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
‘No, sir. Not at all. I didn’t say that.’
‘Excuse me. You clearly said you have to go talk to some
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.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thanks. You can bet that I’ll be calling your Chief of Detectives directly after lunch.
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
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.’
John said, ‘All right. I think you’re very attractive. Is that a crime? And besides, it’s “Dauphin”, like the eldest son of the King of France, not “Dolphin” like in Flipper.’
‘Pity. “Dolphin” kind of suits you.’
They reached Room 309. John put down Rhodajane’s suitcase and opened the door for her. Then he switched on the lights and hefted her suitcase on to the linen chest in the corner. ‘Nice room,’ he said, looking around. It was decorated in turquoise and gold with brocade drapes and a bedspread to match. He went to the window and peered out. ‘You got a great view of the university, too.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t knock it. I hear they have a first-rate department of anthropology.’
‘That’s a relief. Switch on the TV for me, would you?’
John switched on the television while Rhodajane sat on the bed and took off her shoes. ‘God, my feet. I mean, I really love these shoes, but…’
John handed her the remote control. ‘You’ll have to work this out for yourself. I’m not too good when it comes to technology.’
Rhodajane flapped one hand. ‘Anything will do, so long as they’re speaking English. I really have to go to the little girls’ room.’
When she stood up without her shoes on, she was at least three inches shorter than she had been before. She padded off to the bathroom and closed the door while John flicked through the TV channels. As far as he could he see it was the usual daytime diet:
Tyra was talking to a plump young woman who wanted to swallow a tapeworm so that she could lose weight. John wondered if he ought to do the same, but apart from the very idea of it making his mouth feel all greasy and his throat close up, he doubted if any tapeworm could keep up with him. He could finish a whole muffuletta sandwich in less than a minute, complete with extra provolone.
‘Hey, you want to come see this!’ he called out. An entrepreneur who sold tapeworms on the Internet had joined Tyra and her guest, and was lifting one of them out of a jar, all four feet of it, pale and slippery, with four suckers around its head.
John turned around. Rhodajane was still in the bathroom with the door closed, but he could see himself in the mirror over the dressing table. He could see the reflection of the TV screen, too, but inexplicably the reflected TV screen wasn’t showing Tyra Banks and her two guests. Instead, it was showing an indistinct image of a darkened room, as if it was being filmed by a closed-circuit camera. A woman in a stained white nightgown was lying on a bed, and a man was repeatedly walking backward and forward in front of the camera, although John couldn’t see who he was, because his head was cut off by the top of the screen.
Baffled, John looked back at the real TV. The tapeworm entrepreneur was lowering the worm back into the jar, along with several other coiled-up companions, and Tyra was screaming and laughing in disgust. John looked back at the TV in the mirror. The man was bending over the woman on the bed and although John couldn’t hear what she was saying, it looked from the expression on her face as if she were crying and begging.
‘
