= An Air-Conditioned Silence
  by Ray Nayler


There were children down at the pool, laughing shapes in the twilight haze. Beyond the children, the neon sign flickered, lighting up "Bide-A-Wee Motel" and "Vacancy" in flashing red. Past the sign, out on the freeway, tractor-trailers rumbled past. And after the freeway was the dark froth of trees.

The signal would come from the trees, after dark -- if nothing else had gone wrong. If Jerome was not lying on a coroner's slab. Kenneth let the curtains fall back into place, and turned the air conditioner up to high. Its whir became a roar, and cool air poured into the hot little motel room. Kenneth collapsed onto the bed, letting his head sink into his hands.

He stayed that way, very still, until the knock at the door.

When the knock came he tensed, bringing his head up like a gazelle scanning for predators in the treeline.

There was another, more insistent knock.

He cleared his dry throat. "Who's there?"

"Maid service."

He went to a suitcase and opened it, removing a small black pistol and sliding it into the front pocket of his pants. Keeping his hand on the pistol, he peered through the spy-hole. The tension in his muscles dissipated. He undid the chain and swung the door wide.

The motel maid was a short, thin woman, somewhere between twenty and twenty-five, with large brown eyes and short cream-colored hair kept back with interlacing bobby pins. Her small, meticulously painted mouth had begun to show the first twists of a lifetime of disappointment. She stood in the doorway in her crisp white uniform with an armload of towels and sheets. There was a slight tremor in her upper arms, a nervousness around her lips. The small gold nametag over her breast read "Tally" in block letters.

Kenneth had glimpsed her through his window and had let her in once, two days ago to change the sheets on the bed -- to do otherwise would have aroused suspicion. He had been at the motel for three days. He had left only to eat -- twice, at a 24-hour restaurant down the road. The rest of his food he got from the snack machine near the pool. The room's small garbage was filled with empty Cokes, desiccated bags of salted peanuts, discarded candy-bar wrappers. Although the motel was over a thousand miles from the bank, every moment he expected The Knock and the stone face of a Bureau man through the spy-hole.

One more night. Then -- signal or no signal -- he would leave. He would have fulfilled his part of the bargain. He would be free.

"I thought you could use some clean sheets and towels."

Kenneth gave her his best attempt at a smile and stood aside to let her in.

"You sure don't go out much. I didn't want to disturb you, but I couldn't get in here to clean today. You had the "Do Not Disturb" sign up and...where are you from, anyway?" She was nervous. It came off of her in blasts, like a lighthouse beam across him.

"California."

"Really?"

This time he managed a grin. "I see no reason to lie about it." That was good -- his wit had snapped back into place.

She laughed, in a way that was somehow chipmunk-like, and obscured her small mouth with a proportionately tiny, thin hand. Two thoughts came to him when she brought her hand up to her mouth. First: she was nervous because she was attracted to him. Second: he was equally attracted to her. It hit him suddenly, and hard.

She set the sheets down on the bed. Their eyes met, dodged, met again. She picked up the towels and went toward the bathroom. He felt a surge of guilt, watching the sway of her small hips.

And then, fear -- the knock could still come. Now, five minutes from now, an hour....

She stopped, almost around the corner now, her voice cracking.

"It was on the news -- your face -- the bank cameras. When you took off the mask going out -- a bad picture -- but still -- good enough. The rest of the motel staff -- they don't know. But I recognized you."

He couldn't breathe. Cold washed over him, and he felt his knees buckling. They held, barely. Her cheeks colored. "I've known since yesterday. I would never -- I would never tell anyone. If you knew me -- well, you would know. You're safe, with me. I...." Her voice shuddered, stalled.

His eyes moved over the planes of her face. He saw it then -- the fine lines of strain around the eyes, the mouth, already small, compressing still further with every pressing day. She was like him. His secret would be safe with her because they were the same.

She was breathing heavily, her small breasts heaving under the starched uniform, her eyes wide, flickering across his face.

"Okay," he said, taking a step toward her. "So you know. What do you want?" He moved toward her slowly, muscles coiled.

She backed against the wall. "I don't want anything."

He was an arm's length away from her. "I could give you a part of the take. Is that what you want?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. I want nothing."

She made a frightened motion to the left, and he caught her by the shoulders.

"Where are you going?"

Her face was turned upwards toward his, her eyes half-closed. "To take the uniform off."

"No, it's too soon. Wait for my signal."

She laughed -- a sound like something breaking.

Kenneth looked at the curtains moving subtly in the air-conditioned currents. "Anyway, I don't want that."

She leaned into him. "Is your name really Kenneth?"

"Yes."

"What do you want, Kenneth?"

He put an awkward arm around her, and she melted against him, shivering.

"California."

"Take me."

Kenneth nodded, still watching the curtains. The sun had set, and indigo light bled through the cloth. He went to the window and pulled the curtain aside. The motel sign glowed dim red, the freeway was a red-and-white river. The trees were black and blended in a wavy line with the sky. He took his lighter from his pocket and turned to Tally.

"Turn the lights out."

When the room was black, he raised the lighter and snapped his thumb down the flint. The flame bought out his own ghost, an orange face in transparency, floating in front of the sign and freeway and trees. He let the lighter burn for a long minute, then snapped it shut, and waited. He thought of his foster mother, flicking the flashlight across his face to make sure he was asleep. The flashlight meant his foster father was away on a business trip, and soon he would hear panting and moaning, dim excited voices in the next room. He would lay very still, trying to float outside himself, up and through the wall and into the body of her lover. He had never seen her lover, but was sure that he looked like him -- only older. His foster mother was always breathless when she came in with the flashlight, anticipating. He would imagine her cheeks flushed and rosy. He could feel the light on his skin like an itch, see it red through his eyelids. But he never flinched.

Nothing. There was no answer from the trees.

"Did you notice me before?"

Kenneth let the curtains fall back into place.

"Yes. You can turn the lights back on, if you want."

Tally did so. She stood, watching him. "What would you have done if the tellers at the bank hadn't given you the money?"

"I would have left." He pulled the pistol from his pocket and put it back in the suitcase. She watched him, her eyes focused on the small, deadly bit of metal in his hand, but unafraid. There was an extra set of clothes in the suitcase, and a large amount of money -- just under a hundred thousand dollars.

He and Jerome had picked the motel out beforehand for its location, far out in the middle of nowhere. If something went wrong with the robbery, they would meet there. The signal was Jerome's idea. He remembered Jerome's intent face in the car. "The one who arrives at the motel first holds a lighter in the window -- on the hour, every hour, after dark. The second man, hiding in the trees across the freeway, answers with three flashes from a flashlight. Then, the first man signals the all clear -- the lighter again. The second man comes over -- we split the money -- simple."

The entire system was complex. It had seemed unnecessary to Kenneth -- but Jerome was a paranoid man. Short, with slick black hair and a small, speeding voice, he cultivated his paranoia, stroked it like a Saint Christopher medallion.

Kenneth had nodded. "I got it. Every hour on the hour, after dark."

Kenneth was honest -- he thought of himself as honest. He could not just leave the motel without following the plan. And more than that, he had to know. He had to know whether Jerome had made it. Had to. He had to finish the job, and this -- this waiting, this signal, was a part of the job.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to work or something?"

The maid shrugged. She sat on the bed, a cigarette burning between her fingers. "I'm off already. I'm the day maid. I could stay with you all night, and they would never know."

But, he thought, she had kept the uniform on, as if he might not have recognized her without it. And maybe he would not have. Had he really noticed her, before? He could not be sure. In a way, it did not matter. He noticed her now -- could not stop noticing her. Her presence pushed on him, to enclosed him with warmth. He found himself imagining laying his head against her chest, listening to her heart beat against the softness of her breasts. The power of the image made him shudder.

"So Kenneth is really your name? Like it says on the registration?"

"I told you it was."

"And the last name?"

"Is not mine."

She put the cigarette between her lips and dragged on it. The ember brightened at its tip.

"How many banks have you robbed, Kenneth?"

"Five...Tally."

"And before?"

"Liquor stores. Gas stations. Houses -- families away on vacation. I picked pockets for a while."

She leaned forward, her eyes intent, listening eyes. But he had stopped. Her eyes slid away, politely. She took the cigarette out of her mouth and rolled it around between her index and second fingers, staring at it. "I was born ten miles from here. I stole a candy bar from the store by my house, and my father beat me for it. That was -- that was the only thing I ever took. Do you -- your parents...."

He shook his head. "They're dead." He remembered the night before, lying in bed, trying to imagine his foster mother's face. It would not come. He had wanted to get home, back to his pictures, so he could remember. Now, it did not seem to matter as much.

Their eyes locked for a second. Tally lifted her chin, and her lips parted slightly, expectantly.

The room had become too cold. He turned the roaring air-conditioner down to low, and glanced at his watch.

Five minutes to eleven.

She patted the bedspread beside her. "Would you like to sit beside me?"

"Later."

"Are you afraid?"

He thought of Jerome running to his car, the bank guard down on one knee, shooting from the bank doorway. Kenneth had pulled his own car away, watched in the rear-view mirror as Jerome reached his car's door and ripped it open. The crack of the gun followed Kenneth around the corner. He had never known whether Jerome had escaped. He never would know, without the signal. And if Jerome had not escaped -- if he had been captured -- how soon before the paranoid little man spilled everything? How short was the thread that connected them? How easily could it be followed by the police and the FBI?

"Something was wrong with me. It happened last year, in the springtime. In the middle of the night I got one of those death-fears. You know, when suddenly you realize -- really realize that you will cease to exist -- you will be nothing, like before you were born. But this one wouldn't go away. It stayed with me. It got worse -- I could barely get up in the morning. I couldn't deal with people. I saw them dying. I saw us all dead -- a million years dead, a billion years -- swept away, buried under the eons. And the colors...seemed dimmer, somehow."

Tally paused meaningfully. She wanted him to understand -- needed him to; the need registered in her posture, in the muscles of her face. "It was like everything was overcast, drained of color. Even on sunny days...."

Kenneth felt a flush of recognition. He fingered the curtain, turning away from her.

"What happened?"

"It went away. But I'm afraid. I know it will come back. I feel it waiting, inside me. I try not to think about it. I force it down."

He nodded, and met her eager eyes.

"It happened to me, too. A few years ago -- it was...." He stopped and shifted uncomfortably. "It was...I saw skulls underneath everyone's faces. I felt all the dark...waiting for me."

She came to him, touched his shoulder. "I know."

Eleven o'clock.

He switched the lights off, extinguishing the smile on her lips. He went to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Outside, the freeway was dark. The small red comet of a car's taillights shrank off into the darkness. There was no moon. The black trees stretched out beyond. He raised the lighter and jerked his thumb across the flint. The orange phantom-face showed itself in the glass again. He saw the mark there of his fight against what he had called "the void time" -- the lines around his eyes, the hollow eyes themselves. He snapped the lighter closed.

A moment later, a dim coin of light showed itself in the trees. It flashed twice more, and was gone. He felt cool relief in his veins, numbing him. It was almost over, then. Finally, the signal had come.

He lit the lighter again, to complete the sign. The dim shape of the maid appeared, reflected in the glass, standing just over his shoulder.

"Is it done?"

"Yes."

There was a small crack, as if something had struck the glass. Confused, he looked at Tally. Her hand gripped his shoulder tightly for a moment and then she seemed to deflate, sagging against him. There were two more small cracks, and something sang past his ear. He could not seem to move quickly. He found himself trying to support Tally, to move away from the window, and to crouch down to the floor all at the same time. He got away from the window just as it showered into the room. Tally began to slide out of his arms. He laid her down on the floor and crouched over her, trying to awaken her.

She was not moving. Her eyes were open, warm and brown. Her mouth looked soft and unmarred in the dim light. A red stain was spreading across the front of her white uniform, and he found himself thinking of the red heart on a fencer's uniform. Was that real? Did they have hearts on their uniforms? Where had he seen that?

Tally was dead.

Dimly, he realized that Jerome had tried to kill him -- that he had been set up. He had to get out. There was a window in the bathroom that let out on the back of the motel. He headed for it, suitcase in hand.

He would be able to get away, he knew. Jerome's plan had misfired. By the time Jerome was across the freeway, Kenneth would have hotwired another car -- at a lonely farmhouse, or the parking lot of a twenty-four hour restaurant. He could hijack someone at a gas station or hide in the woods as long as necessary. Jerome had failed.

He was through the window. He dropped down into a small fenced-in area full of leaning scrap, soggy cardboard and stinking cans of garbage.

He felt it coming back over him -- the void time. He wished that Tally had not mentioned it. He wished that she would still be around, tomorrow or tomorrow night when it hit him -- to help him, to talk him through the night-terrors and the gray, grainy days.

He wished he had not given the signal, that he had just left with her. He scrambled over the fence and dropped down into the bushes on the other side. He stopped for a moment and turned. He closed his eyes and pictured her face. He saw it very clearly, for a second. But he knew it would begin to blur in a few days. He would not be able to keep her with him.

RAY NAYLER was born in Desbiens, Quebec. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines, from Ellery Queen to Crimewave to The Berkeley Fiction Review. His first novella, AMERICAN GRAVEYARDS, is now available as a Crimewave Special from the publishers of Crimewave magazine; details are available at www.ttapress.com. Ray lives in Toronto. He can be contacted at like_the_rabbit@hotmail.com.

Copyright (c) 2001 Ray Nayler


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