“Guess he’s out.”
“Is his truck gone?”
“Jesus.” It sounded like a gasp. “Hold on.”
Another minute passed, then: “I see that wreck still in the parking lot. Son of a bitch is probably sleeping.”
“Thanks.” Father John hung up. The truck was there; Eddie could be too scared to answer the phone and possibly tip off Wentworth and Delaney that he was in the room.
He jumped up, grabbed his jacket and hat again, and headed back out into the rain.
25
Thunderbird Motel. The red-and-blue sign, blurred in the rain, hovered over the flat roof of a strip mall. Father John drove through the parking lot to the rear, where a yellow stuccoed building with cookie-cutter-identical doors and windows stood next to the alley. A last-chance place, he thought. Whole families squeezed into tiny rooms—Indians, derelicts, drugged-out teenagers, and people who were hiding out, like Eddie.
He parked next to the brown pickup in front of a door at the far end. Pulling down his cowboy hat, he made his way around a puddle that had replaced a slab of concrete and pounded on the door. Rain drummed around him, nearly obliterating the faint television noise coming from inside. He knocked again, then stepped to the window and peered through the slit in the curtains. Lamplight shone over the mussed bed, the dresser with food cartons scattered over the top.
He walked along the building, dodging the water that poured off the overhang and spattered the concrete, and let himself through the door marked OFFICE in smudged block letters on the glass pane. Odors of damp cigarette smoke and stale coffee rushed around him. A middle-aged man with gray bushy hair that matched his eyebrows sat behind the counter that divided the small room.
“Yeah?” The man pulled his eyes away from the television on a metal shelf in one corner.
“I’m looking for Eddie Ortiz.”
“You the guy that called a while ago?”
Father John nodded.
“Last room thataway.” The man gestured with his head toward the opposite end of the motel.
“He doesn’t answer.”
“Must’ve gone out for a beer.”
“His pickup’s still in front.”
The man gave a noncommittal shrug.
“Let’s check the room,” Father John said. “I want to make sure he’s okay.”
The man eyed him a moment, making up his mind. Finally he said, “Who’d you say you are?”
Father John gave his name and said he was from the mission.
“Oh, yeah. The Indian priest.” The bushy eyebrows rose in a kind of recognition.
“What about the room?”
A half second passed before the man slid off the stool, almost disappearing behind the high counter. There were sounds of a drawer opening and shutting, keys rattling. He walked around the counter. A short, stocky man in a white T-shirt with wide suspenders that rode over his protruding belly and hooked into the belt of dark, rumpled pants. Without saying a word—metal key ring jangling—he opened the door and went outside.
Father John caught up and led the way. The man’s sneakers made a squishy sound on the wet pavement behind him. At the door in front of the brown pickup, Father John waited while the man jammed a key into the lock and nudged the door open with one foot.
Father John moved past and went inside. The room was empty. The bed looked as if Eddie had just crawled out of it, leaving behind piles of sheets and blankets. A soap opera flickered on the television set in one corner.
He checked the bathroom: a towel wadded on the vinyl floor that was peeling back from the base of the tub, a shaving kit on the back of the toilet.
Next he flung open the closet door, every muscle in his body tense with the expectation of finding Eddie Ortiz crumpled on the floor like the towel. Except for a shirt and jacket that dangled from wire hangers, the closet was empty.
“Like I said, he went out.” The manager was planted in the doorway, jiggling the keys, bored and impatient.
“Has anybody else been looking for him? Did you see anyone?”
“Hey.” The man rolled his shoulders. “I just take the money at the zoo. I don’t tend the animals.”
Father John walked over. “Listen, you . . .” He had to stop himself from saying “moron.” “When Ortiz comes back, you tell him to call me. Father O’Malley at St. Francis. It’s important. You got that?”
The man blinked up at him, then stepped backward, across the walkway and into the rain that poured off the overhang and turned the white T-shirt gray against his shoulders. He jerked forward, one hand brushing at the wet shirt, and took off in the direction of the office, moving fast, sneakers slapping on the concrete.