“Thanks,” she said.
She put the car in drive and pulled back onto the street.
“We need to go in the other direction,” Quinn said.
“Thought we were going back to the motel.”
Quinn held up the key he had found in the box. “Motel, yes. Just not ours.”
The Motel Monique turned out to be such a dump that Quinn wondered if the key was more a joke than a clue. Maybe stealing a key from the pay-by-the-hour place was something of a rite of passage, the key itself becoming a trophy Marion could have had for years. But it was something you’d leave behind, not take with you when you were fleeing.
“God, I feel like I need to take an hour-long shower just for stepping in here,” Orlando said as they walked down the hallway toward room 326.
Quinn knew what she meant. He’d stayed in worse places, but none he’d had to pay for. There was the permanent smell of mildew in the air, and something else Quinn decided was best not to dwell on. The lights were all too dim, the management trying to save a few bucks by using low-wattage bulbs.
From behind several of the doors, they could hear the grunts and groans of transactions in progress. A couple rooms ahead, a door opened and a man and woman stepped out. She looked done and anxious to leave, but he looked ready for more. When he saw Orlando, he lost all interest in the woman he was with.
“Where’d you find her?” the man asked as he walked by Quinn.
“Piss off,” Quinn told him.
“Fuck you, too,” the man said. “Hey, babe, you got a number I can have?”
Orlando didn’t look back, but she did flip him off.
“That ain’t very ladylike,” he called out.
Quinn could sense Orlando tensing beside him. For a second he thought she was going to pull her gun on him.
“If he’s still out here when we leave, you can shoot him,” Quinn whispered.
The hand that had begun moving upward relaxed back against her side.
“Ah, never mind. You’re probably a pretty lousy fuck anyway,” the man said.
Quinn stopped, then turned back around. The man was twenty feet behind them, the woman he’d been with long gone.
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to relax,” Orlando whispered.
“Excuse me,” Quinn said to the man. “Not sure I heard you correctly.”
“Wasn’t talking to you,” the man said.
Quinn took four casual steps forward, halving the distance between them.
“You think you’re going to scare me?” the man asked. “Turn around and go have your little fuck. I’ll find her later when I’m ready.”
Orlando moved up beside Quinn. “You sure I can’t shoot him?” she asked.
“What’s your name?” Quinn said.
“Mick Jagger. Who are you?”
“Inspector Barclay.”
The man laughed, though it wasn’t as assured as his tone had been moments before. “Inspector Barclay? That’s funny. And who’s she? Inspector Chan?”
“Please,” Orlando said. “I’ll just graze him. I swear.”
“You look kind of familiar,” the man said, squinting as he looked at Quinn. “I know you, don’t I?”
Quinn smiled at the man. Then in a single swift motion he pulled his gun out of the holster under his jacket. Orlando followed his lead and had her weapon out a second later.
“Shit. Oh, shit. Shit. Man, I didn’t mean anything, okay? Shit.” He was backing rapidly down the hall. “I’m sorry. I mean, I was just joking, okay? Shit.”
He reached the elevator and tapped the down button over and over until the car arrived. He jumped in and began his button routine inside.
Once the doors closed, Quinn slipped his gun back into its holster.
“You should have just let me pop him,” Orlando said as she stowed her weapon.
“Come on,” Quinn said, turning back in the direction they’d been headed before they’d been interrupted.
He had no concern that the man would come back. The guy had had all the earmarks of some office jerk out for a little action. Quinn thought it might be a long time before Orlando’s would-be suitor would return to the Motel Monique.
At room 326, he slipped the key into the lock and gave it a turn. It worked. If it had been a trophy from years before, the motel didn’t seem to care enough to change the locks.
Quinn drew his gun again, then pushed the door open and slipped inside. Once Orlando joined him, she shut the door.
The room was as worn and uninviting as the rest of the place. A bed with a spread from deep in the last century, a TV that couldn’t have been much younger, and awful dark red paint on the walls.
