“So if we fuck up,” Lee remarked, “our shit’s in the wind.”
“I’d put it a little more eloquently than that, but yeah. Feldspar seems like a real nice guy, but you can bet he didn’t get to where he is today by passing out second chances. If we don’t turn The Carriage House into something that meets all of his expectations, he won’t think twice about giving us our walking papers and finding someone else.”
“What are we all worried about?” Donna proposed. “We did it at The Emerald Room. We’ll do it here.”
“Damn right,” Vera said. “The Carriage House is going to blow Feldspar right out of his Guccis. I figure we’ll run with a menu close to what we had at The Emerald, but with a lot more exotic specials—”
“Just show me the kitchen,” Dan B. said.
“Feldspar’s talking anything and everything good. He doesn’t even care what the food invoices are. He just wants excellent food every night.”
“I’ll give him that,” Dan B. promised. “I’ll show him.”
“And excellent service.”
“I’ll give him that,” Donna said.
“And clean dishes, right?” Lee mocked.
“That’s right, Lee. Clean dishes. And I don’t want to see you sneaking carafes of beer into the back. This isn’t going to be like The Emerald Room—it’s going to be better. So I don’t want any fooling around back there. And no drinking during your shift, okay?”
Lee shrugged, smirking. “For twelve bucks an hour, I can even do that.”
Yeah, Vera thought. She felt proud. They were a team on their way to something new. This just might work.
She lounged back. Donna was reading. Dan B. and Lee continued to bicker back and forth over directions and exchange less than complimentary regards for one another, which was normal for a chef and a dishwasher. Vera took some time to just look around, let the vast countryside speed past her eyes. It was almost tranquilizing, the long open road, the encroaching ridge, and the fact that they hadn’t passed another car for miles. She felt free now, released from the cement confines of the city and from a relationship that had been false for God knew how long.
“Only one thing bothers me,” Donna suddenly said.
“What’s that?” Lee inquired. “Dan B.’s crane won’t rise anymore?”
“It rose just fine last night when I was at your mother’s house,” Dan B. informed him.
“Yeah, but what about your sister?”
“Would you two idiots shut up,” Vera snapped. She couldn’t imagine how Donna could put up with Dan B.’s profane sense of humor. “What were you saying, Donna?”
“The rep. It bothers me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s going to want to spend big money staying at a country inn with such a reputation?”
Vera knew what she meant; she’d thought about that herself, and quickly came to the conclusion that they needn’t worry. “Forget it, Donna. It’s all a bunch of crap, and even if it isn’t, that stuff supposedly went on fifty years ago.”
“What stuff?” Lee turned around and asked.
Donna seemed enthused. “The Inn used to be a place called Wroxton Hall. It was a sanitarium.”
“What’s a sanitarium?”
“It’s a place where you study sanitation, you dick-brain,” Dan B. laughed. “Didn’t they teach you anything in reform school?”
“They taught me how to lay pipe with your mom,” Lee came back.
“Please, please, stop,” Vera pleaded. ”A sanitarium, for your information, Lee, at least in this case, is an insane asylum. Not like the mental hospitals of today. Back then they pretty much just locked the mentally ill away instead of treating them. That’s where they sent people who were schizophrenics and psychotics.”
“And male virgins, too,” Dan B. added. “So you better be careful.”
“Oh, that’s real funny,” Lee said. “Almost as funny as your last special. Remember? We ran out of veal for the medallion soup, so you used pork.”
“That’s right, skillethead, and you didn’t even know the difference, so blow me.”
“I’d need tweezers and a magnifying glass to bl—”
“And what Donna is just itching to say,” Vera interrupted, “is that this particular asylum ran into a few problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Well,” Vera hesitated. “Evidently, some people died there.”
“They didn’t just die,” Donna augmented. “They were murdered.”
Vera shook her head. “Donna, even if it’s true, no one will remember it. It happened too long ago.”
“Someone must remember it.” Donna held up the book in her lap. The Complete Compendium of Haunted American Mansions, the title read in silly, dripping letters. “This book just came out a few weeks ago. And there’s a whole chapter on Wroxton Hall.”
“Wait a minute,” Dan B. testily jumped in. “What’s the big deal? Some people got murdered in an insane asylum—so what?”
“They were tortured to death,” Donna said. “By the staff. And a lot of the local residents say they’ve seen ghosts walking around in the building at night.”
“Ghosts?” Lee said. “You mean the place is haunted?”
“Aw, relax,” Dan B. chuckled. “There’s no ghosts.
It’s just your mom with a sheet over her head, looking for some free peter.”
Vera rolled her eyes. What am I going to do with these three nuts? she wondered.
««—»»
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Vera,” Dan B. complained. “How much longer?”
“We’re almost there. It’s right up the ridge.” At least she thought it was. The access road wound upward; cracks spiderwebbed the old asphalt. Skeletal branches seemed to reach out, trying to touch them. The tall forest blocked out the light.
They’d passed through Waynesville twenty minutes ago, a sleepy, rustic little town. It looked poor, rundown. A simple turn off, the route brought them into the face of the northern ridge. A haphazard sign signalled them: wroxton hall in hand-painted blue letters, and an arrow. Get a new sign, Vera thought, nearly groaning. And all this brush would need to be cut back, and the access road would have to be patched, and…
That was all Feldspar’s problem. Again, she wondered about these “restorations”; The Inn would have to be more than merely impressive in order to attract patrons through this mess. Surely, Feldspar knew this.
“This can’t be right.” Dan B. whipped his head toward Lee. “If you’d get your hand out of your pants and watch the map, then maybe we’d know where we were going.”
“Relax, Dumbo,” Lee came back. “This is the right road. It says right here on the map, Wroxton Estates.”
The moving truck rumbled behind them up the incline. Farther up, Vera felt some relief. A contractor’s sign, RANDOLPH CARTER EXCAVATORS, INC., had been posted. They were fixing the road and cutting back the overgrowth. Soon, construction vehicles came into view, refuse trucks, chipping machines, tree-trimming crews. At last, the winding, dark road opened into crisp winter daylight.
“Jesus Christ,” Dan B. muttered.
Lee’s face flattened in astonishment. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing.”
The car slowed around a vast, paved court. Vera and Donna gazed over the men’s shoulders. Center of the court was a huge, heated fountain; Sappho in white marble poured twin gushes of water from her elegant hands. Great hedges had been trimmed to the meticulousness of sculpture. And just beyond loomed the immense edifice of Wroxton Hall.