Day Shift

When they all have drinks and food, they choose seats.

Mado

Joe stands in front of the motley assortment of chairs on which they’ve perched and begins, “Here’s what I know.”

They all fall silent and look attentive.

“The woman in charge is Eva Culhane. She’s not the owner. She’s his or her agent. I don’t know who the real owner is, she was real closemouthed about that. Here’s what she told me. The hotel is going to reopen as a hotel. But the eight small rooms on the bottom floor will be made into four suites with their own bathrooms, and four rooms on the upper floor will get the same treatment. These will be residence rooms.”

There is an intake of breath because so many people have questions.

“Wait,” Joe says. “Wait!”

There’s a little laughter, but they are all too curious or anxious to be very amused.

“The residence rooms will be for people who are in the area for a long-term job, like working for three months at Magic Portal. Or people who are waiting to get into an eldercare situation. As an aside, Eva Culhane told me that there’s a waiting list for all the eldercare places in a sixty-mile radius. The remaining rooms will be conventional hotel rooms. In the family quarters, there’ll be two people living there as staff. A cook will provide breakfast for residents and whoever stays at the hotel. Lunch and di

Mado

“What kind of staff?” Fiji asks.

“There’ll be two people in residence,” Joe repeats.

“Will one of them be a nurse or some kind of medical person?” Bobo asks. “Sounds like they might need that. And they’ll have to hire a maid, I would think. That’s a lot of rooms to clean for one person, plus dishes, plus food prep.”

“Good questions. We’ll have to find out.” Joe looks a little chagrined he didn’t think of all this.

“Did Ms. Culhane give you a timetable?” Fiji asks.

“She said they hope to be open within six months.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“They must have a shitload of money,” Teacher Reed says, and Bobo nods. “That’s a quick turnaround.”

Olivia, who’d driven in an hour earlier, speaks for the first time. She is sitting with Lemuel the vampire, her lover, and she looks exhausted. They are all ignoring the fact that Olivia’s shoulder is obviously bandaged under her shirt. “We have to find out who owns the company doing the restoration,” she says.

“Manfred, can you dig that up?” Joe asks.

Manfred is the most computer savvy of all the Midnight residents, but he’s no hacker. He just knows his way around the Internet. “I can try,” he says. Joe hands him a brochure, one that Eva Culhane had given him. It has a corporation name on it, MultiTier Living. Olivia extends her hand silently, and Manfred hands it to her. She looks at the brochure intently before she hands it back.

When everyone has said everything they have to say (some more than once), Lemuel supports Olivia with his arm as they leave Joe and Chuy’s store/salon. The remaining Midnight residents go their separate ways: Teacher, Mado

The people who live east of the Davy highway (Bobo, Manfred, Fiji) walk together, Fiji carrying a plastic container with the remaining pecans. Fiji hands the container to Bobo. “You and Manfred split those,” she says. “I’ve got some more at home.” She looks both ways before she crosses Witch Light Road. The golden tabby cat, Mr. Snuggly, is waiting for her, and Bobo and Manfred watch the woman and the cat go in the front door. Bobo says, “Hold out your hands.” Manfred pulls a real cloth handkerchief from his pocket and holds it ready to catch half the salted pecans. Gathering up the corners, he nods his thanks, and Bobo splits away to go into the side door of the pawnshop, which leads to the stairs going up to his apartment.

Manfred unlocks the front door of his little house, which he rents from Bobo. He passes by his huge curving desk, crowded with computer equipment, to go through the little den (designed as a dining room) and back into the kitchen. He’s full and not really thirsty, but he decides to have a cup of hot chocolate before he goes to bed, and he pulls out the extra blanket. He feels unaccountably chilled by the advent of the new people, and he wants to be warm tonight.

The next morning, Manfred sits at his computer and types “MultiTier Living” into his search engine. He reads the resultant description, which is too broad to be satisfying. MultiTier offers housing of all sorts, including “residence i

When he searches for it, the website he finds is impressive and almost frightening in its scope. Chisholm Multinational has so many divisions he could wander through its website for hours. It’s like an octopus. One tentacle is all about hotels and medical facilities: regular hotels on the high end, rehabilitation centers, nursing facilities for the care of Alzheimer’s patients or people suffering from mental health issues or people going through the ravages of cancer.

Another tentacle contains various construction companies. Manfred can see that co

He pushes away from his desk and decides he needs a cup of tea. He has to admire the person at the head of Chisholm Multinational, who he gathers is the grandson of the founder. He wonders if this man has any idea what all the branches of his company are doing . . . or where Midnight, Texas, is. He imagines some group of suits gathered around a large map, peering at the tiny pinpoint that is Manfred, the Rev, Fiji, Bobo, Chuy, Joe, the Reed family . . . the population of this almost-ghost town.

He feels a frisson of distaste, almost fear.

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