The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro

by Paul Theroux

  He just closed his eyes and prayed for someone to yell “Fire!” or for a fight to start or an earthquake to hit and topple the whole miserable city.

  Rita said, “Okay, pay the bill. Let's go.”

  He left money on the table—too much, so that they could leave swiftly—and in the lobby he said, “Where?”

  She said in a gummy way, phlegm clotted in her throat, “You know where.”

  He did not desire this unstable, unfamiliar woman, not even in the irrational way of lust. He was never at his best in the afternoon in any case. He would have preferred a meal or a drink at dusk, a prologue, a beginning, a middle. This was all end, not simply abrupt but cold captivity. In the elevator she stood apart but confident, less like a jailer than a kidnapper, and in his room he felt like a hostage. No, not at all like a hooker and a john.

  “Okay, get naked.”

  Wevill said, “I've changed my mind.”

  “No,” she said loudly, as she had in the restaurant, sounding crazy, but here her voice had the gnawing ferocity of a big cat. Her irrationality made her confident, and she watched without interest while Wevill undressed, pulling off his shirt, stepping out of his pants and folding them.

  “You try tell Nina I come here and I cut your balls off.”

  That did it. He had been having trouble locating desire within himself, but hearing those words he felt giddy terror and used his hands to cover himself.

  “Look at you,” Rita said in a mocking way, flicking her fingers.

  He said, “How much do you want?”

  “Coupla hundred.”

  “Done.” He gave her the money gladly, paying her to go, which she did, seeming to swagger, slamming the door.

  When it came time for him to leave Las Vegas, Wevill did not feel he was fleeing a scene of failure to one of greater failure. Did they know they had a case against him? Stalking. Harassment. Mental and emotional distress. He did not even consider firing them, though he wanted to. He told himself he was not afraid of them, but in his own house he was. He should never have left his house in the first place.

  The women returned, not so much disheveled nymphs as slatterns, but no less attractive. Wevill was disgusted and afraid. He was on the point of saying, “The check’s on the counter,” when Nina left the room and Rita looked straight at him and smiled.

  “We was in Vegas.”

  Wevill began to back away.

  “It was a blast.”

  Wevill smiled insincerely.

  “I met a great guy.”

  Wevill was surprised, then confused, finally sad.

  “The check’s on the counter,” he said, and left his house.

  How was he to know the woman was capable of such subtlety? It was weeks before they spoke again, months before she told him what was on her mind, that the man she had met in Vegas was him; that she was going back alone; that there was still time for him to get the Vegas package.

  They flew separately. They met discreedy. While Rita played the slots, he read on the terrace. Together, in the room, they were passionate. She was the stronger here, the more confident; he delighted in her teasing him with demands. The week of delirium and exhaustion was over before he was ready. He returned reluctantly to Hawaii, where he was, just as reluctantly, the boss and she the good mother and grandmother. The arrangement continued for several years—six trips to Vegas altogether—until Wevill died, only sixty-four. As his executor, I had the pleasure of telling Rita of her substantial share of his estate. But she hardly seemed to care about the money, and was devastated, unlike his ex-wife, who by the way got a lot less.