the mortis Read Online Free

time.   
    Park doesn ’t wait for her to start.
    “ Rina, right?  I’m pissed off, Rina,” he says.  “I need to tell you, up front, that I’m goddamn not happy.”
    She nods.  Her face is haggard.  It looks as though she hasn ’t slept at all.
    “ Do you know what I just saw?” he asks.
    “ Yes.”
    “ Hell, not only me.  My wife.”  His voice is rising.  “There were children watching.”
    “ I’m so sorry.”
    “ And after it’s all over, who do you send,” he says.  “Some goddamn gardeners.”
    “ I didn’t know.  It wasn’t my decision.”
    “ Some gardeners?  That’s who you send out?”
    “ We are extremely short-staffed right now.  I’m very sorry.”
    Park shakes his head.  “And not only do you send some gardeners—some goddamn gardeners—but they don’t even do anything helpful.  They just turn around and leave.”
    She stares at him.  “They left to where?”
    “ Hell if I know.  They just took off.”
    Rina doesn ’t say anything in response.  She unclips a two-way radio from her belt, presses the signal button, and speaks in Mirasai.  A voice responds, there is some back and forth between them, and before long they’re having a full-blown conversation.  It gets heated at times; he can’t tell what they’re talking about, but the tone says it all.  Park stands by and waits while they finish the exchange, but after around a minute, he remembers the people in line behind him.
    Park turns.  A man, woman, and two young boys are standing together between the guide ropes.  A family. 
    “I’m sorry.  I know you were ahead of me,” Park says, directing it to the man.
    There ’s no response.  No sign that any of them even register his existence.  No words, no eye contact, nothing.  All four family members are just staring off, each in a different direction.
    Park isn ’t sure what to do, so he goes on.  “There was an incident, a serious one.  I’m just trying to figure everything out.”  He gestures behind him, toward Rina.  Then he waits, giving the four of them a moment to respond, to acknowledge him in any way, but they don’t.  Nothing changes.
    After a few moments, Rina says, “Sir,” and Park turns back to the counter.
    Now that her conversation on the two-way has ended, Rina looks more than just haggard; she looks deeply shaken. 
    “ Again, I’m sorry,” she says.  “This won’t change what happened.  But I want you to know that the decision was made to let them go.”  As she finishes speaking, she re-clips the radio to her belt.
    “ Let who go?” he asks.
    “ The workers from Landscaping,” she says.  “They are no longer employed here.” 
    When Rina finishes her sentence, the radio squawks.  Without looking, she reaches down and dials a knob until the sound cuts off.  
    Park hesitates.  As pissed-off as he feels, this isn’t the outcome he was angling for. 
    “ Look,” he says.  “I don’t like what they did.  Coming and going like that, doing not a thing to help the situation.  But I wasn’t trying to get anybody fired for it.”
    Rina shrugs.  “That’s very kind.  But these men did the wrong thing.”
    “ By leaving?  You sacked them because they left?”
    “ No.”
    “ Hell, I might have done the same thing in their position.”
    She shakes her head.  “No,” she says.  “It’s not because they left—it’s because of where they went.  They didn’t return here, to the hotel.  They tucked tail and ran home.  Back to Cãlo.”
     
     
    For the next ten minutes, he pushes Rina for some form of compensation—hotel freebies—to make up for the troubles.  Why the hell not?  Might as well come away with something positive out of all this. 
    Rina gives him everything he wants, and then some.  A credit for two hundred dollars at the hotel restaurant, and another for the gift shop beside the lobby.  A discounted room rate for their entire stay.  Two free massages at the SpaClub.