Roy was alone in the hotel room he shared with his mother when the telephone rang. It was ten to four in the morning and Roy was less than half awake, watching Journey into Fear on TV. He’d fallen asleep on and off during the movie, and when the telephone rang Roy looked first at the television and saw Orson Welles, wearing a gigantic military overcoat with what looked like dead, furry animals for lapels and a big fur hat littered with snow. The picture was tilted and for a moment Roy thought that he had fallen off the bed, then he realized it was the camera angled for effect.
“Kitty, that you?”
“No. She’s not here, I don’t think.”
“Who’s this?”
“Her son.”
“She’s got a kid? How old are you?”
“Seven. Six and a half, really.”
“Your mother didn’t tell me she had a kid. How many more kids she have?”
“None.”
“What’s your name?”
“Roy.”
“You sure she’s not there?”
“No. Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Know where she is?”
“She went out with some friends, around ten o’clock.”
“It’s almost four now. She was supposed to meet me at one. Said she maybe would, anyway.”
“Do you want to leave a message?”
“Yeah, okay. Dimitri, tell her. If she comes in, I’ll be in the bar at the Roosevelt Hotel until five.”
“All right.”
“She leaves you alone this time of night, in the room?”
Orson Welles was growling at someone, a smaller man who kept his head down. The picture was lopsided, as if the camera had been kicked over and it was lying on the floor but still rolling.
“Kid, she leaves you by yourself?”
“I’m okay.”
“She’s kind of a kook, your mother. You know that?”
Orson Welles did not take off his coat even though he was in an office.
“Go back to sleep, kid. Sorry I woke you up.”
Roy hung up the phone. He and his mother had been in this city for a week and Roy was anxious to return to Key West, where they lived in a hotel located at the confluence of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. A beautiful, dark-haired woman was on the screen now but she kept turning her head away from the camera so Roy could not see all of her face. She looked Cuban, or Indian.
When Roy woke up again, the television was off and his mother was asleep in the other bed. He looked at the clock: it was just past ten. The heavy drapes were drawn so even though the sun was up the light in the room was very dim. Roy’s mother always hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside doorknob. She was wearing a blindfold. Roy lay listening to her breathe, whistling a little through her nose as she exhaled.
What was the name of the man who had called? When she woke up, Roy would tell his mother that a general or a colonel with a strange accent had called from a foreign country. Roy could not remember his name, only that the man had said it was snowing where he was calling from.