“Just let me see your eyes,” he said.
“No way. I mean it, I’m goddamn fine. Just let me sleep.”
He felt the sheets; they were warm but not too warm. “You don’t have a fever,” he told her. “And you’re pissy. I suppose that’s a good sign.”
“Damn right.”
“What if I’m wrong?” he said. “What if I end up having to cart you down to ER?”
“No hospitals,” she moaned, digging a vent through the blankets.
“Oh for God’s sake…”
“People die in hospitals. My aunt went in for an ulcer, got peritonitis. She never came out again.”
“Every family in the world has a story like that,” he said. “Come on, sit up. It’ll be over in a minute.”
She shot up. “Danny, so help me God. Please. If you really care, be a doll, run some errands, go to work. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.” She reached for an alarm clock beside the bed, set it for an hour ahead, said, “There, I’ll do it myself,” then dove back under the covers.
After another minute of silent watching, Abatangelo withdrew from the room. He made two rounds of the flat, secured the transom from within, dead-bolted the rear door, saw that the windows were locked. In the kitchen he checked his answering machine to see if there’d been any curious calls. Nothing. He went up front to check the street.
Noon light hazed among gray clouds, with hints of sun and burn-off coming. It had already rained. Chinese groceries, Italian cafés and local bars defiled along the arching pavement, bustling, loud. The bohemian ghetto. He stood there awhile, watching for a lone man waiting in a car, a suspicious loiterer, a window across the way with a man at the curtains.
When he came back to the bedroom Shel was asleep, facedown in her nest of pillows and snoring in a faint, adenoidal drone. He leaned down, studying her welts and bruises one last time. Gently, he kissed her shoulder, then the hand nearest to him. Her fingers smelled the same as her hair. He still suffered a nagging sense of unreality at her being there, no longer a mere fixation, no longer locked away in dreams. At the same time, an excruciating longing for her seethed through him, nesting in his hands, his groin, but the longing only reminded him that after ten years in prison, his capacity as a lover, as a knower of anyone’s body other than his own, was hideously malformed. And so the longing turned to shame. He couldn’t claim to be her lover, not yet. For now he was just the grim relentless figure who’d emerged from the desert. With business to attend.
So go take care of it, he told himself, turning away from the bed. Make sure there never comes another day you see her standing there in your doorway, battered, an inch away from dead.
Part II
Chapter 14
Frank pulled into the parking garage of the Mayview Hotel. In the ticket stall, the attendant, wearing a hair net and blue coveralls, sang to the radio and beat his logbook with drumstick pencils. Frank collected his ticket, passed through the raised gate, found a parking stall and killed the motor. Waiting a moment, he checked for sounds. Someone started a car on a lower tier. The echoes spread through the vast dark underground, tires squealed on the smooth floor and then headlights appeared. Frank held his breath, watching the car pass and then waiting for the next silence. Finally, feeling safe, he headed from the truck toward the elevator.
He passed a rust-eaten Datsun laden with bumper stickers: GET A FAITH LIFT. THE CROSS IS BOSS. JESUS LOVES MY YORKIE. The elevator had metal walls, smelled of gasoline, and after a shuddering two-floor journey opened onto a clean, faded lobby.
The desk clerk, white, early twenties, exuded a bristling tidiness. His skin shone, his hair, his fingernails, his pink ears, everything about him emanated Fear of Imperfection. A text called Food Management lay open before him and he offered Frank the rigid smile of a student driver.
“Single room, two nights,” Frank told him.
His only luggage was a paper bag, filled with underwear and socks bought at the Pac’n’Save. He gave the name Justin Case to the clerk who accepted it with merry oblivion, tapping the keys of his computer as though to an inner song.
“I have one king or two queens,” he chirped.
Frank, drawing upon a reservoir of crank-fed wit, replied, “I haven’t needed two beds since my last out-of-body experience.”
The clerk laughed too loudly, head reared back, revealing a mouth gray with fillings. Frank pictured him managing food.
A bellhop appeared, and he made the desk clerk look normal. He was younger still, with buck teeth and fanning ears set low near his jaw. Tufts of hair shot up on his head like thistle. His hands wiggled beyond his shirt cuffs like little animals.
“I don’t have any luggage,” Frank told him.
The bellhop winked and punched the button for the elevator. “I’ll fetcha some ice,” he said.
“I’ve got it covered.”
“I turn down the beds.”
“No thanks.”
“I show ya how to work the TV.”
The elevator door opened and the kid slipped in, peering back with a grin and holding the door. Frank realized there’d be no getting rid of him. He got in and they rode up together slowly, floor numbers lighting on, then off, the overhead pulleys squealing. The kid studied Frank shamelessly, rubbing his mouth with his fingers.
“Got you bad,” the bellhop said eventually.
Frank had hoped washing up and changing clothes would be enough. He had a knot on his head where Shel had clobbered him with the gun butt, and he walked like he was saddle sore from the groining she’d given him. On top of all that, his hands shook from crank and fear.
“I’m upset,” he said. “Got into it with the missy.”
The kid laughed and pointed as though to say, Right, right. The doors came open and he launched into the hall. Reaching the room, he unlocked the door and barged inside, fussed with the bed covers, flipped on the lights and the television. Frank closed the door behind.
“You can check out through the TV,” the bellhop announced. “Hit channel eighty-eight.”
He turned the selector to the pay channels, Sophisticated Viewing. Shortly two women, both naked, engaged in frottage on a red vinyl sofa. There was a prevalence of head shots. The blonde mouthed Aah, the brunette Ooh. “Come on, come on, we don’t need to see their heads,” the bellhop shouted, hitting the side of the television. Turning to Frank, he added, “You can watch five minutes free.”
Frank was looking around the room. It had a soothing blank decor, theft-proof coat hangers, a small table, a lamp suspended by a chain. Something in the anonymity of it all made him hopeful he would be harder to find here. The bedcovers fell back immaculately, the kid could do that much. The pillows were as tidy as headstones.
The bellhop clapped his hands to his head. “Ice, ice,” he shouted.
“Hey,” Frank told him. He held out his hand, a twenty folded between his fingers. Time to regain control. “You really want to help out?”
The kid looked from the money to Frank’s face. The grin reappeared.
“I need gin, a fifth. Do what you can do.”
The kid took the bill and affectedly checked it front and back. “Tell you what, skipper. Time me.”
Once he was gone Frank sat down on the bed. He removed the rest of his money from his pockets and spread it out across the covers, counting it twice. He had enough for two days, if that. Bending over, he put his hands to his head and uttered a small and miserable laugh.
There would be no further deals, he realized. No come on in, all’s forgiven, let’s talk about it. Lyle was dead. Hack was due to be dead. Seven Mexicans, dead. And if they’d had their way, Frank thought, I’d be dead, too. Left lying in the mud inside a junkyard. If they found him now, they’d make him pay, pay just for making them work this hard. And they wouldn’t just kill him. They’d tune him first, drag it out, make sure he squirmed and begged and pissed himself because killers like a show.