Damnation Street

16.

It was dark by the time Weiss reached the Super 8. The motel was the last place in town, the last lighted spot on the four-lane before the pavement vanished into the desert night. Against the darkness out there, the motel sign stood out bright yellow with the neon vacancy sizzling bright orange underneath. From the parking lot where Weiss sat, the sign's light washed out the stars.

The motel was a small single-story building, white, trim, well-kept. It was shaped like an L. The office and coffee shop made the base of the L, and the rooms extended along the edge of the parking lot in the L's arm. There were only five cars in the lot, six now with Weiss and his Taurus. There were lights on behind the white curtains in only three of the motel's rooms. The coffee shop was closed.

Weiss stood out of his Ford. A cold wind was rising. It blew in out of the darkness. He felt it on his face, and he heard the flag on the flagpole behind the motel snapping somewhere above him. A Tv was playing in one of the rooms. He could hear that too: danger music, as if someone was watching a cop show or something.

A truck rumbled past on the four-lane. When it was gone, Weiss heard the wind and the snapping flag and the music from the Tv and the vast silence of the desert that surrounded them.

He walked toward the office, his hands in his pockets, his big frame hunched and huddled against the cold. He wasn't sure what he expected to find here. Bremer had said the place had nothing to do with Julie, but he knew Bremer was lying, so that meant it did. He figured maybe this was where Julie stayed when she came to visit her father. He figured she was his daughter by some first wife, and she had to come in secret so she wouldn't be seen by his respectable second wife. Something like that. He had wanted to ask Bremer about it. He had wanted to ask Bremer a lot of things. Julie had called her father to say good-bye because she had to run for her life. She had called to warn him that Weiss might come and the killer might come with him. Had she said anything else? Had she dropped any clue to where she was going? Was there anything in her past that might help Weiss find her? The questions had come into Weiss's mouth as he stood with Bremer in the empty house. They had come into his mouth-and he had swallowed them down.

For some reason-maybe the second wife, maybe something else-Bremer's relationship to Julie was his great secret. That's what Weiss had understood when his eyes met the father's on the glass. It was his great secret, and if Weiss asked about it, he would balk, he would lie, and he would go on lying.

And then the Shadowman would come.

It was true what Weiss had said. He had a hold over the killer. He could stop looking for Julie and the killer would be lost. But that would only take him so far. If the specialist was convinced he might find her himself, he would step in. If he guessed Bremer was Julie's father, if he thought Bremer was lying and holding back, he would come not just for him, but for his wife and his son and his little girl-all of them until he had what he wanted. Bremer didn't know where Julie was, but the killer wouldn't know that. He didn't know things the way Weiss did. He would come to all of them until he was sure.

Weiss had brought that with him. Weiss would bring that with him everywhere he went.

So he did not ask his questions. He swallowed them down. He came here.

He pushed through the glass door, into the motel office. An electric bell sounded as he stepped in.

The office was neat and bright and soulless. There was a small sofa with flowers factory-stamped on the upholstery and a small Windsor chair and a wooden rack full of vacation brochures. There was no one behind the desk at first, but Weiss heard the TV playing through an open door back there. He heard ironic cartoon voices speaking.

After a second or two, a kid came out, a boy in his teens or early twenties. He was tall and fit. He was wearing jeans and a button-down striped shirt, untucked. He had a round face, his hair sandy, his skin very pale except where it was splotched with red acne. He had earnest light brown eyes. They went over Weiss, up and down him. They looked wary, uncertain.

"Can I help you?" he said.

Weiss leaned on the counter. "I'm a private detective. You know what that is, right? You've seen that in the movies."

"I never saw it in the movies, but I know what it is," said the kid earnestly.

"You never saw a private detective in the movies?"

"No," said the kid, "but I know what it is."

"All right," said Weiss. "Well, in the movies, there's always a scene where the private detective bribes a hotel clerk to give him some information."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And that's just like this. I'm gonna bribe you, and you're gonna give me some information."

The kid blinked, made a small helpless gesture. "I don't… How does that work? What is that?"

Weiss suppressed an irritated sigh. The trouble was no one made detective movies anymore. Everything was about these space aliens and superheroes. Kids never learned anything about real life.

"What do you mean how does it work?" he said. "It works like I give you some money and you tell me what I want to know."

"Is that honest?"

"Of course it's not honest. That's why they call it a bribe." Idiot kid, he thought. "I'll give you twenty bucks. How's that?"

"Cool," said the kid. So he wasn't a total idiot anyway.

The kid let Weiss come around the desk and look at his computer. They found the charge to Bremer's credit card and then compared the room number to the registration records. The room Bremer had paid for was registered to a woman named Adrienne Chalk. She had a Nevada driver's license and an address in Reno. Weiss wrote the address down on a motel pad.

"You remember this woman?" Weiss asked the kid.

The kid shrugged. "I don't know. There's a lot of guests. I mean, it's a motel. Let me think about it."

The kid thought about it. Weiss, meanwhile, went into his jacket pocket and brought out the photograph he had of Julie Wyant. He showed it to the kid.

The kid looked down at the picture. "Wow. She's hot."

"She might've had different hair when you saw her."

"She would've had to. I would remember that hair."

"Yeah, you would."

The kid shook his head. "I'd remember her anyway, though. She's hot. I've never seen her."

"Okay," said Weiss. So he was wrong. This wasn't where Julie came to see her father. But it was still about Julie somehow. He felt sure of that. He slipped the picture back into his jacket pocket.

"I think I do remember this other woman, though, now I think about it," the kid said after a moment. "The woman who stayed here? This Adrienne Chalk? I think I remember her."

"You don't have to say that. You get your twenty either way."

"No, but it comes back to me. She was, like, older."

"Older than what?"

"Older than me."

"Everyone's older than you. How old was she?"

"Forty? I don't know. She was one of those women who always think people are looking at her."

"Yeah? Was she hot too?"

The kid gave a dull laugh. "She was forty!"

"Right. Stupid question."

"Anyway, she was kind of… you know: cheap, whatever. All dyed hair and tight dresses. Wiggling around like every guy was gonna just, like, fall down for her, you know. It was kind of pathetic."

Weiss was about to ask the kid if he thought the Chalk woman was a hooker, but he didn't. He didn't think the kid would know a hooker from the Virgin Mary.

"Okay," he said, "thanks. Here's your twenty."

"Cool," said the kid. "What did this woman do anyway, cheat on her husband or something?"

"I thought you said you never saw this stuff in the movies," said Weiss. He saluted the kid and went to the door.

As he stepped out into the parking lot, a car went past him. It went out the driveway, onto the four-lane, and turned left, back toward town. Weiss didn't get much of a look at the car, just a glimpse in the glow of the streetlamp above the lot. The car was navy blue, an American make, probably a rental.

Weiss slipped his wallet back into his front pants pocket. He walked toward his Taurus. There were four other cars in the lot now, minus the one that just pulled out. There were still only three rooms with lights on behind the windows.

It took another second for the math to kick in. If there were five cars when he arrived, including the kid's, shouldn't there have been lights on in four windows? There hadn't been-he remembered. There were only lights on in three windows, and there were still lights in three windows now. If one of the guests had just pulled out in that navy blue car, then one of the lights should've gone off. It hadn't.

Weiss walked faster, pulling his car key out as he went. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the car that just left had been driven by the coffee shop waitress or a maid or a janitor-except none of them would've been driving a rental. So maybe it was a guest and he just left the light on in his room.

Maybe. Or maybe the specialist had just made a mistake.

Weiss strode the last few steps to his car quickly and slipped in. The Taurus shot back out of the spot with a squeal of rubber.

He had the gas pedal flattened as he hit the street. He took off down the four-lane in overdrive.