Howard Johnson's lay two blocks north, a threatening tower of twelve stories that lay athwart two of the town's main streets like a vision out of Piranesi. Within lay twelve stories of soot-filled ashtrays to be emptied, spilled sodas to be mopped up, torn paper to be collected by hand, and a Hades of missing towels that she would have to pay for. Worst of all were the hectares of unmade beds that she would painfully have to remake, only to find on the morrow that, like Tantalus, she would have to begin again from the bottom.
A vast presence confronted her in the building's first sublevel. It stood by the clock that held the card that recorded the substance of her life. Miss Perkins was a towering harpy, a violent, gutter-mouthed giant of a woman with shoulders like a fullback and a voice like a Neanderthal.
Actually, Emma Perkins was a smallish middle-aged woman of pleasant disposition and firm but fair inclinations. She was the supervising housekeeper, and she looked sadly at Pearl as she came tottering in, breathless from running the two blocks from the bus stop.
"You're forty minutes late, Pearl," she said more pityingly than accusatorially. "That's three times in two weeks." She eyed the floor uncomfortably. "Last time it was over an hour. "
"I-I know, Miss Perkins. I'm sorry. I've had some trouble and-"
"Everyone in this world has trouble, Pearl. I have trouble, my sister Jane has trouble, China has trouble. The world's full of troubles."
"Yes, ma'am."
"The trick is not to bring your troubles to work, isn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am, but I-"
"Some of us are better at doing that than others. That's a sad fact, but still it's a fact. " She stared at Pearl, shocked by her appearance and trying hard not to show
"I'll . . .try to do better, ma'am. Really I will. I won't be late ag-"
"I understand, dear. You look terribly tired." Miss Perkins forced a smile. "Why don't you take a few days off? There's a three-day weekend coming up week after next, and we'll need everyone at full strength then." She took one of Pearl's hands, patted it in grandmotherly fashion.
"I'm sure with a little genuine rest and some time to think about what you really want, you'll find yourself feeling much better." She used the hand she was patting to guide Pearl toward the door leading out to the subterranean garage.
"Yes," Pearl began desperately, "but I need the-"
"I understand, dear." The door was closing behind Pearl. "In two weeks, when you're feeling better. If you still want the job." The door closed.
Pearl stood, swaying slightly. Then the import of what had just happened penetrated the fog in her brain. "Goddamn you, you rotten old whore! You can take your job and shove it! You hear me? SHOVE IT!"
The door did not reply. Pearl turned, started toward the distant exit of the dark garage. Something made a noise behind her. She stopped. The sound came again, louder this time. It sounded like garbage cans being moved around on the level below hers. It echoed through the otherwise deserted garage, bounced off shiny new Chevys and Fords. She turned.
Ahead was emerging from between a Corvette and a big muraled van. Vast globular eyes stared at her, stared through her own eyes into the brain beyond. The red slash of a pupil expanded in the left, then the right one, contracted lazily as the eyes rolled independently, like a chameleon's.
Teeth of all sizes and shapes were revealed by the hungry, half-opened mouth. Some were curved and outthrust tike tusks. Others were slim as needles and just as straight. A few curved backward like the fangs of a snake.
Orange flame came in hot puffs from the dark gullet, the fire shining on the crystal cave inside those jaws. The dragon padded toward her on massive cushioned feet, the only sounds the faint roar of its breath and the regular tick-click its claws made on the concrete.
Pearl was backing instinctively away from this very real, very uncuddly monster. She was alone in the garage. "M-M-Miss Perkins . . . Miss Per-KINS!"
She spun and ran, feeling the hot breath closing on her back, expecting her skin to shrivel and crisp or hot fire of another kind to shoot through her as long teeth sank into her back and legs.
Then she was out in shockingly bright daylight. She slowed to a reluctant walk. A glance over her shoulder showed nothing emerging from the cave of the garage behind her. People stopped staring at her when she ceased running. A mother inconspicuously shooed her two children across the street, away from an encounter with Pearl.
She lifted her head, lengthened her stride, and assumed a confident air. I see dragons all the time, she told herself firmly. Real ones. In my apartment. When I'm under pressure, I sometimes conjure up imaginary ones, that's all. It happens when I nightdream, sometimes when I daydream, and occasionally, like today, when I'm not thinking intentionally about them at all. They're my refuge, and it's good to have a refuge, she told herself.
Idly, she examined the faces around her, the awkward bodies flowing past. Dragons are always perfect, she noted disdainfully. Fat ones, thin ones, big or small, they're always perfectly proportioned and exquisite of design. Their wings are never too big, their heads never at the end of necks too long, their tails constantly producing just the proper counterbalance for weight and length. Not like clumsy, inelegant human beings.
That night she finished the bottle of the morning and part of another. It was dark outside now, cooling off rapidly as the fog trundled in to cloak the beach communities.
Somewhere nearby a stereo was playing a scratched copy of a song she thought she recognized, full of electric guitars and challenging moans. A stubborn car was grinding dully on the street below, refusing its impotent owner's fervent demands to turn over.
She tried the phone again. It was possible the business office hadn't disconnected her yet. Surprisingly, there was a dial tone. She fingered the numbers.
The voice that answered was not Frank's. She could even have coped with Maureen's, anyone's, just someone familiar to talk at, if not to. But the voice was perfunctory and mechanically unsympathetic; a recording.
"I'm sorry, but the number you have reached has been disconnected, and there is no new number."
The phone hummed patiently at her until she placed the receiver back in its cradle. She lay back on the bed, hearing the springs creak in the room's remaining heat, and began to shake.
Jesus, got to stop this. C'mon, woman, get ahold of yourself. Cigarette . . : got to have a cigarette.
She fumbled unsuccessfully through the drawer in the phone stand, then had a thought and looked beneath the bed. A crumpled white rectangle lay there. Exhausted from the effort of placing her swimming head lower than her torso but feeling triumphant, she picked it up. Two white cylinders remained in the pack.
Selecting the unbroken one, she located matches and lit up, leaning back contentedly against the stained pillow. The smoke's usual acridness was smothered by the residue of the liquor in her throat. She puffed deeply. Then she began to cry.
A scratching penetrated the room. It came from the open window. Her eyes turned, tried to focus through the smoke in front of her face and behind it: In the cabinet the brown lines of the onyx dragon seemed to shimmy. A faint breeze stirred the wings of the dragon kite, set it turning slowly overhead.
Clean and sharp as a chef's cutlery, the talons slipped over the sill and into the room. Bottomless eye pools of yellow-gold stared at her. She was not afraid this time. Maybe it was the dragon's deliberate. pace, maybe the familiar surroundings of her own apartment, but she wasn't afraid.
All the dragons in the room-planters of clay, miniatures of china, poster paper and ceramic cup-seemed to expand slightly, turn slightly. She felt their eyes on her.
Silent as a cat, the adamantine, shimmering body slid through the window. Once inside, it filled much of the single room. Wings unfurled, strong and wind-defying, bumping against the ceiling.