 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||
3
The hotel was near the interstate, and in the early-morning quiet Spencer heard the buzz of truck tires. Nearer the pool, the scream of a jay brought Spencer’s attention to the roof of the west wing. The crested blue bird seemed to be observing Spencer as he worked.
In the third skimmer basket there were more leaves, two soggy honeybees, and a dead mouse with eyes like black glass beads. Spencer picked up the mouse by its tail and dangled it close to his face. Two tiny reflections of his face sparkled on the convex surfaces of the eyes. Then he saw another face appear alongside his own.
“Who’s your friend?”
Spencer lowered the mouse into the pail and turned around. “Oh, hi, Ossie. It’s a dead mouse. Guess he didn’t know how to swim, huh?”
Ossie wore a dark green bellman’s jacket with a Holiday Inn badge pinned over his heart. The badge was white, with ‘Ossie’ punched out on a green strip. Below his name was the slogan ‘Your Host From Coast To Coast’. Ossie’s black shoes had been carefully shined. His hair, what there was left of it, was also black, smooth on his head and smelling clean, smelling of dignity and Dixie Peach Pomade.
“He knew how to swim. Mice can swim real well, “ Ossie said. “He just didn’t keep swimming long enough to keep from drowning.”
Spencer thought about this for a few seconds. “You ever pull any mice out of here?”
“Sure. Plenty. When I was doing maintenance I one time netted me a whole family of ‘em out of the deep end. Momma, daddy, and four little baby mice.” Ossie’s fingers were the color of cigars. He reached down and picked a long white piece of thread from the crease of his left trouser leg. “Took ‘em out back and let ‘em go in the field.” He balled up the thread between his thumb and index finger and slipped it into the side pocket of his jacket.
“Another time I pulled up a skimmer basket and inside there was a black racer, all four feet of him coiled up in there cozy as you please.”
“Wow. Did you let him go, too?”
“Sure did.” Ossie sneaked a look over both of his shoulders. “But I had to be tricky about it, because one of the guests saw me pull it out of the skimmer, and she called the front office, and the manager, he come out and told me to kill that snake so the lady wouldn’t be afraid of it coming back to the pool.”
“So then--”
“Well, I took him around back and set him free out in the field. Then I cut me a piece of black hose, about as long as that old racer, and I grabbed a hammer and carried ‘em both back out here near the pool where I knew that silly woman could see me, but not too close so she could see the difference between a snake and a hunk of hose. I was wiggling that hose and holding it out away from me like I was afraid of it, too.”
Nearer the pool, the scream of a jay brought Spencer’s attention to the roof of the west wing.
3