VACANCY & ARIEL

And that’s it. That’s the sum of his observations. Their schedules vary, of course. Errands, trips to Costco, and such. Bazit and his wife spend the occasional evening out, as does the daughter, somewhat more frequently. In every regard, they appear to be an ordinary immigrant family. Cliff has worked hard to simplify his life, though the result isn’t everything he hoped, and he would prefer to think of the Palaniappans as normal and wishes that he had never noticed the Vacancy sign; but the mystery of Number eleven is an itch he can’t scratch. He’s certain that there’s a rational explanation, but has the sneaking suspicion that his idea of what’s rational might be expanded if he were to find the solution.

Chapter 2

WHEN CLIFF WAS eighteen, a week after his high school graduation, he and some friends, walking on the beach after an early morning swim, came upon a green sea turtle, a big one with a carapace four feet long. Cliff mounted the turtle, whereupon she (it was a female who, misguidedly, had chosen a populated stretch of beach as the spot to lay her eggs) began trundling toward the ocean. His friends warned Cliff to dismount, but he was having too much fun playing cowboy to listen. Shortly after the turtle entered the water, apparently more flexible in her natural medium, or feeling more at home, she extended her neck and snapped off Cliff’s big toe.

He wonders what might have happened had not he and the turtle crossed paths, if he kept his athletic scholarship and, instead of going to Hollywood, attended college. Now that he’s contemplating another foolhardy move—and he thinks taking his investigation to a new level is potentially foolhardy—he views the turtle incident as a cautionary tale. The difference is that no pertinent mystery attached to the turtle, yet he’s unsure whether that’s a significant difference. When he gets right down to it, he can’t understand how the Celeste Motel relates to his life any more than did the turtle.

Cliff’s scheduled for an afternoon shift the following Saturday. Jerry thinks it’ll be an exceptionally high-traffic weekend, what with the holiday, and he wants his best salesman working the lot. This irritates the rest of the sales staff—they know having Cliff around will cut into their money—but as Jerry likes to say, Life’s a bitch, and she’s on the rag. He says this somewhat less often since hiring a female salesperson, the lovely Stacey Gerone, and he’s taken down the placard bearing this bromide and an inappropriate cartoon from inside the door of the employee washroom…Anyway, Cliff comes in early on Saturday, at quarter to eleven, and, instead of pulling into Ridgewood Motors, parks in the driveway of the Celeste Motel. He pushes into the office, the room he’s been viewing through his binoculars. The decor all works together—rattan chairs, blond desk, TV, potted ferns, bamboo frames holding images of green volcanoes and perfect beaches—canceling the disjointed impression he’s gained from a distance.

“Good morning,” says Bazit Palaniappan, standing straight as if for inspection, wearing a freshly ironed shirt. “How may I help you?”

Cliff’s about to tell him, when Bazit’s pleasant expression is washed away by one of awed delight.

“You are Dak Windsor!” Bazit hurries out from behind his desk and pumps Cliff’s hand. “I have seen all your movies! How wonderful to have you here!”

It takes Cliff a second or two to react to the name, Dak Windsor, and then he remembers the series of fantasy action pictures he did under that name in the Philippines. Six of them, all shot during a three-month period. He recalls cheesy sets, lousy FX, incredible heat, a villain called Lizardo, women made-up as blue-skinned witches, and an Indonesian director who yelled at everyone, spoke neither Tagalog nor English, and had insane bad breath. Cliff has never watched the movies, but his agent told him they did big business in the Southeast Asian markets. Not that their popularity mattered to Cliff—he was paid a flat fee for his work. His most salient memory of the experience is of a bothersome STD he caught from one of the blue-skinned witches.

“Au-Yong!” Bazit shouts. “Will you bring some tea?”

Cliff allows Bazit to maneuver him into a chair and for the next several minutes he listens while the man extols the virtues of Forbidden Tiger Treasure, Sword of the Black Demon, and the rest of the series, citing plot points, asking questions Cliff cannot possibly answer because he has no idea of the films’ continuity or logic—it’s a jumble of crocodile men, cannibal queens, wizards shooting lurid lightning from their fingertips, and lame dialog sequences that made no sense at the time and, he assumes, would likely make none if he were to watch the pictures now.