House (5 page)

“Wait for the guests to leave.” Betty waved Jack toward the hallway with the backs of her fingers. “Chairs! I've got three more in the closet.”

He went into the hallway between the kitchen and dining room with no idea where the closet was. There were two doors on his right. He tried the first one—

“Not that one!” Jack jerked his hand away from the knob as if it had burned him. “That's the basement! Nobody goes in the basement! Nobody!”

Oh, for crying out loud.
He took a calming breath. “Then why don't you tell me where the closet is?”

She wagged her head and rolled her eyes as if she were dealing with an idiot. “The other door. Try the other door.” She turned back into the kitchen, waving him off like unwanted trouble.

Jack opened the next door and found a closet. Inside, three folding chairs leaned against one another, but Jack took his time pulling them out. He needed to breathe a moment, just separate himself from that woman long enough to recover his balance. In one short evening he'd gone from disappointment to anger to fear to exhaustion to frustration, and now, to top it all off, his stomach was growling and the cook was crazy. He heard Stephanie begin to hum in the kitchen.

He wagged his head. Why should he be surprised?

Come on, Jack. After all, it was your decision to turn down that dirt road. You do have to take responsibility for your part . . .

He carried the chairs into the dining room and squeezed them in around the small table as Randy laid out the extra place settings.

“Silverware doesn't match,” Randy muttered.

Jack couldn't manage pretending to care.

They headed back to the kitchen, passing Leslie on her way out.

Leslie took the bowl of peas into the dining room, having to nudge a few plates and glasses aside to make room for it. With three more chairs and place settings, a floral centerpiece, a bowl of applesauce, a pickle dish, a pitcher of iced tea, a bowl of potatoes, condiments, and a soon-to-arrive platter of roast beef, the dining table quickly shifted from close and intimate to packed and crowded. And now the glasses didn't match.

“Coming up behind you.” It was Randy with a basket of rolls. She turned.

“We're running out of room.”

“We're eating, and we've got a place to spend the night. Don't complain.”

She kept her voice down. “Doesn't she strike you as odd?”

“You're the shrink and you're asking me?” He handed her the basket then lowered his own voice. “If I had her people skills, I'd probably have to put spikes on the road to bring in business.”

He left her to think about it.

Leslie turned back to the table—She gasped, fumbled the basket. The rolls tumbled onto the table, dancing on the plates, bouncing off the glasses. One landed in a water glass with a splash.

A man sat there, watching her with obvious fascination, a napkin tucked down the front of his brown bib overalls.

She had never felt so embarrassed—in recent times, at least. “I am so sorry. I didn't see you come in.”

“You're pretty,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. His boldness gave her pause. She guessed him somewhere in his twenties, a gorilla of a man with biceps the size of his neck and short-cropped blond hair. He wore a soiled T-shirt under the overalls. His stubbled face was dirty and shiny with sweat, and she could smell him.

“Um, my name is Leslie.”

He eyed her as if she were naked.

“And you are?” she prodded.

“Better clean up your mess before Mama finds out.”

Leslie hastened to gather up the fallen rolls, plucking one from the center of the table, another from a dinner plate. She leaned to grab another from the plate next to his.

He looked down her blouse without the slightest shame.

She straightened, incredulous. He smiled as if she'd done him a favor.

Professional detachment. Emotional distance from the subject. Don't let his issues become yours.

She knew she was glowering, but he'd caught her off guard and vulnerable, two things she'd sworn never to be again. She swallowed, willing herself to be professional, clinical. She softened her expression. “Now,” she said in a nurse's bedside tone, “we don't do that.”

He wouldn't take his eyes off her. They were childish eyes, vacant and unblinking. What was she dealing with? Mild retardation, apparently. Social ineptitude for certain.

His eyes finally went elsewhere—to her hand, still holding a roll. He pointed.

She rotated her hand and saw a small trickle of blood near the knuckle. “Now, how did I do that?” It must have happened when he startled her. She put the roll with the others, then pulled a small hanky from her pocket to cover the wound. She checked the table and basket for any sharp points or edges. Nothing obvious here.

He reached into a glass, pulled out the sodden roll, and held it out to her, heavy and dripping.

She took it from him and their fingers touched.

Leslie tasted bile.

“All right,” Betty hollered from the kitchen, “everybody wash up.”

Of course,
thought Randy.
Perfect. Everybody handle the food and dishes and then wash up
. He gave Jack and Stephanie a once-over. All that road dust.

The others went up to their rooms to wash. Randy spotted a bathroom opposite the closet in the hallway and thought that more efficient.

The bathroom was clean, with white fixtures, pink towels, a pink bath mat, and a soap dish with red soaps in the shape of roses. The faucet provided hot water in an instant.

Randy soaped up.
Such a contrast. How can anyone so inept at hospitality maintain such a lovely facility? And where are the personnel, or do they always put their guests to work?
Right now he'd give the service in this place a one-star rating.

He felt some tension ease out of his spine as the water massaged his hands. He put in the stopper, then cupped his hands and brought a splash to his face. He allowed the sensation to block out the Wayside Inn for a moment.

“You done yet?” The rumbling voice was followed by the smell of sweat and machine oil, the touch of another body crowding him. Randy opened his eyes.

He saw a reflection in the mirror—a big man looming over him looking none too happy.

Randy reached for the towel by the sink. “Well, good evening to you too. I'm washing up for dinner.”

The man snatched the towel away and looked about to slap him with it. “Don't you have a bathroom of your own?” The man was built like a bull without an ounce of fat, big brown eyes, and a long filthy face with a hawk nose. Bald head with three long scars above his left ear.

From somewhere long ago, a deep terror flashed through Randy's body. He slapped it down with a cold, controlled temper he'd honed through years of such encounters. He faced the man, his muscles steeling and ready for whatever might come. “Right now it's this one.” He held out his hand. “Towel.”

Clearly, the man was not expecting that kind of answer. He held on to the towel, then stuck a dirty finger in Randy's face, his eyes red and bulging. “Guess you don't know whose house you're in.”

“They're going to hear about you, bud. Count on it.” Randy snatched the towel back and dried his face, careful never to cover his eyes. Then, when he was good and ready, he tossed the towel back. “Try making yourself presentable. You have guests.”

He walked out, keeping an eye on the brute. The big man bent over the sink and splashed in the water Randy had left in the sink. “You like the water, don't you?” He gave Randy a sly smile, a leering gaze.

The deep terror returned. Randy felt himself tip and reached out to touch the wall.

He hurried past the dining room into the foyer, walked a few slow circles to calm himself, check the rage, force a smile. He went back to the dining room still trying to relax his clenched fists.

5

BETTY WAS JUST A LITTLE FRAZZLED AS SHE herded everyone into the dining room. “Hey! You like your food cold? Come on, come on!”

“If you don't get it, the hogs will.” Stephanie giggled.

Betty failed to see the humor in that.

Jack took the chair to Betty's left, which put him next to the big guy in the brown overalls. The fellow didn't seem too talkative. From his gawky expression, Jack surmised he may have had too much lead in his water. Stephanie took the chair to Betty's right.

Randy came in from the foyer, his smile saying one thing, his body saying another. He paused for an awkward moment, sizing up where Jack and Stephanie were seated; then he selected the chair next to Stephanie. “May I?”

“You may,” she said with a bright smile.

He sat next to her, and Leslie sat next to him.

That left one empty chair.

“Stoo-wart!” Betty bellowed. “You stuck on that commode, or did you fall in?”

Jack caught the others exchanging careful little looks, sitting quietly, waiting, acting like polite adults.

Now that they were sitting, maybe he could finally get some answers. He turned to Betty. “Anyway, we've all had some car trouble, and if we could get a telephone or you could tell us where we might find one—”

Her eyes were on the archway leading toward the kitchen. “Stewart!”

A toilet flushed. Heavy footfalls came down the hall.

Randy joined ranks with Jack. “Betty, are you listening? We have a problem here and we need—”

A big man came through the archway, a wide leather belt draped over his hand. The buckle jingled like a horse's bridle. He sent a knife-eyed glare Randy's way.

Randy caught it, cooked up a glare of his own, and shot it back.

Apparently these two had already met.

“Siddown, Stewart,” Betty said. “We're always waiting on you.”

Stewart fed the belt through the first loop on his trousers, then the second, then the third, as if making a show of it, his eyes always on Randy. When the belt made it all the way around, he cinched up the buckle and sat.

“So you're Stewart,” Jack said, just to see if this guy talked.

“Who are you?” the man replied, not smiling.

“Jack Singleton. I'm a writer, live up near Tuscaloosa.”

“What about your wife?” asked Betty. Jack didn't understand.

“I live in Tuscaloosa too,” Stephanie replied. “When I'm not on the road. We're getting a divorce.”

Jack focused on the bowl of peas.
Well, let's just tell the world. And for the record, we haven't agreed to that. Yet.

“Help yourself to the peas and pass 'em on,” Betty said. Looking at Stephanie, Betty said, “So he'd just as soon not talk about you, is that it?”

Was she baiting him, trying to stir something up? He didn't bite; he just took a spoonful of peas. Stephanie kept smiling and dished up her potatoes without comment.

Leslie speared a slice of roast beef while Randy held the platter. “It's a lovely place you have here, just like the old South.” Jack was grateful for her intervention. He tried to thank her with his eyes.

“Not as lovely as you,” said Stewart.

Leslie smiled. Randy didn't. “Randall and I are from Montgomery. I'm a professor of psychology at Alabama State University, and he's CEO of Home Suite Home—you know the hotel chain?”

“Are you married?” he asked, his first words at the table.

“Pete here would like to get himself hitched,” Betty said, patting his hand like a mother would.

Leslie kept her eyes on the roast beef as she served Randy. “We thought we'd take a little road trip, spend a few days in the Talladega National Forest. We weren't planning on dropping in on you like this.”

“Are you married?” Pete asked again.

She finally looked at him. “No, but we're very close.”

“They're shacking up,” said Betty. She cackled. “Probably gonna violate each other up in room 3.”

Leslie's mouth fell open slightly, but Randy managed a wry smile and said, “Probably.”