“I think we can find you something,” Loretta said.
Loretta routed them back a dozen blocks to the Savoy Hotel. It was a dingy old three-story, stuck between a liquor store and a dry cleaner’s. Earl paid her across the seat back, then pulled Melon to the opposite side so he could slide out first. When he was on the sidewalk with his carry-on, he called, “Out!” and Melon obeyed, leaping blindly to the sound of Earl’s voice.
“Can you wait till I see if they got a room?” Earl said to her, her window rolled down to see him off.
“Just tell ’em Loretta sent you. They’ll have somethin’, sugar. Say I pick you up around eight tonight. We go check out Bo Peep’s together.”
“You sure?” Earl asked.
“Yeah, you got Loretta’s curiosity up. Have to see how this mystery turns out.”
Earl nodded, and Loretta pulled away, leaving him and his dog alone on the sidewalk.
Earl took a moment to survey his surroundings. They were on the dark side of town, as he thought of it, not far from where he had once lived. It was mostly cut-rate, by-the-week rooming, filled with the city’s black aging and infirm. There were a few independent shops, their storefronts covered in gang graffiti, their windows secured behind iron bars. A pair of homeless men sat on the sidewalk leaning against the wall of the Savoy, their backs against the bricks. All this beneath the gleaming glass skyline that was today’s modern Atlanta.
“I told you it’d be different. And not different. Didn’t I say so?” Earl asked his dog.
Melon nosed against his pants cuff with a whimper, and the two made their way inside.
At the desk, Earl was greeted, more or less, by a kid with spiked hair. He told the kid Loretta had sent him.
The kid didn’t seem all that impressed and didn’t ask about the dog neither. But he handed him a card to fill out — his name, address, and phone number. “One night, thirty dollars.”
Earl paid in cash.
“Number four, upstairs. Second door on the right.” The kid slid a key onto the counter. He hadn’t looked at Earl once during the entire exchange.
Earl took the key and made his way to the stairs, bag in hand. Melon followed, keeping Earl’s pants cuff against his face. “Step-step . . .” Earl said.
They reached their room. Earl let them inside.
The space smelled of mildew and urine. The bedcovers were stained a permanent yellow. “Jump,” Earl said. And, with unquestioning trust, Melon leaped onto the bed he couldn’t see.
“My man,” Earl said, feeding his dog a treat from his coat pocket.
Earl removed his dark glasses and laid them on the dresser. The last letter from his granddaughter had been unsettling. It had been more than just a call for financial assistance, as Earl had implied to his lady cabdriver. It had been a desperate cry for help. There was something troubling going on in her life, something he couldn’t ignore.
Her letters had started coming earlier that year. First one was a polite introduction; he wrote back, and they’d grown into a pen-pal friendship as they learned of each other’s lives.
India had been consistently optimistic in her letters, looking forward to a degree from a real college. A better life. Maybe outside Atlanta, she’d hinted. Leaving the idea hanging at the end of an ellipsis, waiting for his response.
Yeah, maybe he could help her find a job, he’d written. LA being “exciting” and all for a young woman.
The last letter had been nothing like the previous correspondence. It was one word. Help! Nothing more. It was in an awkward blocky print, almost as if a child or someone of limited education had written it.
Earl took his camera from around his neck and crossed with it to the window. Beyond the tattered curtains, the buildings cast their late-afternoon shadows across Mitchell Street. He focused, framing the shot to capture the disparity between the richest-of-rich and the poorest-of-poor. Maybe he’d do a series of photos on the theme. He clicked off four shots in rapid succession.
He’d been told on occasion that his work looked like crime scene photos. The style had come to be known as urban evidentiary, a term the good-looking Beverly Hills gallery owner had coined to give Earl’s work a brand. Earl didn’t know what it meant exactly. But he had to admit, most of his work had a haunting, disturbing quality. Maybe something of his past, his own life, was wrapped up in it.
Earl let the curtains fall shut. He was tired and had a dark sense of foreboding about his granddaughter. Melon was already lying quiet on the bed, maybe absorbing his dark mood from his master.
Earl crossed back to the bed and set his camera on the nightstand. He stretched out on top of the covers next to Melon and closed his eyes.