Courting Trouble

“Poor you.”

“So the only way we can find this frat boy and give him his . . . gift is for you to help us. So will you? Help us?”

“Please help us,” Mary murmured, flirting backup.

“If you don’t help us, we’ll get fired.” Anne pouted. “A girl’s gotta make a living, you understand? We can’t get fired. That would be awful.”

“Terrible,” Mary added.

Judy leaned over. “Then we’d have to go to law school.”

The clerk heh-heh-hehed, his lips newly wet. “Sure, I’d be glad to help youse, all a youse. But how’m I gonna find the guy, if you don’t know his name?”

“We know a little what he looks like. He’s young, with real short hair, and he’s kind of tall. Maybe six feet, kinda muscle-y. He’s got blue eyes, and he’s white. He has either black or blond hair, I forget. He likes to change it around, like a rock star or somethin’. He checked in recently, no more than a week ago at the most. He mighta gone out today.”

“Got it.” The clerk was already typing away on a dirty gray keyboard, checking an ancient 286 computer. His eyes went back and forth slowly as he read the screen, and he popped the Enter key with a dirty fingernail. “He’s staying here, ya think?”

“Yes, we think so.” Anne nodded, as did the others. So say we all, said the nod.

“Come on, honey.” Suddenly the clerk stopped hitting the key and looked skeptically around the monitor at Anne. “You’re lying about the frat boy, aren’t ya?”

Anne tried not to look nervous. “Well, why do you ask?”

“’Cause the man you described, he sounds like this guy in 247, but he’s no frat boy. He checked in five days ago. His hair was blond, but from the cut, I’d bet a million bucks he just got outta prison, not college.”

“Really?” Anne’s heart gave a little jump, in platforms. It had to be Kevin. “Maybe that is the man we’re supposed to party with. Maybe the guys who hired us just didn’t want to say. Not that I’d hold it against him, if he served his time and all.”

“That’s how I feel.” The clerk clicked backward on the computer, then pointed at the screen. “Here he is. The name Ken Reseda ring a bell?”

“Yes!” Anne answered, with excitement she couldn’t hide. Kevin was born in Reseda, California, she remembered from his file. Ken Reseda had to be Kevin Satorno. “That’s him. Aren’t you so smart!”

“Well, I don’t know.” The clerk smiled under his grizzle. “I can spot an ex-con a mile away. You’d be surprised what you learn, people-watchin’. I see plenty here. Been in the hotel business twenty-five years. I own the place, you know.”

“I assumed. It’s so well-run.”

“And homey,” Mary added.

Judy leaned over. “It’s the fucking Ritz.”

Anne suppressed her smile. “So, do you happen to know if Mr. Reseda is in or not?”

“I wasn’t on this morning, but I’ll check.” The clerk looked at the old-fashioned wooden cubbyholes behind him, then turned back. “His key ain’t there. You were right. He musta went out this morning.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Maybe you wouldn’t mind giving us a key for Mr. Reseda’s room and keeping it our little secret? So we can surprise him when he comes home?”

“I think we can arrange that, my dear,” the clerk said, with a wink. He reached behind the counter and took a duplicate key from the cubbyhole.

“And could you ring his room if he gets back while we’re in there?” Anne knew they were taking a risk, but nobody could be convinced to stay behind in the car as a lookout. “We’ll need a little warning if he shows up, so we can . . . get ready.”

“Powder our noses,” Mary said.

Judy leaned over. “I have to build the cage.”

“Okay. Here’s the key, and I’ll make the call, if I see him.” The clerk held the key just out of Anne’s reach, with lecherous grin. “Any chance I’ll get a gift from youse girls in return? I got a good ticker, still.”

Anne laughed it off, or tried to. “I’m not your type.”

Mary chuckled in support. “I’m too expensive.”

Judy leaned over. “I sue people for fun.”

The man’s leer evaporated, and he handed Anne the key with a nervous glance toward Judy. “She’s a little freaky, isn’t she?” he whispered.

“Superfreak,” Anne assured him, and they teetered to the elevator bank.

The tiny elevator was waiting, open, and the girls didn’t start bickering until they were stuffed inside it with the doors closed. Judy pushed a freshly moussed curl from a mascaraed eye, looking wounded at Anne. “You told him I was a freak!” she said, hurt.

“All I did was play along so we could get past the desk.” Anne couldn’t wait to get upstairs, watching the broken floor-number change to two, but Mary looked increasingly worried.

“Are we really going up there alone? Shouldn’t we call Bennie first and tell her? We said we would.”

“Relax, it’s an empty room,” Anne said. “Also, she’ll stop us.”

“I’m not in love with this,” Mary said, but Anne grabbed her hand as the elevator doors rattled open.

“Come on, we’ll be fine.” She found herself on a covered balcony with a vending machine set against white stucco walls, gone gray with grime. Anne led them to the right because there was no other choice. The balcony had a view of the motel parking lot, the gas station, and a tire dump. “Let’s go.”

“I’m no freak,” Judy muttered, tottering behind. “I don’t want to be a freaky hooker, I want to be a normal hooker.”

“Then why’d you say that thing about the cage?” Anne checked the room key on the fly. It was stamped 247. They were at 240. Kevin was so close; at least his room was. Their platforms scuffed on the gritty tile floor as they clomped past 240, 241, and 242, with Judy still pouting.

“I don’t know. My feet hurt.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I libeled you. I really am.” Anne couldn’t fuss with Judy, not so close to Kevin’s room. Her stomach felt tight.

Mary brought up the rear. “He liked you the best, Jude. I could tell, from the way he looked at you.”

“You think? He said I was a freak.”

“That’s how I know,” Mary said. “Men love freaky chicks. Crazy, freaky chicks. This is why I can’t get a date. I’m too Catholic.”

Judy lifted an eyebrow, and Anne fell silent when she reached the door. She slid the key inside the lock in the doorknob and opened the hollow door, her heart starting to hammer. Even though Kevin wasn’t supposed to be here, she opened the door slowly. She felt suddenly loathe to enter his room, his world, his mind. When the door swung open, Judy appeared beside her and Mary filed in behind, surveying the bizarre scene:

The room was small, with a bathroom to the immediate left, but all of the furniture was covered by papers. There were clippings from newspapers, tabloid headlines, written notes, cards, even stacks of photographs. It looked as if it had snowed inside the room, dropping a white blanket on a saggy double bed against the wall and a cheesy desk with a portable TV on a metal stand. Exacto knives and a Scotch-tape dispenser lay strewn on the thin, worn brown rug, along with snippings of newspaper.

Anne felt instantly as if she had seen the room before, then realized she had. She flashed on the pictures of Kevin’s bedroom at his L.A. apartment, which were shown at his trial, exhibits A through whatever. His motel room was a replica of his L.A. bedroom; pictures, clippings, photos of Anne had littered the place, along with maps to her house and her office, with places where she ate and where she shopped encircled. She felt now as if she was stepping into one of the trial exhibits, and the realization momentarily stalled her. It was happening all over again.

Mary closed the door behind them, hurried to the window, and moved the sheer curtain aside slightly. “I’ll stay here and look out, in case he comes back.”

Judy walked past Anne to the bed. “What is all this stuff? Legal papers?” she asked, picking one up. “They