Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper Read Free Book Online Page A

pawnshop called All Things Used!, two women’s hair salons (the Glamor-ette and Split Enz), a closet-size barber shop, an army surplus place, a butcher and a baker (but no candlestick maker, alas). A third of the windows are empty, and many of these seem tohave given up hope of occupation, barren even of FOR LEASE, RENT or SALE signs. I’ve always taken this as a sure indication of a local economy’s health. When the real estate brokers stop trying to sell it, it’s pretty much all over.
    When I reach the end of the street I lean over to the passenger window and confirm I’m at the right place from the electric blue letters that round the corner of the building, with THE EMP facing Ontario Street and IRE HOTEL over Victoria Avenue, all with bulbs inside them strong enough to illuminate the snaking trails of rust descending from each of the “E”s. A small marquee screwed above the entrance to the bar on the south side announces: COM NG EVE TS—GIRLS! FRI AND SAT. None of the usual mention of “dancers” qualified as “beautiful” or “exotic.” Perhaps this is simply because the girls of The Empire Hotel are neither beautiful nor exotic. Nor do they dance, as that word is commonly understood.
    The building itself is a four-story whitewashed affair whose plainness is offset by some copper detailing over the main floor windows (roaring lions before fluttering Union Jacks and, behind them, EST. 1904) as well as a series of stone gargoyles set along the rooftop’s edge. Not the standard depictions of growling mastiff or sneering gremlin either. These are clearly human, faces sculpted by a stonemason whose wonky craftsmanship is apparent even in the gray light of dusk. All male and bearded in the ministerial, turn-of-the-century style of early immigrant Brits. From this I surmise that these are the heads of Murdoch’sfounding fathers. Yet their expressions are anything but noble. It’s impossible to tell if it’s the result of intended caricature or the mistake of limited artistic ability, but each of the heads seems to bear its own unique threat or perversion. Eyes halfshut in drunken lasciviousness or bulging in madness or terror. Mouths held tight as though keeping a secret within or opened wide with a pointed tongue lolling out.
    I park the Lincoln on the street before the front door and stand for a moment with my head craned back, taking in one head and then another. It’s as though their expressions change while I look at them so that when I turn from the second back to the first, eyes that were open have closed shut, or from the fourth back to the third, a tongue extended that had previously been licking lips. A blur of movement just beyond the peripheral range of what I can see. It’s a common sort of illusion, I suppose, but real enough that I have to force a laugh and lower my head to street level again to rid myself of it. But no matter what I tell myself as I pull my garment bag and briefcase out of the trunk and step up to the door, I don’t look up.
    The hotel lobby is lit by a single oversize chandelier fitted with a half-dozen of those fake gaslamp bulbs, so that one has to peer for direction and footing through an orange fog. The next striking thing is the smell. Something distinctly geriatric ward about it: a combination of damp linen, bean soup and the sting of chemicals wafting out from the stack of deodorizing pucks that sit at the bottom of the men’s room urinals. To the left is thepadded black leather door to the bar and above it a screwed-in sign with fancy script: THE LORD BYRON COCKTAIL LOUNGE. GENTLEMEN’S ENTRANCE. From the other side of the stuffing and wood comes the sound of music, or at least certain wavering vibrations which never move above or below the middle range—the sleepy murk of elevators, waiting rooms and department stores. On the right is an open archway to an unlit room that, judging from the streetlight that finds its way through the salty grease of the front