Роберт Беллем - Pulp Frictions

‘Yessir. Sorry, sir.’ He swallowed whatever bitter taste he had in his mouth, and assumed an impersonal, obsequious manner. ‘You got any luggage, sir?’

‘No luggage.’

Moving silently in tennis sneakers like a frail ghost of the boy he once had been, he went behind the counter, and took my name, address, licence number, and five dollars. In return, he gave me a key numbered fourteen and told me where to use it. Apparently he despaired of a tip.

Room fourteen was like any other middle-class motel room touched with the California-Spanish mania. Artificially roughened plaster painted adobe colour, poinsettia-red curtains, imitation parchment lampshade on a twisted black iron stand. A Rivera reproduction of a sleeping Mexican hung on the wall over the bed. I succumbed to its suggestion right away, and dreamed about Circassian dancing girls.

Along towards morning one of them got frightened, through no fault of mine, and began to scream her little Circassian lungs out. I sat up in bed, making soothing noises, and woke up. It was nearly nine by my wristwatch. The screaming ceased and began again, spoiling the morning like a fire siren outside the window. I pulled on my trousers over the underwear I’d been sleeping in, and went outside.

A young woman was standing on the walk outside the next room. She had a key in one hand and a handful of blood in the other. She wore a wide multi-coloured skirt and a low-cut gypsy sort of blouse. The blouse was distended and her mouth was open, and she was yelling her head off. It was a fine dark head, but I hated her for spoiling my morning sleep.

I took her by the shoulders and said, ‘Stop it.’

The screaming stopped. She looked down sleepily at the blood on her hand. It was as thick as axle grease, and almost as dark in colour.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘I slipped and fell in it. I didn’t see it.’

Dropping the key on the walk, she pulled her skirt to one side with her clean hand. Her legs were bare and brown. Her skirt was stained at the back with the same thick fluid.

‘Where? In this room?’

She faltered, ‘Yes.’

Doors were opening up and down the drive. Half-a-dozen people began to converge on us. A dark-faced man about four-and-a-half feet high came scampering from the office, his little pointed shoes dancing in the gravel.

‘Come inside and show me,’ I said to the girl.

‘I can’t. I won’t.’ Her eyes were very heavy, and surrounded by the bluish pallor of shock.

The little man slid to a stop between us, reached up and gripped the upper part of her arm. ‘What is the matter, Ella? Are you crazy, disturbing the guests?’

She said, ‘Blood,’ and leaned against me with her eyes closed.

His sharp black glance probed the situation. He turned to the other guests, who had formed a murmurous semicircle around us.

‘It is perfectly hokay. Do not be concerned, ladies and gentlemen. My daughter cut herself a little bit. It is perfectly all right.’

Circling her waist with one long hairy arm, he hustled her through the open door and slammed it behind him. I caught it on my foot and followed them in.

The room was a duplicate of mine, including the reproduction over the unmade bed, but everything was reversed as in a mirror image. The girl took a few weak steps by herself and sat on the edge of the bed. Then she noticed the blood spots on the sheets. She stood up quickly. Her mouth opened rimmed with white teeth.

‘Don’t do it,’ I said. ‘We know you have a very fine pair of lungs.’

The little man turned on me. ‘Who do you think you are?’

‘The name is Archer. I have the next room.’

‘Get out of this one, please.’

‘I don’t think I will.’

He lowered his greased black head as if he was going to butt me. Under his sharkskin jacket, a hunch protruded from his back like a displaced elbow. He seemed to reconsider the butting gambit, and decided in favour of diplomacy:

‘You are jumping to conclusions, mister. It is not so serious as it looks. We had a little accident here last night.’

‘Sure, your daughter cut herself. She heals remarkably fast.’

‘Nothing like that.’ He fluttered one long hand. ‘I said to the people outside the first thing that came to my mind. Actually, it was a little scuffle. One of the guests suffered a nosebleed.’

The girl moved like a sleepwalker to the bathroom door and switched on the light. There was a pool of blood coagulating on the black and white chequerboard linoleum, streaked where she had slipped and fallen in it.

‘Some nosebleed,’ I said to the little man. ‘Do you run this joint?’

‘I am the proprietor of the Siesta motor hotel, yes. My name is Salanda. The gentleman is susceptible to nosebleed. He told me so himself.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He checked out early this morning.’

‘In good health?’

‘Certainly in good health.’

I looked around the room. Apart from the unmade bed with the brown spots on the sheets, it contained no signs of occupancy. Someone had spilled a pint of blood and vanished.

The little man opened the door wide and invited me with a sweep of his arm to leave. If you will excuse me, sir, I wish to have this cleaned up as quickly as possible. Ella, will you tell Lorraine to get to work on it right away pronto? Then maybe you better lie down for a little while.’

‘I’m all right now, Father. Don’t worry about me.’

When I checked out a few minutes later, she was sitting behind the desk in the front office, looking pale but composed. I dropped my key on the desk in front of her.

‘Feeling better, Ella?’

‘Oh. I didn’t recognise you with all your clothes on.’

‘That’s a good line. May I use it?’

She lowered her eyes and blushed. ‘You’re making fun of me. I know I acted foolishly this morning.’

‘I’m not so sure. What do you think happened in thirteen last night?’

‘My father told you, didn’t he?’

‘He gave me a version, two of them in fact. I doubt that they’re the final shooting script.’

Her hand went to the central hollow in the gypsy blouse. Her arms and shoulders were slender and brown, the tips of her fingers carmine. ‘Shooting?’

‘A cinema term,’ I said. ‘But there might have been a real shooting at that. Don’t you think so?’

Her front teeth pinched her lower lip. She looked like somebody’s pet rabbit. I restrained an impulse to pat her sleek brown head.

‘That’s ridiculous. This is a respectable motel. Anyway, Father asked me not to discuss it with anybody.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘He loves this place, that’s why. He doesn’t want any scandal made out of nothing. If we lost our good reputation here, it would break my father’s heart.’

‘He doesn’t strike me as the sentimental type.’

She stood up, smoothing her skirt. I saw that she’d changed it. ‘You leave him alone. He’s a dear little man. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, trying to stir up trouble where there isn’t any.’

I backed away from her righteous indignation — female indignation is always righteous — and went out to my car. The early spring sun was dazzling. Beyond the freeway and the drifted sugary dunes, the bay was Prussian blue. The road cut inland across the base of the peninsula and returned to the sea a few miles north of the town. Here a wide blacktop parking space shelved off to the left of the highway, overlooking the white beach and whiter breakers. Signs at each end of the turnout stated that this was County Park, No Beach Fires.

The beach and the blacktop expanse above it were deserted except for a single car, which looked very lonely. It was a long black Cadillac nosed into the cable fence at the edge of the beach. I braked and turned off the highway and got out. The man in the driver’s seat of the Cadillac didn’t turn his head as I approached him. His chin was propped on the steering wheel, and he was gazing out across the endless blue sea.