Hated them kinds of places. Faded pink flakes clingin’ to the walls, windows painted shut, cactuses linin’ every wall and dead weeds pokin’ out of the cracked asphalt. All the same. Even the shiny-domed guys with the horseshoe ‘do at the front desk seemed to be at every one of these roach stops. Some franchise they got goin’.
I stepped up and you’d think a few footsteps on the shag’d at least get a glance and an “evenin’” or somethin’. It took a few finger taps on the desk to get his face out of the paper.
“Can I help ya?”
“Evenin’. I’m lookin’ for someone.” So I showed him her photo like I’d shown every clerk and gas flunky in the few hundred miles between here and Hawthorne. I’d picked the best one I could find in that album she was keepin’. In it she’s wearin’ the necklace I gave her for her birthday last year, showin’ off that smirk that she calls a smile. I always pretended that it was irksome but then I think she smiled that way just so I could play at getting irked. Unspoken sort of joke.
I flipped the picture to show the guy, held it just above the counter. Boy did he eyeball the photo real good. Damn horndog.
“Pretty girl.”
“Hey buddy, you seen her or what?”
Another few seconds and just shy of me smackin’ him on his shiny dome and he looked up again.
“Who’re you?”
Goddamn wise guys can never answer a question straight.
“Listen, just have you seen her or ain’t you?”
“Well, I ain’t just gonna say I seen somebody less I know why someone’s lookin’. All I know you’re lookin’ to trouble this girl.”
Christ! I couldn’t get any straight answers from no one.
“Look here mister. This is my girlfriend, and I’m lookin’ for her because she’s missin’. You seen her or not?”
He eyeballed me again, looked at the photo on the counter again, then shook his jowls.
“Sorry, son. I ain’t seen this girl. You called the police?”
“Yea. Thanks.” Tucked the photo back into my shirt pocket and thanked him like I’d been doin’ for damn near a month. Thankin’ people for nothin’.
Back out into that damn heat. It kills me that people livin’ out in that hole could survive it. I mean I’d expected to see at least the old folks droppin’ flat to the ground. Like a damn furnace. Don’t know why anyone’d want to come out and see that shabby joint much less some hole. Death Valley. The name alone tells you to stay the hell out.
I was back in a familiar place. Days of lookin’, askin’, wanderin’. No leads, no clues, no nothin’. I’d gotten all the way here to Ridgecrest without as much as someone sayin’ she looked familiar. It’s like she disappeared soon as she stepped out of the county. Not a trace of her since the report from that Janey friend of hers that Olive had talked about goin’ to see that Death Valley desert. Just a weekend trip. The police heard it same as the rest of us, but a month on and they’d hardly done a damn thing. Checkin’ with stations, detectives meetin’ with her folks, meetin’ with her friends, meetin’ with themselves. Meetin’ and talkin’ their goddamn ears and mouths off. Not doin’ a damn thing is what they were doin’. Even Olive’s pop was fine with lettin’ them do their job and just spent all his time makin’ sure her ma stopped worryin’. I mean I get it, but he should’ve been the one stoppin’ Olive from goin’ on some goddamn trip by herself. I mean, Christ, by herself! A girl drivin’ around some backwater holes on her own. I mean, God, it’s great that she ain’t the sit at home type, and we had some great times wanderin’ the coast or drivin’ all up and down La Brea lookin’ for weird joints, back before I went off to college. But she shouldn’t have been doin’ that stuff alone, not Olive. What’d anyone expect but the worst. That’s where I was most times. Thinkin’ of where she was, where she could be, and still just hopin’ she was okay.
Drivin’ up the main drag that I’d already spent the day gettin’ familiar with and figured it was time to stop for the day. Gone damn near to the valley itself and people were tellin’ me that there wasn’t much else out there except for the base and a whole lot of rocks and sand. Look for a person that could’ve gotten lost out there and you may as well’ve been lookin’ for a needle in that damn sand.
Didn’t matter anyway. She was my girl. I’d search this entire planet for my Olive.
Drivin’ up the avenue I looked around for a place that wasn’t some Bates Motel lookin’ dive. I’d heard that flick was based on some real life stuff over in them okie states. Crazies.
I kept on drivin’ up until I was damn near outside the town. A place called Desert Jewel Inn looked good, and didn’t have some damn screwy rates. It was the last place before a whole lot of dark horizon. Seemed kind of empty but it was pretty damn late and I was feelin’ tired as all hell. Pulled in and walked up to the front desk and I had to shake my head. I’m tellin’ you I get the crazies, it’s my lot in life.
Behind that desk, and I couldn’t make this up, was a big, and I mean large, lady in one of them big wide dresses with yellow and purple flowers all over it. Over that she had on this gold-type vest with a good half dozen pockets runnin’ down the front of each side over that big bosom under her chin, and inside each of them pockets a different colored bird feather. Her face and neck were all brown and leathery lookin’ except where the skin turned white and spotty right around the chest. The Arabian hat on her head shook a bit when she turned to me. She’d been watchin’ some small television set perched up next to the phone.
Couldn’t make this up, I swear. Figured that if she was a psycho she prob’ly wouldn’t be able to catch no one. But like I said, I was just tired as hell.
“Evenin’, ma’am. I’d like a room.”
She turned to me and squinted a bit before reachin’ for some pair of movie star glasses with them pointy ends. Or whatever they’re called, I’ve seen that Monroe with them. All the girls wore them.
Not Olive, though. Not them big, pretty eyes.
She said, “You like room? Which room is that?” A ruski.
“Not any particular cabin. Just somethin’ for the night.”
She squinted again with the glasses on and looked me over, givin’ me another dose of the old eyeball. How many times did I have to get funny looks in that town? Jesus.
“You sure you want room here?”
“Yea, alright.” Well I was agitated. Crazy old lady.
“Listen, if there’s no rooms I’ll—”
“No, fine, fine. If you are sure then I have many rooms. I have many rooms.” She reached under the desk and pulled out a register, openin’ it somewhere at the end. Pages were yellowed and dirty.
“You sign here. Ten dollars.”
“What? Why do I have to pay now?”
“Here, you pay first. Now sign here, please.”
I looked at that book. They had lots of names, and must’ve been here a while I guess given I was signin’ damn near the end, but none of the dates were close. It seemed like a person every few weeks was checkin’ in, one at a time. Didn’t seem peculiar then, though it should’ve, then maybe I’d have walked the hell out of there quick as I could.
But I was lookin’ for Olive. It’s all that mattered. I signed, and gave her ten bucks. I was tired.
I had a stupid question, and I knew the answer, but it had to be asked. “Your rooms have air conditioners?”
She raised her eyebrow. What did I think?
She looked back at the wall behind her and opened a small cabinet to reveal a complete collection of keys, all brownish lookin’ and kind of dingy. On the right side, though, was a row of little hooks with a single little wooden tag hangin’ on the end of each one. Had some sort of number on them but just as they were gettin’ my attention the lady pulled out a key and shut the cabinet.
“You are room twelve,” she glanced down at the ledger, “Mister Richard Olson.”
“And you, ma’am?”
She stepped, sort of waddled I suppose, out from behind the counter and walked toward the door, sayin’, “I am Mrs. Otkupshchikov. Follow me, please.”
“That’s a mouthful of a name, ain’t it?”
She glared at me then stepped out of the door, so I followed. No way I was goin’ to pronounce that name correctly is all I’m sayin’.
The cabins were lined up on two sides, and down the middle was just the empty space for parkin’ or drivin’ up. There weren’t any lines or nothin’ painted on the ground, and when I drove up I’d just parked right in the middle near the office. There were also two large palm trees sort of sittin’ over the entrance on either side, showin’ some of them late day shadows that make things out to be bigger than life itself.
She led me to the left side, the odd numbered doors, and we walked away from the office toward the entrance. The white walls were sort of grayed now, but not stained or dirty, which was strange since it seemed like nothin’ out here could be clean of dust. Each door was also real old lookin’ and the bare wood showed like it’d been through a hell of a lot of sunburns. Counted off the doors as we walked. There was one and three, each kind of next to each other like the rooms were mirror opposites, and then five and seven also paired up, then nine at the end, and then nothin’. Or just a blank gray wall in any case. I looked across the other side of the motel and sure enough there was a twelve.
I wanted to ask her about it, but didn’t know how without sayin’, “hey lady”, which seemed kind of a rude thing to do, even out in that dump.
“Sorry, can you pronounce your name for me one more time?”
She stopped again and this time shrugged her broad, lumpy shoulders.
“Are we friends? You find need to say my name properly because you want to be friendly?”
“Listen,” I told her. “No offense meant, sorry. Just wanted to pronounce your name right.”
She sniffed angrily and kept walkin’ until we got to door nine.
“This is your room. Here is key, and only key so do not lose.”
She shoved it at me and I took it. She started to turn back toward the office, but then she stopped and said, “You just call me Ot.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Can I ask you somethin’, Ot?”
Boy she sure was anxious to get back, but she paused so that I could ask.
“Yes, yes, what?”
“I hope you don’t mind my askin’, but I noticed and…”, and I couldn’t finish askin’, stupid question as it was. What business was it of mine?
“Never mind. Sorry, thank you.”
She sniffed again—twice—then waddled back to the office. Her gold vest kind of shimmered on and off as sunset hit the different folds in the cloth.
I started to unlock the door then, just to get the lay of the place before bringin’ in my bag, but I got curious about that blank wall. I walked over and it seemed about the amount of space that the front of any of the other rooms took up, but nothin’. No door, no hint of a door, jack squat. I sort of surveyed it and just as I was goin’ to go open my door and enter the room, I caught sight of it. Just like in the cabinet in the office, there was a hook. Small one, made of brass. Next to the hook, and I mean so close that you’d miss it if you were lookin’ at it from that angle, was some sort of hole, with a little glass piece on the end of it. Kind of like them peep holes that doors got, just smaller. I walked over and looked at it, and got the first of them funny gut feelings. I’d been drivin’ all over the desert, meetin’ all kinds of strange folks, but I’d never had a gut shot like that. Just felt sort of like it was wrong. I was lookin’ in the wrong place. I should’nt have been lookin’ there.
It scared me a little, not that I’d tell no one. But I had to see, you know? I had to look in. So I walked up kind of close and leaned in. At first it was black, pitch black. Not a thing. I smiled a bit and tried to shake off that funny feelin’ because, hell, it was all stupid. Crazy flower dress wearin’ ruskies and missin’ doors. Too out there for me, man.
I was about to walk back to my door when the darkness inside the hole kind of lit up. Like lightnin’, real quick and gone just like that. But I swear on a Bible, I’d seen her. It was so quick that I couldn’t really figure out what I’d seen until later, but it was her, sittin’ in a clear pool of water, arms wrapped around herself. She was there. It was Olive. I felt how alone she’d been. I felt like dyin’
When I woke up, I was lyin’ here in this sand and the sun was comin’ up. That feelin’ of death was still in me, in a place in my head. Some place I hadn’t needed to think about.
Now I just want some water and a map. Olive’s here and she won’t be alone no more. The one who’s going to tell me where to start is prob’ly about up for the mornin’ and puttin’ on her gold vest.