Stephen Gallagher: Valley of lights

I was within two blocks' drive of Paradise when the call came over the air. It was a 927, a general code meaning to investigate unknown trouble. The dispatch girl was offering it to Travis and Leonard, both of whom were checking IDs for warrants in the scrubby little park around the Adult Center on Jefferson; knowing that I could have them as backup in three minutes or less if the 'unknown trouble' turned out to be something bigger than anticipated, I cut in and took the call. Squad Sergeant responding, one minute or less.

The Paradise Motor Court was one of those places that could make a weekend break at the Bates Motel look halfway attractive. It was on the fringe of that section of Phoenix known as The Deuce, an area of old warehouses and railyards which they reckon got its name during the war from the two-dollar tricks on offer around the streets. I'd first been thrown in there some twelve years before, fresh out of the Academy with my Police Officer 1 grade, and I'd found it to be shabby and scary and inexplicably exciting. As Skid Rows went it hadn't grown any prettier, but my main thought as I pulled onto the Paradise forecourt was to wonder whether the 927 was going to bring me any surprises. I could usually count on a couple of surprises on a good day, even now; some were welcome, some less so.

The clerk was outside and waiting for me, waiting to flag me down. He wore a Hawaiian shirt that was both too large and too loud for him, and he was hopping around like he'd been wired to a battery.

'Sergeant Volchak,' I said. 'What's the problem?'

'Something here you ought to see,' he said. 'But come and listen to this, first.'

He disappeared into his office, and I followed him. I had a vague memory of the place from when it had been called something else, but nothing clicked. He was already behind the counter as I came through the door, lifting the handset from the twenty-line switchboard and holding it out to me. One of the board lights was on, but I could see that the key wasn't down. I took the handset and listened, holding it close to my ear but not touching.

I could hear breathing, hoarse and difficult. Nothing else. It sounded like someone sleeping off a long, rowdy drunk. I looked at the clerk, who was wiping his hands nervously on his trousers, and said, 'You've tried calling?'

'I've tried calling, I've tried knocking. Nothing works, it's like they're all deaf.'

'They?'

'Come on, I'll show you.'

And then he was moving again, quick and jittery like before, dodging around me as if he was afraid I might grab him. I left the handset on the desk, and went out again into the hot desert air with its taints of asphalt and auto fumes. The steady drone of the Maricopa Freeway in the middle distance was almost being drowned out by a ghetto-blaster playing loud Donna Summer in the first of the units; windows open, screens unbolted, it was obvious that the Paradise didn't run to air conditioning. Even through the music I heard a panicky scramble as I passed by and the people inside caught a glimpse of the uniform. Give it about five seconds, I was thinking, and then somebody's stash would be making a fast trip down the toilet.

I'd also remembered the last time I was here. It had been about two years into my service; a local prostitute had been found in one of the rooms, stripped naked and strangled on the bed. She'd had what appeared to be two pieces of cotton wool, one placed neatly on each breast; closer inspection showed that her nipples had been clipped off with shears, and the cotton wool was the breast tissue protruding through. It was something so unusual that the ten of us on the squad shift had all invented excuses to call by and take a look, one team at a time, until the shift commander had put a stop to it. I'd begun to wonder if the desk clerk was going to lead me down to the same unit, but then I realised that we'd already passed it. Whatever he was going to show me, I doubted that it was going to be as unusual as what I'd seen on that last visit.

Just goes to prove how wrong you can be, doesn't it?

'I'm new at this,' he said back over his shoulder as we turned the corner by a defunct-looking Pepsi machine. 'I need somebody to tell me what to do.'

'What about the owner?'

'I don't even know who the owner is. I've got an emergency number, but nobody's answering.'

I tried to reassure him. 'Whatever's going on,' I said, 'I'm telling you, it's not the strangest thing you're likely to come across in this business.'

He looked at me bleakly. 'Don't bet on it,' he said.

We came to the last of the units. Beyond this was some empty parking space and then a high cinderblock wall topped with wire. Not a place, on the whole, that I'd have cared to spend any time in. The desk clerk stood out front and gestured me towards the window as if to say take it, I don't want it, the responsibility's all yours. I was aware that, some distance behind me, one or two people had emerged and were watching to see if anything interesting was going to happen. I stepped up to the window and looked inside.

The sash was open an inch at the top, and some faint stirring of the air had caused the drapes to part down the middle. The bug screen and the darkness inside made it difficult to see anything at all, but as my eyes adjusted I began to make out shapes. Something that had at first looked like a bean bag resolved itself into a human form, slumped, halfway out of a low chair as if he'd fainted while sitting. The details weren't clear, but also in my line of sight across the room was the end of the bed with somebody lying on it. I could see a pair of soiled tennis shoes for this one, not much more.

Just drunks sleeping off a party, I thought, remembering the heavy breathing that was being picked up by the dislodged phone, and I turned to the clerk and said, 'Who's the room registered to?'

'A little s…' he began, but then he caught himself. 'A Hispanic guy. I don't think he's even one of them.'

'Well… all I see is people sleeping. I don't know what's so unusual in that.'

'For four straight days? It could have been longer. He registered weeks ago, he closed the drapes on day one and he musta sneaked the others in when no-one was watching.'

'What about the maid?'

'We're residential, maid service comes extra. She just leaves the towels and sheets outside, doesn't go in. What do you think?'

I felt a definite stirring of interest. I said, 'I think you should get your pass key so we can go inside and find out what the problem is.'

'And that's legal? I mean, I'm all square with the owner if I do what you say?'

'Get the key, all right?'

We went inside; or rather, I went inside and the little monkey in the technicolor shirt hovered in the doorway behind me. My first expectation, which was of the smell of opium smoke, turned out to be wrong; what hit me instead was a rank odor like bad breath and drains. I crossed the room and opened the window as wide as it would go, and then I turned to look at the place in the harsh angles of daylight.

Nobody had moved. There were three of them. Slumped in the low chair opposite the window was a man in a grey business suit, an expensive-looking summer lightweight with the pants stained dark where his bladder had let go. He was the one who'd fallen against the phone and dislodged the receiver, as if he'd been propped awkwardly and hadn't stayed that way. The soiled tennis shoes on the bed belonged to a short, muscular-looking man in his late thirties, while over in the other chair by the key-operated TV sprawled a black teenager in a leather jacket.

All three of them were inert, like corpses; but I checked for a pulse on each one, and they were all alive and steady. The arms of the man on the bed, who was wearing a T-shirt, showed no fresh needle marks or even old scars.