2 Sisters Detective Agency(8)

“What do you want?” the owner asked.

“A room,” I said. “One night.”

“Nope,” the man said. I waited for more, but there was none. As though to illustrate his point, the man flipped closed the heavy ledger lying open on the counter between us. The book was so unused to being closed that its cover came unstuck from the counter with a clack sound.

“What do you mean, ‘nope’?” I asked. “The motel is full?”

“Nope to that too,” the man said. “I got one room left, but it’s right there.”

He pointed to room 8.

“It’s right next to mine.” He pointed to the owner’s room visible behind the counter. “And you look like you snore. So while there is a room available, I ain’t renting it to you, lady.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I do snore,” I said. “You’re right. But the nearest hotel from here is fifty miles away, and I’ve been driving for seven hours already. Being someone who purveys temporary sleeping environments for a living, I imagine you’ve got some earplugs back there behind the counter?”

“Sure do,” he said.

“Why don’t you rent me the room and use those for the night? Between the brick walls and the earplugs, I’m sure you won’t have any trouble.”

“Nope.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because this motel is old,” he said. “We got old furniture here.” His eyes wandered over me. “It’s wood. It won’t take your heft.”

I grabbed the counter and held on, giving my hands something to do other than twitch with the desire to throttle this guy. I swallowed a swell of fury that leaped into my throat.

“I didn’t catch your name,” I said.

“It’s Amos.”

“Listen, Amos,” I said. “You obviously have a problem with me. And I think I know exactly what that problem is.”

“It’s that I don’t like fat people,” he said.

“I thought so.” I nodded.

“I don’t think it’s a problem so much as an opinion,” he continued. “Everybody’s got an opinion. Some people don’t like cats. Some people don’t like going to the beach. Some people don’t like the Jews. I don’t like fat people. They’re selfish and they break things. They either break them by sitting or lying on them or they knock them over ’cause they’re just plain clumsy.”

“Well, Amos,” I said, “I don’t like assholes. So I guess we were never going to be best friends.”

I walked to the door.

“And you’re right,” I added. “Fat people are clumsy.”

I nudged the vending machine as I went by, a slight sideways bump. The vending machine tilted to the side, then smashed back down onto the tiles with a noise so colossal it made my heart sing. I turned and tipped an imaginary hat at Amos and then went on my way.





Chapter 8



Ashton Willisee let the back door of the Beverly Hills Playhouse swing closed behind him. The parking lot was almost empty. He’d sat for ten minutes on the edge of the stage in theater room 6 after class had finished, staring at the empty seats before him, visualizing.

Ashton’s mother had been reading books on psychic energy and the power of mindfulness, and she’d told him that as important as the acting classes was a ritual of creatively visualizing what he wanted, closing his eyes and really feeling himself succeed. Ashton thought the creative visualization stuff was probably bullshit, but he’d been taking classes for a year and only had one unsuccessful audition for a toilet paper commercial to show for it, so he figured he’d give it a whirl.

As he walked to his car at the far edge of the lot, a light distracted him. Two spots from his red Mustang convertible, a battered white Econoline van sat idling, the cabin light glowing brightly. Silhouetted against the light, a man in a ball cap stood, poring over a map.

“Hey, mate,” the man said as Ashton moved toward his car. Heavy Australian accent. “Could I borrow you for a sec?”

“Yeah, sure.” Ashton started walking over.

“Is that Gregory Way over there?” the man asked. “I’m looking for a place on the corner of Gregory and Arnaz.”

“That’s Robertson,” Ashton said, taking out his phone and nodding to the road that accessed the parking lot. He hadn’t seen anyone use a paper map in years. He pulled up Google Maps as he walked. “Gregory Way is—”

He was interrupted by a hiss sound, and the sharp, shocking sensation of a fine mist of liquid hitting his face. At first he thought the man had sneezed. Then Ashton saw a hand emerge whip fast from beneath the map, and the unlabeled aerosol can.

Then he saw nothing.





Chapter 9



Ashton woke to the sensation of the van thumping over a pothole in the road. There was no telling how long he had been lying there, facedown on the rough carpet, swaying gently with the motion of the vehicle. His mind whizzed backward in terror, like a spring recoiling. He remembered the van. The nondescript Econoline—anonymous serial killer van of the ages. He remembered the silhouette of the man against the cabin light, the ball cap pulled low, obscuring his face. He remembered the Australian accent that had lured him in, made him think he was talking to a tourist. The hiss of whatever paralyzing chemical he’d been sprayed with, which had shunted through his system, switching out the lights.