Love in the Artic by Orrie Hitt

Author:Orrie Hitt [Hitt, Orrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780999320952
Publisher: Automat.Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Early one morning the hotel manager, during one of his infrequent, before-daybreak inspection tours, discovered a kitchen worker and a waitress in a compromising position in the room known as the grab box. Of course, the manager had some objection to his employees doing such things during working hours, but what particularly infuriated him was the fact that the two had, in a moment of passion, upset a container of rice. The rice was all over the concrete floor and it stuck to the soles of the manager’s shoes.

“God damn mojacks!” the manager told Steve the next morning.

Steve was sitting at the desk in his office and the manager was standing in the doorway, leaning up against the casing. Mr. Rayburn was a dark-haired man of medium height whose rugged features did not reveal his age—which was somewhere in his late forties—despite the terrific punishment which his body took from frequent sessions with alcohol. The hotel manager was well supplied with liquor because it was part of his job to provide food and refreshments for the numerous staff meetings held by the airport manager. He made the purchases at the sales store, ration exempt. The company, of course, picked up the tab for these various buying sprees. And Mr. Rayburn would always, prior to each staff meeting, divide the loot—fifty percent for the meeting and fifty percent for himself.

“I always thought that Hilmar was a whoremaster,” Mr. Rayburn said. “I knew it the day I hired him. He should have left Helka alone.”

Helka was a red-head with a spitfire face and a saucy pair of hips. Mr. Rayburn had never been known to look the other way when Helka was moving around.

“I told that Hilmar to go back to the fish boat where he should have stayed in the first place,” Mr. Rayburn said. He looked down at his shoes. “That rice almost caused me to break my neck, going downstairs. You ever have rice on your shoes? That lousy, yellow stuff they send us from the states. You get it on your shoes and see what happens. You’ll smash your butt!”

Steve made no comment. Mr. Rayburn had a trigger-happy disposition and he was no man to fool with early in the morning. It was rumored that the only reason he ever got around early was because his wife woke up and said no to him. Whatever the cause, it was no rumor that he quite often got off on the wrong piston.

“Some son-of-a-bitch stole one of my steaks,” Mr. Rayburn said. “I had six of them back there in the cooler last night and now there’s only five. You know anything about that?”

“Not me,” Steve said.

The steak Charlie had been fixing for his girl friend down in the hut the previous night had looked pretty good.

“By God, I’ll find out!” Mr. Rayburn stormed.

It looked like a bad day for everybody in the hotel. When Mr. Rayburn started accusing his employees of theft there was more than an even chance that a blitz was in the offing.

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