Her shift was finished, so she shed her polyester vest and put on her coat. Sometimes Janice showed up to relieve her at seven, and sometimes she didn’t. Viv always left either way. There weren’t any real rules at the Sun Down.
There was no sign of Janice, so Viv locked the office door, though she left the neon sign on. She put her hood up to fend off the rain and took the path away from the parking lot, heading toward the pool. She circled the edge of the motel property, her feet in their sneakers splashing in the cold puddles. She trotted along the thin strand of trees that bordered Number Six Road and skirted to the back of the parking lot. By the time she approached the green sedan, from the other side of the motel, her feet were soaked and there was rain running down her neck.
The car was parked at the back edge of the parking lot, the same place as before, its right tires on the line where concrete met dirty gravel. The inside was dark, and in the rain Viv couldn’t see through the windows. She walked up to the front passenger side and knocked on the window.
A shadow moved inside the car, but nothing else happened. Obviously he wanted her to go away, so Viv bent at the waist and said loudly to the glass, “They’ll be out in ten minutes. They’re getting ready to leave right now.”
Another second of nothing, and then the shadow moved again and the window started to crank down. Viv caught a whiff of a smell that was surprisingly nice, like clean perfume. A woman’s voice said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Viv stood frozen with surprise, but she recovered herself quickly. “The couple in room one-oh-nine,” she said. “That’s who you’re waiting for, isn’t it? You’re waiting to take pictures. You’ve been here all night.”
Silence from the car, then a breathed “Shit” that Viv could hear over the rain.
“They usually don’t stay this long,” Viv continued. “They leave by four, though you already know that. The man just called his wife to tell her he’s on his way home. She’ll come out any minute. She always leaves first.”
“Shit.” This one was louder. “Get in the back seat, for God’s sake. I’m trying to make a living here.”
Viv opened the back door and slid into the car. She pushed her hood back, dripping on the pleather, and looked at the woman in the front seat.
The woman turned in the driver’s seat and looked back at her. The other woman was black, slender, with natural hair in a short Afro. She looked to be in her late twenties. She was wearing a blouse in an understated floral print and neat jeans. She had no makeup and gold studs in her ears. If she was tired after being awake all night, her face showed no sign of it.
Viv hadn’t expected a black woman. She’d expected a man, a detective type from one of her TV shows. Detectives weren’t black women, not even on Cagney & Lacey. Then again, why not? Fell was full of surprises. Viv was almost used to it by now.
Next to the woman on the front passenger seat was a bag of bulky camera equipment and a lunch bag that had obviously contained her dinner. The woman’s dark brown eyes looked straight into Viv’s, and Viv saw someone who was tough, wary, and not a little annoyed, because she knew exactly what Viv was thinking.
The woman’s eyes narrowed with recognition. “You’re the office girl.”
“Yes,” Viv said. “And you’re the one following Helen while she cheats on her husband.”
“That bother you? Are you going to call your boss about it?”
“No,” Viv said. “It doesn’t bother me at all. And I don’t know where my boss is.”
The woman’s face turned harder. “So you came into my car exactly why? Because you don’t have anything better to do?”
Viv held her gaze. “No. I came because I need a favor.”
“A favor?” The woman shook her head, almost laughing. “Shit and double shit,” she said. “This is not my night. I didn’t know you made me, office girl. I obviously need to be more discreet.”
“They have no idea you’re here,” Viv offered. “I’m sure of it.”
“Uh-huh. And how do you know what Romeo says in his phone calls?”
“There’s something defective about the phone line,” Viv replied. “When someone makes a call, I can lift the receiver in the office and listen to it. I do it all the time.”
The woman’s eyes widened for a brief second. “Huh. That’s handy.”
Viv shrugged. “It depends on what you want to hear. But if you want something in return for a favor for me, I can tell you everything either of them has ever said on the telephone at the Sun Down.”
There was a moment of silence as the woman thought this through. The quiet settled throughout the car. Viv wondered if she’d played her cards wrong. Maybe she had. She hadn’t planned on selling out Helen and Robert to get what she wanted, but she was starting to learn that you had to do what you had to do.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” the woman said finally. She held out her hand. “My name is Marnie.”
Viv shook it. “Viv. I think that—”
“Shh.” Marnie dropped her hand and grabbed her camera. “Get down in the seat, will you? Out of sight.”
Viv saw that the door to room 109 had opened and Helen was coming out. She was dressed in jeans again, with a long-waisted black and white shirt under her coat. She put a piece of paper over her head—Viv recognized the yellowed Welcome to the Sun Down! card that was on the nightstand in every room—and hurried through the rain to her car.
Watching Helen made Viv think about her parents. After the divorce, her father had remarried in less than
