by Kevin Spaide

The young bellhop, fresh out of reform school, set Madame Ullay's overstuffed suitcase on the shabby divan, pulled a bandanna from some hidden pocket of his uniform, and wiped it over his face and neck many times to show that he had sweated on her behalf.

The famous ex-astrologer sat before a mirror, quietly examining her famous image. She took no notice of the bellhop until he advised, "Do not go into that far room Madame. It's crawling with little spiders."

"Crawling with little spiders?" The woman turned swiftly and glared at the bellhop as if trying to set his cap tassel ablaze.

The young man tensed. The Madame was renowned for the mysterious faculties of her mind. She had demonstrated her powers innumerable times on her late-night television appearances before renouncing (with utter sincerity, a fact much disagreed upon) the business of exploiting her craft "to hawk gimcrackery on TV." Considering that Madame Ullay had been at the vanguard of the late-night black magic infomercial movement of the preceding decade, this was no inconsiderable event the week that it had happened.

"But I am intensely arachnophobic!" she stage-whispered, emphasizing the magnitude of her great fear for the benefit of the slack-jawed, no doubt entirely degenerate bellhop.

"I hear you, Madame. I'm just thinking things through before undertaking a reply because that's what they taught me in the clink so as I - I intend to remain a free man."

Madame Ullay had not yet switched the expression on her face. A not insignificant component of her persona, as was noted each week in the news-stand tabloids - the top-selling three of which the Madame life-subscribed to - was (to pluck an example from one of last week's rags) the 'calculated inscrutability perpetually writ large across her racially anomalous features.' Put simply, this mixed-race woman was not one to give it up easily, whatever it happened to be.

"The fact is, Madame, if I'd never told you nothing you never woulda known. The worst of it woulda been these little red sores from where they bite you in the night. But I'm a great fan of yours, Madame. We used to watch you every night in the clink and I just thought I'd warn-"

"My God, what a racket you people run here," interrupted Madame Ullay. She switched on the ring of bulbs around the mirror. "I made no special requests for a spider-free environment, I'll grant you that, but if there is a clock anywhere in these rooms please unplug the thing immediately and remove it from the premises or I will not be held responsible for anything that happens to it. I requested rooms without clocks, but oversights such as these occur more often than I'd care to acknowledge. And, to tell you the truth, your confrere behind the reception desk down there is a bit of a dim, and I fear fluttering, bulb. I have never been a risk-taker. Search the rooms for clocks!" She sat before the mirror and stared intensely into the pupil of her left eye which had an ache behind it.

"Rest assured, Madame. This is a clock-free environment as per requested."

"Superb!"

"I know the man who did the job."