Read Cell: A Novel for Free Online Page B

Clay thought maybe the little guy was starting to cry again, then realized that sound was smothered laughter.
    The double doors had ATLANTIC AVENUE INN printed on one glass panel and a blatant lie— BOSTON’S FINEST ADDRESS —printed on the other. Tom slapped the flat of his hand on the glass of the lefthand panel, between BOSTON’S FINEST ADDRESS and a row of credit card decals.
    Now Clay was peering in, too. The lobby wasn’t very big. On the left was the reception desk. On the right was a pair of elevators. On the floor was a turkey-red rug. The old guy in the uniform lay on this, facedown, with one foot up on a couch and a framed Currier & Ives sailing-ship print on his ass.
    Clay’s good feelings left in a rush, and when Tom began to hammer on the glass instead of just slap, he put his hand over Tom’s fist. “Don’t bother,” he said. “They’re not going to let us in, even if they’re alive and sane.” He thought about that and nodded. “Especially if they’re sane.”
    Tom looked at him wonderingly. “You don’t get it, do you?”
    “Huh? Get what?”
    “Things have changed. They can’t keep us out.” He pushed Clay’s hand off his own, but instead of hammering, he put his forehead against the glass again and shouted. Clay thought he had a pretty good shouting voice on him for a little guy. “Hey! Hey, in there!”
    A pause. In the lobby nothing changed. The old bellman went on being dead with a picture on his ass.
    “Hey, if you’re in there, you better open the door! The man I’m with is a paying guest of the hotel and I’m his guest! Open up or I’m going to grab a curbstone and break the glass! You hear me?”
    “A curbstone?.” Clay said. He started to laugh. “Did you say curbstone? Jolly good.” He laughed harder. He couldn’t help it. Then movement to his left caught his eye. He looked around and saw a teenage girl standing a little way farther up the street. She was looking at them out of haggard blue disaster-victim eyes. She was wearing a white dress, and there was a vast bib of blood on the front of it. More blood was crusted beneath her nose, on her lips and chin. Other than the bloody nose she didn’t look hurt, and she didn’t look crazy at all, just shocked. Shocked almost to death.
    “Are you all right?” Clay asked. He took a step toward her and she took a corresponding step back. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t blame her. He stopped but held a hand up to her like a traffic cop: Stay put.
    Tom glanced around briefly, then began to hammer on the door again, this time hard enough to rattle the glass in its old wooden frame and make his reflection shiver. “Last chance, then we’re coming in!”
    Clay turned and opened his mouth to tell him that masterful shit wasn’t going to cut it, not today, and then a bald head rose slowly from behind the reception desk. It was like watching a periscope surface. Clay recognized that head even before it got to the face; it belonged to the clerk who’d checked him in yesterday and stamped a validation on his parking-lot ticket for the lot a block over, the same clerk who’d given him directions to the Copley Square Hotel this morning.
    For a moment he still lingered behind the desk, and Clay held up his room key with the green plastic Atlantic Avenue Inn fob hanging down. Then he also held up his portfolio, thinking the desk clerk might recognize it.
    Maybe he did. More likely he just decided he had no choice. In either case, he used the pass-through at the end of the desk and crossed quickly to the door, detouring around the body. Clay Riddell believed he might be witnessing the first reluctant scurry he had ever seen in his life. When the desk clerk reached the other side of the door, he looked from Clay to Tom and then back to Clay again. Although he did not appear particularly reassured by what he saw, he produced a ring of keys from one pocket, flicked rapidly through them, found one, and used it on his side of