Graham Masterton - The Ninth Nightmare

The detective gave a quick shake of his jowls to indicate that it wouldn’t be necessary to check John’s credentials. But then he turned to Rhodajane Berry and said, ‘How about you, ma’am, what room will you be staying in?’

‘She’s three-oh-nine,’ said the receptionist.

‘Three-oh-nine. OK.’ He wrote down 309 and sniffed. Then he said, ‘Have a good stay, won’t you? But if you do hear anything or see anything, here’s my card. Give me a call anytime.’

Rhodajane Berry looked taken aback. ‘What do you mean, if I hear anything or see anything? What kind of things do you mean?’

The detective hesitated. ‘You know, anything out of the ordinary.’

‘Anything out of the ordinary like what, for instance?’

John had to give it to her, Rhodajane Berry had a voice like a braided-wire whip. It could cut through anything.

The detective shrugged. ‘Anything out of the ordinary like the room maybe changing in appearance.’

‘ Excah-use me? The room changing in appearance? I don’t get it. How does a room change in appearance? You mean like I’m going to be lying in bed and somebody’s going to come in and start to strip off the wallpaper?’

‘Well, to be honest, ma’am. I don’t know any more than you do. But if it does change, in any way at all, call me, please. Likewise if you hear shouting or crying or if you find anybody in your room who isn’t supposed to be there.’

Rhodajane Berry said, ‘Wait up a second. I seriously do not like the sound of this. Shouting or crying? People in my room who aren’t supposed to be there? I’m supposed to be staying here tonight. I’m paying one hundred sixty dollars per night. What the hell kind of crap is this?’

‘There’s no need for that language, ma’am. I’m just asking you to be vigilant tonight which isn’t a whole lot to ask, is it?’

‘What happened here?’ John demanded, ‘What’s this all about?’

The detective said, ‘You don’t have anything to worry about, sir. You won’t be staying here. I suggest you get right back in your taxicab now and leave.’

‘I won’t be staying here but this lady will and right now she’s still my fare and that makes her my personal responsibility. So what went down here?’

The detective took a deep breath. Then he said, ‘There’s nothing for you to get yourself worried about. One of the guests suffered an episode, that’s all.’

‘An episode? An episode of what? Days Of Our Lives ?’

‘No, sir. She had what you might call a hallucination. She thought her room had altered in some way and she thought she saw a strange person in her bed. When the housekeeping staff found her she was in a state of some distress, but there was nothing in her room to indicate that what she had experienced was real.

‘All the same, we’ve been taking the precaution of asking all of the hotel’s guests to call me personally at any time of the night if they think they see or hear anything unusual.’

John dragged out his handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘Sounds to me like for no good reason at all you’re causing this good lady here a whole lot of unnecessary anxiety for nothing.’

‘You’re entitled to your opinion, Mr Dolphin,’ the detective snapped back at him. ‘I’m simply erring on the side of caution. Now, please, if you don’t mind, I have to go talk to some sane people.’

‘Hey, wait up! Some sane people? You’re trying to suggest that I’m some kind of nut job?’

‘No, sir. Not at all. I didn’t say that.’

‘Excuse me. You clearly said you have to go talk to some sane people, which would suggest to me that you think I’m not one of them. What’s your name, detective?’

The detective reached into his breast pocket and took out another card. ‘There. If you have any complaints to make, just contact the UCPD. Now I have to get on.’

John held up the card and squinted at it. Detective Walter B. Wisocky, University Circle Police Department, 12100 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland Heights .

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thanks. You can bet that I’ll be calling your Chief of Detectives directly after lunch. Sane people indeed. The nerve!’

Before he left, however, Detective Wisocky turned back and laid a firm hand on John’s shoulder pad.

‘Don’t think I’m trying to influence you or nothing,’ he breathed, very close to John’s ear, and his breath smelled of scallions. ‘But before I leave here I’ll be sure to make a note of your medallion number, and believe me, if you make a complaint against me to the Chief of D’s, you’d better drive your cab real meticulous in future. And I mean real meticulous. Everywhere, and for ever, amen.’

John looked him in the eye, trying to be challenging, but all the same he was thinking about the number of times he had driven to pick up a fare holding a cheesesteak in one hand and a can of Dr Pepper in the other, steering with nothing but his fingertips and his right thigh. He thought of all the illegal U-turns which cut minutes off call-out times, and all of the convenient shortcuts which took him the wrong way down one-way streets. He thought of all the times he had driven to the airport on I-71 at more than eighty-five miles an hour, because he was running late for a pickup.

He said nothing, but Detective Wisocky kept his hand pressed down on his shoulder pad and kept staring at him without blinking for a full five seconds to show that he meant business.

‘Ma’am,’ said the receptionist. ‘Here’s your key card. I’ll have somebody bring your luggage up to your room.’

Detective Wisocky turned and walked off. John watched him for a moment, and then said, ‘No, it’s OK, ma’am. I’ll carry your case up for you.’

He followed Rhodajane Berry to the elevators, which had highly-polished brass doors. He could see himself standing beside her in his crumpled linen suit, his belly bulging over the waistband. He always thought that he could have been handsome if he hadn’t loved food so much. When he was a teenager he had looked a lot like Tab Hunter. Well, more snub-nosed, like Tab Hunter pressing his face against a Burger King window. Now he thought he looked like every fat guy who ever was. Fat.

He wasn’t sure why he felt so protective of Rhodajane Berry. She must be reasonably wealthy, but she was trashy, too, and he had always been attracted to trashy women. His first serious girlfriend Charlene had been trashy, with the dirtiest laugh and the biggest breasts and the shortest conceivable skirts, but when he had returned from his stint in the Army she had taken one look at him and he had known before a word was spoken that their relationship was over. He might have been the only three-time winner of the Fort Polk prize for culinary excellence, but he had more than trebled in weight. After a long silence, Charlene had said, ‘Jesus. It’s the Pillsbury Dough Boy.’

‘Meeting the rest of your family today?’ he asked Rhodajane, as they went up in the elevator.

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘Oh. Not too close, then?’

‘You could say that. They’re a collection of mean-minded sons-of-bitches, all of them. I only came here to make sure I got what’s coming to me in grandma’s will.’

‘Oh. So what are you going to be doing tonight?’

‘Not going out with you if that’s what this is leading up to.’

‘Hey, of course not,’ John protested. ‘I’m just making small talk, that’s all. You know, like persiflage.’

The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. Before she stepped out, Rhodajane prodded John with her long purple fingernail and said, ‘If there’s one thing I’m a real good judge of, Mr John Dolphin, it’s men. And I’ve been watching you watching me in your rear-view mirror ever since we left the airport. And I saw you looking up my dress when I got out of your cab.’