Free Blood Of Angels by Michael Marshall

had probably looked artful on the original plan, scrawled on an envelope in some long-ago developer's office shack, but in the real world was just plain long-winded. By halfway along you could see the unlovely sprawl of the sixty or so trailers in sixty or so different designs and states of repair. Unlike many such facilities, the roads they were situated on did not follow a simple grid. The guy with the envelope evidently had a taste for the ornate. Jim imagined this made finding a particular resident far from easy, which probably had both bad and good sides. Luckily he knew exactly where he was going. On the far side of the park, over where a stand of trees marked the beginning of a forty-yard strip of waste ground which led down to the bank of a featureless river, was a line of four low wooden buildings. They were very large, ramshackle. Two were used to store old junk and materials relevant to the maintenance of the park. The others were partitioned into storage areas which were for hire.
    At the entrance to the park, Jim pulled over. A gateway affair — two grey metal poles with a board held between them over trailer height — confirmed this was indeed Benboro Park and not Bel Air or heaven or the best of all possible worlds. On the other side, the road split. In the centre of the division was a trailer painted the same red as the sign on the main road. This was Site No. 1, and in it lived the woman who ran the park. Hannah, her name was. Assuming she was still alive.
    He got out of the car. The clouds were heavier now, charcoal and frosted and pregnant, but the rain had still not begun to fall. Jim hoped it would sooner or later, if only for the sake of the old boys perched at the counter in Marsha's, to whom it had sounded like a big deal. Though it would spoil the fun of a little girl he now saw, playing by herself in the road outside a trailer down the right-hand fork. She was singing to herself, quietly. It was a nice sound.
    As he walked over to No. 1 he reminded himself of the story he'd told long ago. He had just gone through a long and arduous divorce, that's right, and this was everything he'd been able to save for himself. Wasn't much, but it had sentimental value. He wanted it somewhere safe, away from lawyers and their familiars. He was on his way down to Miami. Friend of his said he might be able to get him a job in a hotel there. Failing that, he might head for Arizona, or Nevada, try his luck further west.
    He knocked on the door, listening to the sounds of television from inside. Before very long the door was opened.
    'Yessir?'
    It was the woman he remembered. Additional years of pickling in a trailer full of cigarette smoke had turned her skin the non-colour of a once-white dishcloth. Dry, grey-brown hair was pulled into a ragged ponytail that said she knew she looked like shit, and honestly didn't care.
    'Hi,' Jim said, smiling broadly. 'Hannah, right? Don't know if you remember me?'
    'Can't say that I do, no. You're not from the park.'
    'That's right. I rented storage space from you a little while ago. I need to get to it.'
    'Okay,' she said. 'What's the number?'
    'Seventeen,' Jim said, keeping his voice steady.
    She wandered off towards a cataclysmically untidy office area in back. This was the point, Jim knew, where things could get sticky. He waited just outside the trailer, eyes on the road. The little girl had disappeared.
    A couple of minutes later Hannah came back. 'Little while ago is right,' she said. 'It's been twelve years. You only left enough for five.'
    'I got held up,' he said.
    She nodded. 'You the fellow who was heading off to Australia?'
    'Miami. That's right.'
    'No good?'
    'It's okay. Kind of hot.'
    'Hot? Don't talk to me about hot. This summer was a bitch, and it still ain't rained. You owe me money.'
    He gave her the bundle of bills he had prepared. She counted it.
    'I haven't allowed for inflation.'
    She laughed. 'Ain't no inflation round here. We can't afford it.'
    Jim smiled.