Thomas Scott
THOMAS STOOD IN line behind a woman in impossibly tight jeans, chunky green heels, and a sheer white tank top. A leopard-print bra peeked out from underneath. With long fingernails, she peeled twenty-dollar bills off a thick roll, placing them, one at a time, in the slot at the bottom of the scratched glass partition that separated the clerk from the rest of the lobby.
Actually, “lobby” was too strong a word. It was a small room with two small chairs, a couple of cracked and faded magazines piled on a small coffee table.
The clerk, a scruffy man in his forties, wore an indifferent expression as he watched the small pile of money grow. Once the woman was done, he put a key hanging from a diamond-shaped piece of plastic into the slot.
The woman turned, her lips a deep brown, the corners of her eyes pointed into cat’s eyes with liner and mascara. She winked at Thomas and said, “Room 4 if you get bored later, tough guy.”
Thomas didn’t acknowledge her. Didn’t even look her way, lest it be mistaken for some level of interest. The thought that he could just go over like nothing and just pay for it? He had a hard enough time talking to women as it was. That was somehow much scarier.
He didn’t want to think about it. He had other things to worry about.
Like staying alive.
He couldn’t stop thinking about that cop who threatened him. And the look on the face of John Junior’s dad.
He thought about Amato’s parting words, too. What the young lawyer said when the car dropped him off at the Staten Island Express Suites, a run-down motel off the expressway, not too far south of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
“I’m sorry to do this,” Amato said. “At a bigger hotel, you’re going to get recognized. Place like this, nobody makes eye contact. That’s going to help right now, because you need to be anonymous. Do you understand?”
Thomas didn’t, not really. He had already planned his perfect night: ordering in Chinese food—sesame chicken and a wonton soup with extra wontons. He’d eat while marathon-watching the Toy Story movies. His favorite meal and his favorite movies, to erase the stress and horror of the last week.
But Amato seemed to know what he was doing—Thomas wasn’t in jail anymore, after all—so he figured it was best to listen. Given how many people knew his address, it probably wasn’t safe.
At least Amato was willing to pay. He handed Thomas a stack of bills and said, “Take a shower, get some rest. Watch some TV and order in. I’ll show up in two days with some fresh clothes and we’ll figure out the next steps, okay?”
“Why not tomorrow?” Thomas asked.
“There’s a lot of work still to be done. Just think of it like a little vacation. It’s rare that a man gets two days with nothing to worry about. Try to enjoy it.”
“Okay,” said Thomas, accepting the money, still feeling like he was being dumped on the side of the road. Which, essentially, he was.
There wasn’t much to enjoy about this.
As he approached the clerk, he thought about the pile of money in his pocket, and the cheapness of the rooms, and the fact that he was hungry. He didn’t want to go looking for an ATM, so he figured it would be better to just pay for the room on his credit card, hold onto the cash for now. He slid his card through the slot.
The clerk took it and stared at the name for a few seconds before he jabbed at his keyboard. If he recognized Thomas, he didn’t betray it. He behaved with the same level of indifference as he had toward the woman before Thomas.
“Can I get a room far away from the woman that came in before me?” Thomas asked.
The clerk, who was reaching for a key hung up on the pegs on the wall, shrugged and moved his arm, reaching for another one—room 12.
Thomas took the key, nodded to the clerk, and made his way outside and down the sidewalk, circling the parking lot. His room was the last one on the far end.
The room was dark and musty inside, with an ancient smell of cigarette smoke permeating the carpet and blinds. He turned on the light next to the door and did a quick inventory. There was a small dresser with a television on it. Not even a flat-screen, just a chunky old tube television.
There was one bed that sagged in the middle, with a floral spread that reminded him a little of his grandmother’s couch. The wallpaper, peeling in the corners, matched the bedspread. Inside the bathroom, there was a shower and a toilet and a window. The sink was outside the bathroom door, in the closet area.
It was not a nice room.
And it certainly wasn’t clean.
There were no visible bugs or vermin. That much he could count as a victory. The first thing he did was take a big wad of toilet paper, soak it, and wipe down the top of the dresser and the nightstand and the toilet. Then he took a dry wad and followed the same path.
It wasn’t much, but it would do.
Then he sat on the corner of the bed and tried not to think about the kinds of things these rooms were typically used for. He really hoped the sheets were laundered between guests.
The walls seemed to be closing in on him. Even though he was free to walk outside, even though he could stand up and spread his arms and not touch the walls, he suddenly felt like he was back in his cell on Rikers.
Trapped, alone, and everyone outside these four walls wanting to kill him.
What he needed was a drink. He didn’t usually drink, but isn’t that what people turned to, in situations like this? Hopefully it would dull him enough so he’d be able to get through the night without tossing and turning too much.
Without thinking about the children.
Their soft, sweet faces, and the life that had been drowned out of them. The way they looked after they were dead, placid and serene.…
When he closed his eyes, he saw their faces. Didn’t matter the time of day. Didn’t matter the circumstance. It’s what he saw. They haunted him, and sometimes he wondered if they would ever go away.
He wondered if there was a bar nearby. A liquor store. Something.
First things first: He needed a shower. A real shower, in private, not in a room full of other men.
He stripped his clothes off, hanging up the suit jacket Amato had gotten for him, balling up his socks and placing them into his dress shoes. The rest he neatly folded and placed on the edge of the bed. Then he stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower, letting the weak stream of water get as hot as possible.
And like he did every time, he held his breath, counted to five, and climbed in, careful to keep the spray out of his face, getting nervous even at the thought of feeling water enter his nose.