Free Fire - C. J. Box [43]
Joe sighed, looked around. Cumulus clouds became incendiaryas the setting sun lit them. The quiet was extraordinary, the only sound the burble of a truck leaving Mammoth Village and descending the switchbacks toward Gardiner.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t made arrangements for where he would stay that night. His choice was to drive down the switchback roads from Mammoth out the North Gate and find a motel in Gardiner, Montana, or cross the street, the lawns where the elk grazed, to the rambling old Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.
8
Joe’s boots echoed on the hardwood floor of the lobby of the Mammoth Hotel. The lobby had high ceilings, a cavernous sitting area overlooked by a massive mural, dozens of empty overstuffed chairs. Two check-in clerks huddled around a computer monitor behind the front desk and looked up at him as he approached.
“Can I get a room?”
The clerk said, “Sorry, sold out,” then smiled to show he was kidding.
“Very funny, Simon,” the other clerk said in a British accent, then to Joe: “Don’t worry, we’re at the end of our season. There are plenty of rooms available. We get a little punchy when the end is near.”
“When the end is near,” Simon mimicked with an intonation of false doom while he tapped on a keyboard.
“You know what I mean,” the other clerk said.
Joe drew his wallet out and fished for a credit card. Although the state had sent him his credentials, a state credit card wasn’t in the package. He’d need to ask about that, and soon. The familycredit card had a low maximum, and Joe didn’t know the limit.
The two clerks worked together with a jokey, easy rapport that came from familiarity. Joe noted that both wore Zephyr Corp. name badges with their first names and residences. While both were undoubtedly British, their name tags said “Simon” and “James” from Montana.
“You aren’t really from Montana,” Joe said, while Simon noted the name on his credit card.
“How did you guess that?” James asked slyly.
“Actually, when you work for Zephyr long enough and get hired on in the winter, you can claim Montana or Wyoming for your residence,” Simon said. “Better than Brighton, I suppose.”
“Definitely better than Brighton,” James said.
“Or Blackpool, James.” To Joe: “You’ve got a reservation,” Simon said, looking up from the screen.
“I do?”
Simon nodded. “And it’s covered. By a Mr. Chuck Ward from the State of Wyoming.”
Joe liked that and appreciated Ward for taking care of details.Simon handed over the keys to room 231.
“Are you familiar with the hotel?” Simon asked.
Joe was, although it had been a long time. Despite the years, the layout of the building was burned into his memory.
ROOM 231, ALONG with the rest of the rooms and the hallway,had been renovated since Joe was there last. The lighting wasn’t as glaring and the walls not as stark as he remembered, he thought, musing how years distorted memory and perception.It was still a long hallway, though, and he struggled down it with too many bags. A sprinkler system now ran the length of the ceiling, and the muted yellow paint of the ceiling and hallwaywalls was restful. Still, it gave him a feeling of melancholy that was almost overwhelming. While they could change the carpeting and the fixtures, they couldn’t change what had happenedthere more than twenty-five years ago, or stop the memoriesfrom flooding back to him.
His room was small, clean, redone. A soft bed with a brass headboard and a lush quilt, a pine desk and chair, tiled floor in the bathroom, little bear-shaped soap on the sink. There was no television. A phone on the desk was the only nod toward the present. Otherwise, the room could have been something out of the 1920s, when the hotel was built. He looked out the window and was pleased it overlooked the huge stretch of lawn known as the parade ground.
He sat on the bed, his head awash with overlapping thoughts. He tried to convince himself the meeting had not gone badly, that he hadn’t embarrassed himself, that he’d learned a few things to help him carry out his assignment. That