by Mark McNease
There was that desk clerk Ricki who looked vaguely familiar from photos she saw on the Lodge corkboard, except in those he was dressed as a woman and holding a restaurant menu. Maybe he, too, had a twin, the place seemed to attract them. She’d met Dallas and Austin and she had watched Elzbetta dashing here and there. Elzbetta had introduced herself briefly when she took Bo to the table, and already Bo was wondering, since it obviously wouldn’t work out with the lady cop, if this waitress might be available for a drink. One last for the road, so to speak, when her work here was done. She smiled at the daring of it even as she knew it would likely be an assassin’s mistake she could not make even once.
Bo was a lonely woman and knew it. She didn’t dwell on it; it was her lot. She had prepared for this mission since she was ten years old and nothing, least of all entanglement with another woman, could interfere. It almost had once, with Cassy and her move to Minnesota that had left her in that cold, bitter landscape, and yet she had stayed. As if fate had intended it all along. She understood cold and bitter. They were what gave her solace through the years as she knew somehow the day would come for action, and it had. She was prepared, and she was remorseless.
She finished her coffee and watched the foursome leave. The man who’d seemed curious about her looked at her again, saw her staring back and quickly looked away. The two men were a couple, that was obvious, as were the women. Pride Lodge, Bo had noticed, attracted a particular clientele: older gay men and lesbians, many of them coupled. She allowed herself just a moment of self-pity, mourning a life she would never know. But it was only a moment’s reflection; she did not cry over wistful fantasies, and regret was something she had promised herself never to indulge in.
She thought again of the man who had just left and his unexpected interest in her. Was he a danger in any way? Did he recognize her from somewhere? She doubted both, but would see what she could learn from casual gossip with the desk clerk Ricki. Nervous people eager to chat were always an opportunity. She made a mental note to stop by the desk soon and properly introduce herself, then she left four dollars on the table and headed for her room.
Chapter Twelve
The Master Suite
Sid Stanhope sat as his desk looking out on the pool below. Some days he felt his age more than others and this was one of them. He would be turning sixty-two next spring, and unlike most people who wondered where the time went, he wondered why it took so long. That can happen to a man on the run, a man with a past who could never be sure it would stay hidden. He thought it had. After the first year, when the three of them hadn’t been caught, they all breathed just a little bit easier. Then five years, then ten, until it really did seem that this cold case would stay frozen, buried deep where it would never see the light of day or the warmth of the truth of what they had done. What Frank had done. It was an accident, as much as one could call the killing of two people an accident. The family wasn’t supposed to be home. They had stopped their mail delivery, which was how Frank picked the houses to break into. His girlfriend worked at the post office and kept him informed of the families on Los Feliz Boulevard and its surrounding streets. The whole criminal enterprise was only supposed to last a few months, until they had enough between the three of them to move out of law breaking as quickly and quietly as they had moved into it. It was a cash flow problem, nothing more, and no one was supposed to get hurt. The Lapinsky woman had put a hold on the family’s mail. She’d been telling everyone they were taking their daughter to London for her tenth birthday, all of them were excited. Then something changed. They were home, in their bedroom. They woke up, and Frank shot them.
Sid found out from the newspaper reports that the daughter had gotten sick. As simple and as dreadful a twist of fate as there could be. She had some kind of bad flu or something and the mother, being a mother, called off the trip. London could wait, she wouldn’t drag her poor baby across the Atlantic in a plane, probably making everyone else sick along the way.
The police had already dubbed them “The Los Feliz Gang,” even though they didn’t know how many men were involved, or if they broke into homes in other neighborhoods. They’d had a successful streak of six houses, with the Lapinsky’s being unlucky number seven, and once murder was part of it, everything changed. The burglaries stopped as the three men separated. Frank went East, to Bloomington, Indiana, then moved every few years until he ended up in Detroit. His girlfriend went missing; Frank said she’d gone into hiding, Sid always suspected her bones would never be found. His opinion of Frank had changed from one colored by friendship to one colored by fear. Sam Tatum stuck it out in L.A., keeping his head low and watching over his shoulder a little less every year. And Sid Stanhope went as far east as he could without leaving the continent, first to New York City where he vanished into the seemingly limitless anonymity that great metropolis provided, then, some years later when it felt safe, to New Jersey.
He had been planning on collecting social security next year. The Lodge was bought and paid for, the one truly lucky break of his life. And now all of it was threatened. But by whom? Frank had certainly not robbed and shot himself, and Sam Tatum did not put an ice pick in the back of his own head, much as Sid thought it was about time somebody did, given the seediness of the life Sam had insisted on living. He’d been in a state of rising panic after Sam’s death. He needed a plan but had none, with no idea how to protect himself. If he knew who was coming, or even if he could be certain why, he could determine a course of action. But he had no way to be sure if this was connected to the murders in that bedroom thirty years ago. He had searched his memory for any other connection between the three of them, but there wasn’t any. And surely no one would be coming after them all these years later for a house they’d simply freed of the few things they could carry and flee? This was revenge, but by whom? And why after all this time?
Sid and Dylan had moved into the set of rooms their predecessors called “The Master Suite” when they relocated to the property shortly after the signing. It wasn’t where Sid would have preferred to live: there was something haunted about it, and even after painting and completely redecorating the three joined rooms and installing a new, larger bathroom, he could still feel the presence of Pucky and Stu. Especially Stu. He had concluded the old man’s ghost had moved from the steps where they found his body, back into the comfort of the Suite where he had spent so many years puttering and overseeing the business. Sometimes Sid could swear he’d seen Stu standing in the bedroom doorway, but when he blinked the apparition was gone, leaving only a shadow outline that could be explained away as the swaying of an overhead tree limb outside the window or the passing of a cloud.
Whatever the case with Pride Lodge, Sid knew the real haunting was his. He had thought for so long he had escaped his past. There had been no indication for any of them that a case grown so cold had warmed again. No one came around asking questions, no one looked at him too long at the bank or the grocery. The only thing chasing him was his own guilt, and that had dulled over three decades until it was more mild regret, wishing things had not gone wrong that fateful night, but never taking responsibility for those people’s deaths. He hadn’t brought the gun, hadn’t pulled the trigger. He was just a burglar in the wrong house at the wrong time. They had left the girl alive. And the thought literally struck him, like an epiphany or the sudden realization he’d taken a step too many and there was no ground beneath him. He stumbled into it: the girl. But she was ten years old at the time. By now she would be forty, married with a family. Could she have found them? Could she have hired someone to take revenge after all this time? He was trying to get it clear in his mind, trying to envision connections leading from that bedroom thirty years ago to this weekend, when Dylan entered the room.
“Everything’s set up,” Dylan said, meaning the tables, pumpkins and whatever utensils people would need to carve.
Sid swiveled around in his chair. Sweet Dylan, he thought, watching as the man he called his husband even th
ough they’d not yet married busied himself in the main room. Cheerful Dylan. Accommodating Dylan. Doting, loving, gullible Dylan. Sid felt his usual but brief twinge of guilt thinking of how useful Dylan had been these last ten years. Sid had grown to love Dylan but it had not started out that way. He hadn’t wanted to be alone in his old age, and along came Dylan. By that time in his life he was willing to be flexible; that’s how he considered it, too, not “settling”, but simply being open to whatever shape their relationship took, whatever quirks of Dylan’s he would need to adjust to. After ten years he didn’t even think about their differences, and it brought him great sadness sitting there to know he might be leaving soon, disappearing once again for a last time.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Dylan asked, nodding at Sid as he got up from the desk.
Sid was in sweat pants and a Pride Lodge t-shirt, both gray and worn. Dylan, meanwhile, was in crisply ironed jeans, black loafers and a green plaid shirt with the cuffs buttoned. Dylan was the more style conscious of the pair and took pains to always look good, however casually he was dressed. At five feet six inches, he was a good two inches shorter than Sid and easily forty pounds lighter. Where everything about Sid was large—his hands, his feet, his head, his shoulders—everything about Dylan was medium-scale. He had taken to dying his hair brown to keep the gray out and he swept it back with gel, giving him an open, inviting face framed with silver half-rimmed glasses. He blinked frequently, the result of a dry eye condition, and it made him seem perpetually curious.
Innocence, thought Sid; that’s what I think of when I look at this man. Innocence. He dreaded the thought of breaking Dylan’s heart, leaving him alone in rural Pennsylvania, but he was first a survivor and would save himself whatever the cost.
“I don’t do pumpkins, you know that,” Sid said. “But no, I wouldn’t go downstairs dressed like this. Do I ever?”
“I’m just reminding you,” said Dylan as he straightened magazines on the coffee table. It was part of a fastidiousness bordering on obsession. He turned to Sid suddenly and asked, “Are we doing the right thing? After Teddy, I mean? Is this all too unseemly?”
Sid went to Dylan and put his large, comforting arms around him. He felt Dylan slump into him, letting his body lean against the older, bigger man.
“Teddy would be completely disappointed if we didn’t,” Sid said. “And really, do you think he’d want us bringing even more attention to how he died? Some alcoholics just can’t make it.”
“Most, from what I’ve read. I just feel so bad for him.”
“We all do.”
“Oh my God,” Dylan said, pulling away. “Who’s going to tell Happy? They’d broken up, but still . . . “
“Nobody knows where Happy is,” Sid said. “It’s not something we can worry about. He’ll find out however he finds out. Now let’s get ready and go downstairs. I won’t carve, but I can watch.”
Sid headed for the closet to pick out something appropriate for joining his guests. As he stood flipping through his slacks, he reflected on the timing of it all: Sam’s death, someone coming after him, Teddy’s drunken fall into the pool. And Happy, of course, but Happy was young and impetuous and had probably just run off for a few days.
Sam’s death.
Someone coming after him.
Teddy’s drunken fall into the pool.
Sid wondered if there could possibly be a connection, and if anyone else was making it, too. He looked again at Dylan and smiled, even though his heart sank knowing their time together might be cut much shorter than either of them ever imagined.
Chapter Thirteen
All the Jack-O-Lanterns
There were two main events required for the success of the Halloween weekend at Pride Lodge. One was the costume party on Saturday night, when the lower level karaoke room and the adjacent piano bar were turned into one large dance floor with the busiest bar of the year, and the other was the annual pumpkin carving held in the Lodge’s great room. Tables, carvers and pumpkins would spill over onto the porch in good weather or the restaurant if it was raining or just too cold outside. And while some of the guests skipped the pumpkin carving, most showed up and picked out one of several pre-drawn pumpkin designs or, if they were really in the spirit, brought their own pattern.
The pumpkins were lined up on temporary tables set out in a U-shape jutting from the fireplace. There wasn’t any fire yet—that would come later in the year—so no one was in danger of running out of the door in flames. Next to each pumpkin was a small serrated metal stickpin used to saw along the lines of the Jack-O-Lantern pattern. There were also several X-Acto knives for the more experienced and determined. Dylan, who oversaw the carving (which was also a contest with first prize being a weekend for two at the Lodge), warned everyone to only use an X-Acto knife if they knew what they were doing and if they were prepared for the loss of blood—the Lodge assumed no liability.
Ricki had displayed the paper patterns along the top of the check-in desk and was offering them up with the occasional suggestion. “That’s not you, really, try the witch,” or, “This might be a little too complicated for someone of such simple tastes. Here’s a cat, it has your name on it.” Ricki loved Halloween more than any other time of year at Pride Lodge, so much that he’d temporarily forgotten about poor Teddy and the horrifying events of the morning. He had meant to call that detective and tell her about an argument he’d heard the night before between Sid and Teddy, but it surely meant nothing. Besides, he’d mentioned it to both Kyle and that strange woman, Bo, when each had stopped by the desk after lunch. He had the feeling they were pumping him for information, though he couldn’t imagine why, and all he really had to say was that Sid and Teddy had argued. That was nothing new; Sid didn’t really like Teddy and only kept him around because of Dylan and the fact Teddy had worked there so long. From things he’d overheard—you can’t work the front desk of a place like Pride Lodge and not hear things, that’s just the way it was—Sid thought Teddy was a sloppy drunk and Teddy thought Sid was using Dylan, though he couldn’t say for what. In the end it was all just scuttlebutt and didn’t matter now anyway, in light of the circumstances.
“Linus!” Ricki said, pulling himself back from his thoughts. “How nice to see you!”
It wasn’t, really. Nobody who knew Linus Hern was happy to see him, unless they were being paid . . . which, frankly, Ricki was. He proceeded to glance at the pumpkin patterns, deciding which would be the best suggestion for Mr. Hern.
Back in the cabin, Kyle had finally been able to sleep for about twenty minutes before being startled from his nap by a call from Imogene, apologetic to be disturbing him on a vacation but not so bothered as to refrain from it. She swore yet again it was something she would only do in an emergency. Kyle and Danny both knew, however, that the definition of “emergency” when it came to Imogene had a significantly lower threshold than it did for most people. It might be anything from misplacing her iPhone to needing a sudden flight to Chicago, which she had long ago shown herself incapable of arranging on her own. This afternoon it was for advice—something she relied heavily on Kyle for and as often as not ignored. She had been approached about a job in Seattle and couldn’t decide if she should consider it or dismiss it out of hand.
“You’ve been with Tokyo Pulse for what, nine months?” he said, waving at Danny to stop rolling his eyes.
“‘We,’” she told him. “We have been with Tokyo Pulse nine months. You’re not thinking of leaving me, are you?”
Her insecurities challenged Kyle more than anything else about her. “Fine, ‘we,’” he said. “It’s too early to make another move, that’s all I meant. And I will be leaving if you move to Seattle. That’s not an option for me, not anymore.”
“Since I shackled you,” Danny said, getting up from the table and heading to the bathroom.
“That’s my answer then,” she said. “No Kyle, no Imogene.”
The comment both touched and alarmed Kyle. Imogene had do
ne just fine, in a controlled-chaos sort of way, for years before he came along. The thought of her making decisions based on his ability to stay with her was more responsibility than he wanted.
“Be sure to thank them anyway,” he said. “Just to keep that door open, you never know. Forward the email to me so I can add them to your contacts, for when you’re ready to part ways with me.”
He ended the call with her knowing it had been completely unnecessary, and knowing it was one of the things than endeared her to him. He allowed himself an image of the two of them in twenty years time, Imogene tamed by age but still rebellious, and himself listening to her demands through a hearing aid. He smiled at the thought just as Danny came out of the bathroom completely naked.
“Did the maid forget to leave towels again?” Kyle asked mischievously.
“On my instructions,” Danny said, as he walked over to Kyle and stood in front of him.
Kyle began to caress Danny’s chest with his fingers, ever so slightly. Danny could be ticklish, and there was a fine line between pleasure and amusement. When things were at their best, there were healthy elements of both. Why, Kyle suddenly wondered, does laughter make sex more fun?
“The tub’s full,” Danny said, “I think a hot bath on a cold October day is just what the doctor ordered.”
Kyle tossed his cell phone aside, hopped off the bed and followed Danny into a cloud of steam.
She wasn’t very good in crowds. Even assassins have their weaknesses, she thought, as she fidgeted behind her neck with a small gold crucifix her mother had given her for her sixth birthday. It was among the very few things she had kept throughout her life. She had always believed we leave everything behind anyway for someone else to sort and dispose of; the fewer things we hold onto, the less we’ll have to grieve when the time comes. And the time comes for everyone.
