Do You Come Here Often?

A tall, thin woman entered the bar. She was wearing an indigo dress that looked almost black in the wan light. It shimmered and seemed to slide against the lean curves of her body like a second skin. Her hair was hacked into stiff, tight curls that looked nailed to her skull. A guy could cut himself on those curls, Rodman thought. She had an antiseptic beauty that both captivated and intimidated him. She sat down at the bar across from Rodman. He wondered what he'd say to a woman like that.

The bartender wandered over to her, took her order, and mixed a drink. He sat it down and chatted with her a moment. Then he returned to Rodman. "Nice, huh? She was in here last night. With Grady."

"Grady?"

"Friend of mine. Sort of. Works the 5 to 11 shift here at the bar. The hotel puts him up in a suite—a hazardous-duty perk. Me? I got a room with a kitchen," the bartender whispered. "But Grady's moving to the 11 to 3 a.m. shift—the guy they had working that shift got bit—" He made the word sound like a rat trap snapping shut, "—so as soon as Grady switches over, he gets a bigger spread and I get the suite." His face screwed into a frown. "And the 5 to 11 shift."

It asked the man for a light. It had the previous cigarette clipped between its index and middle fingers. The cigarette had burned down to its knuckles. Rodman noticed the flesh on one knuckle was scorched black. He sighed and said, "Maybe the gal over there is waiting for Grady. You think?"

The bartender shrugged. "Could be. Grady's due in half an hour. But if I had something like that waiting for me downstairs, I sure as hell wouldn't be upstairs—unless I was dead."

Rodman arched an eyebrow.

The bartender frowned. "Grady? Naw. Grady knows his stuff. If that gal was a monster, Grady would've had her dead and burned by now."

Rodman said, "So she and Grady . . . they're—together?"

"I dunno. Grady gets around."

"Is she, you know," Rodman prompted, "is she—a hooker?"

The bartender grimaced. "If she is she's got balls. These days, hooking—that's for thrill seekers. And perverts." Then, "How 'bout that next round? Drink enough and they'll leave you alone. Vodka, straight up. They hate vodka, or so everybody says."

"Make it a Seven and Seven," Rodman said. "On the rocks."

The bartender headed for the ice bin. Rodman shook a cigarette from his pack and lit it. He exhaled a cloud of smoke that was nearly invisible in the dark room.

It asked Rodman if he came there often. He turned and looked closely at it, as if he were studying an insect. It smiled and its lips could not conceal the rows of tubular-shaped teeth ringing its mouth. Beyond those teeth, he knew, were papulae, hundreds and hundreds of papulae, each containing a larva, each papula capable of hatching a new larva every half hour or so, and he knew if he were to kiss it, it would seize his tongue with its teeth and inject the larvae into his mouth, hundreds and hundreds of them, and they would consume him, then each other, until only one remained, only one, and it would metamorph into—

"Here's your drink, pal," the bartender announced. "You want to run a tab?"

"How'd you like to make an extra fifty bucks?" Rodman asked.

"You planning on spending the night?"

"I'm talking about her—it," Rodman nodded at it. "Does this hotel have a crematorium?"

"Yeah. Sure. But—" the bartender hesitated. "I probably shouldn't leave my station." He looked around the empty room, then whispered conspiratorially, "What the hell. It's not exactly SRO right now. I guess I could leave the store unlocked for a minute. Besides, the management would probably be pissed to know one of these was loose in here, harassing the guests, and nobody'd done anything about it."

Rodman extracted the bills from his wallet and slid them across the counter. "I appreciate your help. This one is ready to bite somebody, I think."

The bartender nodded. "This newest generation—they're smarter, more discreet. These earlier ones are just plain dumb. It's a wonder somebody hasn't knocked this one's head off already."

The woman in the indigo dress plucked at her hair with long, elegant fingers, rearranging it, putting curls into place. She dabbed at her lipstick with a tissue, watching herself in a compact. Her eyes seemed to smolder with some unnamable emotion.

The bartender seemed to notice her at the same time and said, "Just a moment," and returned to her. She ordered another drink. The bartender extracted a bottle of Absolut from his arsenal of liquor. He filled the glass. Neat.

And then he was back. "Now for this." He went around the bar and seized it from behind. It tried to turn to him; it asked him for a light. The bartender, his voice straining as he grappled with it, said, "Listen, I don't know how long I'm gonna be. If the unit is already fired up it won't take a minute, but if I have to light the damn thing myself, well . . . it could take a few minutes. So do me a favor and keep an eye on things, OK?" He began leading it away from the bar. He turned and frowned at Rodman. "The register's locked." And then he was out the door.