Chapter 9: The Bedbug Guest

"Then here's your key," I said. "Checkout's at eleven. Breakfast's at seven. The ice machine's temperamental, so leave it alone."

He was at breakfast at six fifty-five.

The Lantern didn't do a buffet. It did Nana's biscuits, a pot of grits and two urns of coffee on a folding table on the back deck.

Wells took a biscuit and sat at the rail next to the Ohio couple.

By seven fifteen he knew their grandchildren's names.

By seven thirty he had the ice machine open.

"I said leave it alone."

"It's making a noise."

"It always makes that noise. It's from 1994."

"So am I." He had a screwdriver in one hand and a part in the other. "I'm just tightening it."

Something inside the machine went clunk.

Water started running out of the bottom across the deck boards.

The Ohio wife lifted her feet.

Wells looked at the water, then at the part in his hand.

"That's not supposed to come out," he said.

"No," I said. "It's not."

Nana came out with the second pan of biscuits and stopped.

She looked at the puddle and at the big Atlanta developer kneeling in it with a screwdriver.

"You build hotels?" she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"With your hands?"

"Not with these hands, apparently."

Nana laughed until she had to sit down.

Then she put two extra biscuits on his plate and patted his cheek.

"I like this one," she told me. "He's useless."

"He's trying to buy the motel, Nana."

"So's everybody. None of the others ever made me laugh."

Dale came out with a mop and a wrench, looked at the machine and said, "Son, you just took out the drain valve."

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