“What are you talking about, man?’’
Kyle leaned closer. “I know you’ve been fucking that housekeeping dolt, tubby. She any good?”
How does he know… This was a dilemma. Lee set down his beer. He struggled for a reply.
“Don’t worry, man,” Kyle assured. “I can keep a secret, you know, like as a favor. And maybe you can do me a favor sometime.”
How could Lee deny it; Kyle obviously knew all about it, and if he knew all about it, maybe he knew…Lee decided to have out with it, then. What did he have to lose?
“All right, sure. I’m kind of involved with her. So what? You gonna fire me for that? I’m still the best dish-man you ever seen. And since we’re on the subject, I want you to tell me something.”
“Sure, Winny. Anything.”
Lee lowered his voice, sickened by the images that the question conjured. “What the hell happened to her?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. You said you’ve been working with her for years. Somebody’s done all kinds of disgusting shit to her.”
Kyle ordered another Jack from the medicine-ball-bellied keep. “Oh, you mean the scars and all that.”
“Yeah.”
“I told you, man, we get these groaty dolts from all over the place—Mexico, the Phillipines, East Europe. They work like dogs, and for peanuts. Lot of them used to be whores and strippers and stuff like that. You ever seen the gross shit a Mexican or Phillipino hooker’ll do for a buck? Just about anything. They’re all like that. They’ve seen it all, believe me. S&M, bondage, the works.”
Lee stared off. Could this be true? A prostitute, he thought. He didn’t care—it wasn’t her fault. People from third world countries were products of environment, they had to do whatever they could to survive. But the possibility only saddened him further, that some people clearly weren’t as fortunate as others.…
“What’choo lookin’ at, gramps?” Kyle exclaimed across the bar. The roughened old men looked away.
“Whole fuckin’ town’s like this, Ollie. It gets on my nerves.”
“They’ve been staring at us since we walked in,” Lee told him.
“Of course they have. We’re the outsiders here in this pisshole of a burg. We’re the people from The Inn.”
“What?”
“You’ve heard the stories,” Kyle said. “The place is supposed to be haunted. Used to be an insane asylum, and they killed the patients and sold ’em to labs and medical schools, shit like that. Up your ass, pops!” he nearly shouted again, giving one of the old men the finger.
“Pay up and get out, buddy,” the big, mutton-chopped barkeep ordered. “We don’t want your kind here.”
“My pleasure.” Kyle slapped down a twenty and put on his coat. “I’d put my foot up your big redneck ass except I’d ruin a perfectly good shoe, and the same goes for all of you backwoods fuckers.”
“Get out, or I throw you out.”
Kyle gave him the finger. “See ya tomorrow, Slim,” he said to Lee. “You know, at the Haunted Inn? At the insane asylum just up the road?”
Kyle stormed out, the door banging behind him. The old men were muttering amongst themselves, glaring. The women laughed.
“Hey, I barely know the guy,” Lee explained to the keep, who lumbered away with a grimace. “Your twin brother Kyle was just here,” Lee told Dan B. upon the chef’s return.
“That snide cocker?” Dan B. made a face. “Glad I missed him.”
“He says the reason we’re getting the once-over is because all these people think The Inn is some kind of haunted mansion.”
Dan B. ordered another beer. “Not that crap again. Donna was reading about it in that kooky book of hers. These townspeople got a hard-on for The Inn—it brings back bad memories. You know, all the torture and shit that supposedly went on there, and all this shit about ghosts. These old-timers here? They’re old enough to remember. The book says it was the townspeople themselves that set fire to the place.” Dan B. chuckled. “Can’t say that I blame them. I wouldn’t want a haunted insane asylum in my back yard either. Brings down the property values.” Then he laughed.
Lee laughed too, but only half-heartedly. The old men at the end of the bar continued to stare at them. Ghosts, he thought, looking back into his beer. He didn’t believe in them; the whole thing was silly.
But then he remembered the noises he’d been hearing at night, and he—well—
He couldn’t help but wonder.
««—»»
Vera couldn’t help but wonder. She lay awake in bed, unable to sleep. Too much on my mind. But how much of it was even legitimate? Chief Mulligan’s strange implications, and Feldspar’s even stranger behavior at dinner. Then there was that well-dressed thuggish-looking man who Kyle was checking into a suite close to midnight…
Go to sleep, for God’s sake, she whined at herself. The bedroom’s darkness felt thick with heat. What the hell time does Kyle close room service? she wondered next, noting by her alarm clock that it was now past 3 a.m. She could hear the doors of the RS elevators opening and closing…
thunk-thunk…thunk-thunk…thunk-thunk—
It went on all night now, every night.
Then she heard—
What the… She got out of bed, exasperated. Moonlight tinted the carpet eerily across the room. She padded for the door.
Footsteps, she thought.
Yes, she felt sure this time. She’d heard footsteps out in the hall.
She clicked the bedroom door open, peeked out…
All that lit the hall this late were the little marker lights by the door to each room. She couldn’t see well but well enough:
That maid, she realized.
That chunky woman with bunned hair, the one who never talked. Of course, now that she reminded herself, none of the housekeeping staff ever seemed to utter a word.
Obviously the maid had been coming from the far rooms down the floor. Lee’s room, and Dan B. and Donna’s. Her generic white shoes carried her silently down the hall. What’s she doing up here this late? Vera wondered. Vera’s own little group of rental suites were located at the other end of the wing, and no one had been checked into any of them. Just Kyle’s rooms on the upper floors. So what could this maid be doing here?
Then…
Vera squinted out. As the maid walked on, another figure appeared, just stepping onto the landing. Vera wasn’t sure but—
Donna? Is that… Donna?
The figure passed the maid without a word or so much as a glance. After another few steps, Vera knew her eyes didn’t deceive her.
It is Donna, she recognized.
Another mystery. Donna had gone to bed hours ago. What was she doing coming up from downstairs at this hour? There was no reason for Donna to be downstairs now. And—
What the hell! Vera thought next.
Now she simply couldn’t believe her eyes.
Donna was dressed in nothing but that racy lingerie she’d bought in town the other day…
The darkness swarmed. Even in the feeble light, Donna’s state of attire could not be dismissed as a trick of the eye. The stout breasts shone more than plain in the sheer nippleless lace bra. Even more than plain was the thick plot of pubic hair revealed by the diminutive crotchless panties…
“Donna!’’ Vera whispered. “Donna!’’
Her friend approached, or at least seemed to—
“Donna, what in God’s name are you doing walking around The Inn dressed in—”
—and then she walked right past Vera without reply or even recognition. Donna’s face, in the grainy dark, looked blank.