“And he said?”
“And I quote, ‘Oooooh, spooky lady!’ He didn’t really seem to know how to react aside from that. He asked me if I had any tattoos.”
“You told him you were a witch, and that’s all he could think of to say?” Manfred smiled, just a little, and in a second he and Fiji were laughing out loud.
“I know,” she said. “I know! But at the moment, it wasn’t funny at all, it felt like the kiss of death!”
“How’d it go after that?” Manfred was trying not to laugh any more. He was a bit surprised the bouncer hadn’t had a chance to find out about Fiji’s tattoos firsthand.
“Pretty dire. I didn’t know how to talk about the price beef was fetching and calf roping or bull riding—he loves the rodeo—and he didn’t know what to make of Midnight. He told me about his last shift with the ambulance, when a guy had a heart attack and then he’d had to pull a baby out of a wreck. Finally we got down to what television shows we watched, and I kind of feel like it’s all over if that’s the main topic you can come up with. Not that you can’t find out a lot about people from that,” she added, in case that was Manfred’s fallback position when he was on a date.
“I’ve talked about television, I admit it freely,” he said, trying to keep a straight face, but they started laughing again.
“It was awful,” Fiji said. “Assuming he ever calls again, I think I’ll give it a pass. That’s what I get for going out with someone who had nothing but hotness going for him.”
“Hey, it could have turned out good.”
“Yeah, but . . . it didn’t. I lost a few hours of time. And a little of my self-respect. And I never discovered if the hotness was all attitude.”
“I ran into Bobo the other evening, and he knew you were going out with Travis McNamara.”
“Yes, I told him,” she said, in a voice so even you could have put a level on it. She shrugged. “He seemed pleased.” She was trying as hard as she could to look neutral about that, but in fact the feelings chased across her face. Defiant, angry, sad.
“He was pretty worried about it. He thought Travis was too rough for you.”
Looking much more cheerful, she sat up straight, took a deep breath, and said, “Thanks for coming over and listening to my crap. I’ll bet there was something you wanted to talk about?”
“That confidence you gave me. It was great.”
Fiji brightened even more. “I’m so glad! It was something new I was trying out. How long before it wore off?”
“That’s the only problem. I’m still getting, like, flashbacks,” he said, trying not to sound uneasy. “I can’t tell if some plan I have is actually a good idea, or if I just think so because I’m under the spell. Kind of like Olivia thinking she’s had a good idea if she has it in the chapel.”
Fiji looked thoughtful. “Okay . . . what you’re saying is it’s working too well? That you feel you might have lost your judgment?”
He nodded vigorously. “Exactly.”
“So I need to temper it somehow.” Fiji pulled out the old notebook she kept in a drawer under the counter and got a pen from the caddy on her desk. “And you’re having flashbacks. So I need to cut down on the . . .” Her voice trailed off as she wrote a few more words. “Thanks, Manfred. I appreciate the feedback.”
“Have you met the new guy yet?”
“What new guy?”
“He may tell you his name is Rick, but he also says it’s Barry. Horowitz. He came in the middle of the night two nights ago. He’s the grandson of one of the residents.”
“And he’s staying?” She was still waiting for the pertinence of the new guy to manifest itself.
“For a while, at least,” Manfred said. “He’s unusual, Fiji. Even for here.”
Diederik came in, looking hopeful. Fiji immediately put a plate up on the counter, piled with homemade biscuits covered with plastic wrap. “Oh, thank you,” the boy said. He was even more appreciative when Fiji put a knife, a dish of butter, and some jam beside the biscuits.
They were both giving him a careful once-over. “I don’t think you grew as much,” Manfred said. “It’s slowing down.”
“I did get some bigger clothes, just in case, but I believe you’re right,” Fiji said, pushing the plate closer to Diederik, who unwrapped the biscuits with speed. He remembered to offer them to Manfred, but when Manfred shook his head, the boy looked relieved and dug in. Fiji put a glass of juice beside the plate, and Diederik drained it at a gulp.
“What does the Rev feed you?” Manfred asked.
“Oatmeal every morning. But some bacon also, this morning.” Diederik’s answer was not very clear.
“I don’t know where you put it,” Manfred said.
Fiji looked a little forlorn, as if she well understood the compulsion to eat, but Diederik said, “I’m always hungry. Always. I hope it won’t be like this forever!”
“I’m just guessing, but I don’t think it will be,” Fiji said. “Do you expect your father will come back soon?” She glanced at the calendar on her desk anxiously.
“Yes, after he completes his job,” Diederik said. He pushed the plate away from him, abruptly uninterested. “My aunt couldn’t keep me anymore. My mother died.”
Manfred could tell Fiji was as unnerved as he was. He picked up a wisp of a picture from the boy’s head. “Did you have a brother or sister?” he asked.
“I had an older sister. But she died before she was born, my mother told me.” Diederik looked suddenly forlorn.
“I’m so sorry,” Manfred said. It was definitely time to change the subject. “Listen, Diederik, when you finish doing whatever Fiji has lined up for you to do, can you come over to my place? I have a computer game you might enjoy.”
“Oh, yes,” the boy said, his smile back in place.
Manfred gave a wave of his hand and turned to leave. As he went through the door, he saw Bobo walking across the street to Fiji’s. “Leaving the store without a master?” he called, thinking with pleasure of how glad Fiji would be to see Bobo.
“I got a sign on the door with my phone number on it,” Bobo said. “I’m going nuts waiting for Lemuel to come back and Teacher to be relieved from convenience store duty. I hope he’s making good money.”
“No one seems to know who actually owns the convenience store. Except Teacher.”
“I never asked,” Bobo said with a shrug.
Manfred sat down at his computer and got back to work. He thought about taking the time to research who owned the store. But he would miss a day of work, going to Bonnet Park on his mission. With a sigh, he returned to solving the problems of people he didn’t know and might never meet. His own concerns would have to wait.
21
When Olivia entered the hotel, all the inhabitants were arguing. She stood back and listened for a while, a little amused and a lot exasperated. One of the “temporary residents” who was doing some contract work for Magic Portal, the computer business located east of Davy and Midnight, had returned to the hotel to find that (apparently) Shorty Horowitz had picked the lock to his room and (this was definite) was asleep on his bed. Shorty Horowitz, a short and round man with more white hair bristling out of his ears and nostrils than on his head, was irate, the temporary resident was even more irate, and Barry Horowitz was trying to calm everyone down, including Lenore Whitefield, who looked completely rattled. Harvey Whitefield was not in evidence.
“My grandfather got confused and thought he was getting into his own room,” Barry was saying. Olivia was the only one who noticed he hadn’t consulted with the old man before he said this.
“And he picks the locks in his own place?” was the first thing that popped out of the other man’s mouth. A young man about Barry’s age, he was wearing a ratty T-shirt and jeans, but he was making some serious money if his accessories were any indication. The wallet in his back p
ocket was so thick with plastic that (if Olivia had been given to worrying about people) she would have had concerns for his spine. He had a very cool watch on his wrist. The sunglasses propped up on his head were high-end Oakleys.
“Nobody else is gonna do it!” Shorty bleated, and Olivia had to stifle a grin.
“Why don’t you have keycards like everyone else in this century?” Mr. Temporary snarled at Mrs. Whitefield.
Olivia thought it was interesting that the man’s rudeness stiffened Lenore Whitefield’s spine.
“It wouldn’t be in keeping with the age of the hotel,” she retorted. “Mr. Lattimore, nothing in your room was taken or harmed. Mr. Horowitz is obviously a senior citizen with some memory issues. I’m sure you got an unpleasant surprise, but the incident is over, with no one hurt. And no property damage.”
Olivia decided there was more to the woman than she’d imagined. The wind went out of Lattimore’s sails, and he deflated completely after threatening to have Magic Portal find him a room somewhere else, to which Mrs. Whitefield responded, “Good luck with that.”
The hall cleared abruptly.
Lattimore stomped into his room and shut the door, making sure to shoot the dead bolt so that everyone could hear it. Barry guided Shorty downstairs to his own room, with Olivia following at a discreet distance. Finally, Barry emerged from Shorty’s room. He looked frazzled. He did not seem surprised that Olivia was waiting for him. She said, “I came to talk to you.”
“I figured. To what do I owe the honor?”
“I have a business proposition for you.”
“Does it involve vampires in any way?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Then I’m all ears.”
Shorty’s room was at the rear of the hall. On their way to the lobby area, Olivia saw Tommy, Mamie, and Suzie playing cards in Tommy’s room with the door virtuously open. “I’ll talk to you all later,” she called. They nodded, barely lifting their heads from their cards.
Barry brought her a can of Coke. Olivia popped the top to be sociable, though carbonated beverages were not her drink of choice.
“You seem to understand old people,” she began, wanting to start on a positive note.
“I understood that I needed to come find out what was happening when I got to Shorty’s apartment in Nevada and found out he’d gone,” Barry said grimly. “As you saw just now, my grandfather has memory glitches. He seems to have managed to cover that up from the people who lured him here. Evidently, he told them that he had no living relatives. The Whitefields were some kind of surprised when I tracked him down.”
“I didn’t know any of that,” Olivia said, after an appreciable pause.
“I know,” he said.
“The other three were brought here the same way, but at least they all knew each other,” Olivia said. “No wonder your grandfather is so disoriented.” He was in a strange land with strange people.
“In all fairness, this is a lot nicer than the apartment he was in,” Barry said. “And someone’s watching him all the time, though maybe not closely enough, as I discovered today. But since no one at all was minding him before, this is still better. But I need to know why he was brought here, who brought him, what they want.”
This was an issue Olivia had planned to investigate after she’d solved Manfred’s problems, so she wasn’t best pleased at having it pushed to the forefront of the agenda. But she accepted it as inevitable. “You can’t take care of him, I gather?”
“I don’t see how,” Barry said. “I haven’t settled anywhere in years, and I can’t stay in Texas.”
“You have some history here in this state?”
“Most of it bad,” he said gloomily.
“I take it you have vampire trouble.”
He nodded. “You could say that. I would rather have done anything than follow Shorty’s trail to Texas, but all my roads seem to lead back here. I had a hell of a lot of bad luck in Dallas, mostly due to my own stupidity. The vampire population here has . . . Well, they’re prejudiced against me, let me just say.”
“There’s only one in this area. And he’s unusual. And he’s not here at the moment.”
“That gives me exactly one drop of relief, into a bucket of worry.”
“Plus, in the summer, a lot of the vamps have started migrating.”
“Sure. Somewhere where the days aren’t so long.” Barry sounded very familiar with vampire habits.
“You’re not a hunter, are you?”
He snorted. “Do I look like a fool with a death wish?”
She shook her head. “No, but people don’t always look like what they are. No one would look at you and say, ‘He’s a telepath.’”
“We’re definitely not common,” he said offhandedly.
“There are many more?” She didn’t disguise her surprise.
“At least one more.” He obviously wasn’t going to talk about that. “What do you need?” He’d been relaxed, chatty, but no longer.
“All right,” she said, with equal briskness. “I need you to go with Tommy, Suzie, and Mamie tomorrow on a little road trip to a fancy house in a suburb of Dallas. Manfred and I will go with you most of the way, but we’re not going to the house in question. We’ll fill you in on everything at length, so you’re prepared. But what we need you to do, if you agree, is get in the house, get the older people up to the room designated as the library, and look at it as hard as you can while you’re there. There’s something hidden there, and we need to know where to start to look. Now that I know what you can do, I also want you to get as close to the man named Lewis as you can. Get everything you can out of his mind. And tell us what you see.”
“How much?” was all Barry asked.
Naturally, Olivia was curious about Barry’s need for money. He was able-bodied, personable, not stupid. But actually, it didn’t matter.
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”
Having a telepath around was a two-edged sword. “Interesting,” Olivia said, after an appreciable pause. “I’m so used to assuming my mind is opaque that I simply hadn’t applied your particular skill to me.”
“Yeah, it wins me friends everywhere.”
“But you haven’t really tried to conceal it.”
“Not here. It’s effing weird. Everywhere else I’ve been, my whole life, my primary purpose has been concealing what I am. But here . . . not so much.”
“Let me ask you . . .”
“What?”
“You’ve been in the diner.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the deal with the Reeds?”
“What do you mean?” He was hedging. She didn’t have to be a telepath to see that.
“I’ve always wondered about them. Why are they here? They’re so . . . I started to say, normal. But there has to be a reason for them to be here. It’s not simply chance.” Olivia really did want to know.
“Would you like me to tell them things about you?”
Olivia leaned forward, ready to break his neck if she had to. “What do you think?” she whispered.
“Then I’m not going to tell you things about them.”
Olivia forced herself to relax. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much she didn’t trust the Reeds, and his reaction somehow reinforced that feeling. “Fair enough,” she said.
“So. You never answered. How much?”
“Five hundred,” she said. She had that much in her room, and she could go by the ATM in Davy to get more. Manfred would repay her.
“Seven fifty.”
“Six hundred.”
“Six fifty,” he countered.
“Done,” she said.
He stood to extend his hand to her, and she also stood to shake his. When she touched him, she had the same feeling she’d had when she’d first touched Lemuel.
“Not completely human,” she said.
“What?”
“You heard me.” She smiled, glad that she’d been able to shake him up in return for the unpleasant surprise he’d given her.
Barry smiled back. “Sorry about your psycho mom,” he said, and walked away.
“Tomorrow morning, bright and early,” she called after him. She would not let him have the last word.
She was tougher than that. She was always tougher than that.
22
The day of the Bonnet Park field trip didn’t start well on any level. Manfred, Olivia, and Barry were up and ready by the designated time, and Olivia and Manfred both took their cars over to the hotel. Mamie, Suzie, and Tommy were up, which was good, and they’d had breakfast, which was good, but Mamie had had a bad night and she was hurting.
“I can’t go,” she said. “I just can’t face a long drive. My hip hurts too bad today, dammit. I want to get out of this hole and see some life.”
Manfred agreed with her assessment. Mamie looked frail and pale, and she moved with obvious difficulty. But Tommy and Suzie argued and cajoled and wasted time trying to persuade their friend to go with them. It was a relief to Manfred when Mamie remained adamant.
Then Lenore Whitefield became an obstacle. She was startled and dismayed to discover that “her” old people had planned an excursion. It was obvious she’d never imagined they might want to be anywhere else, and she was uncertain about whether she could allow it.
“Allow it?” Olivia stood with her hands on her hips. “Are they in jail? Do they have to bring notes from their parents?”
Lenore flushed. “Miss Charity, you’re being difficult on purpose. Of course not, but they’re in my care, and I’m responsible for their well-being.”
“Last I heard, I was an adult and responsible for myself,” Tommy said pugnaciously. “I’m no baby sucking on a tit.” Suzie nodded vigorously.
Lenore grew even redder. “No need for that kind of talk, Tommy. You’ll miss your nurse’s visit.”