"Get out of your clothes."
"You're not my type," I said as I wondered how effective the remote control might be as a weapon. If I clicked a button, could I change him into the Disney channel or Nickelodeon? "I don't know who you are or what you want, but if you leave right now, I'll give you a ten-second head start before I call security."
"You're not my type, either. You either strip or I'll do it for you. I won't be all that gentle."
"So you can rape me? There's nothing gentle about that." I may have sounded like a leather-clad warrior princess, but all of my internal organs were quivering with panic. He was too big, too assured-and possibly too experienced. In all my years in Manhattan, I'd only once been threatened on the street, and then by an asthmatic veteran in a frayed pea jacket that reeked of urine. I'd ended up admiring faded photographs of his children.
"I ain't gonna rape you," he said disgustedly. "I'm a professional. Now strip and let's get this over with."
"A professional what? A masseuse building up a clientele? A gynecologist who attacks women in hotel rooms in order to conduct pelvic exams as a form of community service?" Adrenaline was now controlling my mouth as well as my mind. I abandoned the idea of the remote control as a potential weapon and looked wildly at the room service menu. Thick, but plastic. Not promising.
"All right, then," he said, "just go out on the balcony."
I forced myself to suck in a breath and keep my pitch low as I said, "I don't think so. If you take one step toward me, I'm going to scream so loudly that the mayor of Memphis will hear me. I will scratch, kick, punch, and make every effort to claw your eyes. I'm not a black belt, but I had training in self-defense at the police academy."
He sat down on the other bed. "You're a cop? What the fuck are you doing here?"
"This is my room," I said, "which pretty much explains my presence. Your turn."
"This whole thing's a goddamn nightmare. You know that lady with the bright red hair that sort of looks like a fire hydrant balanced on her head? Where is she?"
"I don't know where she is. Who are you?"
He rubbed his eyes. "Like I said, I'm a professional just doing my job-okay? What do you know about this broad called Stormy? A lot shorter than you, big blond hair, enormous boobs? She went skydiving this morning, except she forgot to take along a parachute. She went splat." He slapped his palms together to re-create the sound.
I was beginning to think I might get out of this alive. "Let's talk about the woman with the red hair. What's she got to do with anything?"
"I wish I knew," he said. "Is she a cop, too?"
"Would it matter?"
"Okay," he said, standing up. "I don't have time to hang around and yak. Let's go out on the balcony."
"I wish you'd stop saying that. I'm not going anyplace with you."
He grabbed my arm, yanked me up, and propelled me out to the balcony. "You scream and I'll wring your neck. Understand?"
I nodded. He stepped back into the room, locked the sliding doors, and closed the curtains. I fell into a chair and put my head between my knees until the balcony stopped swaying and the roar in my ears began to fade. It occurred to me that I was ill-prepared to be outside, since I was wearing only a cotton shirt and jeans. This was, of course, infinitely better than being buck naked.
I looked over my shoulder at the curtains. There was not so much as a crack through which I could see what my uncivilized guest was doing in the room-if he was still there. I rose unsteadily and gauged the distance to the balconies on either side. Ten feet at a minimum, I concluded, and well beyond my prowess, since I had been thrown out of gymnastics class at the age of seven for declining to hop and skip across a balance beam six feet above the floor. A movie heroine would have climbed onto the railing, teetered for a tension-building moment, and then leaped onto the next balcony.
Lacking a stunt double, I leaned over the railing and looked down. Cars were pulling in front of the entrance to the hotel. Bellmen were taking suitcases out of trunks and piling them on carts. A woman with a dog on a leash appeared in the driveway, paused to light a cigarette, and headed for the nearest strip of grass.
Which happened to be directly below, proving there was no major cosmic plot against me.
"Psst!" I hissed as loudly as I dared.
The woman turned her head to stare at the bushes alongside the building. Her dog glanced up, then resumed sniffing the grass for the perfect spot to defile. After a few seconds, the woman looked down at him and murmured what I assumed were words of encouragement.
I made sure the curtain hadn't twitched, then bent down and said, "Up here."
The woman was clearly nobody's fool. Rather than responding, she began to speak in an urgent voice to the dog, which was in engaged in the performance of an imperative biological process.
"Please," I said, trying to sound as whimpery and pathetic as a puppy. "I need help."
The woman tilted her head and scanned the facade; eventually spotting my fluttering hands. "Are you addressing me?"
I leaned over as far as I dared. "Please send security up to my room. I've locked myself out."
"That's ridiculous. How could you have done that? Are you drunk?"
"No, ma'am," I said. "Just go to the desk and tell them there's an emergency in eight-eleven. They'll need a passkey."
"Is this some kind of practical joke? I have no intention of embarrassing myself in front of hotel staff. Hurry up, Bertie. Mumsy wants to go back inside." Ignoring Bertie's yelps, she dragged him toward the entrance.
I straightened up and put my ear against the door. I heard nothing, but the glass was apt to be double-paned to withstand the increasingly cold wind. If the man had left and Cherri Lucinda had returned, she hadn't turned on the TV or gotten into a telephone conversation.
All the balconies I could see were vacant. Even during daylight hours the view was far from entrancing; it was hard to imagine why anyone would venture out in the dark to admire a skyline more than thirty miles away.
The chairs were too flimsy to break the glass. However, they might make serviceable missiles to catch somebody's attention. I made sure no was standing below the balcony, then held my breath and dropped a chair over the railing. It hit the grass and bounced into the bushes. I was about to try the second one when I saw a bellman staring up at me from the curb. Before I could call to him, he scurried into the hotel.
I put the chair back in place and sat down, confident that the report of a deranged woman throwing furniture off a balcony would bring a battalion, or at least a platoon, of security men. The Luck of the Draw did not tolerate adolescent mischief, or so I'd been told.
Jim Bob limped along warily, shrinking into doorways whenever a car or truck went by. Damn few of them did. He didn't know how many folks lived in the pissant little town, but most all of them must have been holed up at home watching Saturday night wrestling. The local town council was a sorry group, he thought as he went past burned-out streetlights and piles of garbage bags and boxes. Obviously, none of them had ever been to a Municipal League meeting and spent endless hours in seminars listening to bureaucrats make no more sense than Kevin Buchanon when he whined about the work schedule.
He reached a corner and leaned against a crumbling wall as he thought about what to do. There was no getting around the fact he was a fugitive. Japonica was uppity, but she wasn't dumb. She probably hadn't waited ten minutes before forcing the door and discovering the open window. She'd have been real pissed. Mrs. Jim Bob was likely to have thrown a fit unlike anyone had ever seen since the volcanoes erupted in Italy or wherever.