Cloaked

  “Excuse me? I wondered if you had any food? I want to check in for the night too.”

  “I got leftovers from yesterday I could warm up for you.” The bartender squints at me. “Hey, didn’t I see you out by my Dumpster before?”

  “Leftovers will be fine,” I say, ignoring the other question, and also ignoring any nagging concern about what leftovers would be like in a place like this.

  “Yeah, you was out there, talking to yourself.”

  “Can you please get me that food?” I hand him a twenty. “Keep the change.”

  “Ooh, big spender.” The bartender laughs but takes the money and turns to look at the refrigerator. “We just got a couple burgers.”

  “Burgers are fine. Anything.”

  I hear a noise outside, a motorcycle. It sounds familiar. Too familiar.

  No, that’s just paranoid. I know nothing about motorcycles. Probably they all sound alike. Still, I look out the window.

  A pair of broad, black-clad shoulders come into view. I turn real quick and duck behind the bar.

  “Hey, what the . . .” The bartender stumbles over me.

  “Please. I need you to hide me,” I whisper. “That guy wants to kill me.”

  “What guy? What are you talking about? Get outta here.”

  I hear a door slam, then hard footsteps. I’m a dead man.

  I could use the cloak, but then the bartender would be on to me. I reach into my backpack and withdraw one of Victoriana’s hundreds. These are going faster than I’d like. I flip it up and show it to the bartender. He reaches for it. I pull it away, mouthing, “Later.”

  The footsteps come closer, and then a voice says, “Have you seen dis boy?”

  He sounds like the robot in the Terminator movies. I’m squirming, about to pee my pants.

  “He is a stranger here,” the accented voice continues. “Skinny. Tall.”

  “Nah, haven’t seen him.” That’s the bartender.

  “Wait a second,” another voice says. “Lemme see that.”

  “You’re drunk, Lefty.”

  I’m flattened against the floor. But still, I can hear my knees rattling. I don’t breathe.

  “But he looks like that guy—”

  “You mean the guy that was here yesterday? That was my cousin, Frank, and he’s gone now.”

  “Your cousin? You treated him like crap and charged him twenty bucks for day-old burgers.”

  “Didn’t say he was my favorite cousin. Can we drop it now?” He steps over me and tells the terrorist guy, “I ain’t seen him.”

  “If you do, you vill let me know?” The guy sounds more like Dracula than Schwarzenegger now. “Dere is a reward.”

  “Reward? What kind of reward?”

  A pause. Finally, a voice says, “Five hundred dollars.”

  I glance up and see the bartender looking at me. I nod. Yes. Yes, I have that.

  “I’d tell you if I’d seen him, but I haven’t.”

  A pause. I hear heavy footsteps, pacing. Everything else is silent, even the two drunks. Finally, the guy says, “Very gut. But if he comes here, you vill contact me, day or night?”

  And then he leaves. I stay there, not sure what to do, not even breathing. The two guys at the bar could betray me at any second. What’s stopping them?

  I hear a loud thump, then something rolling, a barstool.

  “Lefty’s passed out,” says the other drunk. “Now would you mind telling me why you lied about the kid behind the bar when the guy offered you five hundred dollars?”

  “Code of the bartender, my friend. I protect my customers. Like how I didn’t tell your wife about you making time with Lefty’s sister last year. Get it?”

  “Got it.”

  I hear a motor, the motor I now know is the motor of the guy who shot at me. I shudder, but I breathe. He’s gone now, but he knows I’m in the Keys. I can’t let my guard down.

  I stand, and the bartender shoves a damp-looking microwaved burger at me. “That’ll be five hundred dollars, please.”

  What about the code of the bartender? “I’ll give you six. Three now, three when I check out tomorrow morning, unharmed. Deal?”

  The bartender nods. He breaks off a crumb of the bun before handing the burger to me. The crumb, he holds up to the cage over the bar. The bird! “The nice man wants to share with you, baby.”

  “What kind of bird is that?” I ask. Now that I can look at the bird, and my teeth aren’t chattering, I see it’s not a canary, like I thought. Rather, it’s this freaky-looking thing, sort of a miniature phoenix, more gold than yellow, with long tail feathers and a plume on its head.

  “It’s my bird. That’s what kind.”

  I take a bite of burger and chew it for a long time while the bartender glares at me. “It’s good,” I say, though it isn’t. “Do you know where the desk clerk is? I want to check in.”

  “I happen to also be the desk clerk.” The bartender turns to his one conscious customer. “Keep an eye on my bird.”

  He takes me to the front, where I check in using Ryan’s name and no I.D. I pay cash for the room, another two hundred, which it’s totally not worth. The bartender hands me the key to room 203. “If you go out, leave the key at the desk.”

  So the motorcycle guy can get in my room and kill me? But I say, “I’m not going out. And can you send up some food when you start making fresh stuff?” At the look on his face, I add, “Or six o’clock, whichever comes first.”

  “Will do. Pleasure doing business with you.”

  I’ll bet. He’s already gotten $520 from me, with the promise of more, for the simple act of keeping his trap shut. But I head up the creaky, dusty stairs to a room where my key sticks in the rusty lock. I have to wiggle it several times, but finally, it opens. I relock it from the inside, then add the chain. It still doesn’t feel safe, so I shove the bed against the door too. Then, sit on it. The room is dim gray, and I am alone with nothing to do. I slept most of the day yesterday. Now I’m wide-awake. I don’t dare turn on the television or radio. I want to hear whoever might approach. I take out a notebook and start to sketch a new shoe design, but all I can see is the leather-clad biker, the bartender, the fox, and the bird I’m supposed to steal.

  By three, my eyelids start to collapse under their own weight. Three hours before dinner. Guess it won’t hurt to sleep, prepare for tonight. I sprawl on the bed, my feet touching the locked door.

  I wake to knocking.

  “I’ve got your dinner.” It’s a woman’s voice, Southern accent.

  “Can you just leave it there?” I ask.

  “Sorry, no. Sam says you have to pay.”

  Pay. Like the money I’ve given him isn’t enough to cover another bar burger. But my stomach says I need to pay it. “Hold on. I have to get dressed.”

  “I can vait,” she says.

  “What?”

  “I said I’ll wait.” Southern accent. I’m cracking up and hearing things.

  I take out a Yankees cap someone once left at Meg’s shop and cover my hair. Between that and the three-day growth on my cheeks, I look different from usual. “What’d he send me to eat?”

  “Uh, I think it’s chicken. Chicken, fries, and slaw.” Nothing to worry about. I pull the bed away from the door so I can open it.

  I take a step back. The girl on the other side could be Victoriana’s American sister, a beautiful, slender blonde with startling blue eyes. “Hi,” she says in the same soft accent as before. “Can I put this down somewhere?”

  I want to grab it from her hand. But now, that seems paranoid, cowardly, ungentlemanly. Besides, I didn’t get the money out. I’m going to have to get it, and I can’t very well slam the door in her face. I have to let her in.

  Something nags me that she totally doesn’t look like she belongs here. But then, I don’t belong here either, and here I am.

  “Sure.” I gesture toward the table. “I’ll get my wallet. What do I owe?”

  “Twenty bucks.” When I glance a
t the plate, which holds four dry-looking chicken wings, congealed coleslaw, and a pile of fries smaller than my hand, she says, “Sorry. My uncle Sam said I had to charge a room service fee.”

  “That makes sense.” I fumble for my wallet as she walks the plate to the table.

  When she gets there, she gasps. “Shoes? You’re into shoes?”

  That sounds sort of weird, so I say, “Well, not exactly, ‘into.’”

  “But you were drawin’ this one, right?” When I nod, she says, “Sorry, but my folks were in the shoe repair business in South Carolina, and sometimes I just . . .” She turns away, and I hear her throat catch as she says, “I sorta miss it.”

  A hot girl who knows shoe repair? What are the odds? “Why’d you leave?”

  “My family fell on hard times, so they sent me to live with my rich uncle Sam.”

  Rich Uncle Sam? This guy?

  “But I miss my family so much,” she says. “Specially my big sister. She’s expectin’ a baby soon. I wish I could at least visit, but there’s no money for bus fare, and I’ve got no car.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m away from home too. I know it’s tough.”

  She wipes a tear. “I shouldn’t be bothering you with all my stupid problems.” Her arm brushes mine. “But would you mind if I look at your drawing? It reminds me of home.”

  “Sure. It’s nothing special. Someday, I want to design really expensive shoes like Ferragamo.”

  “Oh, we don’t have anything like that back home. I come from a small town. I never heard of anyone having shoes that cost more than forty dollars before I got here.”

  “‘Mama always said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes,’” I say, quoting the movie Forrest Gump. “‘Where they’re going. Where they’ve been.’”

  She laughs. “Where you from?”

  I look down at her shoes, flip-flops with no arch support at all. Something tells me to lie, even though she’s so beautiful and sweet looking. “Ah, New York. I go to NYU.” I think I’m old enough to pass for a college student.

  “Woo! College boy! That’s why you got on that Yankees cap.” She starts to take it off. I shouldn’t let her, but I do. She’s beautiful. “You’re pretty cute.”

  “You too.” It’s dawning on me that this girl, this incredibly hot girl, is interested in me. Not like Victoriana, who just wanted me for what I could do for her, but really interested.

  “My name’s Norina. What’s yours?”

  “John.”

  “John, you want to take me out tonight?”

  I start to nod, then remember I have to stay the night. The whole night. And I need to steal the bird. Maybe I can go out with her, then come back. No. Last night, I fell into a trap. I can’t chance it again. “Sorry. I really can’t leave tonight.”

  She pouts at me, and I add, “It’s not that I don’t want to. I just need to get up super-early in the morning.”

  She shrugs. “It’s okay. You don’t owe me an explanation. I just . . .” She looks at my drawing again. “I felt lonely, and I thought it might be fun to be with someone.”

  An inspiration strikes me. “How about tomorrow? I can see you then.”

  With any luck, I’ll be gone tomorrow, off in pursuit of the frog. But if I’m still around, it wouldn’t be bad to have a good-looking girl to hang out with.

  “Sure,” she says. “I should get going now.”

  And then she leaves.

  I finish the chicken and fries, leaving the gross-looking slaw. At first, I think I’ll wait for Norina to come back for the plate, so I can see her again. But then I realize that would be a terrible idea. I can’t resist temptation a second time. So I leave the dish outside the door. Still, I look down the hall to see if she’s there. She’s not. No one is.

  After I eat, I turn out the lights, pull my chair up to the window, and look out. It’s barely dark out, but there’s not much going on. A few cars in the parking lot, and a motorcycle, but not the motorcycle. I see Norina bringing a bag of trash to the Dumpster. She takes out something and leaves it on a paper plate. So she’s been the one feeding Todd.

  She glances up toward my window, and I think she sees me despite the darkness. I pull the curtain closed over my face. When I look a second later, she’s gone. I must’ve nodded off then, because when I look next, the cars and motorcycles are, except for one that might be Sam’s or a lone guest’s, all gone. Out of the window is nothing but stars. I glance at the digital clock on the table where I put the shoe drawings. Four a.m. Time to get going.

  Chapter 21

  I take everything with me. I won’t be back. I realize I cheated Sam out of his three hundred bucks. I think about leaving it, just because I’m ridiculously honest, but decide against it. I’m stealing his bird, after all. I’m going to need to use the cloak and be good and gone by the time he wakes up.

  Now I wrap the cloak around me as I step outside into the hallway.

  The motel is too quiet, quiet enough that every step creaks and thunders. I use the cloak to get downstairs, but not into the bar, not yet. If I’m wrong, if the fox was mistaken about the bar being empty, I want to make a quick escape. I stand outside the door. The light above it is burned out, but the moon shines bright. I see my shadow, twenty feet high. The darkness is comforting, but scary. Anyone could be out there, including the person who enchanted me yesterday.

  I peer inside the bar. No one there, just like the fox said. No one but the bird. I’m either alone or as good as caught, so I flick on my flashlight and shine it on the cage. It gleams, as golden as morning. Even the bird’s feathers seem like twenty-four karat. I make sure not to shine the light in the bird’s eyes. I don’t want to wake it.

  I remember the fox’s instructions: Move the bird from the golden cage to the wooden one. But why? It would be much easier to transport it in the cage it’s in. Still, I remember what happened last time I didn’t follow the fox’s orders.

  I use the cloak to wish myself inside. No tricks. When I get in, I stuff the cloak inside my backpack and shine the flashlight along the floor, searching for the wooden cage. Finally, I see it, along the far wall. It’s on its side and latched. I go to open it, but the latch sticks. I pull on it. The door snaps off.

  I swear under my breath. How am I going to put the bird in a broken cage? Still, I take it by its carry handle.

  The handle falls off too.

  How does this guy even keep the bird in this crummy cage? But maybe that’s why he doesn’t keep it there at night. He switches it to the stronger cage, then uses the less flashy one by day.

  I take the cage by one wooden side only to find my hand full of twigs.

  I swear again.

  I glance up at the bird. My eyes are used to the darkness now, so I turn off the flashlight. The bird sleeps soundly. I’m going to have to take the golden cage. What difference does it make? If the fox wants the bird out of its cage, he’ll have to do it himself.

  Still, in the dim half-light, it nags at me. If it’s a test of worthiness, I’m unworthy. But with no other choice, I pull a bar stool up to the cage, then balance on it to reach the bird. A touch of moonlight glances off its brilliant bars. With my fingertips, I touch it.

  “Squawk!”

  I jump. The stool begins to sway. Just in time, I grab the bar for balance. I look up at the bird. Impossibly, he’s asleep. I reach for him again.

  “Squawk!”

  This time, I’m expecting it, so I don’t jump. But I do let go. The squawking stops, and again, the bird sleeps.

  I reach for the cage a third time. The bird begins again to squawk and scream, but this time, I ignore it, removing the cage from its perch. It’s heavy, but not so heavy I can’t handle it. If only the dumb bird wasn’t sleep-squawking in my ear.

  “Shut up!” I tell it. But it doesn’t. Then, above me, I hear footsteps, heavy footsteps running. I’m doomed. Norina or Uncle Sam will catch me. They’ll call the cops or worse. They’ll call that guy who wants to kill me. I d
rop the cage, just catching it with my body before it crashes to the floor. I set it down. As soon as I release it, the bird again stops squawking and goes back to sleep.

  The footsteps are on the stairs now, coming closer. Too close. Whoever’s coming for me has no reason to be quiet. I look around for a place to hide, but there’s no way I can hide the bird or the broken wooden cage. I’m doomed.

  I remember the cloak. I pull it from my backpack and throw it around myself.

  I wish I was in the Dumpster with the fox. I make my wish just as a sliver of outside light hits the floor beside me.

  I’m safe. Well, as safe as you can be when you’re in a Dumpster just outside a place you tried to rob; I tug on the cloak.

  Beside me, the fox stirs.

  “Do you have it?” he demands.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Exactly? You either have it, or you don’t.”

  “I don’t,” I admit.

  “Why not? Can’t you follow simple instructions?” The fox sounds like my mother when I mess up.

  “They weren’t simple. The bird screamed its head off when I tried to move it.” Again, I feel for the cloak, but something’s on top of it. It’s also wet.

  “You tried to move it in its golden cage. Didn’t you? That wasn’t the bird squawking, but the cage itself. It’s under alarm, so it can’t be moved. That’s why the bird has to be moved in the wooden cage.”

  “But that one broke.”

  “Whatever you say.” He’s silent a moment. I am too. We sit, smelling beer and garbage, hearing the flies around us. The food in Sam’s wasn’t good fresh. Rotten, it’s unbearable.

  Finally, the fox says, “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Are you going to go back and get me that bird?”

  “Are you crazy? If I go back, they’ll catch me and put me in jail. Or call that serial killer who’s stalking me.”

  “Well, you can’t stay here. Get out of my Dumpster.”

  “I can’t leave now.”

  “You can, and you will.”