“Later, she was told by a new man that Señor Guzman had disappeared just like her mom and dad. After that, she was moved around a lot. Some places were nice, and some were really scary.
“She turned ten, then eleven, then twelve. Because she was really good at the hosting, she was sometimes paid a lot. When she turned thirteen, she was living with other girls on a large boat for one summer. That’s when she was invited to the Hotel Or.
“One of her friends, one of the prostitutes, gave her the telegram, and when they were all shopping in town on land, she snuck away. She had some shopping money and went to Western Union and told the hotel she was coming. The next time she and her girlfriends went to shore together, she brought her wigs and makeup and some outfits. She snuck off again and bought a cheap suitcase. All she needed was a ride.”
Ed stopped there. Puppy was asleep, his furry white chest pumping slowly, his white face peaceful and framed in black fur.
“I’m gonna finish this because I want to,” she told him. “Then another cool shower, okay?”
“She was offered a ride by two men in a truck. They said they knew where the hotel was. She was forced to stay with them in a very bad house for more than two weeks before she got out one morning. She decided no more free rides. So, she walked here. The end,” she whispered to Puppy.
Ed gently widened her ankles, easing the monkey to the couch cushion. She stood and went for another cooling shower.
“Ooh la la.”
There was a shelf of swimsuits in the closet and she pulled on a one-piece black Speedo. She took a quick admiring glance at her figure in the full-length mirror. Sitting at the telephone table, she took out pen and paper and wrote across the top of the page ‘Holes in the Puzzle.’
Working backward through time, she wrote…
Golf balls. What kind of meat are they made from?
Where’s the missing bridge?
Does the lawnmower tunnel go the gas station and restaurant?
Why was the hotel called a machine?
What happened to those surfer dudes?
“There’s other missing pieces, but this is a start.” She looked the list over. She wrote across the bottom of the page, ‘The hotel is like a comic book.’
Leaving off for the time being, she was tempted to uncover a vent and sleep. Instead, she lowered herself to the carpet and rolled over on her side, facing the couch, drawing her knees into her chest. There would be no tears. Those had stopped by the age of eleven, but slumber melted downward into her heart through cloudy layers of sadness.
The sky was dark above the balcony rail when Ed woke. The clock read 8:21 p.m., and Puppy was chatting and making his own fun in what sounded like the contents of her open suitcase or the makeup and perfume bottles on the vanity.
Ed gently stirred Puppy from the inside of her carryall, decided on the mysterious and sexy black wig, and ran a bath. Considering herself in the full mirror, she decided to go with chocolate-colored eyes and a coffee-colored aerosol sprayed skin tone. She took a black satin cocktail dress off a hanger in the closet, liking the plunging neckline that gave a seductive view of her ripe, tan cleavage. Foregoing panties, she laced on a new pair black stilettos, watching Puppy drink from his paw at the sink tap she had left running hours earlier.
“Trash the place but try to poo on the paper.” She smiled at him.
Descending the alcove stairs, she looked far into the black hall to the second dark floor but didn’t pause.
“Another puzzle piece,” she added to her list.
The long tables in the dining room had been removed and couches and chairs for chatting were set out. It looked like most of the hotel’s residents were in attendance. She breathed deeply, tasting the difference in the air. The scent reminded her of the light-headed, groggy flavor of the gas station restaurant.
A bandstand had been set up at the far end of the room. The five-piece band was playing acoustical instruments. The musicians had careless black hair, clean-shaven faces, and full mustaches. Each wore a loose, ill-fitting black tuxedo. The song was quick, having a fast pace that encouraged her and the other residents to rock and sway their shoulders or make quick turns of their head.
The residents wore varying formal attire. Some successful, some just plain old strange. Jimmy the hick wore a gray pinstriped suit with the shirt unbuttoned all the way to reveal his wide pale belly. A dandy bowler hat contained some of his sweat-wet hair. Mrs. Thorngarten still wore her severe business suit but was barefoot. She was doing a burning dance, no partner, her flush face twisted in a mix of anguish and delight.
The open bar to her right had no takers. The couches and chairs were empty as all of the residents were up and dancing—some together while others were working it solo and most were up at the foot of the bandstand. Some faces were familiar, but there were others new to Ed.
She was still in the doorway when a British accent breathed across her bare shoulder to her ear. “Quite the blaster.”
It was the postal thief, Gordy, looking all done up in a forest green corduroy suit, checkered shirt, and a thick orange weaved tie. She turned to him. His eyes were on her breasts, a view she enhanced with a slow bracing of her lower back.
“Yes, a blaster,” Ed inhaled, raising her chest more.
The air in her lungs was lighting a desire to dance.
Looking from Ed’s cleavage to the dancers, Gordy observed, “Rabble.”
“Rabble?”
“That’s the name for a group of butterflies.”
Ed followed his gaze and agreed.
Marlaina eased past them in the doorway, and Gordy snapped at her. “Cock spat.”
“Cock splat,” Marlaina fired back fast, her face clenching in hostility. She walked over to the bar and ordered.
“Our affair has ended badly,” Gordy said.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m the same. How did she get that new hairdo?”
“I don’t…”
“Suspect she used electro-shock. What an ugly mess. Shall we dance?”
“It’s okay to do while hosting?”
Ed felt Gordy’s rough palm encircle her small young hand.
“We shall.” She gave him her sultry, amused smile, the one that suggested, You’re interesting. And I’m curious. She looked straight into his eyes.
The band began their next song, another quick one with a jazzy bounce.
“One moment, please,” Ed told Gordy as she lowered and removed her black stilettos.
The two of them stepped out onto the parquet dance floor atop the carpeting and began to dance. She took his hand, and they each interpreted the music close before each other—Gordy taking up a stilted 1960s butt sway and sweeping free hand and Ed bouncing in time with the song, her free arm up high, accenting her fine bubble rear and the firm bounce of her breasts.
The song ended, and the band broke out into another—this one a bit slower with a swaying side-to-side Latino melody. There was a commotion behind Ed, and she danced around in a half circle. Two female residents were reaching to assist a third woman with a white frog’s face beginning to topple. Before the helping hands could catch her, the frog-woman landed face first on the hard dance floor.
Marlaina was instantly at her side holding her shoulders and helping her turn over and sit up. The frog-woman’s legs were inelegantly splayed out on the parquet and one of her shoes had come off.
Gordy left Ed and joined Marlaina, and the two of them talked with the woman. When she began bobbing her large pale head, they assisted her to her feet.
One of the gypsy staff members rolled an office chair across the floor and the frog-woman was seated before being wheeled from the room followed by Marlaina and Gordy, shoulder to shoulder, whispering and nodding.
“Time to go to work.” Ed stopped dancing and stepped from the dance floor to the carpet and took up her place at the hosting podium.
An hour later, Ed was still at the podium, all suggestive smile and dreamy cho
colate eyes. She had nothing else to do. The residents were happily lost in their dancing, most doing so solo and sucking up the fragrant air. The room was heating up, and many of the faces she offered her seductive look to were sweaty and focused inward. She watched the band leader for a bit—a short theatrical singer, his tuxedo jacket taken off, revealing his red, velvet vest. His movements were clearly an interpretation of the song, adding drama as he switched from vocals to playing sparkling notes on a battered old guitar.
“Smells like a bingo hall,” Ed quipped through her forced smile.
She scanned the dancers one last time before standing to leave the ‘blaster.’ When she was almost to the door, she noticed a change in the air-conditioned fragrance and felt a tingling in her brain that suggested wildness, edging toward madness. Her thoughts swelled with a flurry of passions and confusions. She quickened her strides until she was out in the lobby staring at the bark of the immense Christmas tree. For a half minute, it appeared as though the thick, vertical bark was snaking across the rust-colored tree meat underneath.
She turned away and crossed slowly to the reception desk. Lendall was nowhere in sight—either a collapsed pile on the floor or off on a lunch break.
Off to the right, a stern-faced gypsy was standing guard at a glass door Ed hadn’t noticed before. ‘Offices’ was etched in elegant writing. The gypsy’s arms were crossed and gripped across her heavy belly. The woman’s face said to Ed, “Snake.”
Ed shook her head, dispersing the last of the treated air from the blaster and walked over. She decided to go with a playful British accent. Her attempt confused herself and deepened the snake-woman’s suspicious eyes.
“Allo, mate.”
Ed realized she had probably confused British with Australian. She continued nonetheless, “Quite the party, eh? A real tear up if you will. But to work we go.”
The hard-staring gaze remained sharp on Ed, but the dark puffy circle of one eye twitched.
“If you’ll be so good as to step aside, Marlaina has called for me,” Ed lied smoothly.
The woman chewed three words in a clipped, edgy voice, the language foreign to Ed.
“Right, I agree,” Ed replied, and the woman stepped aside. The door to the hotel offices opened to a long hall. She walked the gold-yellow carpeting. The dark, paneled walls were warmed by soft, defused lighting. At the end of the hall were three frosted glass doors. Voices carried from the middle one. She heard Gordy cooing and Marlaina reply with a stiff laugh.
Ed opened the door to her left and entered a smallish office that was dominated by a desk piled high with folders and stacks of paper leaning precariously to this and that side. The walls were papered with the same sickly urine tone as the stairwell. The walls also had ghosts of a lighter shade from where art once hung.
Ed’s eyes were drawn to the file cabinets against the side wall. The top drawer had a label marked ‘Machine.’
Closing the door and taking a seat in the creaky wood desk chair, she pulled the chain on the lamp and splashed bright light on the small available open surface, a smudged and marked-up calendar from a few years past. Turning from the desk, she scraped the chair across so she faced the Machine-titled drawer which she unlatched and opened.
10
An hour into her reading, Ed had made the following list on a yellow legal pad atop the calendar, often quoting the file information:
Supermarket ‘extortion.’ (I think I misspelled that). ‘UK’ ‘Make payment or poisoned food’ ‘Tesco model (?)’
Adult Foster Care. ‘Import brit pensioners. Tempt w/ tropical retirement.’
Pitch to the wealthy recluses. ‘Manage’ their pensions and savings.
Keep the deceased breathing and paying out.
She pulled out a new gathering of files marked ‘US – SSI’ and was halfway through the first, not yet adding to the list because she was seeing mostly government documents and banking statements. She saw large amounts and names she didn’t recognize. When the intent came clear to her, she took up her pen. A ruckus of voices rose from outside the office.
Marlaina was shouting, and Gordy was doing the same.
Ed killed the desk lamp. She was looking through two towers of paperwork when the door opened. Unfortunately, the dull ceiling lamp was strong enough for Ed to be seen.
It was the snake-faced gypsy woman. Ed dropped low, looked right and left and scooted off the chair and crawled to the second door to her left.
“Opriţi curva,” snake woman yelled at her. Stop, whore.
Ed kept moving, twisting the doorknob and entering another office the same size as the one behind her. The second office also had towers and mounds of paper and folders, but these were on the floor. The door to the hallway was open, letting in the only light—a tilted rectangle of illumination to her right. The desk and chair were in the shadows. Marlaina and Gordy were hollering out in the hall. The snake woman was at the door to Ed’s back yelling and repeating, “Opriţi curva.”
Still squatting, Ed swiveled to her left looking for another adjoining door.
She screamed and launched backward onto her rear, staring wide-eyed at the woman in the desk chair. Below bangs combed over a protruding forehead, a knife handle was sticking from the woman’s throat. Blade strokes bisected her eyes, and a cruel carving had turned her mouth into a frown.
A second knife handle stuck out from the left side of her chest through her blood-soaked gold and purple vest. There were more stab wounds and slices across her upper body, and the carpet underneath was wet. A black pool was widening as blood continued pumping out.
Snake woman’s claws gripped Ed’s shoulder and dug in. Two other gypsies entered from the hallway and swarmed Ed, pulling her to her feet. One of the women Ed recognized as the magazine reader from the kitchen. She was crying and repeating, “Cine a facut asta?” Who did this?
“Who is she?” Ed demanded and received a sharp elbow deep in the ribs. Another claw dug into her right arm as Ed coughed in pain.
She was pulled, one foot dragging, from the room into the hallway. Marlaina was yelling unclear words from behind the third door at the end of the hall.
Ed stopped resisting, not wanting to be struck again. The three women half walked, half dragged her up the hallway and through the door to the lobby. A group of frightened and sad- looking gypsies watched on. They were muttering and crying. Ed found her feet and climbed the stairs in unison with the three women, up past the blackened second story, to the third floor.
Her suite was opened, and she was roughly launched inside. Laying on the carpet and staring deeper into the apartment, she heard her front door lock for the first time.
Puppy lay on his side on the carpet at the foot of the couch, his arms and legs drawn up into his chest. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow. Ed breathed a familiar scent. The flavored air at the midday meal the day before. The A/C was cranked up high, chilling her skin and melting away her awareness and her ability to focus on details, to put puzzle pieces in place.
The murdered woman’s destroyed face was in the front of her thoughts but turning hazy. She got to her feet and explored the suite, seeing the unsealed vents as well as how the balcony door had been repaired and locked and nailed tight.
She searched the rooms for her roll of tape, scissors, and the leftover plastic sheets. They had disappeared. She lifted the telephone to order new supplies. The line was dead—no dial tone.
In her unwanted bedroom, she pulled back the cover from atop the blankets. Scooping Puppy up gently, she carried his dead-like small body into the bedroom and lay him on the bed. Carrying the bedspread to the front room and laying down on the couch, she formed a tent supported by her raised knees and head.
Her thoughts were already misty and half-formed, developing slowly and partially before dissolving like fog in sunlight. The past three days appeared like the first steps into a tunnel. Just away inside, the light from behind revealing the road underfoot and out before her. Ther
e were gaps in the pavement shaped like puzzle pieces.
11
“Rang? Rang? What kind of name is that?”
Ed pulled the bedspread from over her head and body and there stood a new gypsy at her side before the couch. Before she could construct a reply, the woman continued, “Go. Dress. Put on some hair.”
Sure enough, she had pulled her wig off in the night, and it was nestled in her lap, not unlike a cuddling Puppy. She scanned the room.
“My monkey,” she mumbled, forcing her eyes wide. She wiped her lips with the side of her hand.
“That disgusting creature is in your bed. That normal for you? Suspicious and wrong.”
Seeing her open front door, Ed looked up at the woman.
“Who are you?”
“Aditi. Means free and unbound. Now get your perverted self up.”
A fish, Ed decided. Those inflated lips and round eyes.
“Sure.” She climbed from the couch and carried her wig to the bathroom, seeing Puppy sound asleep in the large bed.
“We going somewhere?” she called over her shoulder, pausing at the bathroom door. She gave Aditi a full half-minute to answer before she stepped in on the tiles and shut the door.
Stepping out from the shower, she was confronted with Aditi keeping an eye on her.
“Dress for seriousness if you’re capable of that,” the fish-faced woman instructed.
Dripping wet and choosing not to towel off, Ed eyed Aditi’s full, bland figure. She taunted the woman with accentuated moves of her young, sensual figure and beauty, moving languidly for the closet.
“I’m amazing in black.” She selected a fiery red wig from her open carryall. Taking a raven-black suit off a hanger, she put it on, sans blouse, so her firm cleavage was available for all to admire.
“Boots. You’ll be in the country,” Aditi instructed in a sour voice.
The Girl in the Hotel Page 6