said. “Don’t even think about it. Just get us out of here this minute. Give us a ride right now.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t a practical joke. They’re keeping us here. They won’t let us leave. We’re like prisoners.”
“That sounds pretty weird.”
“But it’s true. They’re stringing us along. Everything they tell us is lies.”
“Like what?”
“They said we were the first guests in this room, but I don’t think we are.”
“That’s totally weird.”
“Why?”
“There were people in this room a month ago. I know that for sure, because I had to bring a tire to a guy in room nine.”
“They said you were their good friend.”
“That was the second time I ever met them.”
“They implied they had been here at least three years.”
“That’s not right. They showed up a year and a half ago. There was a big fight over a building permit.”
“They said their phone was out yesterday. But I bet it wasn’t. They just wanted to keep us here.”
“But why would they? Money?”
“We thought of that,” Shorty said. “We were about to run out. Anyone would run out sooner or later. Then what would they do?”
“This is very weird,” Karel said.
He stood there, uncertain.
“Please give us a ride,” Patty said. “Please. We have to get out of here. We’ll pay you fifty bucks.”
“What about your car?”
“We’ll leave it here. We were going to sell it anyway.”
“It wouldn’t be worth much.”
“Exactly. We don’t care what happens to it. But we’ve got to go. We have to get out. Right now, this minute. You’re our only hope. We’re prisoners here.”
She stared at him. He nodded, slowly. Then again, taking charge. He stepped back, and looked left and right, craning over both his shoulders. He glanced at his giant truck, and the dimensions of the lot, measuring it, scoping it out, and then he glanced into the room, at the neat arrangement of luggage.
“OK,” he said. “Time to arrange a jailbreak.”
“Thank you,” Patty said.
“But first I need to ask an embarrassing question.”
“What?”
“Did you pay your bill? I would get in trouble if I helped you skip out in secret. There are innkeeper laws here.”
“We paid last night,” Shorty said. “We’re good until noon.”
“OK,” Karel said. “So let’s think for a minute. We should err on the side of caution. We should assume the worst case. We don’t know how they’re going to react to this. Therefore it’s probably better if they don’t see it happening. Agreed?”
“Much better,” Patty said.
“So you guys stay out of sight, while I turn the truck around, so it’s facing in the right direction, then you guys grab your bags and hop on board, and away we go. By which time nothing will be able to stop us. Even a Mercedes-Benz would bounce right off. OK?”
“We’re good to go,” Shorty said.
Karel looked in the door at the suitcase.
“That’s pretty big,” he said. “Can you lift it? Want me to come back and help?”
“I can do it.”
“Show me. A delay could screw this up.”
Patty went in first. She picked up the overnight bags, one in each hand, and stood out of the way, so Shorty could get to the main attraction. He wrapped both fists around the new rope handle, and hauled, and the case came up six inches in the air. Karel watched from the doorway, as if judging.
He said, “How fast can you move with it?”
“Don’t worry,” Shorty said. “I won’t screw up.”
Karel looked at him, and then at Patty, she with a small bag in each hand, he with the big bag in both, the two of them standing there side by side in the space between the bed and the AC. He said, “OK, wait there, and don’t come out until I get turned around. Then Patty comes out first. She throws the small bags up in the cab and climbs in after them. Then Shorty comes out and boosts the suitcase up and Patty leans down and hauls it in, and then Shorty climbs up. Does that make sense?”
“Sounds good,” Shorty said.
“OK,” Karel said. “Be ready.”
He leaned in the doorway and grabbed the knob and closed the door on them. Through the window they saw him hustle across the dirt and climb the ladder to the cab. They heard the engine roar and saw the truck jerk into gear and move slowly away, right to left, out of sight.
They waited.
It didn’t come back.
They waited.
Nothing.
No sound, no movement. Nothing out the window except the view as before. The Honda, the lot, the grass, the wall of