Part 15 (2/2)

There was a head at the window, a huge head with yellow-green eyes. She was in the pa.s.senger's seat now, her hand out defensively. Then she realized, I'm in a car, there's a window between me and that, that thing. Is it a tiger? It watched her, one eye showing through the pane, and then it turned, trod off lazily toward another beast, this one lazing in the sand surrounding a dilapidated trailer. The first collapsed beside the other, licked its paw, and ran it over its head.

Veronica sat up, back flat against the door, then leaned forward, peered out the window. Tigers, she thought. There are two tigers roaming the street not five miles off the highway.

She crept back in the driver's seat, peering cautiously around, as if the beasts across the street were attuned to movement, like a T-Rex in that Spielberg flick. She pressed on the gas, but the car didn't budge. In her excitement, she'd knocked the transmission into neutral. She pulled down the lever, and drove off.

She pressed on, slower than she would have liked, until a motel appeared. At first glance, it was desolate. It curled around a gravel lot like a serpent, and behind it palms and pines lilted over the Spanish tiled roof. She turned in, stopped in front of the office, got out, and strolled under a portico columned with whitewashed wood. The sidewalk dropped into a swale lined with bedrock.

The lobby was spare. The foyer consisted of a coffee pot, in which a half inch of black smoldered, and a rack filled with brochures. On the counter were a computer, a ledger, and a bell. There were tow doors behind the counter: one was closed, the other cracked. Darkness lined the crack. She slapped the bell. ”Be right there!” called a deep voice.

The black behind the door widened, and a figure stepped out. She gasped, flinched back, tripped on her heel, and fell unceremoniously onto her rump.

The man leaned over the counter, opened his mouth, and chuckled.

”You-” she began, staring. ”You look like a wookie.” The man laughed softly, and she joined him, still staring. He was covered in hair. It spilled from his head, covered his face, pooled around his white T-s.h.i.+rt, grew on the backs of his hands. ”You look like Lon Chaney,” she continued, and he laughed harder. They shared this until she flew into a coughing fit.

”You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, fist to her mouth, still coughing.

He turned, opened the office door, loomed over her, reaching out an immense hand. She took it and he pulled her up. His filthy T-s.h.i.+rt, the kind businessmen wear under suits, was at eye level. She looked up. ”How tall are you?”

”Six eleven and one-half,” he said. ”But when you get that close to seven feet, does it really matter? Would you like a room, ma'am?”

”Sure,” she answered, her mouth still an O of shock.

The man brought his hands up to his eyes, turned them over. ”I was the Wolf-Man for Magica Carnival for twenty years, ma'am. Twenty good years,” he told her, a look in his eye that might have been anger or nostalgia. He turned slowly, ducked under the door. At his computer he used one finger, struck each key softly. ”Name?”

”Veronica Lieber.” As soon as it was out she wished she'd thought to say Mona Lipschitz or Candy Browning or even Jane Doe.

”Address?”

”Do I have to tell?”

The man glanced away from the screen. ”Wouldn't dream of making you,” he told her, typing in three letters. ”How long you staying? Or is that a mystery too?”

”I . . . don't know.”

He studied her. ”Thirty dollars a night, or a hundred a week.”

”This is a weird place. I might need a week,” she said, opening her purse. She withdrew her billfold, removed a crisp bill.

”Did I saw a hundred?”

”You did,” she said, sliding the bill over.

”You want a travel guide?”

”You offering?”

He shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders. ”Slow season.”

Veronica nodded.

”A hundred twenty.”

”I've only got hundreds.”

”I've got change. You want to go out tonight?”

”I think maybe I'll rest tonight.”

The Wolf-Man nodded as if he understood. He eyed her as she made her way out.

Veronica stopped. ”What's your name?”

The man smiled. ”My name's Sal, Ronnie.”

The instant he said she decided that after tonight, she'd introduce herself to people as Ronnie. She opened her mouth to speak.

”Just Sal, Ronnie. Don't know my folks,” he said, raising his enormous hands. ”And they don't know me.”

Veronica didn't leave her room that night-the remainder of the day she vegetated on the huge bed and flipped through cable. At some point she drifted off, and didn't wake until noon the next day.

Disoriented, she stared along the ceiling before attempting the walls, and didn't recall anything until she saw her open purse on the chair. She cursed, sat up, pressing back into the headboard. Her head was throbbing, her back aching. Her decision seemed more real today.

The room, which she'd thought so cozy last night, now looked dingy. The lamp light was yellow, the shadows along the walls long and hazy, the top sheet stained. She went to the bathroom and was displeased to find the bathtub's molding tearing like an open sore. Mildew lined the grout, and the shower curtain was rusty and blotched.

”Disgusting,” she said, deciding to dress without a shower. ”That freak had better give me my money back.” After dressing, she tore off for the office.

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