“What are you going to pay for,” the clerk asked? “The night? The week? The month? Room by the month is the best rate.”
Ben tried to imagine spending one night in the hotel. Two nights in the Last Chance Inn would be too many.
“Let’s start with one night,” he said. I might stay longer if I find a respirtator and a chemical suit.
The lobby air was thick as the spittle on an old man’s chew pipe. It browned the windows. It coated lobby chairs with the new seats worn thin from nonstop shifting, standing and sitting of too much disease or too much medication induced.
He tried not to touch anything, and tried to use only one hand if he had to.
“What’ll it be. How you want to pay. Cash or credit. Come on, kid.”
Ben pawed himself looking for his wallet. In one of the bags? Loose cash? He found it in an inside jacket pocket.
“Cash. I’ve got cash.”
“A guy like you shouldn’t carry cash around.”
“Right. Let me hand you all the money I’ve got so it’ll be safe.”
“Thank you for your show of confidence. But I don’t have anyplace better.”
Ben pulled out a few twenties.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” the clerk said.
“What is it? About what. You didn’t say a thing.”
“When you took the money out of your wallet, you let me see all the money. That’s a no no.”
“I’m a big boy.”
“Size doesn’t tip the scales here. You don’t show your money. Do it like this.”
The clerk snapped his wallet out of his back pocket in a quick draw flick and had it open, shoulder forward to shield the blow, eyes boring in.
“First thing you got to know,” the clerk said, “is knowing what you got and what order it’s in. You don’t want to count money on the street. Everytime you pull your money out a light goes off only bad guys see. And you’re looking pretty bright.”
Ben pulled two twenties out, so fresh from the mint that they stuck together.
The clerk snapped the bills out of Ben’s hand and left a room key and a soiled ten in one move. Before Ben closed his hand, the clerk was on the phone.
“474,” he said.
Ben looked at his room key.
