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“You’ve no single rooms left at all?”
“Busy night. Ball game tomorrow over at Brighton Mill. People like to stay here the night before. Quieter than the Quaint Little Inn in town. Gets rowdy there after dark. A lot of drinking going on. None of that out here. We’re a quiet place. I keep a decent house. Now you want the room, or don’t you?”
I look at the sign above his head. Happy to serve you. I look back at his scowling face. “Sure,” I say, tiredness seeping into my bones. “I guess I’ll take the room.”
“Fifty bucks a night. Cash only. How long you here for?”
“Just the one night.” I pass him one of the banknotes Enzo gave me and wait for my change.
“Sign the register. You got any bags?”
“Nope.”
“Room twelve, end of the hall on the right.”
“Can you tell my friend when he gets here that I’m in room twelve?”
“He got a name, this friend of yours?”
“Enzo Lauria.”
The color drains out of his face, his eyes bulging. “Say that again,” he whispers, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth like he’s forgotten how to swallow.
“Enzo Lauria. You know him?”
He sits up perfectly straight. “Enzo Lauria is coming here? Tonight?”
“Uh-huh. That a problem?”
“No, no problem at all. Here.” He digs into the register, passing me the hundred back with a shaking hand. “Anything you need, you come to see me. Ralph Menson. Anything at all. Do you want the key to the vending machine? Bottle of wine? I’ve not got good stuff but we’re a small place, you know?” He reaches under the counter and pulls out a bottle, passing it to me. “There’s a couple of glasses in the room already. Do you want some coke? I can get it here in twenty minutes if you need it. Got a guy in the woods. Crystal? You name it, I’ll get it for you. I’m sorry I haven’t any rooms left but that one. You should have said who was coming. Want me to kick the other guests out? Just say the word and they’re all gone.”
“Just the room key is fine.” I might want a single room but I’m not going to throw out other guests at this time of night to get it.
He passes the key to me. “Sure, sure. Anything you want, give me a shout. I’m here all night.”
“Thanks, Ralph.” I walk away, passing along a corridor surrounded by rooms with TVs on too loud. The place smells of age like it hasn’t been cleaned for longer than his tee-shirt. I get to the end of the corridor and unlock room twelve. Once I’m inside I lock the door and lean back against it.
Who is the man I’m with?
Is this what Enzo’s name inspires? Fear? Who is he? He’s not just some mafia associate. He must be important if the receptionist of a motel in the middle of nowhere has heard of him. How important though?
I look around the room. It’s clean enough and the bedding’s faded but neat. There’s an armchair in the corner, a TV barely hanging onto the wall with rusted screws in the back. I spot a refrigerator but it’s empty when I look inside.
A tiny chest of drawers under the window has a tray on top. Box of thin mints, two wine glasses, and a pen with the name of the motel down the side of it. Menson’s. No notepad.
I look at the bottle he gave me. Merlot. Dark and strong tasting. Italian. Reminds me of someone. Might as well see if it’s any good. Who knows how long I’ll be waiting for Enzo to get back?
I pour myself a glass, leaving it to breathe while I head through to the connected bathroom. Inside, there’s toothpaste in a one-inch long tube, two toothbrushes wrapped in cellophane, one sponge, and one towel that I’m guessing used to be white but is now more of a faded gray.
I wash my face, use the toilet, and then return to the bedroom. I turn on the TV, flicking through the channels idly. My hand freezes on the remote when I see the diner appearing on screen.
It’s a news report and the woman with the microphone is talking about the smear of blood that leads out to the parking lot. “At the moment, police aren’t sure what happened here but eyewitnesses told us it was possibly a shootout between two men, neither of whom have been found as yet.”
I watch in silence. There’s no mention of my name or Enzo’s. As far as I can tell, no one knows much of anything that happened.
I start to feel queasy so I turn over, finding an episode of Friends that I haven’t seen fifty times already. Kidding. I’ve seen them all more than that.
No one knows what happened at the diner, the reporter said.
