“I know, but she’s been going through a very dark time. She’s suicidal. I need to check on her before it’s too late.”

The clerk’s head bobbled as he burped.

“Suicidal? Those can be messy.”

“Can you just take me to her room? You can go with me. It would mean so much to her family.”

The clerk scratched the whiskers on his chin, then sipped from his mug. “How much would it mean to her family?”

Jeff was glad he’d stopped at an ATM on the way. He reached into the pocket of his jeans, counted five twenties and put them on the counter. The clerk’s eyes went to the cash.

“If you doubled that, I might be able to find the key to her unit.”

Jeff put down another hundred. As his eyebrows climbed, the clerk stood. He clamped down on his toothpick, swept up the cash, went to a keyboard, sniffed and blinked several times at a computer monitor.

“Vida Watson?” the clerk said.

“Warren.”

“Warren. Got her in number twenty-nine.” He belched, reached under the counter for a key with a tag that had a strip of masking tape with #29 inked in blue. “Let’s go,” he said.

After chasing away the drinking party outside the office, the clerk led Jeff across the courtyard, along the islands of dirt and trash and past the bottles and cans floating in the pool. The motel’s walls were pocked and stained. The doors were scarred and needed painting. Jeff could almost hear the motel groaning from neglect. For a moment, his heart went out to the old Vida he’d known in Cleveland, the Vida who was bright, funny and talented, before tragedy had put her here in this hellhole. They stopped at a door identified by the weatherworn 29.

“This is it.” The clerk knocked, then used a moment to think before he said, “Ms. Warren? You have a guest.”

No response.

“It’s Jeff, Vida. Please open the door. We need to talk.”

Nothing.

It took the clerk a few attempts to steady his hand and insert the key.

They entered. The clerk switched on the lights. The room was unoccupied. Jeff went to the bathroom. It was empty, too.

“All right, there you go,” the clerk said. “No one home, no suicide, no nothing. We checked. Let’s go.”

“Can I have a minute?”

“For what—” A cell phone rang, and the clerk reached into his pocket and answered. “Jocko, I told you, I’ll have it for you—stop—no, you listen…”