Moondogs - Alexander Yates [117]
It looked different than when he’d explored it nearly a week ago. The mess of papers on the desk had been scattered across the study floor, as far as the kitchenette and living area. His father’s sport coats and blazers—big billowing things that Benicio could have wrapped two or three times around his own shoulders—lay with their pockets turned out atop a kindling tent of wooden hangers on the bed. More noises came from the walk-in closet. Solita was in there, squatting with her back to him, turning his father’s folded socks inside out. At least this time she hadn’t brought the kid.
“If you leave right now, I won’t have you arrested,” he said.
Solita jolted up and spun to face him. In one hand she held a purse made of worn denim and in the other dangled a knot of socks. “Your father owes me money,” she said.
“If you have business with my father, come back when he’s home.”
“What if he’s never home? What if he dies?” She saw the change in his face and switched tactics, quick. “June and I can’t wait forever. I need the money for him. He needs a good doctor.”
“Yeah? Tell me what he has and you can walk out with whatever you can carry.”
“Cancer,” she said without hesitating.
“What kind of cancer?”
“In his hands.” She looked down at her own hands, and then back up at Benicio. She seemed to know the lie was spoiled. He left her in the closet and dialed the front desk on the bedside telephone. He gave them the suite number and said there was an intruder in his father’s room, speaking loud enough for her to hear.
“I’m not a thief,” she said as she emerged from the closet, heading to the front door at a fast walk.
“You’re stealing,” he said. “You’re a thief.” He caught her by one of the faded straps of her denim purse and she pivoted to punch him in the neck. He brought his forearm up, braced it against her collarbones and pinned her to the wall beside the door. She kept hitting him until he was able to pull the purse away, fling it to the opposite corner of the room and use his free hand to pin her wrist as well. He realized at that moment that he was on the verge of the kind of violence that would change the shape of his life. He was capable of it.
“He’s not even your kid, is he?” Some of his spit spotted her forehead. “What is he, your little brother? And you’re using him to steal from my dad when he’s in trouble.”
“Your little brother,” she said. “Not mine.” Her hips bucked against his and her knee struck out, but missed. The skin of her belly touched the skin of his. She anticipated the change in him, and pressed in close. He let her go.
“Leave now,” he said.
“I need my purse.”
He retrieved the purse from where he’d flung it, upended the contents on the floor and offered it to her.
“Some of that is mine.”
“I’m supposed to believe you?”
Solita didn’t move. Her eyes darted from him to the small pile of tissue paper, photographs and bright peso bills on the floor. They could both hear the elevator dinging in the hall outside. “I need to get home,” she said. “First a bus, then a taxi.”
He didn’t realize that he wasn’t breathing until his chest started to hurt. “That’s fine,” he said. “You can have it. What do I care?” He scooped everything back into the purse and handed it to her. The second she had it she rushed out the door.
A QUINTET OF SECURITY GUARDS arrived in short order and Benicio had to persuade them that he was unharmed. They checked every room in the suite and examined the electric lock with little penlights and dental mirrors. They reprogrammed the lock and issued him a new key. They knew who Solita was—described her as “Howard Bridgewater’s usual friend.” Benicio asked that she not be allowed back into the hotel.