The Ninth Nightmare nw-5 Read online

  He said nothing, but Detective Wisocky kept his hand pressed down on his shoulder pad and kept staring at him without blinking for a full five seconds to show that he meant business.

  ‘Ma’am,’ said the receptionist. ‘Here’s your key card. I’ll have somebody bring your luggage up to your room.’

  Detective Wisocky turned and walked off. John watched him for a moment, and then said, ‘No, it’s OK, ma’am. I’ll carry your case up for you.’

  He followed Rhodajane Berry to the elevators, which had highly-polished brass doors. He could see himself standing beside her in his crumpled linen suit, his belly bulging over the waistband. He always thought that he could have been handsome if he hadn’t loved food so much. When he was a teenager he had looked a lot like Tab Hunter. Well, more snub-nosed, like Tab Hunter pressing his face against a Burger King window. Now he thought he looked like every fat guy who ever was. Fat.

  He wasn’t sure why he felt so protective of Rhodajane Berry. She must be reasonably wealthy, but she was trashy, too, and he had always been attracted to trashy women. His first serious girlfriend Charlene had been trashy, with the dirtiest laugh and the biggest breasts and the shortest conceivable skirts, but when he had returned from his stint in the Army she had taken one look at him and he had known before a word was spoken that their relationship was over. He might have been the only three-time winner of the Fort Polk prize for culinary excellence, but he had more than trebled in weight. After a long silence, Charlene had said, ‘Jesus. It’s the Pillsbury Dough Boy.’

  ‘Meeting the rest of your family today?’ he asked Rhodajane, as they went up in the elevator.

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  ‘Oh. Not too close, then?’

  ‘You could say that. They’re a collection of mean-minded sons-of-bitches, all of them. I only came here to make sure I got what’s coming to me in grandma’s will.’

  ‘Oh. So what are you going to be doing tonight?’

  ‘Not going out with you if that’s what this is leading up to.’

  ‘Hey, of course not,’ John protested. ‘I’m just making small talk, that’s all. You know, like persiflage.’

  The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. Before she stepped out, Rhodajane prodded John with her long purple fingernail and said, ‘If there’s one thing I’m a real good judge of, Mr John Dolphin, it’s men. And I’ve been watching you watching me in your rear-view mirror ever since we left the airport. And I saw you looking up my dress when I got out of your cab.’

  John said, ‘All right. I think you’re very attractive. Is that a crime? And besides, it’s “Dauphin”, like the eldest son of the King of France, not “Dolphin” like in Flipper.’

  ‘Pity. “Dolphin” kind of suits you.’

  They reached Room 309. John put down Rhodajane’s suitcase and opened the door for her. Then he switched on the lights and hefted her suitcase on to the linen chest in the corner. ‘Nice room,’ he said, looking around. It was decorated in turquoise and gold with brocade drapes and a bedspread to match. He went to the window and peered out. ‘You got a great view of the university, too.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Don’t knock it. I hear they have a first-rate department of anthropology.’

  ‘That’s a relief. Switch on the TV for me, would you?’

  John switched on the television while Rhodajane sat on the bed and took off her shoes. ‘God, my feet. I mean, I really love these shoes, but…’

  John handed her the remote control. ‘You’ll have to work this out for yourself. I’m not too good when it comes to technology.’

  Rhodajane flapped one hand. ‘Anything will do, so long as they’re speaking English. I really have to go to the little girls’ room.’

  When she stood up without her shoes on, she was at least three inches shorter than she had been before. She padded off to the bathroom and closed the door while John flicked through the TV channels. As far as he could he see it was the usual daytime diet: As The World Turns and The Electric Company for kids, followed by General Hospital, American Justice and The Tyra Show.

  Tyra was talking to a plump young woman who wanted to swallow a tapeworm so that she could lose weight. John wondered if he ought to do the same, but apart from the very idea of it making his mouth feel all greasy and his throat close up, he doubted if any tapeworm could keep up with him. He could finish a whole muffuletta sandwich in less than a minute, complete with extra provolone.

  ‘Hey, you want to come see this!’ he called out. An entrepreneur who sold tapeworms on the Internet had joined Tyra and her guest, and was lifting one of them out of a jar, all four feet of it, pale and slippery, with four suckers around its head.

  John turned around. Rhodajane was still in the bathroom with the door closed, but he could see himself in the mirror over the dressing table. He could see the reflection of the TV screen, too, but inexplicably the reflected TV screen wasn’t showing Tyra Banks and her two guests. Instead, it was showing an indistinct image of a darkened room, as if it was being filmed by a closed-circuit camera. A woman in a stained white nightgown was lying on a bed, and a man was repeatedly walking backward and forward in front of the camera, although John couldn’t see who he was, because his head was cut off by the top of the screen.

  Baffled, John looked back at the real TV. The tapeworm entrepreneur was lowering the worm back into the jar, along with several other coiled-up companions, and Tyra was screaming and laughing in disgust. John looked back at the TV in the mirror. The man was bending over the woman on the bed and although John couldn’t hear what she was saying, it looked from the expression on her face as if she were crying and begging.

  ‘Ma’am!’ John called out. He heard the toilet flush, and the faucets in the bathroom basin splashing. The man who was bending over the woman on the bed moved slightly to his right, so that he obscured the woman’s face. He appeared to be jerking his left elbow backward and forward, in a strange repetitive way. John could only see the woman’s bare legs, but they were covered in huge maroon bruises and they were twitching and convulsing as the man continued to jerk his elbow.

  ‘Ma’am!’ John repeated. He wanted Rhodajane to see this — partly because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing with his own eyes, and partly because he was worried that this might be an example of what Detective Wisocky had called ‘anything out of the ordinary.’

  ‘OK, OK! Keep your toupee on!’ The bathroom door opened, and Rhodajane stepped out, still brushing her hair. ‘Sorry if I kept you waiting but I was busting.’ She walked across the room and opened her pocketbook. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  John said, ‘The TV, ma’am. Take a look at the TV.’

  ‘Hold up. Let me get my glasses. I can’t see a goddamned thing without my glasses.’

  As she was rummaging in her pocketbook for her purse and her spectacles, John saw a dark red stain spreading quickly across the sheet on which the woman was lying. The man stood up straight, and for a split second John could see the woman’s face again. She seemed to be staring directly at him, her eyes bulging in pain, her mouth dragged downward in a silent howl. Then the TV screen flickered and jumped, and the image of the darkened room vanished, and was instantly replaced by a commercial for HeadOn headache cure, (or nOdaeH as it appeared in the mirror.)

  Rhodajane came up behind him wearing her glasses and laid a surprisingly familiar hand on his shoulder. ‘So what did you want me to see? Not this goddamned HeadOn commercial? It must be the worst commercial ever! “HeadOn — apply directly to the forehead! HeadOn — apply directly to the forehead!” Jesus, I can hear it in my sleep!’

  ‘No, no, not that,’ John told her. ‘There was something on The Tyra Show, that’s all. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘The Tyra Show? That crap? You have very strange tastes, Mr Eldest-Son-Of-The-King-Of-France. How much do I owe you?’

  ‘Forty-four bucks, but let’s call it forty. The traffic wasn’t your fault.’

  Rhodajane
gave him a fifty-dollar bill and said, ‘Keep the change my good man. But don’t spend it all on bacon fries.’

  John headed for the door and opened it. Before he left, though, he turned around and said, ‘Here — let me give you my cellphone number.’

  ‘What for? I’m still not going out with you.’

  ‘I know that. I’m not asking you to. But just in case.’

  ‘Just in case of what, for instance?’

  ‘Just in case something weird happens. Weird things do happen. I’ve had some pretty weird things happen to me, in my time.’

  ‘You and that detective, you’re both as screwy as each other if you ask me. Tweedle-de-dum and Tweedle-de-dee.’

  John took a catsup-spotted business card out of his breast pocket and offered it to her. ‘More than likely, ma’am, everything’s going to be fine. But if you get spooked or anything, and you feel too reticent to phone the cops, give me a call and I can be round here in five minutes flat. I only live in Glenville.’

  Rhodajane hesitated for a moment, but then she took his card and tucked it into her cleavage. ‘OK, big boy, whatever you say. But I don’t believe for one single second that my room is going to change into the chamber of horrors or that I’m going to hear screaming in the middle of the night. And nobody else is getting in here once I’ve locked this door behind you, and you can be one hundred and eleven percent sure of that.’

  ‘Sure,’ said John. He could have tried to explain to her what he had seen on the reflected TV screen, but she would probably think that he was deliberately trying to frighten her so that she would ask him to come around and protect her. Either that, or she would think that he was mentally challenged, or that he had been smoking something more exotic than Marlboro Lights.

  ‘Goodbye, then, Mr Dauphin,’ she told him. ‘And thank you. You’re a gentleman.’

  ‘Well, I was the last time I looked. But don’t forget, will you? Anything outré occurs, anything at all, anything eldritch, you pick up your phone and it’ll be John Dauphin to the rescue. I mean that.’

  Rhodajane looked at him and gave him a very slight shake of her head. ‘Do you know something, Mr Dauphin? Half the time I don’t understand a word you’re saying. But I like you. I really dooski. I give you permission to have a dream about me tonight if you want to.’

  ‘Well, I’d be careful about saying that if I were you, ma’am. Some dreams are good, but other dreams are not so good. And some dreams you can never really wake up from, even if you want to. Some dreams stay with you for the rest of your life, and you wish you’d never had them.’

  Rhodajane looked at him narrowly. ‘What are you, some kind of dream expert?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes, I guess you could say that I am.’

  They were both silent. It was only for two or three seconds, but in those two or three seconds something passed between them, one of those indefinable feelings that they were more than just cab driver and fare, more than just passing acquaintances who would never see each other again, except by coincidence. Ostensibly they had nothing at all in common, but John pointed at Rhodajane with a pistol-like gesture as if to say ‘see you later, OK?’ and Rhodajane closed her eyes as if to acknowledge that he would.

  John turned and waddled off toward the elevators and Rhodajane stood in the doorway of her hotel room watching him go. Behind her, Tyra was talking to a twenty-two-year-old woman who wanted to auction her virginity on the Internet.

  The woman was saying, ‘I always dreamed of having a lover… but somehow it never happened. Every man I ever met turned out to be a nightmare.’

  THREE

  Room 104

  Lincoln was sitting alone in a corner booth of the Boa Vinda Restaurant, wishing that he hadn’t ordered such a messy dish as caldeirada, when his cellphone played Tracks Of My Tears. He shook open his white linen napkin and hastily started to wipe the thick tomato-and-saffron sauce from his fingers.

  ‘Lincoln?’ said a woman’s voice, very small and far away.

  ‘Grace?’ he laughed. ‘Wait up a second, honey, I’m in kind of a pickle here.’

  He put down his cell and finished wiping his hands and his mouth. Then he picked it up again and said, ‘Sorry. The waiter recommended this Portuguese fish stew and it’s absolutely outstanding but you pretty much have to take a bath in it to eat it.’

  ‘Lincoln?’ the woman’s voice repeated, as if she hadn’t heard him.

  ‘Grace? Are you still there? You’re very faint.’

  ‘Lincoln?’

  ‘Listen, honey,’ he said, ‘why don’t I call you back? I’m sitting in the hotel restaurant here and maybe the signal’s too weak.’

  ‘Lincoln?’

  ‘Hang up, and I’ll call you right back, OK?’

  He listened for a few seconds more, in case Grace answered him, but as he took his cell away from his ear, he heard a man say, ‘Lincoln?’

  Lincoln frowned and lifted up the cell again. ‘Hallo? Hallo? Who is this?’

  The man sounded hoarse, like a heavy smoker. ‘No need for you to know that, Lincoln.’

  ‘What do you mean, “no need for me to know that”? Who the hell is this?’

  ‘You know what they say, Lincoln. Curiosity killed the cat.’

  ‘I’m trying to get through to my wife here, so if you don’t mind—’

  ‘You need to listen to me, Lincoln. I’m your friend.’

  ‘What friend?’

  ‘A concerned friend. A very concerned friend. So long as you do what I tell you, that is.’

  Lincoln suddenly slapped the table. ‘Bennie? Is this you, man? Quit horsing around, OK? I’m trying to finish my goddamned dinner here.’

  ‘Eat your goddamned dinner then, Lincoln. Enjoy it. But do not return to your room.’

  ‘If this is your idea of a joke, man—’

  ‘No joke, Lincoln. Do not return to your room. Not if you know what’s good for you.’

  ‘That’s enough, Bennie. It’s been a long day, OK? I have two more meetings in the morning and then I’ll get back to you. It looks like we can get top billing for Millie D and maybe second spot for The Jive Machine.’

  ‘You need to listen to me, Lincoln. You’ll regret it if you don’t. Tonight, I need my privacy, you got that? I don’t want any witnesses. Not you, not anybody.’

  Lincoln took a deep breath, and held it for a moment. Then he said, ‘If this is you, Bennie, this isn’t funny any more. If this isn’t Bennie, then all I can say is go screw yourself.’

  There was a sudden blurt of white noise, and then a thick, persistent crackle, but that was all. Lincoln tried to see who had called him, but the only number that showed up was his own home number, in Ann Arbor. He tried calling Grace again, but he couldn’t get a ring tone. He edged his way out of the booth, stood up and started to walk toward the restaurant door.

  One of the waiters intercepted him. ‘Sir? You finish up already, sir? The caldeirada — it was not to your like?’

  ‘The caldeirada’s terrific. I have to make a phone call, that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t go back to your room?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I said, “Do you want me to keep it warm?”’

  Lincoln stared at him. The waiter looked back at him, unblinking. Lincoln was sure that he had said, “You don’t go back to your room?” but maybe he had genuinely misheard him. The restaurant was noisy, after all, with talking and laughter and clattering cutlery and piped salsa music in the background.

  ‘No… you’re OK,’ he said slowly, and walked toward the restaurant entrance. The maître d’ was standing behind his lectern by the doorway, with polished black hair and a little black moustache and a maroon tuxedo. As Lincoln approached he bowed his head and said, ‘Good evening, sir. I hope you enjoyed your meal.’

  ‘I’m only stepping out to use my cell. I’m coming back in a minute.’

  ‘You are not returning to your room?’

  ‘Why? What’s it to you?’<
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  ‘Excuse me, sir, I don’t follow you.’

  ‘Why should you care whether I’m returning to my room or not?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I still don’t understand.’ The maître d’ looked totally baffled. ‘I made no mention of your room.’

  Lincoln opened his mouth. He was about to tell the maître d’ that he was either a deuce hole or an idiot, but he decided that it was pointless. Instead he gave him a dismissive flap of his hand and walked off.

  He was still unable to get a cellphone signal out in the hotel lobby, so he went outside and stood on the front steps of the hotel. A strong gusty wind was blowing from the north-west, off the lake, and dead leaves were skipping across the hotel driveway with a clatter like dancing skeletons. He tried calling Grace again, but all he could hear was the same thick crackling that he had heard before. Maybe his phone was on the fritz. The best thing he could do was go back to his room and call her from there.

  No joke, Lincoln. Do not return to your room. Not if you know what’s good for you.

  He went back into the hotel lobby and took a left at the reception desk. There was a gilt-framed mirror at the end of the corridor and he could see himself walking toward it — a tall, lithe African-American in a black suit and a black silk shirt. His head was shaved which emphasized the Nubian looks that he had inherited from his mother — a thin face with high cheekbones and a straight narrow nose. In fact his features were so sharp that his friends at school had nicknamed him Icepick.

  He reached Room 104. As he took out his key card, a hotel chambermaid in a frilly white apron came out of Room 106 next door with clean green towels over her arm. She stopped and stared at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, giving her a smile.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, still staring at him. She walked off, turning her head around twice as she made her way along the corridor, as if she were afraid that he was going to come after her. Lincoln watched her until she reached the lobby and disappeared out of sight. He thought: what the hell was that all about? But then he shrugged and inserted his key card into the lock. She could have mistaken him for somebody famous. Grace maintained that he bore a strong resemblance to the murdered rapper Tupac Shakur, so maybe it was no surprise that the housekeeper had looked at him with such anxiety. He guessed that he would be anxious, too, if he met a man who had been shot dead in 1996.