The Spirit Cabinet Read Online Free PDF Page B

Dutch and Scandinavian, the Abraxas being the hotel of European choice because of its association with Jurgen and Rudolfo. These people played tennis dolefully or hung about the bright blue water (the air sharp with the scent of chemicals)in tiny little bathing suits. Their children galloped around the soccer field in hordes. Jurgen sometimes stopped the limousine and got out to watch. Once or twice he had even joined in, rushing at the ball with unseemly determination, pushing children out of his path. But he was in no mood for that today, and didn’t even bother to look.
    Miranda was glad she would soon be getting out. There was a fight coming; the two men, especially over the past few months, had been relentlessly bickering and squabbling. Jurgen sat brooding and stock-still. Rudolfo’s body quivered with small convulsions, as though things inside weren’t working quite right, his lungs having difficulty drawing air, his heart pumping blood erratically.
    Miranda watched as the fountain came into view. A huge spiral of water, lighted from within by all the colours in creation, shot two hundred feet into the air and then exploded with a muted thunderclap. The water fell and drenched all the honeymooners having their photographs taken below.
    The road was lined with hotel staff. The doormen and porters tended to be pituitary giants, huge men with imbalanced faces, swollen noses and brows, tiny eyes obscured by shadow. They dressed in turbans and pink chiffon pantaloons. The limousine rolled to a stop and one of their ranks stepped forward, tearing open the rear door. Miranda alighted and gazed upwards into the craggy, lumpy face.
    “Maurice,” she said. “How’s it hanging?”
    “Welcome to the Abraxas Hotel,” said Maurice automatically, his voice in the lowest register. “How are you, Miranda?”
    “Aces,” she answered. She turned back toward the couple in the car. “See you tomorrow night.”
    The men nodded simultaneously. Miranda swung the limo door shut and walked toward the awful tower that was the hotel.Theirs was the most spectacular house in the desert. Any number of magazines had pronounced it such.
Der Spiegel
had called it
das eindrucksvollste Haus im Universum
. It may have been; at least it possessed an otherworldly quality that would seem to put it in the running. It was a curiously shapeless construction when seen from the outside, as though a colossal gelatinous mass had been dropped upon the sands from a great height. Alien vegetation, nurtured through frantic and relentless irrigation, had grown up around it—spruce, larch and oak trees that would have been more at home cradling the Alps. A stream ran around and through the house, twice, describing a large figure-eight that contained it within carp-filled moats.
    The limousine came to rest by the front door, the tires crushing the sea-throws and shells that carpeted the driveway. Rudolfo and Jurgen climbed out, each placing sunglasses over their eyes. Jurgen marched toward the entrance and keyed in numbers on the futuristic pad that protruded from the wall. Rudolfo waited while Jimmy crossed in front of the car and released the albino leopard. Samson lumbered to the ground and shook the stiffness out of his bones. Rudolfo suddenly rushed forward, dropped to his knees and gathered the beast’s huge white head to his chest. He kissed the leopard’s brow, which tasted oddly of perfume. Jurgen had already walked through the front door and into the huge house; Rudolfo turned and stared at the emptiness where he’d been.
    The first thing Rudolfo did when he got inside was change clothes, swapping the otherwordly cowpoke garb for a pair of olive-coloured overalls. He slipped his pedicured feet into a pair of crud-encrusted workboots, then went outside and attended to the animals, flinging seed, feed and raw meat into the appropriate cages. He leashed the larger, more dangerous animals and cleared out the shit from their living quarters. He