The Black Train

noticed that it, too, had been imprinted with the featureless face.

Collier almost shouted—

An unseen hand opened flat on the small of his back, while another hand opened the door for him.

“Jesus!”

A short woman in her early thirties had come up behind him without making a sound. Collier looked at her after the start she’d given him: short, petite, and shapely. She was barefoot and dressed in a shoddy denim frock. Couldn’t be a guest, he thought, but then he spotted a name tag: HELLO! MY NAME IS LOTTIE.

Collier brought a hand to his chest. “Wow, you really scared me. I didn’t see you.”

She smiled and remained holding the door for him.

“So you work here?”

She nodded.

Now that the scare had receded he noticed that her body was exceptional but her face was less than comely, and her eyes seemed dull, even crooked. She smiled again. A shag of unkempt muddy brown hair had been cropped at the middle of her neck.

The moment seemed disarrayed. She simply stood there without saying a word, holding the door.

“Thank you.”

He entered a small but ornate vestibule which fronted another set of doors, only these were angled plate glass. The thick oval throw rug beneath their feet appeared handwoven.

“So, Lottie. Do you have any rooms available?”

She nodded again.

Not exactly a chatterbox.

A pleasant chime pealed when the next door came fully open. They stepped into an enormous entrance salon, whose thirty-foot-high ceiling dragged Collier’s gaze upward. Very large oil paintings hung high behind the service counter, and higher than those stretched a long stair hall. More patterned throw rugs covered the hardwood floor, these much more refined than the thick vestibule rug. Antique sitting tables surrounded by high-back chairs were arranged about the great open space, and glass-faced book and display cases lined the walls.

Impressive, Collier thought.

Semicircular stairwells swept up on either side of the long mahogany service counter, and behind the counter a wall of stained oak pilasters touted hand-carved flower designs.

“This really is a beautiful place,” Collier mentioned to the girl.

She nodded.

It was twenty feet to the check-in counter; behind it, an old woman’s face looked up and smiled through wrinkles. Midsixties, probably. A storm cloud-gray perm of curls, very short, crawled around her head—the kind of hairstyle that only women close to nursing-home age thought looked good. Even at a distance, Collier could detect the deepness of the wrinkles, and bags under her eyes, and the face seemed almost masculine with its slab cheeks and heavy jaw. Collier immediately thought, If Jack Palance had a twin sister…I’m looking at her.

“We’ll I’ll be!” her peppy twang rang out. “I say it must be celebrity month!”

“Pardon me?”

“I swear I seen you on the TV!”

Collier hated to be “recognized.”

The elderly eyes glittered between puffy lids. “Couple weeks ago we had some fella from the New York Yankees check in, and now we got the Prince of Beer!”

“Hi,” Collier said, depressed already. Now he had to put up the front. “Justin Collier,” he said and extended his hand.

“I’m Mrs. Helen Butler, and welcome to the Branch Landing Inn. That short little thing standin’ next to you’s my daughter, Lottie. I run the place, she keeps it spick-and-span.”

Collier nodded to Lottie, who nodded eagerly back.

“Lottie don’t talk,” Mrs. Butler explained. “Never could for some reason. She tried when she was a tot but could just never get it, so one day she quit tryin’.”

Lottie splayed her hands and shrugged.

Mrs. Butler jabbered on. “Why, I saw ya on the TV just last night.”

“Oh, so you’re a beer connoisseur, Mrs. Butler?”

“Actually, no—I won’t lie to ya. I’se always watch the show comes on after yours, Savannah Sammy’s Sassy Smokehouse.” She added rather dreamily, “I just adore that man, Savannah Sammy.”

That dick! Collier’s pride rebelled. The comment challenged him. First of all, he’s not even from Savannah, he’s from fucking Jersey, and he doesn’t even write his own shows! Collier felt wounded, but what could he say? “Yes, ma’am, Sammy’s a great guy.”

“But don’t get me wrong, your show’s terrific, too. In fact, my son watches it all the time, raves about it.” She leaned forward, lowered her voice. “Say…do you know Emeril?”

“Oh, sure. Great guy, too.” Actually, Collier had never met the man.

“Oh, please, Mr. Collier,” she gushed next. “Please tell me that you’ll be stayin’ with us a spell.”

“Yes, I’d like to stay for at least a few days.”

“That’s wonderful! And it just so happens that the room with the best view is available.”

Collier was about to thank her but instantly fell to speechlessness when the old lady stood up and rushed to the key cabinet.

I don’t believe this…

Mrs. Butler wore a simple orchid-hued button-front blouse and matching knee skirt. But it wasn’t the attire that stunned Collier, it was the body.

Brick shit-house, he had to think.

Her plain clothes clung to a proverbial hourglass physique. Wide-hipped but tiny-waisted; strong, toned legs like a female swimmer, and a burgeoning bust, heavy but high—and Collier didn’t detect a bra line. This broad’s got the wrong head on her shoulders, he thought.

The bosom rode with each vigorous step back to the counter. She handed him a brass key, like the old-style keys that fed into a large circle-atop-a-flange keyhole. But the woman’s physique continued to waylay him. How could a woman with a face that old and haggard have a body like THAT?

“Room three, it’s our best, Mr. Collier,” her drawl assured. “Best view, I’m tellin’ ya—the best.”

“I appreciate that.” But he thought, The view of your rack is pretty damn good, too. His sexism made him feel unrefined and juvenile but the bizarre sexuality seemed to reflect off her like sunlight off a mirror. “Let me go grab my bags and I’ll be right b—”

“Just keep your feet right where they are,” she ordered. “Lottie’s gettin’ ’em.”

Collier noticed now the girl was gone. “Oh, no, Mrs. Butler. Lottie’s a small frame to be hauling luggage.”

“Don’t’cha bet on it…” Mrs. Butler came around the counter. The bosom tremored with each step. “Lottie don’t weigh a hundred pounds but she can sure as heck tote twice that. Strong gal, hard-workin’ as they come. Poor thing’s thirty now, and can’t get a man. Lotta folks think she’s slow ’cos she can’t talk, but she’s really smart as a whip.”

“I’m sure she is,” Collier said. He stared at the back of her toned legs as she led him to the center of the salon.

“Anyways, once you’re settled in your room, come back’n see me. I’ll’se show ya the whole place. See, we’re more than just another Southern inn, we’re a bona fide historical landmark. What we got here’s better than the museum in town.”

Collier dragged his eyes off the wide, tight rump. “Yes,” he uttered, an afterthought. “All the display cases. I noticed when I came in.”

“And lots more. I’ll show ya.”