The Night Parade (3 page)

A
fter some careful deliberation, he decided to stop at a roadside motel for the night. Prior to this, he had considered parking behind a billboard off the main highway or something like that, catching some z's behind the wheel of the Olds like he'd done in his old road-tripping days during breaks from college, but he thought there would be time for that soon enough. Moreover, sleeping in the car would only prompt additional questions from Ellie, questions he wasn't yet prepared to answer. He was amazed she'd been so compliant thus far, but he wasn't willing to push his luck. Besides, he could use a hot shower. In fact, that sounded like heaven to him.

It was one of those motor lodges where all the rooms had doors that opened onto the parking lot. He counted only two other vehicles in the front lot and, after driving around the building, two more in the rear. He told Ellie to wait in the car while he went in and got them a room.

The lobby was dressed in outdated wallpaper and threadbare aquamarine carpeting. The lights in the ceiling seemed impossibly bright and were orbited by a cloud of gnats. The guy behind the counter, grizzled and rheumy-eyed, looked no more lifelike than the half-dozen taxidermy animals adorning the wooden shelves behind him. Pressing a handkerchief to his mouth, he looked up as David approached.

“I'd like a room please,” David said to the fellow.

“Last name?” the guy asked through the handkerchief, swiveling on a stool so that he could tap out a few keys on an old PC.

“Arlen.” It was out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying. Just like back at the gas station with the credit card. How long did he really expect to last being this careless?

“Ireland?” the old man said.

David went with it. “Yes.”

The man tapped a few more keys on the computer.

David wasn't sure if it was possible to get a room anymore without a credit card or an ID, but he took his chances. “My cards are all maxed out,” he said. “Do you take cash?”

“It's still legal tender, ain't it?” said the old-timer. Then something akin to suspicion glinted in his reptilian eyes, and he made no attempt at subtlety when he leaned forward and peered out the glass door toward the parking lot. He kept the handkerchief firmly in place against his mouth and nose. “It's just you?” the man said.

“Just me.”

“No lady friend with you?”

“No, sir.”

“'Cause this ain't no brothel. Won't put up with no hanky-panky. Just 'cause the world's goin' to shit don't mean I surrender my morals. You catch what I'm saying?”

“Of course. It's just me. No worries.”

Apparently contented, the old man retracted back behind the counter and completed the transaction. Blessedly, he did not ask to see David's ID. David forked over sixty bucks for the room and another hundred for a security deposit since he wasn't using a credit card.

“Kinda steep for a security deposit,” David said.

“What's it to you, so long as you don't burn the place down,” said the old man through his handkerchief.

David handed over the money. First night on the road and he'd already made a sizable dent in their meager account.

The man gave him a plastic key card with the number 118 printed on it in permanent marker. Back in the parking lot, David drove around to the rear of the motel and parked right outside the door to their room. Ellie was still wide awake in the backseat, glaring at him.

“Come on,” he told her, leaving the car running as he got out. “I'll let you in, then I'm going to park the car somewhere else.”

“Why?”

“Because this place looks shady and I don't want someone breaking in to the car,” he lied.

“It isn't ours, anyway,” she said as she climbed out of the Oldsmobile's backseat.

He was quick opening the motel room door and ushering Ellie inside. Glancing around, he took inventory: a single twin-size bed with a paisley coverlet; a wooden dresser on which sat an old tubed television set plugged in to a digital converter; a closet whose door stood open to reveal a horizontal wooden post from which a few metal coat hangers hung; brownish water stains on the ceiling and walls; a telephone and an alarm clock atop a gouge-ridden nightstand. There was a single window beside the front door, the drapes already pulled closed. David went to a lamp on a rickety-looking table, switched it on, then went back to the door, leaving Ellie to stand in the middle of the room, looking around in silence.

“I'll be right back,” he told her.

She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the TV. In her lap was the cardboard shoe box with the Nike logo on its lid. Over the past several weeks the shoe box—or, rather, the items
inside
the shoe box—had become something of a security blanket for the girl.

Outside, David got back in the car and parked it behind two enormous Dumpsters at the far corner of the lot. From the trunk, he gathered up his duffel bag, as well as the small pink suitcase he'd packed with clothes for Ellie, along with some board games to keep her occupied. The only item that actually belonged to Ellie was the stuffed elephant, and he had that now only because Ellie had given it to Kathy. It had been Ellie's favorite toy when she was no more than two, a gray plush pachyderm she'd named, in her pragmatic way, simply Elephant. He debated whether or not he should leave in it the trunk—his fear was that it might spark more questions about Kathy if he brought it into the motel—but in the end he shoved that into the duffel bag, as well.

Back in the room, he set the bags down on the bed, then stretched so that the tendons in his back popped. Ellie hadn't moved from her perch at the edge of the bed, her eyes still glued to the television set that she hadn't turned on. She was gripping the shoe box so tightly that her fingertips were white.

“You can watch something, if you want,” he told her.

“The TV looks funny,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look at it.”

“It's just old.”

“Why's it so big?”

“This is how TVs looked before they were flat.”

“Does it work the same?”

“Sure.” He found the remote Velcro'd to the top of the set. “Here,” he said, switching it on. The TV hummed, crackled, then came to life with a bleary image. Some sitcom with canned laughter. The color looked a bit off, the actors' skin a sour yellow.

He handed the remote to Ellie—he had to pry one hand away from the shoe box and shove the remote into it—then opened the pink suitcase. He snatched up the gun and ammo that were buried inside and quickly tucked them into his own duffel bag, then proceeded to empty some of the contents of the suitcase onto the bed. An old Chutes and Ladders game, some Harry Potter and Shel Silverstein books, a drawing set with colored pencils and graph paper. They weren't Ellie's belongings, but they would suffice. He took out a pair of pink pajamas, suddenly wondering if they would fit the girl. What the hell, it didn't matter. This wasn't a fashion show.

“The clicker doesn't work,” she said, examining the TV remote, which she clutched in one reddened hand. David noticed that her fingernails had been gnawed down to nubs.

“Maybe the batteries are dead. You can change it manually.”

“What does that mean?”

“You can . . .” he began, then leaned forward and punched one of the channel buttons on the front of the set several times. The image on the screen bounced from sitcom to news program to QVC to a tampon commercial. “See?”

“Oh.”

“There's some pajamas for you.” He nodded toward the bed, where he'd laid them out. “Why don't you go into the bathroom, wash up, and change?”

She peered at the folded pink pajamas over her shoulder. Then at the books and games. After a moment, she said, “Those aren't mine.”

“I know that, hon. It's all we've got.”

“Why?”

“It's just . . . it's what we've got.”

“Where'd they come from?”

“It doesn't matter,” he said.

“That house?”

“Yes, Ellie.”

“What about a toothbrush?”

He hadn't thought of that. “We'll have to skip it for tonight. I'll buy us some toothbrushes tomorrow.”

“I don't want to wear those pajamas.”

“You'll be more comfortable. We can get new pajamas tomorrow, along with the toothbrushes. It's just for one night.”

“I'd rather sleep in my clothes.”

He sighed. There was no fight left in him. It didn't matter, anyway. “Okay. Fine. In the meantime, why don't you go wash up best you can in the bathroom. There should be some soap in there.”

Wordlessly, she set the shoe box on the bed, then got up and made her way to the bathroom. She closed the door, watching him through the narrowing sliver as it closed until the latch caught and he heard the lock turn. A few seconds later he heard the water clunk on in the sink—a snake-like hiss.

All of a sudden, he thought he would throw up. There was a plastic ice bucket on the floor beside the nightstand and he snatched it up while he simultaneously dropped down on the edge of the bed. The mattress springs squealed as if in pain. Clenching the bucket between his knees, he hung his head over it, salivating, waiting for the wave of nausea to either pass or for a burble of acid to come rushing up and out of his throat.

It was the thought of Kathy that eventually had him gagging and vomiting into the receptacle. He did it as quietly as he could, for fear Ellie might hear him, and when he was done he set the bucket outside the door next to a concrete ashtray. In such a short period of time, the night had grown considerably colder.

Ellie eventually came out of the bathroom, her auburn hair damp and down around her shoulders, her face looking fresh and clean. She wore only her undershirt and panties, and she clutched her clothes to her chest. He considered saying that she might be too cold without the pajamas, but in the end, he decided to let it go. He was spent.

Ellie folded her clothes and set them atop the dresser as David grabbed his duffel bag and headed toward the bathroom. “I'm going to take a shower. Don't open the door for anyone. Understand?”

She nodded.

“If anyone knocks, you come and get me.”

“Who would knock?”

“No one,” he said.

“When you come out, can we call Mom?”

“No, honey. Not right now.”

“How come?”

He considered this. “Because it's very late,” he said in the end. “She's probably asleep.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling the word sting his tongue like battery acid. His throat suddenly felt very thick. “Tomorrow.” He blew her a kiss and went into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind him.

The water came out of the showerhead steaming hot, which both surprised and pleased him. Leaning toward the mirror, he tugged down one lower eyelid and then the other. The skin underneath looked pink and moist, marbled with a delicate network of blood vessels. He turned on the ceiling vent, checked the lock on the door a second time, then set the duffel bag on the counter and opened it.

Shoving aside articles of clothing, he located the gun and both boxes of ammunition. As he had done back in Burt Langstrom's bedroom, he lifted it out of the bag almost too gingerly, turning it over with abundant care in both hands. It was a Glock, though he did not know the model. There was a single magazine in the hilt, and it took him only a few seconds to release it by pressing a lever on the side of the weapon. Aside from the trigger, it was the only other lever, and he marveled at the terrible and dangerous
simplicity
of the instrument. In the movies, it seemed like someone was always cocking back hammers or switching levers. A child could use this.

I'm an idiot,
he thought.
What am I doing with this thing?

He had hoped to find some instructions for loading the gun on the boxes of ammo, but that was not the case. He opened one of the boxes and pried out the little plastic tray. Each bullet was housed in its own circular well, bottom-up. They gleamed in the fluorescent lights above the bathroom mirror.

The back of the gun's magazine had little numbered holes running in two columns, so he was able to discern that the mag held just thirteen rounds. There was a spring-loaded mechanism at the top of the mag, which gave under the weight of his thumb when he pushed on it. One by one, he loaded thirteen rounds into the magazine, the spring becoming more resistant with each round, until he had capped it off. Then he slammed it back into the hilt of the gun and heard it click into place.

The one move he had seen countless times on television that
did
prove useful was charging the weapon—pulling back the slide in order to chamber a round. It clanked solidly, and all of a sudden he could feel nothing but the weight of the thing in his hand. It was heavier with the bullets in it. When he glanced up at his reflection in the steamy mirror, he hardly recognized himself. Yet that had very little to do with the gun; he'd stopped recognizing himself weeks ago, when this whole thing had started to get ugly.

He tucked the loaded gun back inside his duffel bag, then checked his cell phone. He'd kept it powered off during the drive, mostly to conserve the battery because he had forgotten to bring his charger—another stupid oversight—but also because he'd once heard that people could be tracked to a specific location by GPS just by pinging their cell phone. He didn't know whether this was true or not, but he thought it was better to be safe than sorry.