“Cooee?” she called, trying not to laugh. “Anybody home?”
All she needed was to be broken down by the side of the road for the bad movie impression to be complete. No, there should be a—
“You be late, missus,” a husky voice said from her right. Stepping through the door Barb could see an old black woman rocking next to the empty reception desk. “You be very late.”
“I’d say I was lost, but I don’t know if it counts if you’re trying,” Barbara said, grinning and walking all the way into the dimly lit lobby.
“Only counts if you don’t want to be lost, missus,” the black woman said, grinning back. “Been tryin to get lost my-own-self before. Always find my way back home.”
“Nice place,” Barb said. “I don’t suppose there’s a room available?”
“We bout full up of empty rooms, missus,” the woman said, getting to her feet creakily and going behind the desk. She swung an old fashioned ledger around and pointed to a line. “Need your name and address and such and your make of car and tag. If’n you don’t know the tag, jest a description will do.”
Barbara picked up the old pen tied to the ledger with fishing line and after trying to get it to work dug in her purse for her own. Finally she had the ledger filled out.
“Be thirty dollar a night,” the woman said. “Don’t take no plastic. If you ain’t got the cash, you can pay me tomorrow.”
“I’ve got cash,” Barb said, trying not to smile again. It was so charmingly informal it reminded her of Malaysia. The back areas, not Kuala Lumpur which was just New York with worse humidity and drainage. She dug out two twenties, crisp from an ATM and received a crumpled five and five incredibly dirty ones in change. She hadn’t felt so at home in years.
“Lights are out upstairs,” the woman said, picking up a flashlight. “Not in the rooms, just the hallway.”
Barbara hoisted her bag over her shoulder and followed the old woman as she ascended the grand staircase. She could practically hear the tread of the master of the house walking out to the balcony to greet his guests and retainers. There’d have been slaves, or at least servants, scurrying among the guests and a chandelier about covered in candles. Now it had a worn runner and lights that, apparently, refused to glow at all.
“Circuit’s out,” the old lady said, gesturing at the sconces as if reading her mind. “Called the ’lectrician. Lazy bastard ain’t been by in two weeks. Got your choice of views: bayou or town square.”
“Oh, I think I’ll take town square,” Barb said.
The room was just as fusty as she expected, smelling of mildew and neglect. But the linens were fresh and appeared clean.
“Bath is down the corridor,” the woman said, pointing to the door. She suddenly looked at the flashlight in her hand with an expression of worry that made Barbara try not to laugh again.
“I’ve got my own flashlight,” Barb said, pulling a minimag out of her purse and switching it on. It was at least twice as bright as the dim torch the woman had been using. She reached in and flipped on the room light and was relieved that that, at least, worked.
“See you in the morning, then,” the woman said. “I’d not advise going out at night, sometimes the gators get up on the road.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Barbara admitted. “See ya.”
After the woman was gone Barbara turned off the room light and her flash and waited for her eyes to adjust. She wasn’t going to go out in that hallway with her eyes blinded, that was for sure. It was only after waiting a few moments that she thought of one small detail.
Checking the door she determined that the knob was not designed for a key and there was no latch on the inside.
“Now that is unusual,” she said to herself, straining her eyes in the darkness and running her hands over the door. Even in that flea-bitten hotel in Petra there’d been a lock for the door. Oh, well, needs must.
She examined the furniture by the faint light from the window and was unsurprised that none of it would be useful for blocking the door. It required a very specific height and design of chair to block a doorknob and the chairs in the room were heavily stuffed easy chairs, not the straight backed chair that would work.
However, not for nothing was she a reader. The pen she’d used to sign the register was heavy metal, a gift her father had given her when she went off to college and it had a matching fountain pen. She never used the latter but they were both in her purse and with a few poundings from the romance novel she’d been carrying they were both wedged in the crack between the door and the jam. It would be possible to force the door but not quietly or easily. If the old lady had any questions about the noise she could feel free to complain. In the morning.
The window led onto the roof of the porch and that at least had a latch. She made sure it was secured and then got out of her clothes. The soiled linen packed away in a mesh net bag, she pulled on a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt, then laid the H K by the side of the bed along with the spare magazines and regular clothes. Finally, feeling a tad sheepish, she pulled out the holster and laid that next to the pistol. Since it was only for a running gunfight, pulling it out told her she was assuming the need for a running gunfight.
“Just because it’s like a scene in a bad horror movie doesn’t mean I’ll have to fight off Jason,” she muttered to herself. “But I am definitely getting out of this burg tomorrow.”
“My lord, we have a problem,” Germaine said, kneeling in the holy circle, head bowed.
The figure of light seemed to nod in response.
“Our information indicates that there has been a remanifestation of Almadu,” Germaine said. “I seek heaven’s aid in our holy cause.”
“We are stretched, my very old friend,” the voice said in his head.
“I don’t have agents to handle this, my lord,” Germaine said, quietly. “We, too, are stretched. And Almadu is a particularly hard case.”
“Look for the Hand of God in strange places,” the figure said, fading. “All who work His will are not among your host.”
Street people were not morning people and neither was Kelly. But he’d been up at first light, rattling cages. He knew where they lived and the answers might be surly answers but he got them. The only problem was that Carlane seemed to have disappeared.
“It’s the street,” Lieutenant Chimot said, shrugging and taking a deep suck on his coffee. “People come and go.”
“How long’s it been since you’ve heard of Carlane being off the street?” Kelly asked, yawning and digging vigorously in one ear. “Nobody has seen him since he was talking to Marsha, and now Dolores is gone. I got the landlady to let me in her room. All her stuff is there so she didn’t move. And I asked her to pass on to Carlane that I wanted to talk to him.”
“You’re starting to think it’s him,” the lieutenant said, leaning back in his prolapsed chair and looking at Kelly over a pile of paperwork.
“I want to talk to him,” Kelly said, shrugging. “It doesn’t make sense for Carlane to have suddenly gone nutter. But he was the last person seen with Marsha and now he’s missing. I think we can swear a warrant as a material witness and put out a search and detain.”
“You checked to see if we’ve got his DNA?” Chimot asked.
“Yeah, a sexual assault case where the victim refused to press charges,” Kelly said. “I checked. He’s not one of the rapists.”