Inside the room would have been best. But I hadn’t done it
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there, for some reason. Maybe I was panicking. Maybe I was
shocked and spooked and just wanted to get the hell out, fast.
So where else? I looked straight ahead at the lounge bar. That
was probably where I was going. That was probably where I
was based. But I wouldn’t carry the briefcase in there. My
co-workers would notice, because I was already carrying a big
purse. Hookers always carry big purses. They’ve got a lot of
stuff to haul around. Condoms, massage oils, maybe a gun or a
knife, maybe a credit card machine. That’s the easiest way to
spot a hooker. Look for someone dressed like she’s going to a
ball, carrying a bag like she’s going on vacation.
I looked to my left. Maybe I walked around behind the
motel. It would be quiet back there. All the windows faced that
way, but it was night and I could count on the drapes being
closed. I turned left and left again and came out behind the
bedrooms on a rectangle of scrubby weeds that ran the length
of the building and was about twenty feet deep. I imagined
walking fast and then stopping in deep shadow and going
through the bag by feel. I imagined finding what I wanted and
heaving the bag away into the darkness. I might have thrown it
thirty feet.
I stood where she might have stood and scoped out a quarter
circle. It gave me about a hundred and fifty square feet to check. The ground was stony and nearly frozen by overnight
frost. I found plenty of stuff. I found trash and used needles and
foil crack pipes and a Buick hubcap and a skateboard wheel.
But I didn’t find a briefcase.
There was a wooden fence at the rear of the lot. It was about
six feet tall. I jacked myself up on it and looked over. Saw
another rectangle of weeds and stones. No briefcase. I got down
off the fence and walked onward and came up on the motel
office from the back. There was a window made of dirty pebbled
glass that I guessed let into the staff bathroom. Underneath it
were a dozen trashed air conditioners all stacked in a low pile.
They were rusty. They hadn’t been moved in years. I walked on
and came around the corner and turned left into a weedy gravel
patch with a Dumpster on it. I opened the lid. It was three
quarters full of garbage. No briefcase.
I crossed the street and walked through the empty lot and
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looked at the lounge bar. It was silent and locked up tight. Its
neon signs were all switched off and the little bent tubes looked
cold and dead. It had its own Dumpster, close by in the lot,
just sitting there like a parked vehicle. There was no briefcase in it.
I ducked inside the greasy spoon. It was still empty. I
checked the floor around the tables and the banquettes in the
booths. I looked on the floor behind the register. There was a
cardboard box back there with a couple of forlorn umbrellas in
it. But no briefcase. I checked the women’s bathroom. No
women in it. No briefcase in it, either.
I looked at my watch and walked back to the lounge bar. I
would need to ask some face-to-face questions there. But it
wouldn’t be open for business for another eight hours at least. I
turned around and looked across the street at the motel. There
was still nobody in the office. So I headed back to my Humvee
and got there in time to hear a 10-17 come in on the radio. Return to base. So I acknowledged and fired up the big diesel
and drove all the way back to Bird. There was no traffic and I
made it inside forty minutes. I saw Kramer’s rental parked in
the motor pool lot. There was a new person at the desk outside
my borrowed office. A corporal. The day shift. He was a small
dark guy who looked like he was from Louisiana. French blood