The Red Hotel (Sissy Sawyer Mysteries) Read online

  The curly circus-style lettering above the clown’s head said Images d’Amour, meaning Pictures of Love, but Sissy knew from years of experience that the cards didn’t necessarily predict love that had a happy ending. They could show you a passionate love affair, but a love affair that might be brought to a bloody conclusion by a jealous husband rushing into the bedroom and stabbing both of the lovers with two enormous kitchen knives. They could show you a beautiful new baby girl and her doting parents, and then foretell that the baby would drown in a garden pond before she reached the age of two, surrounded by ducks.

  Sissy always thought that the DeVane cards showed life as it really was, without any false hope. In the DeVane cards, Death stood patiently by the window, staring at the rain, but knowing that sooner or later the time would come for him to turn around.

  ‘Here they are,’ said Sissy, coming back across the living room and showing T-Yon the box. ‘They were engraved and printed in France in the eighteenth century, and this is the only pack I’ve ever seen. There are others, so I’m told, but I don’t think anybody uses them to tell fortunes, the way I do. Probably because they don’t know how, or else they do know how but they’re scared to. Like I told you,’ she added, tapping her forehead, ‘you have to have the facility.’

  T-Yon touched the box with her fingertips, as if for luck. ‘They’re huge. And that clown. He’s real creepy looking, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s called Le Serrurier Riant, the Laughing Locksmith. He’s showing you that he can unlock the future. Key in one hand, you see? Crystal ball in the other.’

  Sissy sat down and slid the cards out of the box. ‘Before I start, T-Yon, I really need to know why you wanted me to tell your fortune so badly. It’s a hell of a drive from Hyde Park to here, especially on a day like this. Forty miles at least.’

  T-Yon didn’t answer at first, so Sissy said, ‘You didn’t come here just to find out if you and Billy are suited for each other, did you, or if you’re going to make a real career out of your cookery?’

  T-Yon raised her left hand in front of her face, looking at Sissy through her fingers. Sissy knew exactly what it meant, when people did that. They were about to tell her something that they couldn’t hold in for very much longer, but which made them feel confused, or guilty, or deeply ashamed.

  ‘I’ve been having these dreams,’ she said, so quietly that Sissy could hardly hear her.

  ‘You want to speak louder, sweetheart?’ Sissy asked her. ‘I’m a little deaf in my left ear. And whatever it is that’s upsetting you, it won’t be cured by whispering.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said T-Yon, and took her hand away from her face. ‘I’ve been having these dreams about my older brother, Everett. Not dreams, really, nightmares. But worse than any nightmares I’ve ever had before. I know I’ve only just met you but after what Billy told me about you—’

  ‘Go on,’ Sissy coaxed her. ‘It’s like I said. You can tell me if you want to but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t.’

  ‘Well – Everett has just restored this old hotel in Baton Rouge. That’s what he does, him and his business partner, he finds these run-down hotels and he restores them and gives them all of their glamour back. They’ve done two so far, the Shenandoah Suites and the Denham Palace, and The Red Hotel is their third.’

  ‘Sounds like he’s pretty successful, your brother.’

  ‘He is. He has been. But about three weeks ago, not long after he’d opened The Red Hotel, I started having these nightmares about him.’

  ‘OK . . .’

  T-Yon said, ‘They’re really embarrassing, but they’re horrible, too. And they’re always the same, night after night. I haven’t told anybody about them, not even Billy. But I’ve been beginning to think that if they don’t stop soon, I should maybe go talk to my doctor.’

  ‘Instead, you’ve decided to come to me,’ said Sissy. ‘So let’s see if I can help you.’

  T-Yon paused again, but then she took a deep breath and said, ‘I’m lying in bed in this hotel room. For some reason I know that it’s The Red Hotel, but it’s not like The Red Hotel the way it is now. I mean, Everett and his partner have remodeled it completely, so that it’s all red-velvet drapes and gilt-framed mirrors. You know, like old-style Baton Rouge. But in my nightmare the room is all brown and green, with a nineteen sixties TV and a nineteen sixties telephone with a dial on it. And it smells, too. I’ve never been able to smell anything in a dream before, but this hotel room has a very strong smell like lavender furniture wax and bug spray. I can still smell it even after I’ve woken up.’

  Sissy raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s highly unusual. Most of us can hear things in dreams, you know – like people talking, or singing, or the ocean crashing on the shore. And most of us can feel things, too. But to smell your dream, that’s very rare, although my late husband once woke me up in the middle of the night because he swore that he could smell smoke, when there was no smoke. But anyhow, carry on. What happens in this nightmare?’

  T-Yon said, ‘I’m lying on the bed, like I said, and the thing is that I’m not wearing anything at all except for a black garter belt and black nylon stockings. I’ve never worn a garter belt and stockings in my life, ever, which makes this so weird. The door opens and my brother Everett walks in. He’s wearing a Mardi Gras mask – dead white, with very black slanty eyes – but I know at once that it’s him. He’s not wearing anything, either, except for long black socks, and I’ve never known him to wear long black socks – like, never, ever.’

  ‘OK,’ said Sissy. Outside, it had suddenly stopped raining, and the room gradually began to fill with light.

  ‘Everett doesn’t hesitate. He comes across to the bed and he climbs on top of me. I know what he’s going to do but I don’t try to stop him. In fact I feel like I want him – not because I love him but because I feel that he’s going to make it worth my while. It’s like I’m a prostitute, rather than his sister. It’s really hard to explain. He starts to have sex with me and even though he’s my older brother I don’t resist him at all. On the other hand I’m not too enthusiastic either. I just lie there and watch TV and let him do it.’

  ‘What’s on the TV?’ asked Sissy. ‘Is it any program you recognize?’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could be.’

  ‘It’s in black and white . . . something like The Lucy Show. The TV is slowed right down, so I can’t hear what anybody’s saying. All I can hear is Everett panting underneath that mask.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking you this, but don’t you feel even the least bit turned on?’

  Sissy could tell that T-Yon was taken aback by her directness, but before she consulted the DeVane cards it was important for her to know as much as possible about T-Yon’s nightmare – what she could hear, what she could see, and how she was feeling. Sometimes the smallest detail could unlock the whole secret of a frightening dream. A face glimpsed high up at an attic window. A tatty old crow, perched on a distant gatepost. A small child sitting by the roadside, sobbing his heart out.

  ‘Turned on?’ said T-Yon. She thought about it, and then she added, ‘No, I guess I’m not – not really. I can feel him making love to me, physically. I can feel him inside me, but it’s not really exciting.’

  ‘Does it go on for long, this love-making?’

  ‘Some nights it seems to go on for hours. Other nights it’s over in just a few seconds. But it always ends the same. Everett makes love to me faster and faster and then he suddenly stops, and bunches up, and lets out this terrible aaahhhhhhhh! At the same time I have this sliding feeling in my stomach.’

  T-Yon ran her fingertip down in a vertical line from her breastbone to her waist. ‘It’s the most horrible sensation you can imagine. It’s like somebody’s cutting me open with a really sharp scalpel – right through my skin and my muscles and all the layers of fat and everything.’

  She stopped for a moment, and took two or three steadying breaths. Then she s
aid, ‘Everett, he’s making this kind of a whimpering noise. You know – like a puppy when somebody’s run it over. It’s muffled, because he still hasn’t taken off his mask. I’m too shocked to make any sound at all. I lift my head and look down at my stomach and it’s gaping wide open. Everett’s still on top of me, and his stomach is gaping open too.’

  ‘My God,’ said Sissy. She was really craving for a cigarette now, and she wished Billy would hurry back from the store. On the other hand, she was anxious to hear the rest of T-Yon’s nightmare before he returned. She didn’t want T-Yon to hold anything back, which she might very well do if Billy were here. Hearing that his new girlfriend was having nightmares about sex with her own brother wouldn’t be the greatest aphrodisiac of all time.

  ‘I look down. I’ve seen it night after night and it’s always the same, but it still gives me the fremeers, every time, without fail. All of our intestines are tangled up together, Everett’s and mine, so that I can’t tell where his begin and mine end. They’re like spaghetti, and they’re so twisted and knotted that I know that we could never untangle ourselves. The only way to separate us would be for somebody to cut us apart, slice right through our intestines, and I know that would kill us.’

  ‘Does anybody try?’

  ‘No, that’s pretty much the end of the nightmare. I hear a clock striking and that’s when I always wake up. Well – almost.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘Yes . . . before I do, I see the door open. Only three or four inches, but enough to see that there’s a boy standing outside – a boy with red curly hair and a very white face.’

  ‘Does he say anything, this red-haired boy? Does he move? Does he come into the room?’

  T-Yon shook her head. ‘He doesn’t speak and he doesn’t move at all.’

  ‘Do you recognize him from anywhere?’

  ‘No. He just stands there staring at us, me and Everett, lying on the bed with our intestines all mixed up together. I can’t be sure, but sometimes I think he’s smiling at us. He really frightens me. My grandma would have called him a possedé, that’s Cajun for a really bad child. Like, you know, possessed.’

  ‘But then you wake up?’

  ‘Yes,’ said T-Yon. ‘Always shaking and sweating and always feeling so nauseous. I mean I actually feel as if my insides have been dragged right out of me and all jumbled up and then crammed right back inside of me, for real. It’s like I’ve been quickly sewn back up again only a second before I open my eyes.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sissy. ‘That’s one hell of a nightmare.’

  T-Yon sat right on the edge of the couch with an imploring look in her eyes, her hands clasped tightly together, as if her nightmares were a sin and she was praying for Sissy to absolve her. Sissy took another two or three thoughtful sips of wine before she said anything. She needed time to think what these nightmares could possibly mean, because they were crowded with so many signs and innuendoes.

  Sissy had learned from years of fortune-telling that recurring nightmares were almost always a warning, but in T-Yon’s case it was difficult to say exactly what she was being warned about. Her waking relationship with her brother Everett was obviously healthy and non-sexual, and yet her nightmare about him was grossly incestuous. It not only suggested a carnal relationship, but something much more – a visceral entanglement. Their destinies were so closely twisted together that they were like conjoined twins, who shared even their intestines.

  Yet there were so many more questions to be answered. Why was she wearing stockings and a garter belt, which she never wore in real life? Why was Everett wearing a Mardi Gras mask? What was the significance of the black-and-white comedy on TV, if any? Why did T-Yon feel that having sex with Everett would be ‘worth her while’, and what exactly did that mean? Who was the red-haired possedé, peering in through the door?

  Sissy was still trying to answer all of these questions when they heard Billy honking his horn outside, immediately followed by Mr Boots barking.

  ‘Listen,’ she asked T-Yon, ‘do you have time to stay for the rest of the afternoon? You can even stay the night if you don’t want to drive back to Hyde Park today. Sherlock Holmes used to talk about a “three-pipe problem” which would take him at least the length of time to smoke three pipes to sort out. I think this nightmare of yours might be a three-reading problem.’

  ‘But what’s your first impression about it?’ asked T-Yon. ‘Do you think I need to be seriously worried about it, or do you think I’m just being dumb and letting my imagination run away with me? Maybe if I change my diet? Or give up drinking – not that I drink a whole lot? Or stop stressing out so much?’

  Sissy shrugged one shoulder and tried to give her a reassuring smile. ‘Maybe, yes, sure, it could be something like that. It could be that you’re allergic to some food additive, or that you’re pushing yourself too hard at college. But let me read your cards for you, T-Yon. Then we’ll soon see what we’re up against.’

  T-Yon said, ‘Thanks, Ms Sawyer. I so much appreciate it.’ She glanced toward the kitchen to make sure that Billy wasn’t listening, and then she added, almost mouthing it, ‘I can’t tell you how desperate I’ve been.’

  ‘Call me Sissy, for God’s sake,’ Sissy told her.

  T-Yon stood up and went through to the kitchen to help Billy with the groceries. Sissy stayed where she was, with a furrow in her forehead. She didn’t like the sound of this nightmare at all – especially not the way in which it kept repeating itself, night after night. That didn’t sound like a food-allergy nightmare or a nightmare related to worry or overwork. Sissy’s years of experience with the DeVane cards had given her a psychic sensitivity which very few other fortune-tellers could match, and T-Yon’s nightmare had made her feel deeply uneasy.

  It reminded her of one particular DeVane card, La Cuisine De Nuit, the Night Kitchen, which was a card that cautioned against futile self-sacrifice. She very much hoped that this card wouldn’t turn up when she read T-Yon’s future.

  One other disturbing detail was the clock that T-Yon could hear striking. That meant that whatever catastrophe these nightmares foretold, it was imminent. It was going to arrive in days, rather than weeks.

  Mother and Son

  Before she started her first reading, Sissy took Billy and T-Yon out on to the verandah so that she could smoke a cigarette and drink another glass of wine. She filled a yellow ceramic bowl with her home-made Parmesan cheese straws, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and brought out a jug of celery sticks, too, which they could dip in her extra-hot home-made salsa.

  Billy popped open a can of Schlitz and sat with his feet up on the railing. ‘So did T-Yon tell you all about her nightmares?’

  ‘She did, yes,’ Sissy nodded. The sky had cleared now, and the sun was shining, so that everything sparkled. Mr Boots was lying at her feet, panting.

  ‘She won’t tell me about them,’ said Billy. ‘If I’ve asked her once I’ve asked her a million times, but she flat out refuses.’

  ‘That’s because you would take them all the wrong way,’ said T-Yon.

  ‘How do you know I would, unless you tell me?’

  ‘Because I just do.’

  ‘I think you misunderestimate me, as George W. Bush used to say.’

  ‘No, I don’t. It’s just that I know how touchy you can be. Look at that time Daniel was showing me how to make that Béarnaise sauce. You totally lost it.’

  ‘He didn’t need to cup his hand around your boob. There’s nothing about that in the recipe for Béarnaise sauce.’

  ‘He didn’t cup his hand around my boob. He was showing me how to stir, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, that’s what you call it. It sure looked like he was pretty stirred, I can tell you.’

  ‘You see? That’s exactly why I wouldn’t tell you about my nightmares.’

  When Sissy had crushed out a second cigarette, she said to T-Yon, ‘Come on, sweetheart. Come back inside and I’ll give you a reading.’

  ‘Can I sit in?�
� asked Billy.

  ‘No, you can’t, Billy-bob. Not this time, anyhow. You can peel some potatoes for me. I think I’ll make us one of my potato and mushroom bakes for supper.’

  ‘Slave-driver.’

  Sissy and T-Yon went back into the living room. T-Yon sat down on the couch and said, ‘I don’t know why I’m feeling so nervous.’

  ‘Relax,’ Sissy told her. ‘The more you open your mind, the clearer your reading will be. The DeVane cards pick up on your thoughts and your emotions, and they tell you in pictures what your thoughts and emotions mean, and where your life will be taking you next. But it makes it harder for them to give you a full and accurate prediction if you deliberately hide anything that you’re embarrassed about, or ashamed of. So – please. Do try to let yourself go. I’m not going to judge you. The cards are not going to judge you. We’re just going to show you what your future has in store for you, that’s all.’

  She picked up the deck and sorted through them until she found a card called La Sorcière Blanche. She passed it across to T-Yon and said, ‘This is your Predictor card. In other words, this is the card that represents you. Lay it down on the coffee table and place the palm of your hand on top of it.’

  T-Yon held the card up and frowned at it. ‘This is me?’

  ‘The White Witch,’ Sissy translated for her. ‘I could have chosen the Pastry Maker for you, or the Cook, but I think this suits you better.’

  The card showed a disturbingly beautiful young woman standing in a cave, stirring a three-legged witch’s cauldron with a long-handled ladle. She was wearing a tall, white conical hat with her blonde hair braided on either side of her head into two buns, like Princess Leia; but apart from that she was naked. In place of pubic hair, however, she had a purple flowering hydrangea.

  Peeping out of the broth that was bubbling in the cauldron were several grotesque fish, and a spiny lobster; and also a very tiny girl, or maybe she was only a doll.