VACANCY & ARIEL

“Doesn’t matter. It looks bad. You want to know something else that looks bad? I got a copy of one of your movies in the mail the other day. Jurassic Pork. Came in an envelope with no return address.”

“Aw, Christ. I did that picture for the hell of it. I was curious to see what it was like.”

“Somebody’s trying to besmirch your character.” Ashford chuckles. “They’re doing a hell of a job, too, because you were definitely the shortest man in the movie.”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Prosecutors love to drop that sort of detail into a trial. Juries down here tend to think poorly of pornography. But the frame is so goddamn crude. The person doing the framing must have no comprehension of evidentiary procedure.”

“So you believe me?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but I believe something’s going on at the Celeste.” Ashford has a sip of water, sneaks a peek at Mary Beth, who returns a wave, which he brusquely acknowledges. “You know of any way a used car can be given a new car smell?”

“Polyvinyl chloride,” Cliff says. “The stuff they make dashboards out of. It comes in a liquid form, too. The manufacturers use it as a sealant. When a dealer has to take a car back on warranty, some have been known to slap on a coat of PVC and resell the car as new.”

Ashford takes out his notebook. “What was that? The sealant?”

Cliff repeats the name. “The stuff’s poison. Every time America has a whiff of a new car interior, they’re catching a lungful of carcinogens.”

Apparently unconcerned by this threat to the nation’s health, Ashford says, “I might have found that Ford Escape. About five years ago, we were investigating a stolen car ring and we thought Muntz could be involved. We put a man into his service center in South Daytona. Nothing came of it, but I still had my suspicions. I went up there Tuesday and there was a red Ford Escape sitting out back under a tarp. I had one of our people take a look at it. It had that new car smell, but the engine number had been taken off with acid and the paint job wasn’t the original. The car was originally gray, like the one you saw.”

“If Jerry was chopping cars, they would have cut it up within an hour or two of bringing it into the shop,” Cliff says. “It’s been a month.”

“He might have a special order for an Escape. It might be a present for one of Muntz’s bimbos. Maybe he had a buyer and the guy has a cash flow problem. Who knows? Maybe it slipped his mind. Muntz is no Einstein.” Ashford’s cough is plainly an attempt to disguise the fact that he’s taking yet another look at Mary Beth. “He’s got papers, but the name on them doesn’t check out. He claims the guy came in off the street and said he won the car on a quiz show. I haven’t got enough to charge him, but my gut tells me that was your Escape.”

“So what’s next?”

“I might check in to the Celeste tonight and see what’s what. Vice has some expensive cars they use for undercover work. I can finagle one for the night, tell the guy on-duty at the yard I need it to impress some woman. That should get me into Room Eleven.”

“You think that’s a good idea?”

“I can’t see what else to do. I don’t have much time. If Gerone’s DNA comes back a match to the blood on your house, you’re going to become the sole target of the investigation.”

“I thought you said you believed me!”

“I may buy your story. Some of it, anyway. But no one else does. The only reason you haven’t been arrested is there’s no evidence, no body. I’m on my own. The captain…” Ashford grimaces. “He’s a results kind of guy. He’d love to make this case. It would look good on his resume. You’re about as close to a Hollywood celebrity as we got around here, and a trial would get him exposure. It’d be huge on Court TV. He won’t authorize me to do diddley until after the DNA comes back. If it’s a match, you’re in the shit.”

“When’s it due back?”

“Depends how far behind the lab’s running. Maybe two-three days. Maybe tomorrow afternoon.”

“Fuck!” Cliff tries to concentrate on the problem, but he’s too agitated—he flashes on scenes from prison movies, the wavy smear of blood on his porch, the face of the witch. “You shouldn’t do this alone.”

Amused, Ashford says, “Yeah, it’s going to be rough, what with demons and all.”

“You don’t know what happened to all those people.”

“First of all, we don’t know it’s ‘all those people.’ We don’t even know for sure about Gerone. Second…” He pushes back his coat to reveal his holstered weapon. “I’m armed, and I have thirty years on the job. I appreciate your motherly concern, but nothing’s going to happen that I don’t want to happen.”

“Have you asked yourself why they only disappear people who rent Number Eleven?”

“Well,” says Ashford after pretending to contemplate the question. “I guess because it has a magic stone buried underneath it.”

“You don’t have an answer, huh?”