Weekend by Andrew Neiderman, Tania Grossinger Read Free Book Online Page B

anything about Tony?”
    “Who’s had a chance to check? I’ll try to find something out when I get back to the office.” With that he turned and walked away.
    Once inside the dungeon, Margret Thomas filled a pail of water and shook in a generous portion of cleanser. She was happy with herself. Usually she hated to work in the help’s quarters … no tips or extra-friendly guests … but to earn an entire day’s pay for cleaning just one room …
    Tony’s rommates stood in the hall watching as she kicked the bent-in aluminum pail set on small wooden rollers. They squeaked over the rough cement floor. Everything about the interior of the dungeon was ugly. The hall walls consisted of naked sheet rock spotted with graffitti in foreign languages, blotchy streaks of dirt, stains from spoiled food and wine, even heel stains resulting from kicks of anger and frustration. Margret turned back and gave Tony’s jeering roommates the finger. Then she pushed open the door of their room. The stench drove her back against the wall.
    Never in all her twenty years as a chambermaid had she seen anything like it. Towels, spotted with vomit and excrement, the linen and blankets overflowing with it, and smelly crumpled drippings along the walls. Her stomach turned and she thought she, herself, would heave. When she looked back inside, she saw roaches crawling across the floor, feeding off the blotched linoleum.
    She considered forgetting the whole thing. Then she thought about the money. She could do it quickly. She would do it quickly. Pushing the pail further inside, she hurried through the door and began to gather up the soiled towels, holding her breath and cursing as she worked.
    “Son of a bitch,” Manny Goldberg said, pounding on the top of his steering wheel. “I gotta drive outta New York, fight the fucking traffic all the way, just to get to the front of this hotel and wait bumper to bumper to get in.” He rolled his window further down and stuck out his head. “Move your ass,” he screamed.
    “Manny, for godsakes, calm down,” his wife said, poking him in the ribs for emphasis.
    “For the prices they charge around here, the least they can do is give some service.”
    “Which doesn’t mean you have to act like an idiot.” Flo turned the rear view mirror toward her face to check out her new permanent wave. The ride up had been hard on everything, her hair, her makeup and especially their tempers.
    “Will you please leave that mirror alone? I’ve told you a million times not to twist it like that. Whenever I have to check out the rear, you have it so out of place I can’t see a damn thing behind me.”
    “It’s your own fault. I’ve asked you a hundred times to put a vanity mirror behind the sun visor.”
    “This is a car, dammit, not a ladies’ room.” He sat back and manipulated a thick Monte Cristo from his shirt pocket. Though not exactly a short man, he was a good twenty-five pounds overweight, far from the sex symbol he imagined himself to be. His cheeks were bloated and the sweat had already accumulated under his armpits and around the confines of his collar. He stuck the cigar lasciviously in his mouth, chomping off the end in the process. Flo turned away in revulsion.
    They were not unlike many other couples who frequented the Catskills, each indulging in extramarital affairs and pretending the other didn’t know. He had married into her father’s garment business and, along with his brother-in-law, had eventually taken over. Now he was trying to explain to Flo that it might soon be all his.
    “Why,” she asked,” “would Mike want to sell out his share, especially now when the business is doing so well?”
    “I told you. He’s heavily in debt and he needs money fast. He’s desperate for someone to bail him out so, if in return for his stock I can get him the cash he needs by Tuesday morning. …”
    He exhaled a mouthful of smoke in her direction. It amazed her to realize how much she had