Snowball in Hell - lanyon Josh. Страница 18
room, climbed six steps and veered off into two separate branches.
There was no one at the reception desk. Copper lamps cast mellow light over vases filled with bayberries and holly. Out of date magazines littered tables.
Nathan walked over to the front desk and examined the leather bound register lying there.
The most recently arrived guest was Doris Brown of San Diego.
It crossed his mind briefly that it was possible she'd given him the slip. She had gotten cagey on the train-what if she had hired a car and gone somewhere else? But according to old Mrs. Svensson, there wasn't anywhere else to go-unless she had stayed at the town's only hotel. Doris Brown sounded made up, and Pearl Jarvis was originally from San Diego.
He relaxed for the first time since losing Pearl at the station. She was here. He just needed to find a way to talk to her.
Wandering over to the dining room, he glanced in. A waitress came out of the kitchen and began setting the empty tables; apparently they were done serving nobody for the night and preparing for the next day's non-existent rush.
«Good evening,» a voice said from behind Nathan.
He turned, and there was a thin, pale woman with red hair in a painfully-tight bun. He knew her hair was painfully tight from the pinched look on her face. Or maybe it was her shoes. Or maybe she'd gotten a glimpse of herself in the mirror: the red hair clashed horribly with the purple polka dot dress she wore.
«May I help you?» she asked. «I'm the hotel manageress.»
«Hello,» Nathan said. «I was hoping to find a room.»
«In the dining area?» the woman asked.
«Well, no,» he admitted. He gave her his best smile, but she wasn't having any.
«Do you have reservation?» she inquired.
Since she would almost certainly know if he did, this seemed unnecessary, but perhaps she was short on amusement up here in the snowless mountains.
«I made this trip on impulse,» he said.
«You must have. You don't appear to have any luggage.»
«There was a mix-up at Union Station.»
«I see.» She smiled a frigid smile that indicated she saw only too well. «If you'll just follow me.»
She turned smartly on heel, and goose-stepped back to the lobby, Nathan trailing.
Planting herself behind the garland-decked desk, she examined the key rack behind her, glanced through the register, peered out at the dark night. If a nail file had been present, she'd have probably done her nails. At last she seemed to recollect Nathan.
«May I ask how long you on staying? Or will that depend on impulse as well?»
Nathan wondered if the dearth of hotel guests was totally due to the war.
«Just overnight.»
She nodded as though she sincerely doubted it, but pushed the register towards him.
Nathan signed his name.
«I see Doris has already arrived,» he said with pleasure. «What room is she in?»
Her eyes rested on him for a long moment. «I'll let the young lady know you've asked after her.»
«Ah,» said Nathan. «Of course.»
«I'll see you to your room,» the manageress said, in the tone of one planning to lock him in for the night.
«I hate to trouble you,» Nathan began.
«No trouble,» she said, not bothering to try and make it convincing. She took a key from the rack behind her.
She escorted Nathan upstairs to a pretty little room with pink flowered wallpaper and two big windows frothed in dotted Swiss. There was a double bed, two white chests of drawers, a little table, and a white rocker with pink satin pillows.
«You share a bath with room number seven. However, there is no guest in room number seven tonight.»
«Ah,» said Nathan.
The key was handed over with the air of one who had serious misgivings, and the manageress departed with the news that someone would eventually be up to make the bed.
Nathan moved to the nearest window. His room was in the center of the hotel. Two dark, apparently uninhabited wings stretched away to the left and right. The night was cold and crisp and clear. A gray Plymouth sat idling under the porte-cochere, exhaust smoking in the frosty air.
There was a knock on the door and the waitress from the dining room entered to make the bed, which she did quickly.
«Not many guests, I suppose,» Nathan remarked.
«It's shaping up all right,» she said cheerfully. «We just got two more in for the night. Decided they couldn't drive all the way to Santa Rosa tonight.»
Santa Rosa by way of Indian Falls? That was a new one for the mapmakers.
«I forgot to ask downstairs, you don't happen to know which room Doris is in, do you?»
«The blonde lady who arrived this evening?»
«That's right.»
«Number fourteen. Right down the hall.»
Nathan tipped her and she went out.
He waited a few minutes, poked his head out of his room and made certain the coast was clear. He stepped out into the hall and walked quietly down to number fourteen. The light shone beneath the door. He put his ear against the white wood and listened. Floorboards creaked beneath soft footsteps. Doris/Pearl appeared to be pacing the floor.
He considered trying to talk to her again, but decided to postpone it for now. She appeared to be unsettled, and he already knew she was wary of him. He would have a better chance if she ran into him casually downstairs. And if that didn't work, he'd just have to risk knocking on her bedroom door. Not that Pearl struck him as a girl unused to gentlemen knocking on her boudoir door.
Nathan went downstairs to the bar. There were three empty high-backed booths, a row of tiny tables with checked cloths in front of a long built-in-and also empty-wooden bench, and a bar angled across the rear corner of the room. A boy too young to drink stood behind it.
Nathan perched himself at the bar, studied the wall of bottles in front of him, and ordered the VAT 69.
«Quiet around here,» he remarked.
«No snow,» the kid said, which was a refreshing take.
Nathan drank his drink and waited. No one showed up. He ordered another. He thought how strange it was to be sitting here in warmth and light sipping a liqueur-blended Scotch whisky-one of his favorite Scotch whiskies at that-while on the other side of the world men were dying by the droves.
«I should probably be closing up,» the kid said.
Nathan studied him. In about a year he'd be old enough to draft. «One more for the road?»
The kid nodded, poured him another drink.
Nathan sipped reflectively. He didn't think Pearl Jarvis was the kind of girl who would be very happy sitting by herself in her room all evening, but maybe she was worn out from her trip.
He wondered if Spain would drive up himself, and how long it might take him-assuming he started right away. No more than six hours surely?
Abruptly, Nathan was tired. Why not leave it to Spain? He could go up to his room and grab forty winks-which was about all he could sleep these days.
He paid for his drinks, started to rise, and then sat back down as two men entered the taproom. He saw the kid open his mouth to protest, and then give it up. He understood why.
They looked like Tinseltown's idea of hoods-or comic relief. One was bald and burly. The other looked sort of like Harpo Marx, blunt featured with lots of light, fuzzy hair. They
sat down at one of the high-backed booths. Nathan caught the eye of the bald-headed man. Nathan nodded politely. The man nodded back.
He seemed vaguely familiar to Nathan. He studied the pair a longer moment; neither man paid any further attention to him, and yet … the hair prickled at the back of his neck; a feeling that had saved his skin more than once.
The youthful bartender went over to take their drink orders, and Nathan nodded goodnight to him, and went upstairs, conscious of two pairs of unfriendly eyes pinned to his shoulder blades.