Domino (21 page)

Clarissa screamed and shook with revulsion as
she continued to scratch and claw at them long after the roaches
had scattered under the baseboards and behind the sink. She backed
into the bedroom, unable to rid her head and arms of the awful
skin-crawling feeling. All she could do was sit on the edge of the
bed, her arms folded tightly around her and rock back and forth
until she could stop shaking and crying.

She had to get out of here. The tiny room was
suffocating, closing in on her. She slapped madly at a lock of hair
brushing her cheek and the loathing of the bugs made her skin
tighten with renewed repulsion. Somewhere in this God forsaken hell
hole there had to be a cell phone to beg Virginia for the purse and
jewels. There had to be a way to reach Hugo, someone,
anyone.

The closeness of the small room was suddenly
oppressive. The restless urge forced her to her feet. She threw
open the door and stepped into the hallway. The room directly
across the hallway again was ajar and closed softly as Clarissa
passed.

"Rowland?" she called as she banged loudly on
the old man's door. "Rowland, it's Miss Dugan."

There was no answer. Clarissa sagged against
his door in disappointment. There was no question of spending one
more night in this roach motel. Clarissa simply could not. She
watched as the patch of sunlight on the hall carpet from her open
door suddenly faded and her hopes faded with it. Another storm was
due, more clouds and rain, a means of escape cut off once again.
The darkened hallway felt stifling and close and Clarissa needed to
be where there was light and fresh air. The shelter was beginning
to feel like a trap rather than a haven. She found herself looking
forward to her one meal a day with Rowland. It got her outside into
the real world with real people that seemed a lot less hostile than
it had two days ago.

Her mad flight from Morgan and Marco seemed to
be fading into a gray unreality. She no longer felt so afraid. Her
thoughts had turned to getting out of this hole, to getting back
into life again. Even the idea of running to Andrew was losing its
appeal. As she slept more and her strength began to return, her
confidence was not so fragile and her reserve not so
weak.

She knew that she could never stand up to
Morgan or survive a confrontation. He wanted her dead. There was no
compromise, no deal to be made. What she was, was a prime witness
in a murder that could not be proven. Morgan was too clean, too
thorough. He had to be, Clarissa reasoned, too well connected with
some organized crime to be touched. It would do her no good to walk
into a police station and tell them what she had seen. They could
offer her no protection. No crime against her had been committed.
She had no proof. All she would be doing would be coming out into
the open, vulnerable and powerless, making it easier for Morgan to
eliminate this current aggravation.

The only way to stay alive was to not let him
find her. Bury herself as deep as she could until she could find
someone who could help her. Somewhere, Morgan Wolfe had to have
enemies and Clarissa had to find one powerful enough to help her.
Where or how she would begin to search depended on Virginia Essex
or possibly Hugo. Clarissa needed money to stay one step ahead of
Wolfe. Right now, few cents for the antiquated pay phone in the
lobby was an almost unreachable dream.

Clarissa was half way down the stairwell when
a drunk came staggering and swaying his way up, bouncing off the
wall and the banister in his effort to make the climb. He was a
young man, lean and tall. He wore an old sleeveless denim jacket,
torn jeans, care worn motorcycle boots, and black, fingerless
gloves. A blue baseball cap was pulled down low over his brow.
Wisps of dirty blond hair escaped from the cap and his face, what
could be seen of it, was dark with grime and day old
beard.

He seemed not to notice Clarissa standing at
the top of the flight of stairs, but continued slowly toward her in
a plodding, unbalanced struggle for each riser. Clarissa watched
him with an unexplained fear intensifying with each of the drunk's
faltering steps. She back away to give him room, pressing herself
against the wall, clutching the banister. There was something about
the man, the way he moved despite the stagger that unnerved her.
She could not take her eyes off of him even though he had made no
eye contact with her. She could not see his face under the visor of
the cap yet she felt a menacing presence about the man.

He jostled into her and she nearly fell. She
grasped the banister with both hands and the odor emanating from
his filthy clothes and rancid breath made her gag.

"Get away," she said as she managed to push
him away from her and duck under his arms as he made a grab for her
in an effort to steady himself. "Keep away from me."

The drunk never looked at her or acknowledged
that he had even known she was there. He carefully negotiated the
rest of the way up the stairs and disappeared into the second floor
hallway.

The hotel lobby was deserted. Dusty sat behind
the wire enclosed reception desk, one gnarled hand propped up his
chin as he read the newspaper. He looked up briefly as Clarissa
waltzed past toward the door.

"Gettin' cloudy again," he told her. "Gonna
get rain according to the paper. Thunderstorm weather."

Clarissa stood at the glass door and watched
the long finger of a gray rain cloud stretch across the blue sky.
Suddenly, she crossed to Dusty and entwined her fingers in the wire
mesh.

"Dusty," she said and her intensity startled
him. "Do you have any change? I need to make a phone
call."

"Sorry," he said simply and went back to his
paper.

"It's an emergency," she went on, and the wire
mesh wavered in her grasp.

"You can call 911 for free," he eyed her over
the newspaper, "if it's an emergency."

"I need to call my friend. The one that
brought me here. Virginia Essex. You know her. She was supposed to
bring my purse. It has my money in it. I'll pay you back. I just
need to call her. Please."

"Sorry."

"Look, I need to get out of here. It's just a
lousy quarter. Please. I'll give you ten dollars for the damn money
when she brings my purse. Please." Dusty shook his head and never
looked up from the paper. "You have a phone in your office. I heard
it ring the other night. Would you call Virginia for me? It's a
local call. It won't cost you anything. Ask her to bring my purse.
Please, Dusty."

"Pay phone is on the wall," Dusty drawled.
"Takes quarters."

“What about a cell phone? Does anybody in here
have a cell phone I can borrow?”

Dusty looked up over his hawk-like nose.
“People here can’t afford no cell phone. What do think this is? The
Ritz?”

Clarissa slapped the wire mesh in frustration.
Already the lobby was darkening with the gathering
clouds.

"Did Doc Rowland go out?" she
asked.

"Goes every Monday morning," Dusty replied.
"Visits his boyhood friend in a nursing home over on Alvarado
Street. He's usually back late, around seven or eight
o'clock."

"If you see him come in will you tell him I
need to talk to him?"

"Will there be anything else, Miss Dugan?" he
asked with a bit of sarcasm in his voice.

"Will you make that call for me?" Clarissa was
exasperated and near tears. "Just ask Virginia to bring my
purse."

"Sorry, Miss Dugan," he told her. "Company
policy."

"Please help me."

"It's my lunch break," he said as he folded
the paper. Clarissa hung for a long moment on the wire mesh as
Dusty went back into his office and closed the door.

"Fine, rot in hell then, you old
buzzard."

Her head pounded with a sudden headache and
she wanted an aspirin. There was a metal first aid box in her
bathroom and all she wanted to do at this moment was to lay down,
close her eyes, and make the pain go away. Reluctantly, she turned
toward the stairs.

The young man stood on the bottom step staring
at her. He was no more than a teenager, fifteen or sixteen. He was
bone thin under the black t-shirt with a faded rock group logo
splashed across the front, and jeans torn at the knees. Stringy
brown hair covered his ruddy, thin face down to his shoulders and
his narrow, hollow eyes fixed on Clarissa in an unfriendly glare.
He twisted a length of rope absently in his hands.

There was no way Clarissa could get up the
stairs without somehow getting past him. He was not moving. The
rope continued to snake and curl as he wrapped it around his fists
and snapped it taut.

"What do you want?" Clarissa asked nervously,
looking back at Dusty's deserted cage.

The boy remained stoic and rigid except for
his ever twisting hands. Clarissa looked around at the empty lobby,
hoping that someone would come through the front door.

"Who are you?" Clarissa tried again. "What the
hell do you want? I'm not afraid of you."

She took a couple of halting steps toward him.
The rope stopped twisting and fell limp from one hand.

"Forget robbing me. I haven't got a damned
dime. All I got is a major league headache. I need to get up to my
room."

He took a step toward her, the stoic
expressing never changing, his ice blue eyes intensely staring. She
stepped back, frightened. The boy dropped lightly off of the stair,
never taking his eyes from Clarissa. He moved to the left of the
stairs into the hallway and waited, his eyes drifting up toward the
ceiling.

Clarissa took the opportunity and bolted. She
ran up the two flights of stairs and down the third floor hallway,
her breath coming in ragged gasps. She slammed shut the door to her
tiny cell and slumped to the floor with her back up against the
door. Somehow, she had to get out of this hole.

Light shuffling footsteps in the hallway
passed and then paused. Clarissa heard them and listened to see if
they would stop at her door or continue down to Rowland's room.
There was a tapping on her door and her heart raced.

"Rowland?" she whispered. "Rowland, is that
you?"

She prayed that Rowland had come home early as
she flung open the door. Her disappointment was reflected in the
dismay on the teenage boy's face. He held an old camera around his
neck and he looked quizzically at her.

"I don't want my picture taken right now," she
snapped at him. "Please, go away."

The boy held out a torn magazine cover. It was
an old Harper's cover Clarissa had done almost four years ago. The
boy lifted his camera and silently indicated the cover. His eyes
were wide and vividly blue as he tried to smile.

"I have to go out now," Clarissa told him. "I
can't..."

The boy' eyes fell, but when he looked up at
her again, his gaze was shy and no longer the frightening stare it
had been at the bottom of the stairs. He shrugged his shoulders and
shoved the cover at her. When she didn't understand, he made a
motion of writing.

"An autograph? I...don't have anything to
write with. Why don't you come back later? I'll sign it then. I
promise."

The boy nodded that he understood. Clarissa
did not intend to keep that promise. When the boy was out of sight,
she retied the black scarf around her head, securing it with a knot
at the nape of her neck, buttoned up the wool work shirt, and
started down the stairs. She'd had quite enough of the Hempstead
Hotel. She was through depending on Virginia Essex. Clarissa was
restless and needed to move. The walls were beginning to close in
on her. She could feel a lurking peril that set her nerves on edge.
It was time to put a little more distance between her and Morgan
Wolfe and all she needed was another plan.

Eating with Doc Rowland at the church's
charity kitchen had given her an idea. The old neighborhood in east
Hollywood where she had lived until she had run away at age fifteen
was due north of the Hempstead, a little more than a twenty minute
walk. St. Hector's Girl's School was just a block or two farther
north. The school office or the convent on the hill behind the
school would have a phone. She intended to call Hugo's roommate and
get the new number for the salon in La Jolla and ask Hugo to come
for her. And when she got her purse back from Virginia, she would
make a generous donation to the good sisters of St.
Hector's.

The sun had broken through the clouds, leaving
patches of azure blue among the white fleece. The air smelled crisp
and clean. The westerly breeze foretold of another storm front off
the coast, but for the time being the sun felt like a golden tonic
that lifted Clarissa's spirits higher than at any time since she
had been on the run. There was a lightness in her step as she
crossed the Hempstead's faded lobby. She smiled at a Mexican woman
in a purple shawl sitting on the worn sofa, and even waved to
Dusty, who gave her a cursory grunt from behind his racing
form.

"Good riddance, you selfish old fart," she
thought to herself. "I don't need you either."

Marco lowered the window a couple of inches
and let the cool outside air into the black Cadillac. He sipped on
the hot coffee in the Starbuck’s cup and sat back in the plush
driver's seat.