David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

“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.

And then there was Shel. To think she’d had a hand in all that, his shiny white nurse. He realized he was hard to live with at times, nobody’s idea of a prince, but even so. He’d gotten even, he supposed. But so had she. His crotch still throbbed, his head throbbed, too. He winced, thinking about it, but at the same time he felt grateful she’d gotten away. At the time he would have killed her, yes, but now, thinking back, that wasn’t what he’d wanted at all. He wanted her to see how he felt. See me for who I am, he thought. The whole number. That so much to ask?

A fast hard knocking came at the door. It sent Frank down to his knees beside the bed. He began to retch, thinking: They found me, the fuckers, they’re here.

Through the door, the bellhop called out, “Skip, Skip, it’s me. Got the fifth. Hey, Skip?”

Frank knelt there, blinking. Street noise filtered in quietly through the window. He rubbed his face, got up one leg at a time and sat on the bed for a second to get his breath, trying to swallow. He collected his money, pocketed it, then worked his way along the wall, chained the door and cracked it open.

“You nod off or what?” the bellhop snapped. His face bristled with Hey Hey Hey. He held up the bottle of gin like it was a chicken.

“Righteous,” Frank murmured. “We’re even.” He took the bottle and closed the door.

Within ten minutes he’d drained half the bottle. He patrolled the room, checking under the bed, inside the closet, paranoia ticking in his head. He put his ear to one wall, then the other, detecting sounds. The clarity he’d felt earlier abandoned him. He clutched the gin bottle to his chest. You’re lucky to be alive, he told himself. That’s why you’re scared.

Life is luck and the lucky are scared.

He indulged in a little more crank. Surfaces bristled. Lamplight made sounds. I’m sorry, he thought. There, I said it, I’m sorry. He got up and went to the bathroom. We must, he thought, get a grip on our drugs. He turned on the hot water spigots to warm his hands, found a towel, drank from the gin bottle. Overhead, the fluorescent ceiling light hovered like a little spaceship. He ran his hands down his arms. Shards of glass nestled in each pore. His hair felt tired.

He found his way back to the bed and turned on the television, craving sound, any sound. It had to be better than listening to his own head. The twenty-four-hour news channel rebroadcast a speech the president had made earlier that morning on the East Coast. The president’s face, in the constant eruption of a camera flash, looked twitchy and false. Nice suit, Frank thought, drinking. The man in the nice suit sounded the old familiar call: Get tough. Get tough on crime. From a piece of paper in front of him, he recited: “We will not rest until this menace is crushed.”

Abatangelo drove across town to a photomat near the Opera House. The morning rain had created a bristling winter clarity. Buildings shimmered. Windshields flared. Outside the photomat, two secretaries leaned against the brick facade, one enjoying a quick smoke, the other a frozen yogurt, both lifting their faces to the sun. A panhandler stood in the doorway, one hand shading his eyes as the other moved in a constant gimme motion. Abatangelo brushed past him through the door.

With a little financial encouragement he got the girl at the counter to run his prints at once. The girl had the face of a ten-year-old, part of her head was shaved, and she breathed through her mouth. A button on her smock read: WHY COMPLAIN? THE WORST IS YET TO COME.

Abatangelo moved to the glass wall dividing the waiting room from the developing area to watch the process. He’d shot his frames of Shel in color, and the darkroom he’d rigged up in his apartment was set up only for black and white. Within a minute the color prints emerged on the vertical conveyor, rising one by one. Shel with her back exposed, revealing the bloody gashes, the bruises and welts. A close-up of her battered face. The bloodred eyes. Another close-up, this one of her neck. Now the girl was looking, too. She closed her mouth.