she followed Marlaina along the edge of the glass atrium roof to the stairs leading down back inside the chilled and flavored hotel air.
9
There was a card on the carpet inside her apartment door. It looked like a party invitation with elegant lettering in black on card stock paper.
The Hotel Or cordially invites you to
Our Weekly Night Concert and Dance
10:00 p.m. – The Main Hall
Formal attire required
Below was handwriting in a backward leaning, awkward script.
You are excused from today’s midday meal so you can rest up. You will be a busy lightbulb and will hopefully please a moth or two.
Ed placed the unsigned note and invitation on the telephone table and looked at the sealed air vents low on the wall that ran to the bookshelves. Her apartment was nearly as hot and humid as the rooftop. She stripped off her clothes and took a cooling shower.
Reclining naked on her couch, she read a dozen pages of White Jazz before telephoning for room service. Puppy was here and there exploring his large new home. She pulled on a robe and read some more while waiting for room service to arrive. The cart was wheeled in by one of the gypsies who she recognized from her kitchen and freezer experience. She had been one of the plate scrapers.
“Tip will go on your tab,” the woman told Ed and departed.
Puppy mounted the room service cart as Ed lifted the round shiny tray tops. There was a selection of bread for Ed and platefuls of fruit for the monkey, as well as an assortment of newspapers. Ed had ordered these after seeing Puppy squatting and pooing in the corner beside the bookshelf.
She took a bite of bread, scanned the odd language under photographs in The Dubrovnic Times and The Croatian Times, looking for a recognizable word in English. Finding few, she set out some of the pages over on the floor and ate two slices of bread watching Puppy stir through and chew various types of fruit.
A nap seemed like a good idea. She considered the bed and wrote it off, knowing she couldn’t sleep well there. Sadly, it looked too nice for herself. She took off her robe and balled it up for a pillow and lay down on the couch. Puppy was happily hunched on the room service cart greedily eating at a great pace.
“Tell me your story?” she asked him. “Any version will do.”
He turned his busy mouth and eyes to her and stared. He was enjoying a wedge of cantaloupe, eating down into the rind.
“Interesting. Thank you. I liked the gunfight scene. Want to hear the Ed Rang story?”
The cantaloupe rind took flight and he selected an orange slice with his one good paw.
“There was this girl who lived in Palo Alto. Her parents were chemists who made chemicals for rich people. Until she was eight and a half, she went to famous and really hard schools and learned a lot of great things she knew she’d never put to work. She and the mom and dad traveled a lot. Mostly for her mom and dad’s company.”
She watched Puppy finish a melon wedge, tasting the rind before a squeak and a toss.
“She had a very big house with a swimming pool. All the furniture disappeared that winter. She was six. They lived in hotels and with the mom’s many friends. They lived in the car for that Christmas. The mom was proud of… often said, ‘life on the lamb.’ The girl didn’t know what that meant. The dad didn’t like it. Then they lived in a storage place. They had two. One was their house, and the other was for making chemicals.
“She didn’t go to school anymore and hated having a loud rolling front door.”
Puppy was done eating and was casually tipping books from the high-up top shelf. It was clear he had a d
islike of the colorful paperbacks with cozy mystery titles.
“Just before she turned nine, her mom and dad flew on a private plane to this country. It was a work trip. All they brought were two briefcases. Someone rented them a nice hotel room, sort of like this apartment, and they stayed there. Inside all day long. She couldn’t use the swimming pool, and they couldn’t go to restaurants or anywhere.
“They were there for a week. She liked having room service and her rolling bed, and she sat at the window watching people laying on the beach far below.
“The day the four men came, she was told to stay in the bathroom. The last time she saw her mom and dad, she peeked, and they were sitting together on the couch with two briefcases. She was in the bathroom for like hours. It was very cold and quiet. At nighttime, the four men came into the bathroom and placed a black bag over her head. Then they tied her feet together and she was carried all over the place in the trunk of a car.”
Puppy was eating again from the room service cart before the couch.
“She and the four men drove for two or three days. She had to pee and poo in the back of the car, and the hood was taken off so she could eat. They finally stopped in the parking lot under a big new building and rode an elevator. She was told to take a long bath. They were in a very fancy apartment, but not as nice as Señor Guzman’s, whose place was huge and decorated like the rich homes in movies. Before she was taken to Señor Guzman, two of the men shaved her head and made her wear a long, blonde wig. They gave her a dress to wear, no, it was a nightgown, and she was taken up a wide hallway to a very bright room with lots of windows and lights, and she started to learn how to be the untouchable eye candy at the brothel entrances.”
Ed stopped, glanced at the silver clock on the wall. Puppy looked like he might be asleep—he lay on his side on the couch, his good paw on her foot.
“Are you listening?” she asked him.
“So, she lived in Señor Guzman’s house for a while. When he wasn’t home, she was taken back to the not-so-nice apartment. One cool thing was, he told her he was paying her new savings account each week she enticed customers to enter the whore houses.
The Girl in the Hotel Page 5