“Nqong!” Diana screamed. “Nqong, help me, please!”
“Shit,” Joley muttered. “Did you say ‘Nqong’?” He took his hands off her body. “Did you?”
“Nqong!” Diana called again.
Joley stood up and turned around. Nqong, naked, straight up, dripping wet, and black as night, marched to the side of bath one. He stared down and spat in Joley’s face.
“Jesus! I thought I got rid of you thirty years ago,” Joley complained. “I told you to get the fuck off my property! What are you doing here?”
Nqong bent down, hooked his hands under Joley’s armpits, and pulled him up out of the water and onto the tiles. He bared his teeth.
“Don’t hurt me! Please!”
Nqong said, in a voice that rumbled like thunder, “Horse shit. Hocus pocus. Voodoo doodoo!” He spun the terrified little man around and shoved him toward the pile of clothes on the bench.
Joley didn’t take the time to put on his own clothes. Instead, he grabbed the nearest garment he could find, Diana’s yellow robe. He put it on and turned back to face the dark demon.
Nqong took a giant step toward him, and Joley took off running, out of the bathhouse, into the storm, across the muddy driveway. He got into his BMW. He locked the doors. The key was in the ignition.
Nqong pounded on the driver’s side window with his fist.
Joley started his car, put it in reverse, spun his wheels, desperately found traction, pulled back into the driveway beside the hotel, then sped away on the driveway and out onto the slippery, washed-out road downhill.
Nqong went back into the bathhouse and wrapped Diana in a comforting, calming hug. Then he wrapped her in his yellow canvas garment and carried her across the muddy gravel drive to the steps of the hotel. She gave him a grateful, tearful squeeze, then opened front door and disappeared into the dark.
Nqong went back into the bathhouse and submerged himself in bath number three to cool off.
———
CalTrans pulled a powder-blue 1979 BMW out of a flooded ditch beside the highway halfway between Tecolote and Anacapa on New Year’s morning, 1980. There was nobody in the car.
Four days later, a hunter discovered the body of a man wearing only a yellow bathrobe lying in the woods a hundred yards south of the highway. The dead man lay on the edge of a stream, with his face underwater.
That afternoon, Karen Hope drove to the morgue in Anacapa and confirmed that the corpse was her brother, Joel Hope, Jr., the owner of the abandoned and impounded vehicle.
7. Yellow Bugs
Here it was the first day of spring, and that was reason enough for Casey to smoke the whole joint. He subscribed to the rule that it’s a good idea to stop one hit before you know you’re stoned. Casey had never been able do that, so it was his usual practice to stop as soon as he knew he was stoned. He hadn’t had much luck with that lately, but he was usually able to stop one hit after he knew he was stoned. For most of the winter, Casey would smoke himself a little bit silly under an umbrella on his smoking-bridge break every afternoon and then save the rest of his daily joint in his Sucrets box, so he could get loaded again late at night, when everybody else in the hotel had gone to bed. But today, with spring coming on like a melody and yellow beetles swarming in the creek valley, Casey smoked the entire joint, until it burned his fingers and his lips and his tongue and his throat and his lungs and his brain all to glory.
The last joint.
He meant it this time. He leaned over the railing of the bridge and let the cold roach flutter out of his fingers. The yellow bugs appeared to part and let the roach fall through, then regrouped and resumed their dance.
All winter long, he’d been promising himself and any spirits who would listen that if the damn mud would just dry up he’d quit smoking marijuana. Mud, who needs it? Dope, who needs it?
It had been one hell of a winter, one to test this city boy who came into this job so romantically high on country living. Turns out winter is cold high in the hills, and in a hotel without electricity, you have to tend woodstoves, which is fun, but there were seven of them all over the large building, which meant schlepping a lot of firewood, a chore nobody particularly enjoyed.
Not that the hotel was even open for business. The Hope sisters were still fighting City Hall. They remained confident that they would prevail, and Hope Springs would once again be a glamorous and successful weekend getaway and spa for the rich and famous. Casey and the rest of the staff loyally believed their dreams were worth working hard for, but it had been a struggle all winter long, with the mud sucking on their shoes and trailing them into the hotel.
But now, winter was officially off the calendar, spring was warm and fragrant, the air was dancing with little yellow bugs, and Casey was high on marijuana for the last time. He walked off the smoking bridge and sauntered down the driveway toward Hope Springs Road with a spring in his step and melodies in his mind. The forest hummed on the mountain to his left, and the creek gurgled on his right. Beyond the creek was a meadow with an early sprinkling of wildflowers, and beyond that the world dropped off to the lowlands and the ocean. Casey had a view of forever. What a clear day. Blue skies.
He heard a car approaching, and he got off to the side of the road. Traffic was rare on this road, since the road became an unpaved driveway inside the gate and ended at Hope Springs, and the hotel was not yet open for business. Casey watched the beige Ford pass by, and read on its side that it was from the Health Department, County of Anacapa. Casey started to wonder about that, but controlled his urge to worry. This was his afternoon, spring was pulsing in the hills, and this was his last chance to enjoy being stoned, damn it.
He walked on for another mile, dealing with the fact that the high was wearing off, although yellow bugs hummed and clicked as they danced over the creek on his right, and the sky above him was still a bright unbroken blue. Oh well. It was time to turn around and face the long walk back to the hotel, and it would be largely uphill.
Then he saw ahead of him, down the road, three men standing beside a truck. As he approached them, he saw that they were setting up a surveying tripod. Which was fine. The county was supposed to maintain this road, after all. But what they were surveying was not the road; they were checking out the valley. Owned by Karen and Nellie Hope.
Who were these men with a tripod? What were they looking at? What did they want? Why were they here? One of the men, the one wearing a suit, turned toward Casey and raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Casey felt suddenly naked.
Just Casey’s luck. His last joint wasted on a downer.
His tongue too thick and his brain too cluttered for conversation, he turned and began the long trudge back to the hotel, his mind full of bugs.
———
“These God damned yellow bugs!” Nellie muttered. “I swear to God I’m going to buy a can of Raid.”
“No you’re not,” Karen answered. “Just relax. Those bugs aren’t doing you any harm.”
Nellie swatted her arm, and Karen rammed her spade into the earth. “You leave those beetles alone,” she said.
“Then tell them to leave me alone.” Nellie sat on the top rail of the garden fence, watching her sister plant seedlings. You had to admire Karen: decked out in a faded yellow work shirt and khaki shorts, she wasn’t afraid of hard labor, dirt, split ends, broken nails, smelly armpits, calloused hands, or the law of the land.
Or bugs. This really was too much. Nellie spotted a bug on her knee, about the size of a Vitamin B. It stretched its wings, then folded them back under its shiny yellow armored plates and wiggled its antennae. Ugly little stinker. Nellie curled her middle finger back behind her thumb, took aim, and let fly. The beetle sailed out into the garden, then stopped in mid-air, took flight, and danced over to Karen and landed on her shirt.
Karen left her spade standing in the dirt and walked over to Nellie and rested a dirty hand on her knee. On her pressed, clean, white Calvin Klein jeans. She said, “Be nice to the bug
s, Nellie, and they’ll be nice to you.”
“Oh, give me a break. God, you’re infuriating. Bugs are to kill.”
“Bugs are good for the garden,” Karen insisted.
“Fine. Let them stay in the garden. This morning I found one in my bed. In my bed!”
“What did you do with it?” Karen asked. “Squashed it, I suppose?”
“And get bug juice on my sheets? No way. I picked it up with a Kleenex and flushed it down the toilet. Disgusting things. God, Karen, you’re covered with them.”
Karen looked at her sleeves and smiled. Bugs crawled all over her shirt. “They’re good luck. We get them every year at this time. They’ll be gone in a few months. In the meantime, be nice to them.”
Nellie shook her head. “How’s your planting coming along?” she asked.
“Almost done.” Karen wiped her brow with her sleeve and ran her grimy fingers through her hair.
Nellie brushed dirt off her knee. “You’re taking a big risk, you know. The law is already on our case. This is no time to be growing illegal plants.”
“This is the perfect time,” Karen said. “I always plant on the spring equinox. Always. And I harvest on the fall equinox, which just happens to be our birthday. Every year for the past ten years, plant in the spring and harvest in the fall, and I’ve never run out of my stash.”
Nellie said, “Karen, why do you do this? This hippie-dippy stuff? You’ve always done things like this. Why?”
“Listen, Sis. You do your stupid stuff and I’ll do mine. Okay? Okay?”
“Okay.” Nellie tried to let it drop, but found she couldn’t. “How many people know about this clearing, this plantation of yours?”
“Everyone in our little community knows I have a private garden,” Karen said, “and nobody knows where it is. Only me, and now you. Don’t worry. This is dense forest, and we’re at least a mile from the nearest human being.”
“Hello, ladies.”
The male voice was not loud, but it was jarring in the still air. Nick Renner walked out of the forest and approached them. He wore a leather jacket and dirty, baggy jeans and a baseball cap. He rested his elbows on the rail next to Nellie’s thigh and looked up into her face. He grinned. “Hiya.”
“Hello.”
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“Who did you expect to find?”
Renner nodded to Karen and said, “Figured I’d find you here. Equinox. Planting day. Right, partner?” He slapped his neck and wiped his fingers on his jeans, leaving the remains of a dead yellow beetle.
“What do you want?” Karen asked him.
“I want to talk to you,” he answered. “We got to talk.”
“I thought you were in jail.”
“You wish. Shit,” he said. “I haven’t even had my trial yet. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Nellie said. “I’m leaving.”
“Do you know your way back?” Karen asked.
“Yes, Mother,” Nellie said. “I dropped breadcrumbs on the path. If they haven’t all been eaten by bugs.”
———
When Casey got back to the hotel he saw the Anacapa County car parked out front. He went up the steps and into the lobby, where he found a bald man in a shiny blue suit sitting with a briefcase in his lap, using the briefcase as a desk and making notes on a yellow pad.
This was supposed to be Casey’s time off, but of course there is no time off when you’re dumb enough to show up in the lobby of the same hotel you happen to manage. “Can I help you?” he said.
“Not unless you’re Karen Hope,” the man said, “and I don’t believe you are.”
“No, you’re right there. But I can try and find her for you.”
“Somebody is already looking into that. A Miss Pearson.” The man checked his watch. “That was half an hour ago.”
Casey sat down in a chair and faced the suit. “Well, perhaps while you’re waiting, maybe I can answer some questions for you. My name is Casey. I’m the manager.”
“How do you do. That’s very kind of you, Mr. Casey. I’ve heard about you. I’ve heard you’re both kind and capable. But it’s Karen Hope I have an appointment with. I was here on time, and I’ve been here in this chair for over half an hour. I hope Miss Hope shows up soon. I hope she shows up before I leave, because I have other appointments this afternoon. I’m meeting with the Board of Supervisors at three and the County Planning Commission at four. If I have to leave here before I meet with Miss Hope, I’ll have no choice but to red-tag the front door of this building. And that other building across the way.”
Casey said, “Two questions.”
“Yes?”
“What’s a red tag?”
“And?”
“What are you?”
The man smiled. He opened his briefcase and brought out a business card and a red document the size of a postcard. He handed them both to Casey and said, “I’m Craig Gordon, Health Inspector for the County of Anacapa. A red tag is like a quarantine. Basically shuts this hotel down.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Casey said. “On what grounds? This place is nothing if not healthy. Besides, this hotel isn’t even open yet. We’re still waiting for a couple of permits and our business license.”
Craig Gordon smiled. “Not good,” he said. “You won’t be eligible for a business license as long as it’s been red-tagged by the Health Department. Which would be me. I am empowered to red-tag a business if the owner is uncooperative, or prevents me from inspecting the facility.”
“But didn’t Diana Pearson offer to show you the kitchen? I’ll be glad to show you the bath house. The bathhouse, we call it. Or anything else you need to inspect.”
“I didn’t have an appointment with you, Mr. Casey, nor with Miss Pearson. I have an appointment with Miss Hope. It’s taken me nearly two months to get an appointment with Miss Hope, and I was here on time. Now, if you’ll hand me back that red tag, I’ll fill it out, because, as I said, I have other appointments this afternoon.”
Casey stood up. “You don’t want to do that,” he said.
Craig Gordon raised his eyebrows. “Oh, but I do. And if you don’t give me back my red tag, I have others. I have lots of them.”
Casey headed for the front door. “Wait here a minute,” he said.
“That’s what I’ve been doing.”
Casey slammed out the front door and ran to the carriage house. He pounded on Nellie’s door, but no one answered. Shit.
Casey knew this was all his fault. This mix-up never would have happened if he weren’t stoned. But that didn’t make sense, because he wasn’t the slightest bit stoned anymore, just frantic and feeling nonspecifically guilty. What a mess.
“Casey?”
“He turned and saw Nellie approaching on the driveway, looking hot and sweaty, with a curious smile on her face. “Did you want me, doll?”
“Nellie! I’m so glad to see you. How good are you at being Karen?”
———
Craig Gordon followed Miss Hope into the kitchen. Miss Hope was a lot more accommodating than he had been led to expect. He had seen her around town a few times, wearing strange old clothes, in the company of strange young people. An established member of the bohemian element left over from the sixties, Karen Hope had the reputation of being standoffish to the more conventional establishment of Tecolote; and although the Hope family had owned this whole mountainside for longer than anyone could remember, and although they were filthy rich, Karen Hope had never contributed anything but taxes to polite society. Nothing to the churches, nothing to the museums, nothing to the Chamber or any of the service organizations, nothing to the Music Festival, neither time nor money to what Tecolote was all about. Like a lot of these eccentrics, Karen Hope, no matter what she or any of the rest of them spouted about peace and love, was antisocial and selfish. And strange.
Now it was time to bring her to heel, and Craig Gordon was part
of an orchestrated plan to do just that.
But he had to admit that the Karen Hope leading him around the property was surprisingly pleasant. She was nicely dressed, for one thing, and she wore lipstick, and her hair was not the Medusa thicket he had seen her flaunt on the streets of town. She talked politely and smiled graciously, looking him in the eye when she spoke.
She put her hand on the kitchen counter and said, “Mr. Gordon—Craig? May I call you Craig? Please call me Karen—I’d like you to meet Diana Pearson, who has lived with me for years, who cooks wonderful meals and keeps, as you can see, a spotless kitchen.”
Craig shook hands with the tall blond cook. She had a good handshake. And a good kitchen. He could see nothing to fault here. “It’s nice to meet you, formally,” he said. “I’m sorry I was short with you earlier, but I really am required to meet with Miss Hope here.” He turned to Miss Hope and said, “With Karen.”
“Have a look around,” Diana said. “If you have any questions, let me know.”
The health inspector checked the list and found the kitchen met all the requirements: stainless steel sinks, properly ventilated stove, water sufficiently hot, plastic drying racks. “Everything’s in order,” he said. “Apple pie order. Nice to meet you, Miss Pearson.”
“Likewise.”
Mr. Gordon followed Miss Hope out of the kitchen, through the dining room and the lounge and the lobby to the verandah. He pointed across the driveway at the Craftsman style outbuilding. “That, I presume, is the bathing facility?”
“Would you like to take a look?”
“Of course,” he said. “That’s part of the inspection.” They walked down the front steps of the building and Mr. Gordon put his briefcase inside his car. He turned to Miss Hope and said, “You know, I have a confession to make. I didn’t expect you to show up for our appointment today.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Well, you left a message with my secretary this morning saying you had better things to do than ‘brown-nose a bureaucrat.’ I believe those were the words.”
“I did? Oh, God, I’m sorry. She’s always doing stuff like that.”
Hot Springs Eternal Page 10
