Alice & Dorothy (27 page)

“Be right out,” Dorothy said. “Just one more thing to do.” She looked back into the mirror, then grabbed her towel and scrubbed off all the glaring eyes and the words
I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU
. Then she wrapped herself in the towel and popped open the door. “Good morning, Sunshine,” Dorothy said, smiling.

When the water in the sink started running, Dorothy went and sat down on the bed.
I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU
flashed in her thoughts. It was almost comforting, if she could forget all those awful eyes Alice had drawn around it. Beautiful even. She could make it beautiful, if she put her mind to it. She could train herself to believe almost anything. She pictured Alice whispering it sweetly into her ear.
I am always with you. I love you
.

She felt better about it already. She was still feeling good about it a few minutes later when there was a series of sharp knocks at the door. Dorothy threw it open without thinking; the smile on her face melted into a look of horror.

The two police officers standing in the doorway weren’t smiling at all.

They stared at each other from across the threshold. Dorothy had a hand on the door and the other on the wall; like she was using her own body as a last line of defense from intruders.
Gawd,
she thought.
This is just like the hospital all over again—

“Excuse me,” The first officer said, holding up a clipboard. “Sorry to bother you, but there’s been an incident in the motel office, and we’re going room to room checking names and looking for witnesses. Who are you?”

“Dorothy Gale,” she said immediately, without thought. She instantly regretted her words.

“Are you alone in here?” One cop was jotting down her name in a small notebook. The other stared her down hard.
He’s waiting for me to crack,
she thought.
One misstep and he’ll be on me like a pitbull.

Already, Dorothy felt like a cornered cat. Talking to police had a way of doing that. Especially when you had something to hide. Like stealing a drug dealer’s car after nearly killing him and breaking out of the psychiatric floor of a General Hospital. And Alice had been confined there, so if they found her they might take her back. Or worse. It would be better to tell them she was alone.

On the other hand, if she walked out of the bathroom after Dorothy told them she was alone they’d want to know why she’d lied about her presence, and would almost certainly do some kind of background check. Maybe there was still a way out of this though...

“I’m alone,
officer
.” Dorothy said loudly. Hopefully loud enough for Alice to hear.

“Okay,” The cop said. “No need to yell. We have a bit of a discrepancy here, between you and the logbook. Says there shouldn’t be anyone in here right now, and yet here you are. Can we see some I.D. please?”

“Yeah,” Dorothy said. She stepped back from the door and grabbed her wallet off the table. She slipped her license out of its holder and handed it to him. Then she bit her lip and looked up at the cop with her most helpless face. “I didn’t have a credit card, so that guy behind the glass said he’d take cash and keep it off the books.
Umm.
..”

“Something else?” the cop said. The officer standing behind him snickered, looked down for a moment, then looked away.

“I kinda had to...do...something. For him,” Dorothy said. She made a little curtsy when she said it, as though the words were heavy on her shoulders and she was unused to carrying the weight.

“I didn’t have a credit card,” Dorothy said again. She tried to look as sweet as possible.
Please don’t come out right now Alice
, she thought.

“Okay,
Dorothy Gale
,” The cop said. “So when did you get here?”

“Last night,” Dorothy said. “I stopped for Burger King and then came here about nine o’clock I guess, and it was dead here. Like, nobody in the parking lot, nuthin. That’s why that guy said I could have a room even though I didn’t have a credit card. Then he said, “
Oh, you’re going to have to give me something in return, because if you trash the room while you’re in here I’m gonna get shit canned
.” And I said
like what?
And he said
Well, why don’t you come in here and we’ll talk about it.
And I knew what he wanted because he had that look in his eyes men sometimes get, like they don’t see a person standing in front of them but maybe a big juicy steak or something, but I went in there anyway because it was raining and cold and I didn’t want to sleep in my car again and sometimes it isn’t such a huge deal, if they’re
clean
down there, I mean I’ve done it before for my boyfriends and it was okay. I just felt like such a piece of garbage after though. I finished up and he didn’t even look at me...he just tossed the keys and told me not to trash the room again.”

Dorothy was weepy and high-voiced by the time she stopped talking, and now she looked up at the officer with wet eyes and said, “I know it’s bad and it makes me a bad person and I’m so sorry, but it was raining outside and I just wanted a hot shower and somewhere warm to sleep for a couple days.”

“Okay,” the officer said, his voice softening. “Just calm down. It’s not the end of the world, people are just jerks sometimes and they take advantage of sweet little things. This is a bad neighbourhood for a girl like you. There are wolves around every corner.”

Cute is the best weapon I have.
“I’m sorry,” Dorothy said. She wiped tears from her cheeks and bit her lip.

“So, did you hear anything last night at all?” The cop said. “Like shouting, or screaming or anything?”

“Umm,” Dorothy said, pursing her lips in thought. “Nope,” she said. I came in here, washed my mouth and brushed my teeth like four times, then had a shower and went to bed with the T.V. on. Why?”

“Did you see anyone strange? Anything that stuck out in your mind at all? Like someone sitting in their car for a long time, or any strange people hanging around?”

“I’m from the country,” Dorothy said. “They’re all strange to me. But no, nobody. There were some cars in the lot, but I didn’t notice anybody in ‘em. Why?”

“The motel manager was murdered last night,” the cop said gravely. “Some kind of ritual killing, from the looks of it. Happened sometime before dawn, when the guy who delivers papers showed up and found him.”

“Oh my God,” Dorothy said, covering her mouth with her hands. “I just...I mean.
Oh God!
And
I
...Ohhh, I don’t feel so good.”

“We don’t have anyone in custody just yet,” the first cop said. “Right now we’re just going from room to room making sure everyone is where they should be.”

“And I’m not,” Dorothy said. “Oh, I’m so sorry I came here now. I should have never left Kansas.”

“Well, unfortunately, the motel is shut down while we do our investigation, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to find another place to stay. Do you have any friends or family in town you can stay with?”

“No,” Dorothy whimpered. I’m going to have to find another motel I guess. I’m up here looking for work and trying to get a place of my own. I want to go to school next year, if I can save up enough money.”

“Smart decision,” the cop said. “I wish my daughter made smart decisions like that.”

“Is she the same age as me?” Dorothy asked. Her eyelids fluttered sweetly.

“Just a couple years older, from the looks of it,” the cop said. “No school for her though. She seems to think Daddy’s going to be around to pay the bills forever.”

“
Aww,
” Dorothy said. “You sound like a good dad. She’s very lucky to have you.”

“Oh I know,” the cop said. “I’m sure she’ll realize it one day, too.”

“She knows.” Dorothy said. “Believe me.
She knows
.”

“Anyway,” the cop said, withdrawing his hand from Dorothy’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you with my card, and if you remember anything could you call it in?”

“Absolutely, officer,” Dorothy said, taking the card from his outstretched hand. “Anything I can do to help.”

“It’s usually something little that you don’t think is important,” the cop said. “That’s the kind of stuff that makes the best leads. So if you remember anything at all, no matter how small a thing you think it is, just ring us up and let us know.”

“I will,” Dorothy said. “Promise.”

“Good,” the cop said, pleased. “Oh, which one of these cars is yours?”

“Umm,” Dorothy said. She stood on her tiptoes and looked around the two cops, who parted to either side of the door so she could see better. “There it is. The ugly yellow thing.”

“The
Rabbit?
Good Car. Very reliable. You pretty much have to shoot them to get them to stop running.”

“That’s what I hear,” Dorothy said. She giggled. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Thank you for your time, Miz Gale,” the officer said. “We’re going to need you to vacate the premises as soon as possible.” He quickly wrote down the vital information off Dorothy’s license and handed it back to her.

“Thank you officer,” Dorothy said. “I hope you catch whoever did it.”

“Oh, we will.” He replied. “Thank you for your time.”

Dorothy closed the door. She felt dizzy, and she braced herself against the wall as she took deep breaths and tried to calm down. She turned when the bathroom door opened behind her.

“They gone?” Alice said. Her face was dark, and her voice was husky. Mannish.

“Yeah,” Dorothy said. She smiled weakly. “I can’t believe they didn’t say anything. I thought I was gonna hurl all over them. I swear I’ve never been so scared in my—”

She stopped mid-sentence as Alice came out of the bathroom and placed rabbit’s gun on the table by the television across from Dorothy’s wallet.

“What the hell,” Dorothy said. “Were you going to
shoot
them?”

Alice turned and looked at her, then put her finger to her lips asking for quiet. Then she slowly turned and pointed at the television. There was a live news feed from a reporter across the street, and the words
Motel Massacre
splashed across the bottom of the screen.

Rabbit and Eazy had managed to go about two hours without television, personal records for both of them. Then Rabbit had Eazy and Devon fish his old 32" tube screen out of the spare room and the three of them set it up where Rabbit’s plasma T.V. had been. The plasma was going out to the side of the house. He’d never be able to get it fixed. He’d gotten it from a drug addict. Rabbit had learned that the kind of warranty the average junkie offered on their gear only lasted as long as their junk did. Then all bets were off. He’d gotten it in trade for a quarter ounce of heroin. It was hard to see it go. He’d felt like a real high roller with it sitting in his living room. But there would be more T.V.s; more junkie gifts when he got his drugs back from Alice and her whore.