Ed chose a pair of silk stockings and low black slip-on boots and carried them through her bedroom to the front of the suite, pausing long enough to again look in on Puppy in slumber.
Pulling on the stockings and boots, Ed asked, “Where are we going?”
“You are dim. You saw.”
Aditi walked to the open door and waited with crossed arms, glaring at Ed in unbridled hostility.
“I’m coming,” Ed said. “One last thing.”
She crossed the room carrying two of her hard-bound books from the coffee table. Throwing each one at a time, the glass in the balcony door shattered and spilled.
“Shall we?” she said to Aditi, passing by her and leaving the suite, not waiting for a reply.
Aditi caught up with her and descended the alcove stairs two strides in front. They walked down past the blackened second floor, down to the lobby. Aditi turned left away from the reception desk, dining room, and office hall. The numbered room doors along Ed’s side were close together, suggesting hotel rooms, not suites. Beyond the trunk of the three-story Christmas tree, the empty swimming pool came into view.
“Whoa,” Ed stopped and turned around. The heads of two men working shovels showed above a rectangular hole in the soil at the base of the tree. A third man in coveralls and a blue and gold bandana was rolling out a colorful mosaic runner of carpet.
“Move it, tramp,” Aditi prodded her, stepping aside before a double steel door in the back wall. “Get it,” she instructed.
Ed opened the door and followed the woman down a single flight of metal steps to a cavernous, underground parking garage and basement with humming, caged machinery and a row of garbage dumpsters. Three worn-out cargo trucks were parked off to the distant left before a closed rolling steel door.
“Guess that leads to a bridge?” Ed pointed to the door in the weakly lit basement.
“This way,” Aditi ignored the question, turning to the dark of the opposite direction, to a single-bulb lit door.
Aditi unlocked the steel door with a key hanging from a lanyard dangling from her neck. Warmth and brilliant daylight washed the rusted steel steps outside of the Hotel Or. Ed climbed, inhaling deeply from the hot and jungle-flavored air.
Twenty yards out across the lawn, a plank bridge extended over the sweeping turn of water. The bridge arched in an upward curve and two burly, angry-looking men stood at the sides of the first boards, staring at Ed and Aditi’s approach. The two guards let them pass without stepping back for them. Aditi led the way up the planks to the top of the rise.
Beyond the bridge, the jungle had been cleared except for the remaining tall trees shading tents that resembled loaves of bread.
Aditi walked on.
Ed stopped.
Here and there, the tents were in varying disrepair with seams sealed with gray and black duct tape. She saw two groups of children entering the camp, their arms burdened with firewood. Withering smoke rose from campfires scattered among the tents, the flames untended, the camp chairs empty. In the small meadow to the right, four teenagers in drab, baggy clothing were seriously tending to a herd of a dozen goats and three cows.
The few adults she could see were walking in couples and small groups deeper into the shade of the sky-high trees. Ed walked on, entering the camp.
The entrance was marked by unlit butane-fed torches. She saw how they would form a circle of protective flames in the night.
Aditi disappeared among the adults weaving around the trees and tents. Without exception, the women’s clothing was sewn of colorful and loose, comfortably fitting fabrics. Two men in gray and black clothing appeared at Ed’s sides, each taking an elbow and leading her. The one on her left was pressing her flesh with the rounded stump where a hand had once lived. She turned both ways. Stern faces and eyes were aimed deeper into the camp. They passed the first of many purple glowing and sparking insect zappers.
Around the trunk of the largest tree, there were thirty to forty gypsies gathered. Most were seated in wicker chairs in a haphazard circle just beyond a rectangular, knee-high stone fire pit. Mounds of orange embers roasted smoked slabs of meat on hand-crank spikes. A large black pan held meat low in the coals, braising with oils and spices.
Five teenagers moved past Ed. Their hair was long, some were bearded, one lovely girl was wearing a billowing forest green skirt and strawberry blouse. She strolled barefooted with her boyfriend, their arms around each other, sharing a hand-rolled cigarette. His long, thick hair was partially contained in a royal blue chiffon head wrap. The couple’s head-to-head conversation was happy and playful, although the language was foreign. The girl wore a bracelet of tiny bells.
Not resisting the lock on her arms, Ed allowed herself to be led to the edge of the gathering. She was roughly set in a wicker chair at the back of the crowd with her escorts taking the chairs at her sides. Ten feet to her left was another of the bread-loaf tents with its canvas door tied open at the sides. The candles inside illuminated a casket on a riser. Ed stood to get a better look and saw the face of the woman killed the night before. The body was richly and colorfully dressed and a mound of belongings lay on her chest and lined the casket. She was bejeweled with necklaces and rings and her hair had been braided and pinned back from her viciously carved face.
Ed’s arms were clenched and pulled, and she let herself be yanked back onto her seat. She looked for the source of the sad, slow music that had begun. The singer played the violin between foreign lyrics sung in a surprisingly high, reedy voice. The song elevated, quickened in pace to a celebration—a delightful complex melody. Four musicians stepped alongside the singer and formed a half circle so they could watch and encourage one another, their expressions both serious and pleased. Their drummer was a tall youth with a cloud of long hair bunned and extending out from the side of his head. He was drumming a quick tempo and seriously looking to the singer who was dramatically singing the song.
Turning away and listening, Ed saw a boy placing unlit candles one after another on clean-cut tree stumps that led into the jungle. He rested spare candles at the side of the line that roamed into the shadows.
The annoying whine of an approaching motor began undercutting the music which slowed as the motor drew close. Ed looked back and saw Casimir shutting off his lawnmower and climb down from it. No taller than a seven-year-old boy, he walked with a commanding stride into the gathering. Heads turned and watched him pass. Reaching the front of the group and standing still on the freshly cut grass, he took in the eyes of his audience before lowering his gaze to the children sitting before their parents’ boots and bare feet.
The musicians let their last notes tremolo to silence.
“We have a guest among us, so I will speak English. We have ourselves a sad day. But only a sad day. There will be fine days soon,” Casimir began.
“Olena, the light, our bookkeeper, was cut down. Not a murder of revenge, but of black plotting. We will begin the funeral in a bit, but let’s talk about this crime. We will all have our hours and days of mourning.”
Nudging a boy with the toe of his boot, Casimir said, “Boy, light the candles so Olena can begin her new journey.”
The youth walked off with a box of matches.
Casimir looked across to a group of women seated off to the side in a clutch of their own, their hands paused from skinning and cleaning vegetables into round wicker baskets.
“I know there’s talk of someone outside of our family having taken Olena from us. Let us talk of that.”
All eyes were on him. Some were weeping and sadly whispering Olena’s name and their foreign words of grief and loss. Others were in low voice of harsh words with errant glances in Ed’s direction. A hand went up, and Casimir nodded to it.
Cliantha, the kitchen magazine reader, rose to her feet. Her face was partially hidden by her wavy hair spilling from her bandana.
“Not one of us. That is offensive and untrue.” She took out a piece of yellow lined paper from her baggy vest poc
ket. She unfolded the paper and turned it for all to see.
Ed felt a flush of heat in her heart and cheeks. The list in Cliantha’s hand was her own, her itemized notes on the ways of the Hotel Or. She turned to the lawnmower man who was glaring at the upheld note. His arms were crossed over the front of his thread-worn and thinned business suit. He was watching with his chin down, his eyes calculating.
“She was spying on us. Policia? Federales?” Cliantha accused.
Heads were turning to Ed with harsh mutterings.
Ed stood up. “A spy?” she asked the gathering, glaring at Cliantha, “And a killer, too? The list is mine. I was trying to figure this place out. I like puzzles. But I would never…”
“The teenage hostess didn’t kill anyone,” Marlaina called from behind Ed’s back.
“You have no business here,” Casimir replied harshly to her.
“You have your place. This is ours,” a woman in the crowd grumbled loudly.
“Your camp is on hotel grounds,” Marlaina went on. “I go where I please. Your bookkeeper was using creative accounting. Heavy on the creative. The hotel owner had her killed.”
“Constance Snapp,” was spit out by one of the men, and was picked up by others, a growled chorus of hatred. Casimir’s hand went up, and silence fell. Ed swung around and stared at Marlaina, her boss. She watched the woman continue.
“Now have your funeral and get back to work. The midday meal needs to be cooked and served.”
“Who raised the knife?” Casimir demanded.
Marlaina’s mouth twisted to one side. Her eyes narrowed. “I did.”
Those two words dissolved the fog of silence.
Marlaina looked confident and also resolved, only the clenching of her two hands showing any discomfort.
“We will deal with this now,” Casimir’s voice was flat and strong. “The funeral will wait until this evening.”
Ed spun around forward. Behind Casimir, two men in embroidered shirts and vests were on their feet and crossing to a wood stack. The gathering watched the two heft up and carry a round-topped, four-foot log and set it beside Casimir.
“Some of your hotel owner’s own justice,” Casimir commanded.
“Wait! No. This is madness. She was stealing from all of us,” Marlaina’s voice trailed as she stepped back, her confident stance dissolving,
Her neck and arms were grabbed by two men and she was propelled forward, her shoes digging into the grass to no avail. The men and women surrounding Ed stood and closed in as Marlaina was dragged forward. Marlaina was yelling, a mix of threats and pleadings.
Ed lost her view of her as the gathering closed up and moved forward. She turned from the gypsy camp and began walking away as discreetly as possible.
Casimir’s voice rose in their strange, edgy language. The others were repeating each word as he commanded. A single thud followed. Marlaina screamed in anguish.
Ed began to run.
12
Ed ran.
She ran back through the camp, past the tents and protective circle of unlit torches and the purple sparking machines killing insects and rodents and lizards and snakes. She kept her eyes on the bridge that crossed the still and oily curving water surrounding the Hotel Or.
The two men manning the bridge entrance studied her with disdain and something else she was equally familiar with—lust.
Ed turned her eyes from them and veered to her right.
“That tunnel. The gas station,” she panted.
Instead of running for the hotel’s rear entrance, she turned to the south lawn and ran along the brackish water circling the building. A hundred yards along, she swung to her right and entered the jungle.
Panting, she climbed through green limbs and dangling foliage. She struggled in deep enough until she was under cover and headed for the tunnel she had seen from the hotel rooftop. Climbing through grasping thorn vines and over boulders, she made a slow and tiring circle around the edge of the lawn with the hotel to her left.
“Don’t know how to drive, but I’m stealing a car,” she told her scraped and cut green- stained hands.
Damp with sweat and breathing hard, she spent the next twenty-five minutes climbing, tripping, and weaving. When she eventually stumbled out into the sunlight, she was twenty yards away from the mouth of a tunnel.
Stepping to the opening, she saw it was a second tunnel, no way wide enough for vehicles.
“To where?” she pressed her hands to her knees, gasping for air.
“Didn’t see this one from the roof,” Ed put her arms out and touched the foliage walls. She stepped in deeper.
The walls were trimmed with the cuttings laying where they had fallen. Her first four steps were warmed with the spill of sunlight at her back. After that, she was in green tinted, near darkness. The tunnel ran straight and appeared to end up against a tall wall of vegetation. Drawing closer, she saw that the wall could be rounded on either side. Choosing to arbitrarily go left, she walked around the curious blocking hedge, hearing faint acoustical music playing from further on. Just beyond, she stood at the entrance to a circular clearing.
She paused at a large wood sign at the start of a smooth path of fine raked pebbles. The redwood sign had carved white characters she suspected was Japanese. There were four lines of these.
She stepped past them. The heavily shadowed enclosure was lined by an uneven and rusted six-foot tall wrought iron fencing. The fence was doing its dismal best to contain the reaching of creeping vines and grasping thorn-covered green limbs.
Ed looked up.
A canopy of black parachute silk was tied off to the highest branches blocking the sky.
The music drew her eyes to the pond off to the right side of the clearing. An elderly man sat in a rocking chair on a dock in a semi-circle of different size banjos. The pond was lined with five cinder blocks. Each had a thick rope attached to it.
To her left, a thick green-barked tree rose high, one of its limbs reaching out horizontally with a rope and noose hanging down to a wooden footstool. In other parts of the fenced-in clearing, there were cozy cushioned chairs set out here and there, each with a short elbow table.
A few steps before her was a medical glass cabinet, the paint faded and rust blossoming in every crevice. Ed stepped up to it and looked in through the glass doors. There were shelves of handguns of varying types to the left. The right-side shelves held bottles and tins of medicines with red skull warnings on each. The full length lowest shelf held a collection of razors and blades of varying style, some shiny new and others antique and rusty.
She continued along the pebble path that wove through the clearing before descending a slight hill to the musician on the dock. Other paths branched off in different directions. Still hoping to get to the gas station, Ed looked to the back side of the fencing. Beyond was a wall of dull gray rock face where vegetation was unable to take hold.
Frustrated, she continued along, passing a short path that led to a wooden bed with rough planks for a mattress. The headboard was stained by a dull purple splash and was pitted with buckshot holes.
The musician stopped his song. She could see him across the way. He set the banjo in a stand and was pondering his choices from the five other like instruments. She walked the path to the edge of the dock and stepped a couple of boards closer to him.
“Looking for a way out, my dear?” he asked kindly in a British accent.
Out of fear and uncertainty, Ed decided to go with her comfortable Alabama twang persona.
“Lookin’ fur the gas station. Plannin’ to steal me a car.”
“No automobiles here unless they’re buried.”
Ed looked out across the clearing beyond the pond, half expecting to see the rusted roofs of automobiles.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Your name, dearie?”
“I’m Ed ‘Never Ever Eddie’ Rang.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you. Charlie Dalton, retired baker.”
The retired baker had a pear-shaped body pressed comfortably in his rocking chair.
“A tired falcon,” Ed said to herself looking at the man’s face. His head was shaved and narrow, and he had a beak of a nose over thin, bloodless lips. Sagging jowls carved the sides of his mouth and his gray eyes were steady but unfocused. He wore gray slacks and boots and a wife beater t-shirt.
“Now that we are introduced, the answer to your question lies in this place’s name,” he told her.
“Jardín de suicidio in Spanish. Gradina de sinucidere in Romani. Sea of Sleep is my rough translation of the Japanese. And Suicide Garden in our lucid English.”
“Suicide Garden? Are ya kiddin’ me?”
“No, my dear Ms. Rang, the garden is serious as in the final escape and way out.”
“Got my mind on another way out.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Nick an automobile and drive off into a tropical sunset. It’s a charming visage.”
“What’re you doin’ here? What do you do?”
“I play my bag of songs, my assortment of old American blues tunes.” He reached over and selected the shortest necked banjo. “And assist the visitors if they ask. I need the employment. My pension and savings are a bit pinched. It is a fine place to play.”
His strong free hand waved to the dock and his instruments.
“You help people kill themselves?”
“If need be, yes. Ms. Constance Snapp and those foul, cursed Romani vagabonds drive one or two a month to the garden.”
“Romani vagabonds?”
“European hobos. Croatian cast-offs, whichever you prefer. Ms. Snapp brought them in three years ago. A scourge, a blight on the already dreadful Hotel Or.”
Ed turned from Charlie Dalton to the hanging tree and the suicide bed, to the paths with cozy chairs and side tables, to the glass medical hutch. She then traced the uneven run of wrought iron fencing that circled the clearing.
“So, I’m not gonna get to the gas station this way.”
“Only if there’s one in heaven or hell. Now, if you don’t require my assistance,” he trailed off, setting the banjo securely in his wide lap.
The Girl in the Hotel Page 7