Black Night Falling Read Free Page A

people are dying.’
    ‘How do you know you can trust him? You know what that man did, he’s a liar and—’ She cut herself off, her emotions starting to bubble over. She smoothed her skirt, buying a moment to compose herself, then took my face in her hands and kissed me. ‘Don’t go.’
    I hugged her, held her body against mine because I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye. ‘I have to.’
    *
    Coming to the end of Bathhouse Row, I asked the cab driver where I could find a public telephone. He veered across two lanes and drew up in front of one of the giant buildings at the north end of the street – a hotel he called the Arlington – and said there were kiosks off the lobby. I stepped out of the car and looked up at the two towers atop the hotel above me, stretching into the night sky like battlements. There was a staircase leading up to the main entrance. I climbed it and went inside.
    The interior was as grand as the exterior, all art deco elegance: pastel walls jazzed up with colourful murals depicting some kind of jungle scene; chandeliers and rotating fans that dropped miles from the high, domed ceiling; sweeping staircases with wrought-iron balustrades that led to a mezzanine lounge.
    I crossed the lobby and found the telephones, pulled out the number Robinson had given me, and dialled. Strange: the operator came back to say she couldn’t connect me because the line was dead. I asked her to try again, but got the same result.
    I ran my hand over my face and checked my watch. Close to eleven, Central Time. Fourteen hours since I left home. Dog-tired.
    Robinson had promised to fix me up with a room, but he never told me where. We’d spoken only twice, and he’d been cagey both times. The first call had ended with him reeling off a number to contact him at, and telling me to be sure to ask for Jimmy – no surname. ‘ That’s how they know me here .’ The second time we spoke was when I’d called to tell him that I’d agree to come. That was when he’d promised to arrange lodging for me. He’d been adamant it wasn’t safe for me to stay in the same place as him, and refused to tell me where he was at. I’d chalked all of it up to his paranoia, and now I was kicking myself for playing his games. I went back outside into the night and asked the cab driver to take me to a motel; somewhere away from all the neon.
    *
    The Mountain Motor Court was a mile north of downtown, a horseshoe-shaped building around a gravel and dirt parking lot. There must have been twenty rooms, but only three were occupied, judging by the cars in the lot. I went into the proprietor’s office and paid for two nights. I asked him if there was a telephone I could use, but he shook his head, said they’d take messages for me but that they didn’t allow guests to make calls on their line. I went out to pay the cab driver and asked him to pick me up at seven the next morning.
    My room was at the far end of the parking lot. It was dark inside even with all the lamps turned on, the pine board walls stained a rich brown. There was a wooden chair tucked into a table, two beds, and not much else in the way of furniture. The carpet was olive green – a reminder of home. Bare as it was, it was clean and warm. I walked to the window at the back and cracked the drapes; it looked out onto dense pinewoods, hard to make anything out in the haunting darkness of the trees. I went to the bathroom to wash my face, then I lay down on the nearest bed and thought of Lizzie. For just a moment, the chatter of the katydids outside sounded like the ocean on a calm night.
    *
    Hunger woke me at six the next morning. I realised I hadn’t eaten since the layover in Dallas the day before. The small breakfast room next to the motel office had warm biscuits and bad coffee, and I tucked into both before the cab showed up to collect me.
    We drove back to downtown and the driver dropped me just along from the Arlington. Daylight stripped Central Avenue