The Extinct

CHAPTER
26

The hotel room smelled of rotten garbage and sweat. Eric had told the cleaning women he didn’t like them in his room when he wasn’t there and they’d eventually just stopped coming. A stack of what was left of his cash was out on the coffee table and empty bottles of various liquors and beers covered the floor. The temperature had risen in the past few months to the balmy heat of summer and the balcony door was always open. Eric lay in bed wearing boxer shorts, a thin sheen of sweat covering his body. It was difficult to get cool; the hotel kept the air-conditioning to a minimum.

He’d gotten word on Ray and Dak from a local American boy who knew Ray. Ray survived the gunshot wound and was extradited to the States for a murder charge he had pending there. He was facing the death penalty, as was Dak here. Police were searching for a third, unidentified assailant.

Eric rose out of bed and went out onto the balcony. It was morning and the sky was full of white clouds mixed with smog and airplanes carrying the next fresh batch of tourists into the city. There was a new casino downtown and he could see the massive building from here, but he’d never been there. The last time he left the room was a month ago and even that was only because the front desk required him to put the room in his name and to see identification.

Lily lay nude in the bed, asleep. Last night she’d had the smell of orange blossoms from her bodywash and a new manicure, her nails red and glossy. Eric thought she was beautiful when he’d first met her, but over the months she’d grown haggard. Her skin was marked with blemishes and acne. Her once soft, wet lips were now always dry and cracked. Eric never asked her about it, he didn’t really care that much anymore. Besides, he had no right to say anything. He’d lost more than forty pounds of hard earned muscle and was left with a sagging, pale body. His eyes had sunken in with dark circles and his hair was long and had the appearance of being greasy to the touch.

Thoughts of suicide were always in his head. They came mostly at night when he’d be trying to go to sleep and they drove him to anger. It was as if he didn’t have control over them, like his thoughts were telling him what to do. His will was wearing away. The truth was, he was in complete apathy. The hotel room was a place to stay, but he wouldn’t have cared if he’d been thrown out on the street. He didn’t care if Lily was there or not. He didn’t care whether he was alive or not.

He went inside and sat on the couch, taking up a used needle and spoon to start cooking, when he heard a knock on the door. He ignored it but they knocked again, this time louder. Slowly, he rose and answered it.

A woman stood in the doorway. She was slender and black, sapphire eyes incased in a thin face. Her hair was straight and came to her shoulders, only accentuating the beauty of her face. A man stood behind her with shining green eyes and a slight smile on his lips. He was dressed in canvas shorts and a vest. “What do you want?” Eric mumbled. “You don’t remember me, boy?” the man said. “Thomas Keets, we met at your father’s funeral.” Eric nodded, unsure if he fully remembered him. “What do you want?”

Thomas took a step forward and the woman stepped aside. Thomas looked Eric up and down, a hidden contempt and sympathy showing in his eyes. “May we come in?”

Eric looked from one to the other and then left the door open and walked back to the couch. He didn’t even hesitate before starting to cook again. Thomas sat down across from him in a high-backed chair and the woman walked to the balcony and stood outside.

“That’s Jalani,” Thomas said, taking a pipe out of his breast pocket and putting it between his lips though he didn’t light it. “She helps me on my hunts and tours. I found her when she was young in Africa. Her parents were killed by a rival tribe and she escaped and lived on the plains.” “How’d you find me?” “Your mother. She said you haven’t called her in over two months and she’s worried.” “I told her not to tell anyone where I am.” “As I said, she’s worried.” “Why’d she call you?”

Thomas crossed his legs and looked out the sliding glass doors at the sky. With the pipe in between his lips and his eyes turned upward, Eric thought he looked like a sitting Buddha in contemplation.

“I knew your mother before your father. That’s how I and your father met actually, though, that’s a story for another time.”

Eric filled the hypodermic and stuck it in between his toes on his right foot. The drug warmed him, but, something he’d realized only recently, brought him no pleasure. It didn’t make him happy in any way but he couldn’t go more than a handful of hours without it. “What do you want?”

Thomas took the pipe out of his mouth and held it in his hand. “The truth of it is boy that I owe your father a life, and I intend to pay him back by saving yours.”

Eric chuckled softly as he fell back on the couch, warm and content. “I don’t need saving.”

“Oh? Pardon me, but I beg to differ. I’ve seen men where you are and they don’t last very long.” They watched each other and Thomas rose to his feet and walked toward the balcony, looking over the city through the open sliding glass door. He leaned against the wall with one hand and put the pipe back into his mouth. “I came to this city once before you were even born. It’s far different now; crueler. Perhaps that’s just what happens when large masses of people live together.” He turned toward Eric. “We are a malicious species boy, and I don’t normally care for us outside of those close to me, but I repay my debts.”

Jalani walked in and Eric got a good look at her. Everything about her permeated sensuality, from the way she crossed her feet in a relaxed stance, to the smell of jasmine emanating from her wrists and neck. She stared at Eric with a detached curiosity. Then, abruptly, she walked out of the hotel room. Thomas sat back down and filled his pipe with tobacco from a small cherry wood carrying case he kept in his pocket. He lit it with a silver lighter and the sweet smell of tobacco filled the air.

Eric was nodding off, his head bobbing painfully slow up and down in an effort to stay awake. He didn’t notice when Jalani walked back in carrying a length of chain and cuffs and threw Lily out of the room.

Thomas and Jalani picked Eric up and he only nominally protested.

They lay him down on the bed and shackled his right wrist and then ran the chain around the bed, locking the two ends together with a padlock. Thomas tore the phone line from the wall, tearing apart the wires and rendering them useless.

They walked out of the room together, neither looking back.