Manila Gambit. John Zeugner

and flopping. Rocking slowly until we both fall asleep.

      At dinner in the Ramada’s tiny dining room downstairs, overlooking the front entrance, she seems zombie-like, glazed, indifferent. We pick at Salisbury steaks, and thick, soft French fries, side orders of slaw. The dining room is empty. About twelve tables arranged in straight lines. A counter at one end, apparently for cafeteria style breakfast the next morning.

      “It was lots better before all this medication,” she says.

      “It was?”

      “Sure,” she answers. “You know that. You can tell, too. I’m sure.”

      “You had more energy,” I offer.

      “I’m sorry,” she returns, pushing her little dish of cole slaw toward me. “Take this as compensation.”

      “A fair trade?”

      “If you think so.” We fall to silence, mutual mastication.

      Pam says, finally, “I suppose people are upstairs in their own kitchenettes.”

      “Yes.”

      “Maybe I should cook for you. Little elegant dinners. Candle-lit dinners in room 412.”

      “With harpsichord music.”

      “Yes, with harpsichord music and, and, oh, I don’t know. You notice that sometimes I begin a sentence and then it goes away. Just trails off some place like a pennant. I can catch the beginning of it, but then it goes by and I can’t catch the end of it—like skywriters or, rather, you know those planes that fly along the beaches with big signs behind them. When they turn, sometimes you can’t see entirely what the message is. Do you know that?”

      “Hmnn.”

      “Don’t do that. You don’t have to do that.”

      “Sorry.”

      Just as our coffee arrives a large, matronly woman wearing excessive orange shaded powder and a boy in bluejeans and a grey, white, and red polo shirt come into the dining room. They take a table against the far wall, but after a few minutes the woman negotiates a change, apparently so they don’t overlook the lobby. The woman received a tall bourbon, apparently without asking for it, then a shrimp cocktail. The boy puts a small electronic box on the table top and begins punching buttons. She gets a second shrimp cocktail and puts it to one side. After a few moments the boy looks up and smiles at the woman, then pushes the box around for her to look at. She inspects the box and then passes him the shrimp cocktail.

      I nod toward them and say to Pam, “Our prey.”

      “Do you think so?” Pam responds, very interested.

      “Yes, indeed. David M. Spendip and friend.”

      “She looks ferocious and he looks like a child.”

      “Maybe fourteen. It’s hard to tell.”

      “He looks older, but dresses younger,” Pam says staring at them.

      The woman looks around, cruises her eyes on us and pauses long enough to issue a little chastisement, then insolently tosses her head back toward the boy. Their Salisbury steaks arrive and a glass red wine for the woman. The boy concentrates on the electronic box, pausing only to show the results periodically.

      “We have an eleven o’clock interview in their room, 1210.”

      “Is that a computer chess kit?”

      “Presumably. No sense wasting time with conversation.”

      “Amazing. He’s so cute.”

      The woman turns around again and returns Pam’s stare, but if she had hoped a simple test of will, she had not quite bargained for the Librium advantage. Pam’s eyes merely take on a recessive soft glow, as if some internal supports or embarrassment mechanisms had gone to sleep. The woman screws her face up tighter and cocks her head. But nothing seems to break Pam’s inert concentration.

      Finally the woman says loudly, “Dearie, didn’t somebody ever tell you it’s impolite to stare!”

      The boy at this outburst looks up from his computer. I take hold of Pam’s upper arm. She turns toward me, smiling that warm, soft, simple-minded grin. The woman turns back, barks something at the boy who returns to his buttons. I pull Pam up and together we leave.

      “You’re not helping much,” I say as we wait for the elevator.

      “I know. I know. But did you see how he was playing with those levers? He’s very, very quick, wasn’t he?”

      “I suppose so.”

      “Do you think that’s what he does all day, plays with that chess machine? I would like that. I could like that a lot.”

      I contemplate chastising her, but decide nothing positive would come of it. It isn’t as if she could be blamed, I decide. “Maybe you can talk to him about it.”

      “I have a whole list of questions to ask him. I wrote them all out and I’d like to show them to you.”

      “Sure.”

      “But if you’d rather ask the questions, that’s okay with me. I just want to work as hard for you as I can, and in the best possible way. So that you can see how good I am for you and for your work.”

      “My work?”

      “Yes, working on your column and doing this kind of special research.”

      “Special research?”

      “Yes. I know I can help in lots of ways. You’ll see how important and helpful I am. That’s what Dr. Coffee says about marriage. About getting married. What I have to do is work. Work very, very hard and show you, sort of unconsciously, how much you depend on my working.”

      “That’s Coffee’s idea?”

      “Yes. We talk about it all the time. And of course I add things of my own. I know what you like after all. Don’t I?”

      “Especially in our honeymoon suite.”

      “Yes, especially there,” she says dopily, half-laughing.

      Chapter 10

      “So, you’re the ones. I figured it had ta be you,” Mrs. Spendip says at the doorway. Pam and I are right on time. Pam carries a small Sony microcassette recorder. I have a leather folder with copies of my columns in it. “The Hane Tribune?” Mrs. Spendip says. Is there a trace of sneer in her voice, I can’t quite decide.

      “I sent you some of the earlier columns, and here are some more, if you want copies of them.”

      “Ah more copies, yeah sure. Maybe on a pearl grey matting, is that it? Incidentally they don’t show me much,” she answers easily, stepping back so that we can come into what turns out to be a very narrow hall, leading left and right. She takes us to the left. “They show me you can copy whatever you read in Chess Review, but they don’t show me much. And I see you brought along your space cadet friend.”

      “What?” Pam says.

      “Nothing. Nothin’. You’re nearsighted, aren’t ya? Maybe you wear contacts, eh?” she says to Pam, who nods.

      We’re led into a small room dominated by a three-quarter size bed. There is a small table with three chairs. Mrs. Spendip takes the furthest one, and signals us to sit down. “Now why don’t ya tell me about this, this Hane Tribune.”

      “Paid circulation around 63,000. Readership well over two hundred thousand. Some people think it’s the best and most conservative paper on the West Coast of Florida.”

      “Very nice. Conservative, eh? K.K.K., that kind of crap?”

      “Pardon?”

      “Oh, don’t beg my pardon, sweetie. That crap I don’t like. Why don’t