The Red Hotel (Sissy Sawyer Mysteries)

by Masterton, Graham

  Sissy turned back to the bodies. One of the two women who had not yet been butchered appeared to be staring at her. It was a pretty black girl with cornrow braids. Her lips were parted as if she were just about to say something, as if she recognized that Sissy could speak to the dead, and was desperate to tell her what she knew.

  But it was then that the tattooed man turned around and saw them standing there, and came right over.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he shouted, over the noise of the meat grinder and the country and western music on the radio.

  Sissy pointed stiffly to the bodies on the gurneys. ‘What have you done?’ she screamed at him. ‘What in God’s name have you done?’

  ‘None of your fucking business! How the fuck did you get in here, anyways?’

  ‘Where’s T-Yon?’ screamed Sissy. ‘What have you done with her? She’s not one of these bodies, is she?’

  ‘I told you! None of your fucking business!’

  At that instant, the meat grinder groaned into silence, and the radio was switched off, too. Apart from the persistent rattling of saucepan lids on the stove, the kitchen was deathly silent.

  Out of the shadows behind the gurneys, or maybe out of nowhere at all, stepped Vanessa Slider. Sissy knew that Vanessa Slider was dead, and that this was nothing more than a presence, but she still appeared to be real.

  ‘So, you old fool, you followed me,’ she said, in that voice that was thick with white noise.

  ‘Of course I did. You still have T-Yon and I need to take T-Yon back where she belongs.’

  ‘You should have brought her brother. Then I could have settled the score, couldn’t I, once and for all.’

  ‘What score?’ Sissy demanded. ‘What kind of a grudge could you possibly have against Everett and T-Yon? They never even knew who you were until Everett bought The Red Hotel.’

  ‘They took away everything, that family. They took away my happiness. They stole away my dreams.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you told me before. But you didn’t explain how. If they didn’t even know you, how could they have taken away your happiness? You lost the Hotel Rouge in nineteen ninety-one, didn’t you, when you were sent to prison? Everett was only thirteen years old in nineteen ninety-one, and T-Yon was no more than six.’

  ‘You don’t understand anything, do you?’ said Vanessa Slider. Her eyes were even darker and blurrier than the last time Sissy had seen her. ‘It wasn’t the hotel they took. I hated this hotel. I hated everything about it.’

  ‘Vanessa, listen to me,’ said Sissy, as firmly as she could, although she was having to make a conscious effort not to look at the bone-and-gristle bodies on the gurneys. ‘You have to let me take T-Yon back with me. You can’t keep her here. Whatever misfortune happened to you, T-Yon couldn’t have had anything to do with it.’

  ‘Oh, she surely did, you mark my words, and she stays here,’ said Vanessa Slider. ‘You bring Everett back with you, and then we’ll see.’

  ‘T-Yon told me about her nightmares. I know what you want to do to them. Look at what you’ve done to these people here.’

  ‘Bring Everett back with you,’ Vanessa Slider spat back at her.

  ‘And what if I say that I won’t?’

  ‘Then Shem here will have to do what Shem’s always been good at.’

  Sissy turned to look at the tattooed man. In return he gave her a contemptuous lip-curling snarl, like a pantomime character.

  ‘So this is young Shem,’ said Sissy. ‘Well, I declare. Hasn’t he grown? But who’s the little fellow in the sheet?’

  ‘Don’t you try to mock me, you witch,’ said Vanessa Slider.

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ Sissy retorted. ‘I’m not mocking you, I’m afraid of you! I’m very afraid. I’m afraid of Shem here, too, and what you’re doing here, and I don’t know what I can do to stop you. I can’t let you keep T-Yon, and I can’t bring Everett here, either.’

  Vanessa Slider came closer. She had no smell, no fragrance at all, but she was so strongly charged with static that Sissy felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickling up.

  ‘Let me tell you this, witch. Whatever the worst possible thing is that you can possibly imagine, I can do worse. Now you go back for me, if you please, and bring me T-Yon’s brother.’

  ‘No,’ said Sissy.

  Vanessa Slider turned to Shem and gave him a one-shouldered shrug. Shem went across to one of the kitchen counters and picked up a ten-inch knife. He came back, grinning, and waving it around in circles, around and around, so that it softly whistled.

  ‘If you knew a half of what I can do to you with this knife before you die, vieille, you would be down on your bended knees right now and promising my maw everything she axe you for. I been cutting and trimming and boning since I was knee high to a high knee, and believe me, I can slice your liver like a fan dancer’s fan, right in front of your eyes.’

  ‘I can vouch for that,’ said Vanessa Slider. ‘And of course, Shem is still in the land of the living. Maybe I can’t hurt you any, but my Shem can.’

  Sissy looked up at Luther. Luther’s eyes were darting from side to side as if he were trying to think of a way to escape. She could see that he was just as frightened as she was.

  ‘I need to understand,’ she insisted, even though she couldn’t stop her voice from wavering. ‘I can’t just go get Everett without you telling me why, because that’s the first thing that he’s going to ask me. He knows all about T-Yon’s nightmares, too, and he won’t be willing to follow me back here if he thinks you’re going to cut him up the same as these poor people. Who are they, anyhow? Why have you done this to them?’

  Vanessa Slider looked back at the bodies on the gurneys. ‘Whores. Hookers. Bonne à riennes.’

  Sissy recalled what she had heard Vanessa Slider saying in the corridor. It had sounded like ‘—stab ornery Anne—’ but in fact it was ‘—cette bonne à rienne—’ meaning ‘that good for nothing slut.’

  ‘What do you have against hookers?’ she asked. ‘My God, Vanessa, you’ve killed them and butchered them and now you’re grinding them up like hamburger.’

  ‘It was a hooker killed my Gerard,’ said Vanessa. ‘It was a filthy diseased hooker who killed my Gerard and killed my dream. I loved that man beyond any love you can think of. He was my life. I hated this hotel but I put up with it because it was Gerard’s dream, and he was my dream. But a filthy diseased hooker, she killed him, and that’s why all these girls have to pay the price for what they took away from me.’

  ‘I still don’t see why you’re blaming Everett and T-Yon.’

  ‘I don’t care a damn if you understand why or not! You go back through that wall and you bring me that Everett Savoie, and you go do it right now!’

  ‘No,’ said Sissy, lifting up her chin in defiance.

  Shem stepped closer to her, until she could smell his sweet brown body odor. He lifted the knife in front of his face, holding it horizontally in both hands so that all she could see were his eyes looking over the top of the blade. She had met many cruel people in her life, although most of them had been unfeeling and inconsiderate rather than intentionally sadistic. But she had never seen cruelty to compare with the cruelty she saw in the eyes of Shem Slider. This was a man who had been brought up ever since he was a small boy to hurt people in the most pitiless way possible.

  The voice of the boy that she had heard in the corridor had probably been him, when he was much younger, protesting because his mother made him cut people up, regardless of whether they were alive or half-alive or dead.

  ‘There is nothing that you can do to me that will make me bring Everett here,’ said Sissy, but even as she said it she felt warm urine running down inside her kaftan. She had never been afraid of death, especially since Frank had gone, but she was terrified of being hurt.

  ‘Nothing?’ said Shem. ‘You want to bet?’ He grasped the knife in his right hand and lifted it up to his shoulder as if he were going to stab her in the face with it. She let o
ut a mewling sound and raised her hands to shield herself, but even as she did so Shem twisted himself around and plunged the knife right up to the handle into Luther’s belly. Sissy even heard the pop! as his abdominal wall was punctured.

  Luther gave a loud shout of shock, and stared down at his stomach in horror, just as Shem was pulling the knife out. His shirt was solid red, so that the blood didn’t show, but Sissy could see that it was wet, and the wetness was spreading.

  ‘No!’ she shouted, and tried to snatch at Shem’s arm, but Shem pushed her roughly away and stabbed Luther again.

  Luther stared at him, his eyes bulging, and Shem stared back at him, their faces so close that the tips of their noses were almost touching.

  ‘Whachew done?’ gasped Luther. ‘Whachew done to me, boy?’

  ‘Learned you a lesson, with any luck,’ said Shem, grinning at him. The few teeth that he had left were all broken and brown.

  ‘No! Don’t! Please!’ begged Sissy, but Shem pushed her away again, and this time she lost her balance. She hit the cinder-block wall and fell sideways on to the floor, jarring her hip. She could do nothing but look at Luther helplessly as Shem slowly pulled the knife upward, from the bulge of Luther’s belly that hung over his belt, all the way up to his breastbone.

  Luther whispered, ‘Dear Lord. Dear Lord forgive me.’

  ‘Oh, He’s going to forgive you, cousin, no trouble at all,’ Shem grinned at him, triumphantly. ‘I don’t think He’s going to forgive me, though. But who gives a shit?’

  He stepped back, and when he did, Luther’s intestines fell out of his slit-open shirt in a heavy wet avalanche, and dropped on to the floor. Luther seemed to make a half-hearted grab to save them, but then he pitched forward and Sissy heard his skull knocking on the concrete.

  Shem came over and offered Sissy his hand, to help her up. She stared up at him in fear and outrage and crossed her arms tightly across her chest. She couldn’t speak. All she could do was sniff repeatedly, because she could scarcely breathe.

  ‘You see?’ said Vanessa Slider. ‘I’m a woman of my word.’

  Sissy managed to climb back awkwardly on to her feet. She stared at Vanessa Slider for a long time, still sniffing, but after a while she managed to say, ‘I don’t know what you are, Vanessa, but you’re not a woman. Not of any description.’

  ‘Oh, you’re blaming me now, are you? It was you who refused to go get Everett. You had your choice, and look what it led to. You were warned, you old witch.’

  Sissy looked around the kitchen in desperation. The young African-American chef was standing by the meat grinder with a bored look on his face, as if he couldn’t wait to get back to his work. The small figure had stopped singing, but under its sheet it kept doing a little soft-shoe shuffle. Shem wiped his knife on a tattered gray rag and tossed it back on to the metal counter with a clang.

  Luther was not quite dead, even though he looked as if he were lying on top of a mass of shiny beige water snakes, which was his guts. His left foot kept shuddering and he was breathing in short bubbly bursts. Sissy was about to go over to him and give him a blessing, because she couldn’t think what else to do for him. But when she took a step forward, Shem blocked her way and said, ‘Unh-hunh. Let the poor guy pass in peace.’ He looked her up and down and furrowed his brow, and then he looked down at the floor. ‘Have you pissed yourself, maw-maw? I do believe you have. How disrespectful is that?’

  Despite herself, Sissy’s eyes filled with tears. In the whole of her life, nobody had ever made her feel as hopeless as this.

  Vanessa Slider hissed, ‘Go get Everett. I want Everett. You can tell him whatever you like, so far as why is concerned. It don’t really matter. Just go get him.’

  ‘So that you can murder him, just like you’ve murdered Luther? Him and T-Yon together?’

  ‘That’s for us to know and for you to find out.’

  Luther let out one last groan and then shuddered and lay still. Sissy closed her eyes for a few seconds and commended his soul to peace and contentment in the world beyond, which was all she could do. Then she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her kaftan and said, ‘Very well. I’ll go get him.’

  Without another word, Vanessa Slider turned around and walked back past the gurneys where the corpses were lying – or glided, almost, as if she were on wheels. She melted into the shadows and vanished. For the first time Sissy noticed that the folded wheelchair was resting against the wall.

  Shem said, ‘You’re doing the right thing, let me tell you. The pauvre defante mom never took no for an answer, never. How about me and the peeshwank keep you company on your way back upstairs?’

  ‘You stay away from me, you monster,’ Sissy spat at him. ‘The only time I ever want to see you again is in prison, waiting to be given a lethal injection.’

  Shem grinned and winked. ‘You know what I love, maw-maw? I love a woman with a fine sense of humor.’

  Cry for Help

  She hobbled as fast as she could along the green-carpeted service corridor and pushed her way back through the wall, her elbows held up in front of her face. As she passed through the plaster, she felt the same sharp, gritty blast as she had when she and Luther had entered it.

  To her relief, Everett was standing in the corridor. He was talking on his cell to someone but when Sissy appeared he did an exaggerated double take, and said, ‘Jesus! Sissy!’

  Losing her balance, Sissy reached out for him and stumbled into his arms. She looked up at him, her chest rising and falling with effort. ‘Everett, that was awful! That was just too awful!’

  ‘You came clean out of that wall,’ said Everett, in disbelief. ‘You actually came out of that wall. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes—’

  ‘The Hotel Rouge is still here, Everett. The only thing that separates it from this hotel is a split second in time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sissy, I really am. I thought you were cracked. I didn’t like to say anything, but I thought that you and Luther were going to come straight back down and say that you couldn’t do it. It was only after you were gone so long that I came up here to see where you were.’

  He stared at the wall and said, ‘Where is Luther? Is he with you? Did you find T-Yon? Is she OK? Where’s T-Yon?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Everett. I’m so sorry. Luther’s dead. Vanessa Slider’s son, Shem, he stabbed him and killed him.’

  ‘What? How is that possible?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Everett, but it’s true. We went through the wall and followed Shem down to the kitchen. Vanessa was there too. She wanted me to come back here and fetch you. I said no, I wouldn’t, because I was afraid of what she would do to you and T-Yon. And Shem just stabbed Luther, just like that, and then he stabbed him again and it was awful.’

  ‘Oh, God. What about T-Yon? Is T-Yon OK?’

  Sissy shook her head. ‘I didn’t see her, but I think she’s all right for now. Vanessa wants to get you both together for some reason, and I don’t think she’s going to hurt T-Yon until she does.’

  Everett said, ‘You’re shaking like a goddamn leaf, Sissy. Here, look, let’s get you into this room so that you can sit down.’

  He took out his key card and opened up the nearest room. He helped Sissy inside and guided her over to the couch. She sat down, still trembling, and she was so choked up and distressed that she could hardly speak sense.

  ‘Here,’ said Everett. He opened the minibar and took out a miniature bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He poured it into a glass for her and stood over her while she drank it, his hand on her shoulder. ‘Better?’ he asked her, and she nodded.

  ‘I’m going to have to change, too. I was so frightened I wet myself.’

  ‘You can have one of the maids’ dresses for now. I’ll have somebody bring you one up. How about another drink?’

  ‘No, thanks. No. I have to keep a clear head. I need to work out what we’re going to do next.’

  ‘It looks like there’s only one choice,’ said Everett. ‘I can’t leave T-
Yon there, can I? I’ll have to go after her.’

  ‘You can’t, Everett. I’m sure she wants to kill you both. She wants to cut you both open just like in T-Yon’s nightmare. She wants revenge on the two of you together, although I have no idea why. I asked her but she wouldn’t tell me. All she kept saying was that you and T-Yon had destroyed her dream.’

  Everett went over to the dressing table and pulled out two tissues, so that she could wipe her eyes.

  ‘There’s something else,’ she said. ‘It’s truly terrible.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Sissy blew her nose again and tried to compose herself. ‘Vanessa Slider has bodies down there too – in the kitchen. Bodies all butchered like Detective Mullard. Five of them at least.’

  ‘Jesus. Did she tell you who they were?’

  ‘She said they were hookers, and that she had killed them because a hooker had killed her husband Gerard. Given him AIDS or syphilis or something, by the sound of it. Some “filthy diseased hooker”, that’s what she kept saying.’

  Everett stood up straight. ‘My God. Maybe this is all beginning to make sense.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘After you and Luther had gone, I carried on looking through the photographs and the news cuttings from the old Hotel Rouge. I found a picture. Let me go get it and show it to you.’

  ‘No – no. Don’t leave me here, please. I’ll come with you. I don’t want to be here on my own if that Shem comes back through the wall.’

  Everett took her hand and helped her up and the two of them went back along the corridor to the elevators. Everett said, ‘Maybe we should tell the cops about this. They have people trained to deal with hostage situations, don’t they? And that’s what this is, after all – a hostage situation. If I don’t go after T-Yon, I don’t see what else we can do.’

  ‘The cops? First of all we would have to convince them that it’s possible to walk through walls.’

  ‘But it is possible. You’ve done it. I’ve seen you do it. And you can physically show them, can’t you? They would have to believe you if they saw it for themselves.’