Scavenger hunt

Chapter 17

"Twenty-eight bucks for a room; same rate for an hour or for a night." The man in the wheelchair didn't even look at Jimmy, his attention on the television.

Jimmy rapped on the thick glass that separated them. "I don't want a room."

The man in the wheelchair glanced over at him, then went back to the TV. Paperback books were haphazardly stacked on the counter of the tiny office, next to an open liter bottle of Evian. A cigarette smoldered in an ashtray shaped like a tiny tire, smoke wafting through the air like nicotine incense.

"I called you a couple days ago. I asked you about a… guest you might have had."

"A guest?" The man in the wheelchair cackled, then choked, spit into a wastebasket. "I remember you now."

"Harlen Shafer." Jimmy slid the photo of Shafer through the security slot of the window.

The man in the wheelchair made no move to retrieve it. "Pleased to meet you, I'm Christopher Reeve."

Jimmy looked around the tiny lobby of the Starlight Arms Motel, the orange carpet stiff with years of street grime, pintoed with undetermined stains. Fly-specked publicity photos of dead movie stars were taped next to the door. The wall next to the pay phone was dotted with tacked-up business cards, most of them dog-eared and greasy: cards for bail bondsmen, taxi companies, escort services, take-out Chinese food and pizza, drug and alcohol counseling services.

"You're blocking my doorway," said the man in the wheelchair, eyes on the television. He was probably in his forties, thin-faced, his hair shot with gray, pulled back into a ponytail, his legs lost in desert-pattern surplus cammies. He was oddly dapper in a white shirt and clip-on tie, but his upper body was caving in on itself, the tie falling to one side. His hands were in half-gloves, his fingers wiggling. "Take a hike. You're killing my walk-in trade."

Jimmy shifted closer to the window, curious to know what the man was watching. The small color set showed a man standing at a podium with a screen behind him showing an operation in throbbing pinks and reds. Jimmy took a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and pressed it against the glass. "Twenty bucks for an honest answer." No response. "Would bumping it up to fifty make a difference?"

The man in the wheelchair kept watching the TV, his fingers stitching along with the surgeon on screen. "What do you want with him?"

"Is he here?"

The man in the wheelchair looked over at Jimmy. "Are you Harlen's supplier?"

Jimmy shook his head.

"Harlen peddled painkillers and other pharmaceuticals. Real sweet stuff too. He wasn't averse to passing out samples once in a while. How about you? You feeling generous?"

"I can't help you."

The man in the wheelchair scooted over to the glass. "That's good, mister, because they don't make dope that helps what ails me. I just wanted to make sure you weren't coming by to collect from him."

"So he skipped out?"

The man in the wheelchair picked up the photograph Jimmy had left on the counter, smiled at the mug shot. "That's right, Harlen is no longer a guest." He grinned at Jimmy. His teeth were too big for his emaciated face. "What do you really want with him?"

"A man named Garrett Walsh made at least five phone calls to your office in the last couple of months. He probably left messages for Shafer. The two of them were in prison together." Jimmy glanced around the shabby office and checked the street. "I'm sure you remember the calls. Short-term place like this, no luggage required- anyone staying for weeks at a time would have to feel comfortable here."

The man in the wheelchair started coughing, arched a gob of phlegm into the wastebasket, and shook a cigarette out of the pack on the counter. He narrowed his eyes at Jimmy as he lit up, taking shallow drags.

"I'm not looking to hurt Shafer. I just want to talk with him." Jimmy slid his business card through the slot in the window. Added fifty dollars. "Have him call me. There's another hundred in it for you. A hundred in it for him too, just for calling."

"Well, well-I always wanted to meet a fool with some money." The man in the wheelchair sank deeper into his chair, ashes tumbling past the buttons of his white shirt. He picked up the card. Left the money.

"Garrett Walsh was murdered a few weeks ago. I think Shafer was the last person to see him alive."

"Harlen didn't kill him."

"I didn't say he did."

"Harlen was no saint, but there is no violence in him. Anyone who says different is a liar."

"Walsh and Harlen were buddies: yard buddies, drinking buddies-dope bodies. Walsh kept things close, but if he talked to anyone, he would have talked to Harlen. I'd like to ask him what got said, that's all."

The man in the wheelchair swiveled back to face the television, his eyes on the medical channel again. "Most of the street trash walk through that door, it's 'Hey, Ironsides?' or 'Yo, wheels?' Harlen-the very first time he came in, he asked me for my name. Never used anything else afterward, either."

Jimmy felt himself flush.

"Amazing how many John Does and John Smiths and Johnny Wadds there are in the world," mused the man in the wheelchair, "and all of them checking into my motel. The ones who truly piss me off, I stick in room number five." He smiled to himself. "I gave Harlen room seventeen. Peaceful, and the hot water never runs out. He stayed almost three months. I gave him a rate, but I never had to remind him to pay his bill. Always paid cash." He remained focused on the television, his fingers deftly mirroring the surgeon's movements onscreen. "I had an accident one time-problem with my personal plumbing. Harlen helped me out and acted like it was no big deal. He said he had seen worse. I guess he had. Harlen. He was the only one I ever took messages for. I did take a few from this Garrett Walsh. Harlen was proud that they were friends, told me he was some famous movie director. Me, I never heard of the man before."

"Do you have any idea where he is now?"

"He left a few weeks ago, just cleaned out his room and disappeared. Had two more days on his prepaid too." The man in the wheelchair stared at the TV. "He didn't even say good-bye. That's why I thought you were his drug supplier come to collect. I thought maybe that's why he skipped out so sudden like."

"Walsh was worried that someone was going to kill him. Harlen may have seen something. I just need to talk to him."

The man in the wheelchair kept watching television-it looked like he was knitting. "We have pay TV in the rooms. All kinds of channels, all kind of options: gay, straight, tranny, rough, lesbo, fetish, B amp;D, and you'd be surprised at the choices some people make. You'd never guess to look at them. I study these things. Psychology is a hobby of mine." He glanced at Jimmy. "Glad you didn't laugh." He went back to the television. "Harlen. His taste in movies ran to Anal Fever, Anal Coeds, Bend Over Baby. Always the same. No variety whatsoever." He nodded to himself.

"Harlen-was he still driving a white Camaro?"

The man in the wheelchair nodded. "He loved that car."

"You said Harlen took off suddenly. I'd like to talk to whoever cleaned up the room afterward."

The man in the wheelchair picked up the cigarette from the ashtray and took a tentative puff. "Her name is Serena. Room eighteen." He put the cigarette down as though it might explode. "If you find Harlen-when you find Harlen-tell him to stop by sometime and say hello."

Jimmy started to leave, stopped. "What's your name?"

The man in the wheelchair turned back to the television. "Too late for that now."

Room 18 was right beside Shafer's old room 17, both of them set back from the street, a short walk from the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour liquor store but away from the street noise. Jimmy knocked, waited, then knocked again.

A woman's voice called out, muffled by sleep.

Jimmy knocked again, and the door finally opened, a woman peeking out through the security chain. "Serena? The manager said I could talk to you for a few minutes, if it's all right with you."

Serena rubbed at her eyes with her fists, a chubby woman in an extralarge Mickey Mouse T-shirt. "I don't do that oral thing-I'm Catholic. And the intercourse thing, that's out too, because my husband may come back, no matter what Ronald says, and I don't want to have to lie to him." She yawned. "So if that's what you're interested in, there are plenty of ladies on Sunset who will help you."

"That's not-"

"I will pleasure you with my hand for ten dollars," said Serena, yawning again. "That is not a sin. Not a sin for me, " she corrected herself. "For you, it is a sin, but that is between you and God."

"How about twenty dollars just to answer a few questions?"

Serena stared at Jimmy, confused, her round face bisected by the security chain. "I don't do that dirty talk thing either."

"I just want to ask about Harlen Shafer. The manager said you cleaned out his room when he moved out."

A ripple of awareness crossed Serena's placid face. She fumbled with the chain and opened the door, shuffling toward the rumpled bed, her squishy hams jiggling as she walked.

Jimmy entered the room cautiously, checking the corners before stepping into the twilight of the single room. Brightly colored dresses hung neatly in the open closet, shoes lined up below. The television was in a cage of steel, bolted to the dresser, a 3-D postcard of Christ on the cross taped on the wall over the set. A large Styrofoam cooler sat on the floor beside a round table, a bag of mangos beside it. In the corner the wall air-conditioner rattled away, not making much progress against the heat and humidity. The room smelled of orange blossom perfume and overripe bananas.

Serena opened the nightstand drawer beside the bed and took something out, then closed it. "This is what Mr. Harlen sent you for," she said, approaching him with a Gideon Bible in her hand. "You tell him I touch nothing. I do not steal."

Jimmy stared at the Bible.

Serena rubbed her fingers together.

Jimmy handed over the money and took the Bible from her. He opened it up and saw that a compartment had been cut out of the pages, the space filled with four quarter-ounce Baggies of pot, assorted vials of pills, and a large Baggie filled with a sparkling white powder-crank or coke, it didn't matter.

"You tell Mr. Harlen Shafer that I do not approve of cutting up the word of God," chastised Serena. "You go now."

Jimmy closed the Bible. "Serena, Harlen Shafer didn't send me. I'm trying to find him."

Serena shook her head. "You asked me if I cleaned the room."

"No, I was hoping…" Jimmy checked the Bible again, closed it. Shafer might have been in a hurry when he left, but no way a dealer leaves his goods behind. "This was all you found in the room?"

"Only that." Serena nodded. "When I clean, I always make sure that the Bible is in the top drawer of the left-side nightstand." She yawned, and Mickey Mouse on her T-shirt seemed to yawn too. "That way you reach for the Word with your right hand."

Jimmy nodded. It made as much sense as anything else. "Room seventeen is right next door. did you hear anything when he left?"

"The walls, they are thin," said Serena. "It was very late, but the walls are thin."

"Did you see him?"

Serena sat down on the edge of the bed as though the conversation was exhausting. "I heard noises in Mr. Harlen's room, clothes being pulled off hangers, very fast, and a glass breaking in the bathroom."

"Did you see him?"

"Why so many foolish questions? I am sleepy."

"Please?"

Serena shrugged. "I heard noises in his room and footsteps past my window toward the parking lot. Who else could it have been?"

Jimmy fingered the Bible as though the answers were in there. In a way they were. Harlen Shafer hadn't cleaned out his place and left his stash; somebody else had emptied his room. Somebody who didn't know about what was hidden in the Good Book. "Thanks for your help. I appreciate it."

"You are taking the Bible?" asked Serena, as Jimmy turned toward the door. "What do I do if Mr. Harlen comes back for his drugs?"

"Harlen Shafer isn't coming back."

"I do not want Mr. Harlen to think I am a thief."

"Shafer isn't coming back." Jimmy fumbled in his wallet and handed her his business card. "If anyone comes around asking about him, tell them to call me." Serena was still staring at the business card as Jimmy closed the door behind him.