Play with Fire

chapter Fifty-Two

NOTHING IN OAKLEY, Kansas, could ever be called “booming,” including the motel business. So Roy Hastings, owner, manager, and desk clerk of the E-Z Rest Motor Hotel was delighted to rent three rooms – and for a whole week, no less! – to the rather odd crew who had rolled in a couple of days ago. Even better, the guy who seemed to be in charge, Mister Ware, had said he didn’t believe in credit cards – so he’d given Roy a non-refundable cash deposit big enough to cover the rooms, as well as any conceivable damage that the four of them could have done to the place. Hell, for that amount of cash, they could cart off the entire contents of each room, plumbing included, and Roy would still be ahead financially – with a bunch of catch that the IRS didn’t have to know about.

They were a strange bunch, though. Mister Ware – a good looking fella in his mid-thirties – seemed all right, but the three who he referred to as his “charges” had made Roy a little uneasy. If they’d tried to register alone – without Mister Ware and all his cash, that is – Roy might reluctantly have told them he had no vacancies.

The one they called Jeremy had a boyish face but crazy eyes and the other man, Mark, had a big, muscular body but the kind of vacant look on his face that said not too much was going on upstairs. Then there was the woman, Elektra. She had a slutty way of dressing that Roy kind of liked, but her face reminded him of that movie he’d seen on HBO a couple of years back, about this crazy hooker in Florida who had killed a bunch of guys before being caught and electrocuted.

But appearances could be deceiving, as Roy would be the first to admit. They were religious folks, and if they were right with the Lord, then they were okay with Roy Hastings, too.

They must be Godly – Mister Ware had spent quite a bit of time talking with Roy about the different churches in town. He said that his little group were looking to settle in Oakley, and wanted to find the kind of church that would make them feel most welcome. He’d been very interested in the size of the congregations, and the number of people who usually attended Sunday services.

Roy, a Methodist, had answered as many of the questions as he could, and had even called a couple of friends who attended other churches to get more information. He hoped that Mister Ware and his group would find the kind of church they were looking for soon – Sunday was only three days away.