Lion Plays Rough by Lachlan Smith Page A

205.”
    â€œIf your party isn’t answering, you’re welcome to leave a message,” the woman said.
    â€œI’m a bit worried about him. He’s been depressed. His wife kicked him out and he lost his job. Is there any way you could check on him?”
    I heard her hitting keys on her computer. “The room hasn’t been cleaned in two days. I can see on the hallway security camera that the do not disturb sign is hanging on the door. Is this an emergency?”
    I hesitated, then told her no.
    I was already out the door.
    ~ ~ ~
    â€œMarty!” I called, banging on the door. “It’s Leo. If you’re in there, open up.”
    The woman from the front desk hovered beside me. I wished she would go away. From the room I heard no sound of movement, but there were voices, a child’s with an adult’s voice interjecting. The volume was low, but I recognized the soundtrack of the police interviews with Erica, the child Scarsdale was accused of molesting.
    I pounded the door again. “Marty, if you don’t open now, I’m going to have them call 911. And then the paramedics will come here and break the door down. If you don’t want that to happen, you’d better open up right now!”
    I heard what sounded like a groan, the creak of the mattress, and then the door was unlatched. I stepped into a dank human smell, as if all the excretions of all the lonely people who had slept here hung like a vapor in the room.
    The curtains were drawn. By the light of the little girl’s scared face on the screen I saw Marty sink to the floor and take a drink from the glass he found there. I turned on the light, and he flinched, lifting an arm to his eyes. The AC was going full blast. He pulled the grimy bedspread down over his shoulders. He was wearing the shirt and slacks he’d been wearing Saturday at the office.
    His voice was scratchy, as if he’d been crying. “I want to plead guilty. Everything she said, I did it, and more. I just want it all to stop.”
    My anger surged. Now that he’d confessed to me I wouldn’t be able to put him on the stand. “Get up off the floor and pull yourself together.” I stabbed the TV’s power button and threw open the curtains. “You want to go to prison, Marty? You know what’ll happen to you there?”
    He sat blinking. “I want help. It’s the only way I’m ever going to stop.”
    â€œNo one’s going to help you. They’re going to throw you in prison and leave you there for years. And eventually someone in there is going to kill you for what you did. I think if you wanted to die we’d have found you dead in here.”
    The front desk clerk was still standing in the door. “He’s fine,” I explained. “There isn’t going to be any trouble.”
    When I looked again the door was closed and she was gone. I took the glass from Scarsdale’s hand. He was shivering under the blanket, squinting against the sun from the window. His eyes were bloodshot, red rimmed, his face pale and unshaven, with dried spittle around his mouth. I felt an urge to kick him, and saw no reason to resist.
    He didn’t respond except to grunt and stop shivering. I kicked him again, harder, squarely in the ribs. It felt good. I was bracing to give it to him again when he stood. “In the bathroom,” I told him. “Shower, toothbrush, shave.”
    He lurched past me. Humiliation was all right. We could work with humiliation. I surveyed the wreck of the room, wondering when he’d last eaten. There was a box with three-quarters of a pizza.
    In the mirrored wall I caught sight of my reflection: a smaller man than I thought of myself, too wiry, shoulders stooped with a bully’s malice, eyes half-lidded as if I were the one with a guilty conscience, a flush of contempt on my freckled face.
    While the shower ran I found him some clean clothes and put them on the