The Chosen

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE}

“Right in there,” she heard Kyle’s voice beyond her office doorway the next morning. Vera looked up from the weekly stock inventories spread across her desk. A man stood there—not a man, she realized at once, but the man she’d seen checking in last night.

The thug, she thought.

“Ms. Abbot?”

“Yes, come in. Can I help you?”

“I’m Terrence Taylor, and I represent an accounting firm,” the man said. He entered casually and sat down. “We’re called Morton-Gibson Ltd.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Taylor,” Vera said, slightly off guard. An accounting firm? This didn’t sound right, not from a man whom just hours ago she suspected of being a Mafioso lieutenant.

Taylor was ruggedly handsome, with dark hair combed straight back. He wore an elegant dark suit, a rich steel-blue, and he seemed fit, like a city yuppie. “Your facility is very nice,” he went on, “very well appointed. And my suite on the second floor was charming.”

Second floor! Vera thought. That’s not one of Kyle’s suites, that’s one of mine! He checked someone in and didn’t even tell me! But before Vera’s mental rage could go on, Taylor added, “A bit noisy, if you don’t mind an objective grievance, but still, a very nice accommodation. Anyway, we heard about your recent opening, so my bosses sent me up here to have a look around and to see if you’d be interested in our services.”

Vera let her previous anger tick down. “Well, uh,” she stammered, “we’re not having any accounting problems to my knowledge, and even if we were, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be the person to talk to about that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was told you were the manager.”

“The restaurant manager,” Vera corrected. “You’d want to talk to Mr. Feldspar.” She immediately regretted saying this; Feldspar obviously wasn’t interested in contracting an accounting firm. “But I’m afraid he’s just left for a business convention, and he won’t be in for several days.”

“He’s in,” Kyle announced, appearing at once in her doorway. The little creep, Vera thought. I’ll bet he’s been standing out there the whole time, eavesdropping. Her phony smile fluttered. “Oh, well in that case, would you please take this gentleman to Mr. Feldspar’s office. He’s an accounting contractor.”

“Sure,” Kyle said. “Right this way, sir.”

“Nice meeting you, Ms. Abbot,” Taylor bid and got up. “Before I leave, I’ll be sure to have dinner at your restaurant.”

“Please do,” Vera said. “Oh, and Kyle? When you’re done showing Mr. Taylor to Mr. Feldspar’s office, could I have a word with you, please?”

“Sure, Ver.”

Sure, Ver, she mimicked. Kyle showed Taylor out, and Vera’s irritation trickled further. The little prick! And what of this Taylor fellow? A mafia thug? He was obviously just an errand boy for an accounting firm, looking for business. Some thug, she thought. Some mob boss.

“What’s up, Ver?” Kyle had returned, loping back into her office. Vera immediately got up, closed the door, and yelled, “Who the hell do you think you are checking a guest into one of my suites without even telling me!”

Kyle stepped back, sporting an amused grin. “Simmer down, will ya? What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that guy was one of my customers, and therefore it was my job to have him taken care of.’’

“Hey, my people took care of him. Relax.”

“Bullshit, Kyle! The second-floor suites are mine, and you know it! Don’t you ever do that to me again!”

“Jesus, Vera,” Kyle said, still not wiping off his grin. “The guy checked in late, you weren’t around, so I—”

“That’s a bunch of shit! I was right there in the restaurant! You should have come in and gotten me!”

Kyle shrugged, but the smartass grin never waned. “I didn’t want to interrupt your dinner with Mr. Feldspar.”

How did he know about that? And who had told him? Was it Feldspar? And if so, what did he say? The flood of insecure questions clogged in her head all at once. She couldn’t think of anything sensible to say. “And what about the convention?”

“What about it?”

“Feldspar told me last night he was going to a convention in Maryland today.”

“You mean Mr. Feldspar,” Kyle snidely corrected. “And what are you all bent out of shape about? He was going to go to the convention, and then he changed his mind. So what?”

Vera steamed. “He changed his mind? Without telling me?”

“Why should he tell you?” Kyle laughed. “You’re just the restaurant manager.”

Vera’s rage swamped her. “Just…get out of here.”

“Sure, but hey—” Kyle’s grin flared over his shoulder. “How about you and me going for another swim tonight—”

“Get out!”

She heard him laughing in the hall, which made her even more angry. Punk! she thought. She tapped her pen on her invoices. Just as she was beginning to settle down, Dan B. walked in, his chef’s apron tight around his considerable midsection. “Hey, Vera, we’re about out of Frangelico, so I won’t be able to run the Mushrooms Cracow with Hazelnut sauce for the special.”

Vera felt weary. “Do the Morels and Pheasant Mousse then.”

“Okay,” he said. “And we’re fresh out of avocado butter.”

Fine! I’ll order more goddamn avocados! she wanted to yell. “Just try to make do without for tonight. I doubt anyone’ll order it anyway.” But with my luck, everyone will. She felt frazzled, but why? Kyle? she wondered. She hadn’t slept well, and the dreams had returned, the seamy yet titillating dreams of The Hands…

And then she remembered something else.

Who she’d seen, or thought she’d seen, in the hall.

“Dan B.? Has, uh…”

“Has, uh, what?” Dan B. asked, looking at her a bit funny.

Vera squinted. “Has Donna been acting—you know—a little weird lately?’’

“No, not at all. Why?”

Why? she asked herself. I must have dreamed that stuff last night. What, Donna sleepwalking downstairs in crotchless panties, nipping at hidden booze? It seemed too absurd now to even bring up. That’s it, I must’ve dreamed it.

“You are, though,” Dan B. volunteered.

“I am?”

“Acting a little weird lately.”

Vera considered this. She guessed it was true. “Yeah, I confess. Kyle’s ticking me off again.”

“Still scoping your milk wagons, huh?”

Vera winced. Male lexicon seemed at no loss for sexist references to female physiology. “I thought it was rib melons, Dan B.”

“Rib melons, milk wagons—same thing,” Dan B. defined. “Just let me know when you want me to lock the asshole in my walk-in for a few days. See ya.”

Dan B. was about to leave, then turned back. “One thing, though. Lee’s been acting a little weird too.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know.” Dan B. fingered his chin. “But I can tell something’s bugging him.”

“Maybe he’s just homesick,” Vera offered.

”Nah, no way—he hated the city. He just seems down, you know, distracted or something. And he acts even weirder whenever that maid is around. You know, the one with her hair in a bun?’’

Yeah, the one I saw last night at three in the morning, walking away from—

Vera felt a little jolt.

Lee’s room…

“I don’t know,” Dan B. went on. “It’s probably nothing. Anyway, I’ll see you at dinner.”

”’Bye.”

Vera’s perplexity sat on her shoulder like a bothersome parrot; weird things seemed to be amassing, none of which she could even begin to figure. Dan B.’s departure made her feel sullen in the office, and bored now that she’d finished the daily paperwork. When the phone rang, she snapped it up, grateful for anything to get her mind off her confusion.

“Is this The Inn?” a rough, rusty voice asked.

“Yes, it is, and I’m Vera Abbot. Can I help you?”

“Yeah, ma’am, well maybe you can. This is Sergeant

Greg Valentine, Waynesville Police. Our dispatcher’s 10-6 log has Chief Mulligan dropping by your inn yesterday. That true?”

“Yes,” Vera said, though she had no idea what a 10-6 log could be. “It was yesterday morning; I talked to him myself.”

“How long was he there, ma’am?”

“Only a short time. Twenty minutes maybe.”

“Then he left?”

What an odd question. No, you moron, he pitched a tent in the atrium. Right now he’s roasting marshmallows in the fireplace. “He left immediately after talking to me, Sergeant,” she eventually answered. “Is there a problem?”

“Well…yeah ma’am there is.” A pause wavered on the line. “No one’s heard hide nor hair of Chief Mulligan since.”

««—»»

Such wonders, the Factotum mused.

Everything in the nave seemed to be shimmering in sizzling candlelight, even the dull rock walls. Zyra was off tending to the women, while Lemi commenced with the usual preparations.

Yes, every night a new and separate wonder!

Mosaics of light seemed to swarm atop his bald head, as dazzling as his visions and his thoughts. Could there be a greater honor than this, or a greater blessing?

Oh, my most resplendent lord, I am bound to serve you…

Under his cassock, his hairless chest tingled with the beat of his heart. His blood felt hot in his veins, hot with duty, hot with joy. That’s all he could remember, for as long as he’d lived: the delicious, sultry joy of giving this bounden service, this homage, this witness.…

Rending the fat one had been noisy; the Factotum smiled as Lemi, as always, expertly slit the bulging belly from groin to sternum. The organs within swelled forward through the crack as if by pressure. Arms red to the elbows, then, Lemi extracted the dead heart, held it high much like an offering to a god—

—then laughed and tossed it in the trash.

Sacrifice? the Factotum thought in jest. But in a way it was. Everything they did, and had always done, was in a sense a sacrifice to greater things.

“There’s one dead fat cop,” Lemi remarked.

“Yes, poor Chief Mulligan,” the Factotum added. “He won’t be bothering us anymore…”

And with that, Lemi raised the hatchet and cut off the police chief’s head.

— | — | —