Face Value

10. Marlboro Reds

   "Good morning again, handsome." Lily, the platinum blond motel concierge, greets me from behind her desk. As I thought she would be, she is dressed in another tight blouse, charcoal grey this time, with the first few buttons opened and a pair of tight black jeans. She grinned at me like the Cheshire cat. 

  "Good morning again, Lily. You have something for me?"

  "I do. The guy didn't say who he was." She handed me a small brown cardboard box with a purple ribbon wrapped around it.  A sheet of paper, folded in half was stuck under the ribbon. 

"Thanks, Lily,"I replied, taking the box from her hand. It was small enough to fit in the palm of my cupped hands and weighed virtually nothing. I dared not shake it; there was no telling what could be inside. 

  "He was a tall guy, muscular around the shoulders. Like lean muscle. Like um.. those Olympic swimmers. He had this creepy glass eye too and a scar under his right eye. And... long blond hair in a bun at the back of his head." Lily, with curiosity burning in those brown eyes, looked questioningly from the box in my hands to my face. 

   I tried to dismiss the conversation as quickly as possible; not wanting to have to give up any information. "I know the guy," I lied. "He's a friend."

"Oh okay."

"Um..could you help me out with something?"I asked, trying to change the subject.

She perked up immediately, just as I thought she would and stepped out from behind the mahogany desk to stand closer to me. "Sure thing, sugar. What do you need?"

  "I need a refrigerator in my room; just for another day or two. Do you know where I could rent one, preferably for cheap."

 "Rent one? You don't need to do that," she scoffed and rested one manicured hand on my forearm. Her nails were painted a bright red. "There's a fridge in the back that no one really uses. I can have that moved into the room for you." 

 "I'd appreciate that, thank you."

 "Actually darling," Lily walked over to the door adjacent to her concierge desk and opened it. "..we can take care of that right now." There was a hallway on the other side of the door  with three similar doors lining the right side and one larger door with an illuminated 'exit' sign above it at the end of the hallway. She turned into the hallway and shouted "Ian!"

   To me, the platinum blonde said,"He knows where it is." She walked over to me again, stopping closer to me this time and smiled sweetly up at me. "I'll have him bring it to your room."  We stood there for a few heartbeats; I desperately tried not to look at Lily, despite the fact that I could feel her eyes burning holes into the side of my face. She moved closer to me, allowing her ample bosom to brush against the side of my right arm. 

   A tall, balding man emerged from the third door on the right side of the hallway. Physically, he looked to be in his mid-forties, but the scowl on his face scrunched up his features and made him look much older. Beady dark brown eyes darted from Lily to me and he grunted. "What do you want woman?" The man's voice was gruff, like that of a chain smoker and for a moment, he reminded me of that monster, Donald. Although it was unfounded, I instantly disliked him.

   He walked with a bit of a limp and I wondered if he could lift much of anything. "Lily, it's fine," I tried to protest. "If you show me where it is, I can take it there myself. Save you the trouble, sir." The last I said to the man, who based upon the fact that he was wearing dark blue coveralls, I assumed was the maintenance man. 

  "Nonsense darling," she replied. "It's his job. Let him do it."

"Ian  get that fridge from the storage room and take it to this gentleman's room." By the stern tone in her voice, I could tell that she asserted her dominance over him quite often. Ian gave me an incredulous stare for a few seconds before turning on his heels without another word. A pack of Marlboro Reds bounced in his left pocket, barely concealed by the fabric. 

  "Anything else I can get for you, Da-mi-an.?" Lily exaggerated the syllables in my name and gaze up at me from beneath a curtain of fake lashes that were very loosely attached. She was painfully persistent with her less-than-subtle sexual advances. I suppose she thought that somehow, with enough prodding and sexual provocation, that I might desire her in the same way that she did me. In my head, I scoffed at that concept. If only she knew how unlikely such a scenario was. Sex was the last thing on my mind right now. 

   I simply answered with a, "Some ice would be nice. "

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  Ian the maintenance man, grunted and groaned behind me the entire distance between the office and my room at the motel. He seemed to be struggling to carry the small, stainless steel refrigerator. He was too stubborn or too proud however, to admit that. 

  I attempted for the third time, to offer my assistance when his breathing got especially heavy but he declined with a huff and a quick, "No thanks." This close to him, I could smell the scent of cigarette smoke clinging to his clothing and I was able to guess what he had been doing before Lily interrupted him. 

  Luckily, it wasn't that much farther to my room. 

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  "You can rest it down near the bed. There's a socket there," I said once we were in the room. Ian obliged and when he was done, he stood near the door, observing me with skepticism. He was tall but still shorter than my 6 ft 2. His height was really exaggerated by how unnaturally thin his body was; just like Donald was.

   I was starting to sense a theme here. 

  I was the younger more attractive man, and I gathered that his animosity was due to envy. The way Lily threw herself at me probably exacerbated his unfounded disgust for me. "You rented this or something?" he asked. 

  "Yeah, something like that. Thanks for moving it." Before he left, I handed him a twenty dollar bill and I could swear that his expression brightened just a smidgen. 

  I quickly headed for the bathroom once the door closed behind him, with the small bucket of ice that I'd gotten from Lily. She was damn useful; I'd give her that. I lifted the lid of the toilet's tank and pulled out the small box with my wife's severed fingers inside. The water inside made this the place with the coolest temperature in the room to store them for preservation's sake. 

  When -not if- I found her, I prayed that some doctor would be able to reattach them. I removed the fingers and rest them on the bed of ice in the bucket. That bucket went into the refrigerator. I didn't plan to spend more than a few hours gathering whatever information I could so I hopes that the ice would remain solid until then.

   I had one foot outside the door with my newest souvenir in my trench coat pocket, when I nearly tripped over Ian's boot. He stood there ominously next to the door post with a cigarette between his fingers. Those beady brown eyes darted to my right hand that was now a few inches from my hip where my Browning Hi-Power sat in its holster. 

  Ian smirked at me. "What'd you have there? A gun? You gonna shoot me?"

  The change in his expression and mood from permanent scowl to a disturbingly jovial grin, unnerved me. I slowly moved my hand to a more dormant position at my side but my fingers still twitched with the anticipation of a threat. "How long have you been standing outside my door?"

   He took a deep drag from the cigarette and blew a puff of smoke toward my face, appearing to dismiss my question entirely. "Just wanted to thank you, for this." He waved the bill I'd given him, held between the two fingers of his opposite hand.

   I gave a curt nod of acknowledgement and he saluted me with the bill in hand before sauntering back toward the office. 

 Maybe I wasn't being entirely irrational for disliking him...