Seaweed Under Water Read Online Free Page A

here.”
    â€œMay I see your guest registers?”
    â€œThere is no register.”
    â€œOperating a motel without guest registers is a criminal offence. If convicted you can be sentenced to three years in prison,” I told him untruthfully.
    His irritating sneer faded a trifle. I said, “I demand to see the register. If you don’t produce it immediately, you’ll be charged with obstructing justice.”
    â€œBig deal,” Karl snapped. “How come you’re not chasing robbers?”
    I produced a cell phone from my pocket and pointed to a button. “Listen, Karl,” I said. “If I push this, you’ll be inside a paddy wagon before you can pop another steroid.”
    After a moment of indecision, Karl grabbed a key from its hook behind the counter. Muttering to himself, he marched along a corridor and slammed the back door open. Pebbles crunched underfoot as we crossed the beach. Karl went into the boat shack and flipped a light switch, to no avail.
    â€œGoddam fuse has blown again,” Karl muttered angrily.
    Fishhooks, lures and flashers lay half-visible inside a glass-topped display case. A poster advertising last year’s King Coho Salmon Derby was tacked to a wall, along with Canada Fisheries Regulations and outdated Sports Illustrated calendars. Groping in semi-darkness, Karl brought out a pair of red, morocco-bound registers. One was for boat rentals. The other was the motel’s guest register, according to which Jane Colby had booked into room 101 about a month previously. This didn’t exactly square with the information I’d received from Fred Colby.
    Karl took a package of du Maurier from his pants pocket, put a squashed cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a chromium-plated lighter.
    I went outside. When Karl emerged from the boat shack I said, “Tell me about Jane.”
    Karl did not reply immediately. Gazing at the motor yacht, he said, “What’s to know? Janey’s a party girl, friend of the boss.”
    â€œA party girl?”
    Karl’s permanent sneer increased, but he didn’t elaborate. I said, “Why do you keep those registers in a boat shack?”
    â€œThere any reason I shouldn’t?” he shouted angrily. “There’s laws saying where we gotta store books as well?”
    Strongly tempted to strike Karl’s head with a blunt instrument, I said at length, “Temper, temper! Let’s have a look in room 101. You can lead the way.”
    â‰ˆÂ Â â‰ˆÂ Â â‰ˆ
    Room 101 had a Do Not Disturb sign hanging from its doorknob. Karl used a master key, stepped aside and said, “Your move.”
    Room 101 was actually a hot and airless two-room suite scented with Airwick. I opened the blinds and a window. The suite’s kitchen area was an ugly chaotic pigsty. Unwashed utensils lay on countertops, or soaked in a sink of cold greasy water. A three-burner hotplate, coated with baked-on grease, had last been used to heat a nameless substance that had boiled over and left black stains on the stove’s white enamel surfaces. Empty wine bottles stood on coffee tables and a dresser. A Canadian Wildlife calendar pinned to the wall hadn’t been changed since January. Women’s clothing lay scattered on the floor and across an unmade bed.
    Karl, standing in the doorway behind me, cleared his throat.
    I turned to look at him. He wouldn’t meet my eyes; his manner had changed.
    I said, “Don’t tell me that you didn’t know about this mess.”
    â€œI mean, sometimes Janey was kind of noisy, but I never came in here,” he said, without his usual swagger. “Janey has kind of a special deal with the boss. She just comes and goes. Don’t pay no rent, so she don’t get no service.”
    Karl went to the window and flicked his half-smoked cigarette onto the beach.
    A hand-knitted sweater was draped across the back of a chair. Tacked to a wall, directly