"No!" Clarissa's scream echoed like a crack of
thunder. In the distance, a window slammed shut and someone yelled
"shut up!"
"It isn't bad inside," Virginia coaxed. "Come
on. We shouldn't be seen out here."
"I need my purse," said Clarissa suddenly
alarmed. "I left it at your place. I had some money in
it."
"I'll bring it to you tomorrow," Virginia
promised. "This is just temporary, Clarissa. In two days you're out
of here. Just stay in the room they give you. You'll be fine. I'll
call tomorrow before I come. I promise."
Clarissa got out of the cab and stood on the
sidewalk looking up at the building, the small, dark, soot covered,
barred windows, and the rusted iron fire escape. It looked more to
her like a prison than a shelter. Virginia grabbed her arm and
propelled her through the glass front door.
The lobby was dark and musty, heavily paneled
in dark oak. A once elegant mahogany staircase dominated the lobby
and a narrow, dimly lighted hallway stretched away into darkness.
The faded, threadbare red carpet, with just the ghost of a paisley
print, covered the creaking floor. The hotel's desk lined the
opposite wall. Made from the same dark wood as the walls, it was
scratched and worn. The top was enclosed to the ceiling in stiff
wire mesh, offering some protection to the gaunt and pale elderly
man asleep in a chair behind the desk.
Virginia led Clarissa up to the wood framed
opening in the mesh and cleared her throat loudly. The man's right
eye opened, he snorted once, and forced the other eye
open.
"What the hell took you so long getting here?"
he eyed Virginia with disdain and pulled his skeletal form out of
the chair. "Been waitin' most of two hours. You know what time of
night it is?"
"This is the girl I told you about, Dusty,"
she replied curtly. "You told me you could keep her for a couple of
nights. You owe me a favor, remember?"
"I'd like to forget I do, Miss Essex," Dusty
said as his eyes traveled over Clarissa's body. She instinctively
backed away. "She wanted?"
"Only by her pimp," Virginia lied and squeezed
Clarissa's arm painfully before she could protest. "Her name is
Sally Dugan. She needs a place for a couple of nights until her
brother can come and get her. She doesn't have any money and this
guy is pretty pissed off at her. Probably kill her if he finds
her."
"I'm not a....." Clarissa started but
Virginia's glare silenced her.
"Holding out on him?" Dusty sneered. "We get
'em all the time. If her pimp shows up, we'll call the police. They
don't like that much but it keeps it quiet in here. What's this guy
look like?"
"Latin, dark hair, not real tall but
muscular," Virginia said. "Intense looking, with dark brown, almost
black eyes that kind of droop at the outside corners. Goes by the
name of Marco."
"She ought to be okay here," Dusty said. "I'll
get her key."
Dusty disappeared into a small office in back
of the reception desk. Virginia pulled Clarissa back away from the
desk.
"Dusty knows about Morgan Wolfe," Virginia
hissed angrily. "I can't tell him it's Morgan that's hunting you.
He would never let you stay. Play the hooker part for now. Just
trust me and keep your mouth shut."
"I'm leaving," Clarissa shook loose from
Virginia's grip, hysteria puncturing her meager reserves. "This is
too much. I can't do this. Damn it, I just need a phone. One lousy
phone call. Why is that so hard? Damn it, I don't even have a damn
quarter. I have to get out of here."
"Go ahead," Virginia replied calmly. "I'll
make one phone call for you to shut you up. It won't to be Andrew
Hayden." Virginia waited for the panic she knew would send Clarissa
into a frenzy at the mention of calling Morgan. "Your life is in my
hands. I think you'll do as I say."
"You're just as bad as he is," Clarissa said
as she fought back tears.
"Not quite. You're worth more to me
alive."
"Here you go, Miss Dugan," Dusty reached out
through the opening in the mesh with spider-like fingers. He handed
Clarissa a room key. "Three ten is empty tonight. There are rules,
young lady. Can't cook in the rooms. Pay phone is over there on the
wall. Outgoing local calls only. I can't be running up and down a
four story building every time someone gets a call."
"Linens are changed every week or so. Don't
leave nothing in your room when you go out. Might get stolen. Fact
it most likely will get stolen. You'll also need these."
He thrust some slips of paper at Clarissa. "If
the government inspectors come around they always want to see these
so make sure you got these chits. Guarantees you a room for the
night courtesy of the county. I gave you a month’s worth. Not
supposed to, but since you probably don't want to be seen down here
in the lobby too often because of your pimp looking for you, I'll
break the rules this time. When you leave, give me back what you
don't use."
"What do I do with them?" Clarissa asked, her
voice becoming small and pinched.
"Sign one and give it to me each night you're
gonna stay here. I come around and collect about seven o'clock. I
stamp 'em and put 'em in the drawer. Don't know what for.
Inspectors don't ever check. Most I don't ever stamp. That's how I
can break the rules. The church down the street has more if you
lose those or run out."
Dusty opened a worn book and shoved it through
the opening at Clarissa. "You gotta sign in." Clarissa stared at
the book, reluctant to move. Virginia shoved her toward the desk,
the flat of her hand against Clarissa's back.
"Sally Dugan," Virginia whispered in her
ear.
Clarissa picked up the pen and scratched the
name on the next available line. In a sudden fit of anger she threw
the pen at Dusty and stalked toward the stairs.
"Thanks, Dusty," Virginia said to the old man
as she slipped an envelope through the wire mesh opening. Dusty
nodded and the envelope disappeared into his pocket.
"Thank me by never coming here again, Miss
Essex," Dusty's voice was level but there was a hint of anger
imbedded in it. "Your employer almost ruined my son. You got those
papers out of Morgan Wolfe's hands in time and I appreciate what
you did. But you still work for him and I don't want you coming
around here again. This is a one-time thing for your friend there.
We're square, you and me."
With that he turned away and went back into
his office.
Virginia turned toward the door without saying
anything more to Clarissa. She stopped before she pushed open the
glass door, paused in thought, and turned back to face Clarissa.
The young woman's face was a study in fear. She reminded Virginia
of a little girl on the first day of school, watching as her mother
left her in such an alien, hostile place. For a moment, there was
empathy in Virginia's heart, but just for a moment.
"You had better be back here tomorrow night
with my purse," Clarissa said.
"You'll be alright, Clarissa."
"Just stop telling everyone I'm a
prostitute."
"Would I be that far wrong?"
The anger well up in Clarissa like a tidal
wave. Before she could unleash it on Virginia, the secretary merely
turned and disappeared through the front door. Clarissa waited
until the cab had pulled away from the curb before she summoned up
the courage to climb up the stairs.
The stairs creaked and the banister felt
sticky with moldy grime. Clarissa wiped her hand on her shirt and
decided that she could climb the two flights to the third floor
without touching anything. The stairwell was close and thick with
dust. A stale odor of cigarette smoke, urine, and sweat, hung in
the air like an invisible fog and clung to the peeling maroon print
wallpaper.
A baby cried in short staccato blurts and
someone with an almost constant hacking cough rasped and choked on
the floor above. A woman with a high pitched voice cackled in
drunken laughter, and the echo of an argument in Spanish drifted
among the other night sounds.
Half way up the stairs, Clarissa stopped. She
could go no further. Behind her, Dusty's cage was now dark as was
his office in back. The hotel's front door was a shadowy glass
rectangle into the unknown and it wasn’t even locked. Clarissa slid
down until she was sitting on the stair, her back pressed against
the wall. She pulled the olive work shirt tight around her as if it
could possibly afford some protection. Her hands shook and she
clenched them into fists. She could not take her eyes off of the
front door, but neither could she make the move toward
it.
Yesterday she had everything. In the span of a
few short hours, everything was lost. A tornado had ripped through
her life, leveling every semblance of her dream. She had been
stripped of even her dignity in the rags she now wore, and the
homeless shelter in which she was forced to seek refuge. Only her
chipped and broken red fingernails gave a glimmer of evidence that
there had been another life. Clarissa sat wedged between Morgan's
stalkers out there in the night, and the bitter reality that the
only thing she had left was the thin thread by which her life
hung.
Her reserve was gone, spent. For the first
time she gave herself completely to the exhaustion and despair and
let the sobs come in great convulsing heaves. When they had
subsided, she sat with her eyes closed, tears still stinging her
reddened cheeks, her arms aching from bruised muscles clamped tight
to her knees, yet unable to let go for fear of retching.
She did not hear his soft footsteps on the
stairs, did not feel his dark eyes studying her. There was a
vagueness to his presence, just the hint of old leather and tweed.
It was not until he touched her, wiping a strand of damp blond hair
out of her eyes that Clarissa's eyes snapped open with renewed fear
and she recoiled up to the next riser.
"What are you doing here, child?" his voice
was raspy and cracked with age. "You gotta a room?"
He bent closer to her until his thin dark face
under the faded black fedora was inches from hers. He smelled of
dime store after shave and whiskey. Clarissa held her breath and
pressed herself tighter into the wall.
"This ain't a good place to be this time of
night," he told her. "We get a lot of bad folk come in here and
sleep in the lobby some times. You got a room, you better get up to
it and lock yourself in."
Clarissa pulled the room key from the pocket
in the work shirt and held it open in her palm for the man to see.
He took it in gnarled hands with skin so thin it looked like the
dark brown peel of an onion. He turned the key over and read the
room number.
"Three ten," he said half to himself. "We're
neighbors. Three fifteen."
He extended his hand in a friendly gesture to
Clarissa.
"I'm not your neighbor," she spat at him in a
voice that was still thick with tears. "I don't live in this rat
hole. Just leave me alone."
"I was just trying to be friendly, child," he
replied, and he sounded a little hurt.
Clarissa choked back an acid remark as she
looked into the old man's yellowed, red rimmed eyes. His deep brown
face was lined and wrinkled, his chin was covered with a ghostly
gray shadow of a beard. He smiled slightly, showing uneven teeth
with a gap in the front. His frayed tweed jacket was clean and
smelled of strong soap. His worn white shirt was once an expensive
one. He wore a gold watch loosely on his bone-thin wrist and an
onyx ring on his left hand.
Clarissa took in each detail of the man down
to the leather loafers and neatly pressed slacks frayed at the
cuffs. She could not help but wonder what he was doing here, in
this homeless shelter and wanted to ask but did not dare. He might
ask her the same question and the thought of reliving the last few
hours again would make them too real and painful. Better to keep
silent.
The man tipped his hat to her and started up
the stairs. "I'll be seeing you, child," he said over his shoulder.
"You all got yourself any problems, you knock on old Doc Rowland's
door. Hear? Three fifteen."
She watched him disappear into the dark void
at the top of the landing and listened to his uneven shuffling
footsteps blend and fade into the muffled din of the night.
Clarissa pulled herself slowly to her feet and followed the old
man's footsteps to the third floor.
CHAPTER 6
Saturday morning was cool and overcast, with
more rain in the forecast. The dark clouds were gathering and there
was an oppressive stillness to the air. It reflected Virginia's
mood as she swung the midnight blue Mercedes through the gates and
up the winding driveway of the Wolfe estate. One side of the gates
was bent and scraped with gray streaks. Virginia gave it a cursory
glance and it renewed a grudging respect for the woman she had
hidden away from Morgan.
Morgan had called early in the morning to say
that he needed her at least half the day. It was not unusual. She
worked many Saturday mornings, sometimes the whole weekend if
Morgan had a heavy schedule of business meetings to prepare for
during the following week. Virginia liked the Saturday work. Morgan
usually played a round of golf or racquetball with business
associates and she could get a lot more work done. The phone never
rang and there were few, if any, interruptions.