reeling. No windows. Nothing even remotely resembling a weapon. She grabs the doorknob, attempting to help herself to her feet, but the lock explodes in her hand. Bits of hot metal and smoldering wood fly through the air as the bullet clinks off the side of the toilet and falls to the floor, inches from her feet. The smell of gunpowder and burned sawdust fills her nostrils.
This is it, she thinks. My life is over. He is going to shoot me. I am going to die in a filthy inner-city motel room.
But it is Isabella who helps her to her feet, then guides her over to the toilet where she removes the heavy cover off the tank. It is her daughter’s tiny hand that closes the shower curtain behind her as she steps into the tub, waiting, her pulse pounding in her ears.
With a crack of thunder, Willis Walker kicks the door in with a size-thirteen shoe, then lurches into the bathroom. “Where y’at , bitch?” he screams. “You want some? I got some for ya. Willis Walker got some for ya.”
He raises the gun, fires it drunkenly into the mirror—shattering it into a dozen pieces—then stumbles back, his ears momentarily stuffed from the gun blast, his central nervous system besieged by the drug.
It is Ginger’s moment to act.
Before Willis can recover, she shoves open the shower curtain and, with all of her strength, brings the lid down on the back of his head, twice, the sickening thuds mingling with the smell of discharged gunpowder, converging with her revulsion. Willis Walker slumps to the tile, rolls onto his back. She drops the lid. It bounces off his huge stomach and slides to the floor.
And, suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, it is over.
A linen silence fills the room. She looks down. Willis Walker is lying on the bathroom floor, still and quiet, a small puddle of blood beneath his head. She takes a mildewed towel from the rack, replaces the lid on the back of the toilet, wiping the blood and her fingerprints from it.
And, for the next few minutes, as nausea grows within her, she continues to wipe down the motel room—everything, whether she remembers touching it or not.
A short time later, as she stands on the berm of I-90 East, retching into the culvert, she is certain—as certain as she is that she will see the death mask of Willis Walker every night for the rest of her life—that she has left something behind.
8
The Dream-A-Dream Motel on East Seventy-ninth Street and St. Clair Avenue is a U-shaped, single story building, an inner-city cathouse patched with imitation-stucco board to cover the bullet holes, the graffiti, the long streaks of dried vomit under the windowsills.
I watched her enter Room 116 at about one o’clock. A blond this time. Not really her color. I like her best as a brunette. I always have, ever since the day I first followed her to see where she went so mysteriously incognito all the time, to see how she peddled her charms. Even then I could feel her pull, that raw dynamism that says you can’t have me unless you step into my world .
A short time after she entered the motel room I heard the gunshots, the whipcrack of a small-caliber weapon fired in a confined space. Within minutes she emerged, frantic, dressed in a dark cap, dark raincoat.
I ran off a full roll of film — I still prefer using 35mm film to digital when possible — my finger depressed on the shutter release as she sprinted from the room, across the lot, down St. Clair Avenue. I am sure I got her face. How recognizable it will be is yet to be determined, although my SP-7901 Starscope night-vision lens has yet to let me down.
I step inside Room 116, my sidearm drawn. The room is in disarray, but I immediately see the body on the floor, smell the metal of just-spent blood, the carbon of just-flashed powder.
The body is half in, half out of the bathroom.
I holster my weapon, place the shoulder bag on the bed, cock my head to the night. No sirens. I set about the tasks at hand. I place the knives on the floor at my
This is it, she thinks. My life is over. He is going to shoot me. I am going to die in a filthy inner-city motel room.
But it is Isabella who helps her to her feet, then guides her over to the toilet where she removes the heavy cover off the tank. It is her daughter’s tiny hand that closes the shower curtain behind her as she steps into the tub, waiting, her pulse pounding in her ears.
With a crack of thunder, Willis Walker kicks the door in with a size-thirteen shoe, then lurches into the bathroom. “Where y’at , bitch?” he screams. “You want some? I got some for ya. Willis Walker got some for ya.”
He raises the gun, fires it drunkenly into the mirror—shattering it into a dozen pieces—then stumbles back, his ears momentarily stuffed from the gun blast, his central nervous system besieged by the drug.
It is Ginger’s moment to act.
Before Willis can recover, she shoves open the shower curtain and, with all of her strength, brings the lid down on the back of his head, twice, the sickening thuds mingling with the smell of discharged gunpowder, converging with her revulsion. Willis Walker slumps to the tile, rolls onto his back. She drops the lid. It bounces off his huge stomach and slides to the floor.
And, suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, it is over.
A linen silence fills the room. She looks down. Willis Walker is lying on the bathroom floor, still and quiet, a small puddle of blood beneath his head. She takes a mildewed towel from the rack, replaces the lid on the back of the toilet, wiping the blood and her fingerprints from it.
And, for the next few minutes, as nausea grows within her, she continues to wipe down the motel room—everything, whether she remembers touching it or not.
A short time later, as she stands on the berm of I-90 East, retching into the culvert, she is certain—as certain as she is that she will see the death mask of Willis Walker every night for the rest of her life—that she has left something behind.
8
The Dream-A-Dream Motel on East Seventy-ninth Street and St. Clair Avenue is a U-shaped, single story building, an inner-city cathouse patched with imitation-stucco board to cover the bullet holes, the graffiti, the long streaks of dried vomit under the windowsills.
I watched her enter Room 116 at about one o’clock. A blond this time. Not really her color. I like her best as a brunette. I always have, ever since the day I first followed her to see where she went so mysteriously incognito all the time, to see how she peddled her charms. Even then I could feel her pull, that raw dynamism that says you can’t have me unless you step into my world .
A short time after she entered the motel room I heard the gunshots, the whipcrack of a small-caliber weapon fired in a confined space. Within minutes she emerged, frantic, dressed in a dark cap, dark raincoat.
I ran off a full roll of film — I still prefer using 35mm film to digital when possible — my finger depressed on the shutter release as she sprinted from the room, across the lot, down St. Clair Avenue. I am sure I got her face. How recognizable it will be is yet to be determined, although my SP-7901 Starscope night-vision lens has yet to let me down.
I step inside Room 116, my sidearm drawn. The room is in disarray, but I immediately see the body on the floor, smell the metal of just-spent blood, the carbon of just-flashed powder.
The body is half in, half out of the bathroom.
I holster my weapon, place the shoulder bag on the bed, cock my head to the night. No sirens. I set about the tasks at hand. I place the knives on the floor at my
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