The Guest Book - 21

Dawn was creeping in all around him as Romeo hung up the telephone and took a few shaky breaths. He wiped his hand across his mouth and felt the slick smear of blood spatter, stared at his palm for a moment, already moving his mind past what had just happened and on to what came next. Assess the situation... remove the corpse from the lobby, big heavy bastard, going to need help, wake up the kid and get him in here, blood, good amount of blood on the floor by the kitchen table and trailing out to the front desk in the lobby, but not too bad, not on the ceiling or the walls, with any luck, Madge didn't hear the phone and would stay asleep back in the bedroom for another hour. He heard Slappy's shuffling footsteps coming up the walkway outside the lobby, and turned just in time to see the boy throw open the door and stop short as he caught sight of Clark's body. He let out with a low whistle and said, "Heard the telephone ringing, figured nobody was calling with good news this hour of the morning, Jiminy Christ, he's enormous, where'd he come from?" But Romeo didn't answer him right away, he was staring at the guest book, spread open on the front desk, the ink gleaming wet on the signature at the bottom of the page, the paper speckled with the same spatter as Romeo's grim face, then he reached out and smacked the cover closed as he said, "Help me take care of this mess before Madge wakes up, you know how she feels about blood in the kitchen."