“Suzanne,” he said. “Stayed here…oh, a couple of months back. Why? What’d she do?”
“Her mother’s looking for her.”
He cocked his head to one side and looked at the photograph again before handing it back to me.
“You’re not a cop. If you’re Children’s Services or a private investigator, I’d like to see some ID.”
“I’m not with Children’s Services and I’m not a private investigator. I’m a process server.”
I flipped open my wallet so he could see my card and photograph in living color. I couldn’t believe the forlorn creature with half-closed eyes in the photograph was me. The kid behind the counter seemed to have no trouble believing it.
“You have papers on Suzanne?”
“No,” I said. “Her mother’s looking for her. I’m a friend.”
The kid thought for a while, thumped his right hand softly on the counter, sighed deeply and said,
“I think she’s in Port Charlotte, one of those clubs,” he said. “She’s a chanteuse.”
“You get a lot of one-named chanteuses staying here.”
“A surprisingly large number,” he said. “Last year when I started here we had a surprisingly large number of one-named massage therapists.”
“You like Suzanne,” I said.
He considered the statement and said,
“Yeah, I like her. I’m a student over at New College. This job pays well and I get to read, do my homework and once in a while practice a little of my Spanish, German or French with tourists who don’t know what kind of motel they’ve wandered into.”
This time the pause was very long. He looked out the window at the passing traffic.
“Would five bucks help you think of something else that would help me find her?”
“No,” he said, looking at me and pushing his glasses back up his nose. “She worked for Tilly. Room Five in the corner. He’s in there now. If he asks you how you found him, tell him you tracked down a girl named Elspeth, tall bleached blonde, short hair, big lips, average breasts. Elspeth ducked on Tilly three weeks ago and headed back to San Antonio.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I don’t think I’ve done you a favor. My advice is get some help before you talk to Tilly. I hope you find Suzanne. She reminds me of a beautiful crippled bird my sister and I took in when I was a kid. The bird needed help but it kept biting us.”
I went back out into the neon night and motioned to Sally to stay in the car. Room 5 was across the cement parking area toward the corner of the L-shaped motel. There were two cars parked: one a little blue Fiat, in front of Room 5.
“Who?” came a voice from inside the room when I knocked.
“Seymour,” I said.
“Seymour? Seymour what?”
“Just Seymour,” I said. “One name. Like a chanteuse.”
An eye peered through the tiny, thick-glass peephole.
“You a cop?”
“Everyone asks me that,” I said. “I’m not a cop. I just have a couple of questions to ask you and I’ll drive away.”
“Questions about what?”
“Suzanne. Her mother’s looking for her.”
“So am I,” he said, opening the door.
“Tilly?” I asked.
“Come in, man,” he said.
I went in and he closed the door. He was a lean, handsome black man about six foot and wearing a pair of clean jeans and a neatly ironed button-down long-sleeved white shirt. He couldn’t have been more than twenty- five.
I looked around. The room was motel tacky. It didn’t look like home.
“I don’t live here,” he said, reading my mind. “Why are you looking for Suzanne?”
“Her mother’s in town. Wants to take her daughter home.”
“Home? Mother. She’s got no mother. Mother’s dead.”
“And you were kind enough to take her in.”
“Hey, she’s old enough to-”
“She’s fourteen,” I said. “Just barely. You want to talk to me or the Children’s Services caseworker sitting in my car?”
“Just a second.”
He pulled the drapes back enough to peek through and see Sally in the Metro parked across from him in the lot.
“Her mother’s looking for her,” I said.
“So am I.”
I let that pass.
“You want a drink?” he asked. “Don’t drink myself, but I keep a fridge for guest and visitors.”
“No thanks,” I said.
“Suit yourself,” he said and went to the small brown refrigerator in the corner of the room. He pulled out a can of Mountain Dew and went to sit on a worn-out, rust-colored, two-seat sofa. I remained standing.
“Suzanne ran out on you,” I said.
He laughed and took a sip of Mountain Dew.
“They don’t run out on me,” he said. “Once in a while I might ask a young lady to leave, but they don’t want to go. I take a fair split and I never raise a hand.”
“Elspeth,” I said. “She ran away. You raised a hand to her, Tilly.”
“She say that? I threw her out. She had a bad attitude, as her heading you to me proves. You know what I’m saying? Elspeth. Godawful name, but she wouldn’t let me give her another.”
“Suzanne,” I said.
“Good kid. A little too sad in the eyes. A lot too smart, but a good worker and she didn’t complain. That’s all I’m giving without a fee.”
“You worth a fee?” I asked.
He gave me a toast and a smile with his Mountain Dew.
I took out my wallet. I’d find a way to bill Carl Sebastian for the girl I had given the ten to on the street and the twenty I handed Tilly.
Tilly shook his head. Twenty wasn’t enough. I gave him another ten. He took it, frowned. I shook my head. The thirty would have to do.
“I think she was turning her share over to a guy,” he said.
“You think?”
“Okay, I know. Older guy. Good-looking if you’re into that redneck type. Suzanne is.”
“He came here?” I asked.
“Once,” Tilly said, readjusting himself.
“He have a name?”
Tilly shrugged.
“Dwight something. I didn’t catch another name, you know?”
“I think so,” I said.
Tilly rolled up his right sleeve. A deep red gash was starting to form a scar.
“Dwight?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I pulled up my shirt and showed him the bruise on my stomach. It had grown bigger and was turning an interesting array of colors, mostly purple and yellow.
“Dwight?” he asked.
“Dwight,” I said.
