7. Arnotine Ferucand (6)

He had booked a room on the third and top floor of the balconied and turreted building and this, in light of the weight of his guest, proved to be a significant error. Not as large an error, however, as getting into a rickety old elevator with a 500-plus-pound woman. The elevator, instead of ascending, whirred and clicked and wheezed and whined and then fell suddenly and swiftly to the basement where it came to rest with a staggering thunk. If there had been room in the elevator, both Ryu and his charge would have fallen to their knees. As it was, they were packed in like a pair of sardines in a straw, and the shock simply drove straight up through their feet and rattled them from tarsal to mandible.

Ryu, squashed up against the elevator door by his travel companion’s girth, pushed one button after the next, including the red one that set off a bell, but he could not get the elevator to budge. Finally, realizing that he was not going to get the machine to rise to the occasion, he yanked open the door and was popped from the cage. It took an enormous effort to get the big woman out of the elevator, up the basement stairs, and back into the lobby, where clerk and guests waited, faces contorted in a kind of shock that threatened to erupt into laughter.

“A ground floor room?” asked the unpleasant clerk with a sneer.

Ryu accepted the key to room number one, a dark chamber adjacent to the pool, in the very back of the hotel.

“This is a dive,” said the woman when Ryu finally got her to the room.

“Yamenoka-yo. Enough!” the yakuza exploded and slapped her across the face.

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 7.6/Arnotine Ferucand is Dead

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