The Sun Down Motel

Viv hadn’t expected a black woman. She’d expected a man, a detective type from one of her TV shows. Detectives weren’t black women, not even on Cagney & Lacey. Then again, why not? Fell was full of surprises. Viv was almost used to it by now.

Next to the woman on the front passenger seat was a bag of bulky camera equipment and a lunch bag that had obviously contained her dinner. The woman’s dark brown eyes looked straight into Viv’s, and Viv saw someone who was tough, wary, and not a little annoyed, because she knew exactly what Viv was thinking.

The woman’s eyes narrowed with recognition. “You’re the office girl.”

“Yes,” Viv said. “And you’re the one following Helen while she cheats on her husband.”

“That bother you? Are you going to call your boss about it?”

“No,” Viv said. “It doesn’t bother me at all. And I don’t know where my boss is.”

The woman’s face turned harder. “So you came into my car exactly why? Because you don’t have anything better to do?”

Viv held her gaze. “No. I came because I need a favor.”

“A favor?” The woman shook her head, almost laughing. “Shit and double shit,” she said. “This is not my night. I didn’t know you made me, office girl. I obviously need to be more discreet.”

“They have no idea you’re here,” Viv offered. “I’m sure of it.”

“Uh-huh. And how do you know what Romeo says in his phone calls?”

“There’s something defective about the phone line,” Viv replied. “When someone makes a call, I can lift the receiver in the office and listen to it. I do it all the time.”

The woman’s eyes widened for a brief second. “Huh. That’s handy.”

Viv shrugged. “It depends on what you want to hear. But if you want something in return for a favor for me, I can tell you everything either of them has ever said on the telephone at the Sun Down.”

There was a moment of silence as the woman thought this through. The quiet settled throughout the car. Viv wondered if she’d played her cards wrong. Maybe she had. She hadn’t planned on selling out Helen and Robert to get what she wanted, but she was starting to learn that you had to do what you had to do.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” the woman said finally. She held out her hand. “My name is Marnie.”

Viv shook it. “Viv. I think that—”

“Shh.” Marnie dropped her hand and grabbed her camera. “Get down in the seat, will you? Out of sight.”

Viv saw that the door to room 109 had opened and Helen was coming out. She was dressed in jeans again, with a long-waisted black and white shirt under her coat. She put a piece of paper over her head—Viv recognized the yellowed Welcome to the Sun Down! card that was on the nightstand in every room—and hurried through the rain to her car.

Watching Helen made Viv think about her parents. After the divorce, her father had remarried in less than a year. Had he cheated? Her mother had never said anything. Then again, her mother was so humiliated she would rather die than tell the truth. The entire divorce had gone down in stony silence—her father was there, and then he was gone. There was no discussion, nothing but her father’s absence and her mother’s panicked insistence on perfection from both of her daughters, as if being perfect would make all of the problems go away.

If there had been cheating, neither parent would ever tell her. Even though she was an adult now. She would never have the truth.

Viv slid down in the back seat as Marnie aimed her camera and clicked it over and over. She captured Helen getting in her car, driving away. Then she put the camera down. “Damn, that woman is cold,” she commented.

“Who hired you?” Viv asked, sitting up in her seat again. “His wife or her husband?”

Marnie glanced at her. “I’m not supposed to tell. But I’ve been sitting in this car all night, so too bad. A lawyer hired me. He represents the husband. The man thinks something is going on.”

“You should have plenty of evidence by now.”

“I do. But I give the lawyer a roll of film and he asks me for another one. He wants it ironclad, he says. Sounds to me like that bitch is going to get put out on her ass. And for what? A few nights with Mr. White in there? Don’t get me wrong, the man is far from ugly. But a girl can find a not-ugly man any day of the week, and an unmarried one, too. He must be some kind of Superman in bed.”

Viv looked out at the rain and thought about Helen. “I don’t think she’s looking for romance. I don’t know what she’s looking for, but that’s not it.”

“I don’t give a shit what she’s looking for,” Marnie said practically, putting her camera gear back in its bag. “Personally, I’m looking for a check. And I just earned one. Now I get to sleep before my next gig.”

“This is what you do all the time? Every day?” Viv asked. “It seems dangerous. I mean, for a woman. I thought you’d be a man.”

“You did? Well, we’re all disappointed sometimes. You thought I’d be white, too, right? You can say it.”

Viv shrugged. She had.

“I don’t do this all the time,” Marnie said, indicating the parking lot, the motel. “I do other work, too. I take glamour shots and sometimes I work school photo days. Real estate agents need pictures of the houses they’re advertising. On slow days I can pick up five or six houses at four bucks a shot. It isn’t creative, but it’s work.”

Viv had never heard of anyone doing any of that for a living. It seemed her time at the Sun Down Motel was one learning experience after another. “The pictures you take of the motel. Do you still have them?”

“Once I develop them, I keep a copy of every one. Even the ones I’m not supposed to. You never know what’s going to be useful. Why do you ask? Shit, here he comes. Get down. I don’t want him to see you.”

Viv looked out to see Mr. White leaving his room and locking the door behind him. He was slim, fit, and vigorous, and he plainly wore a wedding band on his left hand. He was dressed in a dark suit and light shirt, his tie knotted, salt-and-pepper hair combed back from his forehead. He opened an umbrella and in a flash of panic Viv realized he would have to check out. “There’s no one in the office,” she said. “I’m off shift and Janice hasn’t come in yet. It’s locked.”

Marnie was pulling her camera out of her bag again. “Did he pay up front?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t worry about it.” She aimed the camera, snapped a few shots of Mr. White walking to the office. He seemed like any average man going to work on an average day, except he was leaving a motel at seven o’clock in the morning after a night with a woman who wasn’t his wife.