At the very moment Flo came to her doorway, Melinda had a man of about fifty doing a strip tease a few feet away from her. It had attracted the attention of everyone in the room. The man, obviously quite drunk, was so clumsy about unbuttoning his shirt he nearly strangled himself taking off his tie. He fell over once and was helped up by two other men. Then, to the rhythm of the music and shouts of “take it off, take it off,” he dropped his pants. Standing in his boxer shorts, he moved his body from side to side in an awkward and silly attempt to mimic a bellydancer. Suddenly two ladies, friends of the men who had helped him up, came from behind him and, each taking one side of his shorts, yanked them down to his knees. There was an explosion of laughter. The man was stunned by his own nudity.
His penis drooped between his thighs. He bent down to pull his shorts back on but a man at his side slapped his hands away. All the women in the room, including Flo, seemed hypnotized by the thick, jiggling organ. He struggled again in a vain attempt to regain his shorts but two other ladies, also drunk and encouraged by the audience, put their arms under his and pushed him in the direction of the eager crowd.
Two men picked him up, pulled his legs apart, and began rotating him toward each side of the room. The onlookers pointed, jeered and clapped as the man made desperate attempts to find something to cover himself with. Each attempt only brought on more and more laughter. Finally the audience grew bored and let him drop to the floor. Someone helped him to his feet and directed him toward the bathroom. The couple in the tub made no attempt to leave, but by this time the drunk neither noticed or cared. At the same time, people were screwing on the mattresses in various combinations of threes and fours.
All this turned Flo on in ways she had never thought possible. For all her carrying on, she had never even been with two men in the same bed, much less participated in an orgy. She was curious to see what it was like. She chug-a-lugged what was left in her glass and went to look for more. The booze had been set up on the small dresser in Grant’s room, the only piece of furniture tolerated because it served as a makeshift bar. Turning around, she recognized the pool’s stunning lifeguard, the one she had ogled earlier in the day, pouring drinks for two young women. He looked even sexier out of the sun.
“Hi,” she said, “Can you do that for me too?”
“Sure.” He smiled. “I can do anything you say.”
“Sounds promising. I think I’ll take you up on it.”
He laughed and filled up her glass. Then she felt someone pinch her ass and hoped that it might be Billy Marcus. If not, anyone would do. In this instance, three would definitely not be a crowd.
“I’ve got some good news and some bad,” Bruce said, intercepting Ellen as she left the Teitelbaum table. “Fern Rosen, that friend of mine, is finally out of danger.”
“Thank God.”
“And the Feigen boy is responding well to treatment, too.”
“Oh, I’m so relieved. I was just on my way to his mother’s table. She’ll be so happy to hear.” Then the smile on her face disappeared.
“What’s the bad news?”
“The doctors have identified three other likely cases, one quite acute—an elderly gentleman. It doesn’t look very promising.”
“Oh, no.” For some reason she had thought the worst was over.
“They’ve all been sent to the hospital and of course they’ll get the best treatment available.” Bruce looked around the dining room. “Doesn’t look too good. What would you say, half full?”
“Not even. I’ve asked Mr. Pat to keep the dining room open an hour longer than usual. Maybe later in the evening, from boredom if nothing else, people will come in. I know the public health nurses are doing their best to convince everyone that the food is perfectly safe.”
“Um. Tell me something. Where does Jonathan usually sit when he comes to dinner?”
“Up over there,” she said, pointing to the empty table on the far end of the balcony. “At the executive table. Why?”
“Just curious. I haven’t seen him since we had that showdown in your office. Have you?”
“Now that you mention it, no, and I’ve spoken to his secretary a few times, and I remember her saying he hasn’t been in his office either.”
“You don’t think that guy got out of here somehow, do you?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Ellen said. “He’s capable of anything.” She saw Toby Feigen wave at her. “Let me go over and give my friend the good news about her son. I don’t want to waste any more time talking about Jonathan.”
Bruce nodded and watched her walk away. For a moment he considered whether or not he should go back out to the lobby and try to locate him but his hunger pangs won out. He sat down and began to eat his melon. Later, when he was finished, there would be time enough to check and see what happened to Mr. Lawrence. It didn’t really surprise him, though, that the man wasn’t showing his face. If he were Jonathan, he thought, he’d have crawled into a hole too. He looked up from his plate with some interest when Ellen was stopped by a sharply dressed, dark-skinned man before she reached the Feigen table. He didn’t know who he was but he could see, even from this distance, that the conversation wasn’t a pleasant one.
It was Nick Martin, and he wore that same enigmatic smile.
“Too bad we didn’t wrap up a deal earlier, Mrs. Golden. You would have unloaded a big headache. Or, should I say, stomach ache?”
“That has the earmarks of a real sick joke, Mr. Martin.”
“I’m beginning to understand now why you and Mr. Lawrence were receptive to my offer. Sort of a chance to bail out before …”
“Certainly you don’t think …”
“It doesn’t really matter now what I think, Mrs. Golden. But take heart. Luck has a way of turning around.” He gave her a sly wink and walked on to his table. She looked after him a moment and then she turned and looked at Bruce. He gestured as if to say “What’s up?” She simply shook her head and continued on her way.
Sandi put on Elvis’s “Heartbreak Hotel” for the fifth time. The song seemed to fit her mood perfectly. Then she went back to the window and looked out at the main building. It had grown considerably darker, but not dark enough. When she left, she wanted to be sure no one spotted her and reported back to her mother. She looked at the musical alarm clock the Teitelbaums had brought her from Italy three years ago. It was 8:30, the tail end of the dinner hour, or at least what usually was the dinner hour. She figured her mother was still in the dining room, circulating among the guests.
Every time she thought about meeting Grant, her heart began to pound. She knew he wasn’t what anyone would describe as handsome. He certainly was no Bobby Grant or Fabian or even Frankie Avalon. But there was something definitely, well, something very sexual about him, at least to her. It was in his eyes, part of his anger, the wild rage he always seemed to be supressing. Being around him was like being around a stick of dynamite ready to explode at any minute. And it excited her.
Other boys she could think of, boys in the local junior high, paled and dimmed beside the thought of him. Sure, they were wild in their own way, with their black leather jackets and duck tail hair-cuts, smoking cigarettes openly in the school basement and defying the teachers to give them detention. Once she had even found them fascinating, but now they just seemed dirty, unattractive and ignorant.
Not like Grant who would probably be just as bored in the company of those leather jacketed jerks as she was. He was too restless to belong to anything organized, and it was just this impulsiveness that appealed to her. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him, to feel his tongue moving around in her mouth. The glow of light in the window of one of the small cottages brought back the memory of Caesar Jiminez and Margret Thomas making love. Was it only two nights before? She recalled the color of their flesh, the eroticism of their movements. She wondered what it would be like if Grant did all that to her. Her thoughts was abruptly disturbed by the ringing of the phone.
“Hi, Sandi, what are you doing?”
“Just sitting and listening to records.” She could hear the fatigue in her mother’s voice. “Are you going to come home soon?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got to stick around a while longer. Some more people got sick and I should be here in case anyone needs me.”
“You want me to do anything?”
“No, baby.”
“I’m not a baby,” she snapped and regretted it instantly. There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“No, you’re not,” Ellen finally said, softly. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it seem I think you are. What did you have for dinner?”
“I ate some of the tuna and mixed it up with mayonnaise and stuff. It was delicious.” She hoped her mother would realize it was her way of apologizing.
“I’m glad. If you get hungry and want anything else, just let me or Magda know.”
“All right,” Sandi said. “I will.”
“Go to sleep early. I’ll look in when I get home.”
“Okay,” Sandi said. She let her mother hang up first.
For a few long moments afterward, she felt almost as sad as she did the day her father died. She fought back her tears, went back to the window and looked out at the hotel. It was wrong for her to meet Grant and she knew it. She was betraying her mother who loved and trusted her. A good girl would stay at home and not complain, no matter how bored she was.
Then she thought again about Grant, what it would be like to feel his hand on her breast, his lips close to hers, and once again changed her mind. What was so bad about just spending a couple of hours with him? What danger was there in going over to her hideaway? She wouldn’t be exposed to any of the guests except Grant and besides, she had spent part of the morning with him anyway. She really wouldn’t be doing anything that wrong.
Sandi promised herself she’d get back before her mother came home. That way, Ellen would never have to know. She looked out the window again. It was just about dark enough—just about time. She went to the mirror and put on more lipstick. Then she sprayed some perfume on her neck and down her bra the way she had read about in
Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
She was so excited, she nearly forgot to turn off the phonograph.
She joined Elvis on the last line of “Heartbreak Hotel,” turned off the machine, and improvised the last three words to sing on her way out.
“It’s down at the end of lonely street … my hide-a-way.”
Manny stayed within the shadows until the couple ahead of him disappeared down the path. Then he crouched low and began to move. Lights from the main building threw long, twisted fingers of illumination over the grounds. He had had too much to drink and the alcohol was clouding and distorting his vision. He wobbled and wove a zig-zag path to the back of the main building. The sound of a siren in the distance brought him to a halt. He had an immediate vision of being caught, handcuffed and marched degradingly back into the hotel to be used as an example for anyone else contemplating breaking out of the quarantine.
The siren passed on. He listened intently and heard the muffled footsteps of some people walking back to one of the cottages. He looked behind him to make sure he hadn’t been spotted, then stumbled on. When he entered the darkness away from the reach of the hotel’s lights, he began to feel safer. He checked his pants pocket for the feel of his car keys and, confident they were his passport to freedom, went into an even deeper crouch. In this posture, he began to run toward the woods. Once he tripped and flew forward, catching himself on the palms of his hands. Even so, he scraped his knees and though he couldn’t see it, picked up dark green grass stains on his pants and shirt. He cursed, rubbed his legs and moved on, this time more carefully and slowly.
When he got to where he could see the wide entrance to the main gate, he stopped and listened once again. Though there was absolute stillness, it was obvious that the police stationed on either side, sitting patiently in their cars, were ready to move at the slightest sound. It was at this point that Manny took the greatest care, practically tiptoeing away from them and toward the forest over five hundred yards away. When he finally got to the barbed wire fence he felt elated. The only problem now was how, in the darkness, to know exactly where he should slip underneath. He moved a few feet down to see if there was a natural opening, but he couldn’t find one and rather than waste precious time searching, chose a spot at random, lifted the lowest tier of wire and began sliding under. The wire was a lot tauter than he had imagined and it kept a continuous pressure on his hand. He was terrified of catching one of the rusty metal points on his face so he turned his head into the earth, pressing down as hard as he could. It seemed to take forever to work his body under. It was at times like this he wished he had taken Flo’s advice and lost thirty pounds, but, incredibly, he was finally able to do it. His face and clothing were smeared from all the dirt, but his appearance was the last thing he was worried about now. There’d be plenty of time to wash and change when he reached the city.
Once he was able to stand on the other side of the fence, he felt sure he was almost home free. He shook himself off and picked up his little traveling bag. Sneaking into the parking lot was going to be a piece of cake compared to what he had just been through. He began moving through the woods in a northerly direction. Branches and bushes caught his pants, and he had to stop and untangle himself from time to time, but his adrenalin level was so high it didn’t phase him.
Finally, he could see the road ahead. In his eagerness to reach it, he neglected to study the way the earth dipped and failed to see the ditch. He fell forward once again, this time landing on his side. He knew enough not to moan, shout, or do anything that would attract attention, but for a moment, the pain was almost unbearable. Finally it disappeared.
He rose, crossed the road quickly and hurried toward the parking lot. When he reached what he figured was the back entrance, he suddenly pricked up his ears. The chatter from the patrol car’s two-way radio at the main gate could be heard quite distinctly. He could see the silhouette of the car a couple of thousand yards down the road, but he believed that as long as kept out of the reach of approaching car lights, they wouldn’t be able to see him.