But, two blocks east of Colonial Books and still a block from Clay's not-quite-fleabag hotel, they
Tom McCourt clutched Clay's arm, and hard, until this latest lunatic was gone, then slowly relaxed his grip. 'If he'd seen us—' he began.
'Yeah, but he didn't,' Clay said. He felt suddenly, absurdly happy. He knew that the feeling would pass, but for the moment he was delighted to ride it. He felt like a man who has successfully drawn to an inside straight with the biggest pot of the night lying on the table in front of him.
'I pity who he
'I pity who sees
The doors of the atlantic avenue inn were locked.
Clay was so surprised that for a moment he could only stand there, trying to turn the knob and feeling it slip through his fingers, trying to get the idea through his head: locked. The doors of his hotel, locked against him.
Tom stepped up beside him, leaned his forehead against the glass to cut the glare, and peered in. From the north—from Logan, surely—came another of those monster explosions, and this time Clay only twitched. He didn't think Tom McCourt reacted at all. Tom was too absorbed in what he was seeing.
'Dead guy on the floor,' he announced at last. 'Wearing a uniform, but he really looks too old to be a bellhop.'
'I don't want anyone to carry my fucking luggage,' Clay said. 'I just want to go up to my room.'
Tom made an odd little snorting sound. Clay thought maybe the little guy was starting to cry again, then realized that sound was smothered laughter.
The double doors had ATLANTIC AVENUE INNprinted on one glass panel and a blatant lie—BOSTON'S FINEST ADDRESS– printed on the other. tom slapped the flat of his hand on the glass of the lefthand panel, between BOSTON'S FINEST ADDRESSand a row of credit card decals.
Now Clay was peering in, too. The lobby wasn't very big. On the left was the reception desk. On the right was a pair of elevators. On the floor was a turkey-red rug. The old guy in the uniform lay on this, facedown, with one foot up on a couch and a framed Currier & Ives sailing-ship print on his ass.
Clay's good feelings left in a rush, and when Tom began to hammer on the glass instead of just slap, he put his hand over Tom's fist. 'Don't bother,' he said. 'They're not going to let us in, even if they're alive and sane.' He thought about that and nodded.
Tom looked at him wonderingly. 'You don't get it, do you?'
'Huh? Get what?'
'Things have changed. They can't keep us out.' He pushed Clay's hand off his own, but instead of hammering, he put his forehead against the glass again and shouted. Clay thought he had a pretty good shouting voice on him for a little guy.
A pause. In the lobby nothing changed. The old bellman went on being dead with a picture on his ass.
'A
'Are you all right?' Clay asked. He took a step toward her and she took a corresponding step back. Under the circumstances, he couldn't blame her. He stopped but held a hand up to her like a traffic cop:
Tom glanced around briefly, then began to hammer on the door again, this time hard enough to rattle the glass in its old wooden frame and make his reflection shiver.
Clay turned and opened his mouth to tell him that masterful shit wasn't going to cut it, not today, and then a bald head rose slowly from behind the reception desk. It was like watching a periscope surface. Clay recognized that head even before it got to the face; it belonged to the clerk who'd checked him in yesterday and stamped a validation on his parking-lot ticket for the lot a block over, the same clerk who'd given him directions to the Copley Square Hotel this morning.
For a moment he still lingered behind the desk, and Clay held up his room key with the green plastic Atlantic Avenue Inn fob hanging down. Then he also held up his portfolio, thinking the desk clerk might recognize it.
Maybe he did. More likely he just decided he had no choice. In either case, he used the pass-through at the end of the desk and crossed quickly to the door, detouring around the body. Clay Riddell believed he might be witnessing the first reluctant scurry he had ever seen in his life. When the desk clerk reached the other side of the door, he looked from Clay to Tom and then back to Clay again. Although he did not appear particularly reassured by what he saw, he produced a ring of keys from one pocket, flicked rapidly through them, found one, and used it on his side of the door. When Tom reached for the handle, the bald clerk held his hand up much as Clay had held his up to the bloodstained girl behind them. The clerk found a second key, used this one in another lock, and opened the door.
'Come in,' he said. 'Hurry.' Then he saw the girl, lingering at a little distance and watching.
'Yes, her,' Clay said. 'Come on, honey.' But she wouldn't, and when Clay took a step toward her, she whirled and took off running, the skirt of her dress flying out behind her.
' She could die out there,' Clay said.
'Not my problem,' the desk clerk said. 'Are you coming in or not, Mr. Riddle?' He had a Boston accent, not the blue-collar-Southie kind Clay was most familiar with from Maine, where it seemed that every third person you met was a Massachusetts expat, but the fussy I-wish-I-were-British one.
'It's Riddell.' He was coming in all right, no way this guy was going to keep him out now that the door was open, but he lingered a moment longer on the sidewalk, looking after the girl.
'Go on,' Tom said quietly. 'Nothing to be done.'
And he was right. Nothing to be done. That was the exact hell of it. He followed Tom in, and the desk clerk once more double-locked the doors of the Atlantic Avenue Inn behind them, as if that were all it would take to keep them from the chaos of the streets.