Islay: A Novel

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54 4 Usually lyson rose with the sun, but this morning he was startled that the light behind the drawn curtains glared with the intensity of full daylight. Impossible! He threw back the bed covers and looked around for his wristwatch. He found it on the suitcase and saw that it was 8:33 a.m., Tuesday, the eighth. Can’t be! He opened the curtains and had to admit that two hours and thirty-three minutes of his life were forever lost. On the double! Grabbing his electric razor and toothbrush, he hurried to the bathroom. The soggy Wall Street Journal, the sticky floor under his feet, and towels heavy with water reminded him of the great bath fiasco of the night before. A quick search turned up his glasses under the tub, covered with the sticky residue of the bubbles. He washed the glasses and his face, too. He had to use his pajama top to dry them. A toothbrush could be rushed, but not the electric razor, and he fretted over the ticking minutes as he mowed his jaw. Mary had insisted on packing his suitcase for him. The suit she’d packed for him was exactly the same as the other one, to avoid clouding any impression that Lyson was a solid, stable, predictable, respectable, reputable, republican citizen who could be trusted with an investment or, at worst, a vote. “Dear Mary, this is Suffex, Islay, not Washington, DC,” he cried aloud as he rummaged through the luggage for a shirt that was not so glaringly white and stiff. But Mary had seen to it that he had no choice in the matter, so he reluctantly dressed himself in the best Washington, DC, style. Even the tie was an indistinguishable twin of the other one, now drying over the lamp. An uneasy thought intruded: People would think he never bathed, never islay 55 changed his clothes. Before leaving the room, he pondered whether to take the attaché case Mary had insisted on packing along with the underwear. Too Washington, DC, he decided, and opened the door, remembering just before the door closed that the keys were in the other pants. Sighing over his absentmindedness, he went back to the dressing area. From the soggy suit he retrieved the keys, small change, comb, penknife, nail clippers, and nail file all sticky from the bubbles and rinsed them off in the sink. The note pad, cigars, Vicks inhaler, matches, rabbit’s foot, Q-tips, and assorted pieces of papers, important or not, would have to be dumped in the trash. Satisfied that he had not overlooked anything from the old suit, he rolled it into a ball and bound it with the tie. Guilt, ingrained in his psyche by his mother and Mary, was relieved by a twenty-dollar tip on the bed for the maid. By the elevator he found a trash chute. Down went the suit, and he nodded sharply to himself, dusting off his hands. While waiting for the elevator, he examined his image in the polished brass doors and realized he’d forgotten the belt on the old pants. He quickly opened the trash chute and stuck his head inside to see whether the bundle could be retrieved. But the chute disappeared into the black depths of the hotel. Before it could occur to him to go down to the basement, a clanking noise made him jerk his head out, and he found himself face to face with the bellhop, already holding open the elevator doors, waiting with a ponderous frown, pretending not to have noticed. “Oh, hello!” Lyson smiled lamely as he ducked into the elevator. “Nice hotel, eh?” At the desk Lyson greeted the clerk with the straightest face he could muster and wrote a note: “I will be staying at least two more nights and am very sorry about the mess in my room. Please have it cleaned. If there is any damage, I will gladly pay for it.” Handing the note to the clerk, he decided it would look better if he did not wait for a reply but left with purposeful strides. The clerk looked up from the note and watched as Lyson escaped through the revolving door. Then he shuffled off to the office and picked up the telephone: “Go ahead and clean out Number 628.” 56 Douglas Bullard Agent P-51 took a quick glance...