Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [111]
Now she called Chris Caffee. It was easy to remember that number after calling her four times that afternoon. Then Debbie just sat there with her hand on Ben's head and time went on for a long time. She couldn't tell how long before help came.
Chapter 16
ARMED AND DANGEROUS
Peter Arroyo was coming back to the City Center Motel from the Golden Spike Restaurant where he had gone with his wife and his son and two nieces for supper around nine-thirty that evening. It was now close to ten-thirty and they were returning to their rooms.
As they passed the front window of the motel office, Arroyo could see a strange sight. He had noticed, while registering, a large motel attendant with a small wife. Now neither of them was visible. Instead, a tall man with a goatee was stepping around the counter just as Arroyo came along the street. The man had a cash drawer in his hand. Arroyo could see that he also had a pistol with a long barrel in the other hand.
The kids observed nothing. One of Arroyo's nieces even wanted to go into the office to get stamps. Arroyo said, "Just keep going." Out of the corner of his eye he could see the man turn around and go back to the counter. Arroyo looked no more, but continued walking to his car. He kept hoping that what he had seen was somebody fooling around with a gun. Maybe there was a simple legitimate explanation.
When he reached his Matador which was parked about fifty feet from the office, he sent the girls upstairs. Then he started unloading the car carrier on the roof. Two men came down from the balcony, and he wondered if they were going to the office, but they just happened to be looking for ice, and went right upstairs again.
Now the man with the gun came out of the door, turned left, and went up the street on foot. Arroyo headed right to the office.
He could see the motel manager on the floor, and the man's wife next to him with a phone in her hand, and blood all over the place. The man on the ground didn't say anything, he just made noises. His leg was moving a little. Arroyo tried to help the woman turn him over but the footing was slippery. The man was very heavy and lying in too great a puddle.
2
Walking away from the motel, Gary put the money in his pocket and discarded the cash box in a bush. About a block from the gas station, he stopped to get rid of the gun. Took it by the muzzle and pushed it into another bush. A twig must have caught the trigger for the gun went off. The bullet shot into the soft meat between the thumb and the palm.
Norman Fulmer took a bucket of water and threw it over walls of the bathroom. He took a big sponge and washed the tile and scrubbed the floor. Then he went out to see how the work was going on Gilmore's truck. Instead, he saw Gary walking real fast right past him to the men's room that Fulmer had just finished cleaning. There was a trail of blood following Gilmore. "I don't know," Norman said to himself, "I guess he ran into something." And he just mopped up those big drops right there on the bay floor.
The scanner box was overhead, and Fulmer heard the police dispatcher talking about an aggravated assault and robbery at the City Center Motel. Norman began to listen real hard. He was in the habit of paying attention to the scanner anyway. It was more interesting than music. The dispatcher was now saying that a man got shot and another left on foot.
Fulmer went back into the bay and saw with one look that Martin Ontiveros had also heard the scanner. He hadn't even removed the old thermostat, but right now he started putting a bolt back in and Fulmer screwed in the other, and soon as that was done, they slammed down the hood even as Gary came back through the men's room door, and said,