“Watch out for that old buzzard,” Tina had told me. “In his country they have some funny ideas about women. If he pesters you, give me a call and I’ll come running.”
Art Mart was more blunt. “He’ll probably ask you to go away with him for a weekend. So far he’s tried it with all the women who work in the hotel. When you turn him down, remember he’s a guest of the Ridley and go easy.”
Mr. Kamara introduced himself to me on my first day at work. The next afternoon, when he arrived at the club, wearing a terry-cloth robe over his bathing trunks, he brought me a bunch of blue-dyed carnations and a bag of apples. “You will drive to New Orleans with me this weekend?” he asked.
I tried to remember the clever retort I had planned to answer, but all that came out was “No.”
He just shrugged. “Maybe later.”
“No,” I said.
He seemed to hesitate, then shoved the flowers and bag of apples at me. “Keep anyway,” he said, and flashed an expensive porcelain smile.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Yes, thanks,” he said firmly, put them on my desk, and disappeared into the men’s dressing room to lock his room key and wallet in his locker. He returned in a few minutes, going straight through the office to his favorite, somewhat secluded, table and chair, where he was joined by a club member named C. L. Jones.
Mr. Jones, who was pale and long and skinny, had what my PE teacher called sloppy posture. His shoulders were so rounded he looked like the top of a question mark. He was as unusual as Mr. Kamara. Tina told me that Mr. Jones came every day to the club, but he rarely went swimming and never stayed very long. Sometimes he rode the exercise bike, but mostly he chatted awhile with Mr. Kamara and left. His membership seemed like a waste of money.
Mrs. Bandini’s arms rippled up and down in some kind of a signal to me, so I put the box of photo-ID cards back in the desk, left the office, and walked over to where she and Mrs. Larabee were ensconced in their deck chairs with cups of coffee.
“Such a nice girl,” Mrs. Bandini said, and gleamed at me. “I would like to have a granddaughter like you, Mary Elizabeth.”
“You would like to have a granddaughter, period,” Mrs. Larabee said, “although there’s small chance of that.”
Mrs. Bandini looked pained. “I have two grandsons, who are a constant joy, as you well know, and if my daughter, Rosa, wanted to go to law school instead of becoming mother to a beautiful little daughter, who was I to tell her what a mistake she was making?”
My legs were suddenly splattered with cold water, and I jumped back. Climbing out of the pool was the boy who’d been cannonballing. “Listen, you—” I began.
But Mrs. Bandini interrupted me. “Mary Elizabeth, I’d like you to meet my youngest grandson, Paul Canelli. He’s ten years old and getting straight A’s in school, and you should hear him play the piano. Pauly’s teacher says he has exceptional talent. Shake hands with Mary Elizabeth, Pauly.”
She was so proud of him I ignored Pauly’s smirk. I held out my hand, hoping he wouldn’t bite it.
He shook my hand as quickly as possible, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around himself. He flopped into a chair and said, “Could I have a hamburger, Grandma?”
“You’ll spoil your dinner,” Mrs. Bandini said.
“But I’m hungry. Please, Grandma?”
“Well …” Mrs. Bandini hesitated only a second. “If you promise to eat all your dinner tonight, you may phone for room service.”
Room service. I thought about Fran. He was a funny little guy, but I hoped I’d see him again today. Maybe I should look him up. I’d like to thank him for escorting me home last night. I’d like him to see that I wasn’t always as weird as I must have seemed last night.
Pauly ran over to the phone. Mr. Kamara was just putting the receiver on its hook. Pauly ducked in to grab it, and Mr. Kamara nearly fell over him. He caught his balance and snapped something at Pauly in a language I didn’t understand. It was probably just as well.
Mrs. Bandini was speaking to me, so I made myself pay attention.
“… my other grandson, Eric,” she said. “All the girls like Eric. He’s very handsome. Very tall too. I told him about you, Mary Elizabeth.”
She stopped and seemed to be waiting for an answer. I stammered the first thing that came to mind. “He must be wonderful.”
“Oh, he is,” she said. “I’m going to make sure that the two of you meet each other.”
“Great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. The last thing I wanted to do was meet Mrs. Bandini’s other grandson. One was more than enough.
I went toward the office as Floyd Parmlee came into the room with a covered tray. I had met Floyd on Monday. He was as bland on the inside as he was on the outside. He reminded me of yellow wax beans. I hate yellow wax beans.
Mr. Kamara had picked a table off to the side, behind a large potted plant, where he couldn’t be seen by the people at the pool. But as I neared the office door I saw Floyd put the tray on the table next to Mr. Kamara, who signed for whatever it was he ordered. Then I saw something strange. It took only a second, but through the fronds of the potted plant I know I saw Mr. Kamara shove some money into Floyd’s hand. It looked like a lot of money. Wow! Talk about big tippers!
I was seated at the desk, getting ready to start writing my daily report, when Floyd poked his head in the door. He shoved a gold-foil-covered box at me.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“From Mr. Kamara,” Floyd said. “It’s chocolates from the gift shop.”
“I don’t want them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t accept them. I can’t have Mr. Kamara giving me presents. Will you tell him that, Floyd?”
“Tell him yourself,” Floyd said. “It’s no skin off my nose.” He disappeared.
I picked up the box of chocolates as though it were a bomb and carried it out to where Mr. Kamara was sitting, eating a dish of strawberry ice cream.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kamara,” I said, knowing that Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee were as intent on what I was saying as Mr. Kamara was, “but I can’t accept your presents.”
“Yes,” Mr. Kamara said. His broad smile was decorated with a strand of crushed strawberry. “I want you to take.”
“I can’t take. I mean, it’s not proper for an employee to accept gifts from a hotel guest.”
“I not understand,” Mr. Kamara said. “Is chocolates. Girls like chocolates. You eat.”
“No, thank you,” I said firmly, placing the box in front of him.
“Yes, thank you,” he said, just as firmly.
From the corner of my eye I saw Fran enter the room with a tray and make a beeline to where Pauly was sitting.
I stood as tall as I could and tried to intimidate Mr. Kamara. “You must stop giving me gifts, Mr. Kamara.”
“Yes,” he said. “No more. But you take now.” He handed the box of chocolates to me again. As I hesitated he repeated, “No more.”
Without a word, mainly because I couldn’t think of the right thing to say, I took the box and marched back to the office.
In a few minutes Fran appeared. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi. I’m glad you’re here.”
His eyes seemed to spark. “You are? Really?”
“Yes. Thanks for escorting me home last night.”
“Yeah. Well, sure.” He looked pleased with himself. “Now I know where you live, maybe I could come by sometime, if it’s all right with you.”
Four inches shorter than I am, and asking me for a date? How could I go out with a guy who’d make me look even taller than I am? Besides, I had a goal to work on. Tall and handsome. Keep the thought in mind. “Uh—I’m—uh—kind of busy right now,” I said.
Fran just shrugged. He glanced at a slip of paper in his hand. “Those women over there—Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee. They said if you didn’t want to eat the chocolates, if you were worried that chocolate might cause skin problems
in teenagers, they’d help you out.”
“In other words they wish I’d give them the box of chocolates.”
“Mrs. Bandini said to tell you that box sells for twenty-four dollars and ninety-eight cents in the gift shop.”
I giggled, and Fran laughed too.
“What should I do about Mr. Kamara?” I asked. “He’s, uh—unusual.”
“Weird,” Fran said. “Floyd usually gets him and complains about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Kamara’s order. He always wants Floyd to deliver it, and Floyd grumbles about it a lot, because he says Mr. Kamara hardly ever tips, and then it’s only a quarter or fifty cents, no matter how much the order is.”
“But—” I said.
Fran went on. “He’s a real tightwad and crabby to everyone and …”
I stopped listening. I was thinking about the fistful of bills I had seen Mr. Kamara hand to Floyd. Something about that transaction was decidedly strange.
Fran finally ran down, and I said, “Listen to me. A few minutes ago I saw Mr. Kamara hand Floyd what looked like a fistful of bills.”
“Maybe to buy the candy for you.” Fran glanced down at the gold-foil box.
“There’s one way to find out.” I rang the gift shop and Mrs. Landon answered. We had the same shift, and we’d eaten dinner together in the employee cafeteria two days in a row. I was sure she’d answer my question, and she did.
I thanked her, hung up, and said to Fran, “He charged it to his room. He charges everything to his room.”
“So?” Fran asked. “There are lots of reasons he could be giving Floyd money. Like maybe Floyd asked for a loan.”
“Maybe,” I said. “It just didn’t seem right. And there are so many strange things going on that I—Never mind. It’s really not my business what Mr. Kamara does. I suppose I’m poking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“It’s a good-looking nose. Take care of it,” Fran said. He smiled and left the office.
He was a nice guy with a kind of relaxed friendliness that made him easy to talk to. But four inches shorter? Forget it.
I took the box of candy to Mrs. Bandini, staying only long enough to watch Pauly dive into it with both hands. Mr. Kamara was in the pool again, swimming back and forth. He opened one eye and rolled it until it focused on me. He reminded me of a film I’d seen on whales, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d suddenly spouted water. He scowled at the box of chocolates, dived under-water with a snort, and returned to his rhythmic pattern, ignoring us.
“My grandson, Eric, is even taller than you are and very handsome,” Mrs. Bandini said. “You’d like him. The girls he knows—always telephoning him, always chasing him. He needs to meet a nice girl like you.”
I wondered if he shoveled chocolates into his face as fast as Pauly did. “I’ve got to get back to work,” I told her, and hurried to the office. A deep canvas cart, which was piled to the top with freshly laundered towels, had been brought down; and I had to stack them in the office closet.
A towel cart came down twice a day—in the morning before the club opened, and in the middle of the afternoon. Art Mart took care of the towels in the morning, even before the club opened and Deeley arrived. Deeley Johnson, who worked in the health club on the morning shift, said that Art was really fussy about having the fresh towels stacked before the first swimmer arrived.
The rest of the afternoon and evening were busier than usual. A convention group registered, and many of their members seemed to head for the pool and Jacuzzi as soon as they had checked in. Tina brought in a batch of photo-ID cards, and I studied them carefully, doing my best to tie faces to names.
Tina, who had stayed and was staring out the office window toward the inside section of the pool, nudged my shoulder. “Who’s the hunk over there with the red hair? Look him up. Quick.”
“He’s married and has eight children,” I said.
Tina whirled and blinked at me a couple of times before she met my answering grin. “I knew that stuff wasn’t on the card,” she said. “Come on. What’s his name?”
I pulled the card and told her.
“See you later,” she said, and sauntered around the pool in the guy’s direction.
Deeley called in to report that she’d be out sick again the next day. Deeley was always ready to leave as I arrived, so besides comparing notes on our jobs and some of the people who came to the club, we hadn’t had much chance to talk. I told her that I hoped she’d be well soon and went back to work.
Finally, as the crowd began thinning, Art Mart returned to the club. He sat at the desk, humming to himself, then seemed to notice me. “How about the tiles, Liz? It’s a good time to clean them. There’s no one in the Jacuzzi right now.”
“Okay,” I said. I pulled the brush I needed from the closet. Art had tilted back his chair and propped his feet on the desk. “Will you be here until closing time?” As I asked the question I knew it came out sounding desperate.
Art didn’t notice. Maybe it was all that carefully combed thick blond hair that kept subtleties from penetrating his mind. Something certainly got in the way. “Naw,” Art drawled. “I got a date.”
I shifted the brush from one hand to the other and back again. “What did maintenance say?”
“About what?”
“About the gap between the walls?”
Art mulled this over for a moment, then said, “Guess I forgot to tell them about it.”
“But what if whoever sneaked in last night comes back?”
He grinned. “He won’t. From what you told me, you probably scared him worse than he scared you.”
“Why don’t you call maintenance right now?”
“Won’t do any good. Nobody’s there at night.”
“Somebody’s always there.”
“Nobody but one night-man on duty in case a pipe breaks or something. I’ll call in the morning.”
“You won’t forget?”
He just stared at me with a disgusted look. “Don’t rub it in. Didn’t you ever forget something?”
“Oh,” I said. “I almost forgot to tell you that Deeley won’t be back tomorrow morning. She’s still sick.”
He let out an obscenity and grumbled something about not wanting to get up that early. But his mood suddenly changed, and he leaned across the desk to point a finger at me. “Ha! You almost forgot to tell me! Don’t get after me ever again for forgetting something!”
“I won’t,” I said, and scooted out of the office.
Scrubbing tiles is hard work, but I did a good, thorough job of it. Now and then someone would call out a friendly good-bye to me, and I’d sit back on my heels and chat a moment before getting back to work. But when I finally stood, mission accomplished, I found it was five minutes to closing time, and I was the only one in the health club.
The swimming pool was bright and gleaming with light, and it was going to stay that way until the moment I left this place. My steps quickened, and I went through the routine of tidying both locker rooms and checking to make sure no one was left in the rest rooms or saunas. With everything taken care of I unlocked the bottom desk drawer and retrieved my handbag.
Clutching it and the health-club keys tightly, I flipped off all the lights as fast as I could, locked the office door, and sprinted toward the door that connected the health club with the hotel.
So much for plans. In the darkness I slammed into a body that made an oofing sound and wrapped its arms tightly around me. Down we dropped, legs thrashing. I fell on top of whoever it was, and he let out a yell.
“I have a weapon,” I said fiercely, wondering where my handbag and key ring had landed. “Don’t move, or you’re dead.”
“I hope you move. You’re squashing me,” he grunted.
I recognized his voice. “Fran? What are you doing there?”
“You knocked me down.” His words came out in gasps. “Get up, Liz! You’re heavy, and your elbow is in my stomach!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know you were in the club.”
“I thought I’d help you close up,” he said. “I guessed that you were still a little jumpy.”
I was really touched. “Fran,” I said, “what a nice, kind thing to do.”
He reached for my hand and held it. His hand was warm and strong. “What kind of a weapon?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“You said you had a weapon. You said if I moved you’d kill me.”
“Oh,” I said. “The health-club keys, but I dropped them along with my handbag.”
“How do you key somebody to death?” Fran asked. He put an arm around my shoulders and moved closer.
“Don’t be so literal.”
“Don’t make threats you can’t carry out.” Without a pause he added, “Very interesting. Your height is in your legs.”
“What?”
“You have very long legs,” he said, “which look good in shorts. I noticed. But all legs aside, the point I’m trying to make is that when we’re sitting down our bodies are the same height. See?”
“Oh,” I said, “you’re right.”
“So maybe we could meet in a café—something elegant, like Flakey Jake’s or Showtime Pizza.”
“Those aren’t elegant. They’re fast-food restaurants.”
“Look, I don’t have all the money in the world. You’ll have to restrain your greedy impulses.”
“My what?”
“Pay attention. You can be seated, looking lonely and romantic, and I’ll come in and sit across from you and take your hand.”
“Come on, Fran—”
“I’m trying to.”
“Listen—”
He just smiled. “See how it works? We can both be sitting down the whole time, and relative heights won’t matter.”
“What about when we leave?”
“One of us will just have to leave before the other one.”
“It will be me,” I said. “I’ll arise, still looking lonely and romantic, and drift out of your life.”
The Dark and Deadly Pool Page 3
