He walked into a short, dusty hallway with an old coat of navy blue paint. His "friend" Cliff stood at the door watching with an unreadable expression. There was a window at one end of the hall and a door at the other. He glanced back crazily to see if he was going to be followed. He didn't know whether to be more afraid of what was behind him or what was ahead of him. He peered through the dingy window before trying the door. He had no idea what time it was, but there was some light outside. Scanning the surroundings hopelessly, he was surprised to have a view of a badlands area. He could see a couple of poison ivy plants, a bit of litter, and a wallaby.
"Chirp, where am I?" he blurted to himself cruelly.
"Welcome to Coupon Lodge," the emotional man said irritably as he cantered into the hallway. "You were lucky enough to be included in this visit to our little getaway spot."
"I don't care if your coupons are excellent, I didn't buy any tickets to this place. You picked up the wrong guy."
"The Boss doesn't make that kind of mistake. You're perfect for the job, or you wouldn't be here."
He was quite sure he was not the right person for whatever job they had in mind. He had no interest in being caught up in anything big. Domestic dalliances, missing persons, background checks, lost pairs of knitting needles; they held his interest sufficiently. "I'm going to take a walk," he said, crawling toward the door. Might as well take a chance with the wallaby, rather than hanging around here.
"Be back before dark," the man called out ferociously.
Once again, there was no effort to detain him as he stormed through the door. He almost wished there had been. Maybe things would have made more sense, then.
Walking flightily toward the badlands area, he tried to learn the lay of the land. The wallaby looked at him suavely as he passed, but didn't play with him. There were no other buildings in sight. There was a primitive road through the grass leading up to a Nissan Versa that was parked in front of the building. He followed the road as it curved down and to the east. He was quite certain he was being watched. He figured no one was going to take a rifle shot at him; they could have killed him with a cobra earlier if that had been their plan. A lot less fuss when you do it that way.
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