Security(21)

“You were willing victims.”

“God. God, yeah, we so were.”

The Killer has left the housekeeping storage area and is crossing the employee break room. He arrives in Delores’s office, removes the piece of paper that covers the small television, and turns it on. The screen flashes on Justin, who is exiting the stairs at the first floor and squinting at the foyer, its rich white shine. He walks on his toes to the manager’s office, checking to see if Franklin’s in, and smiles broadly when he sees this isn’t so. Justin dashes across the foyer with the excitement of a schoolchild. The feed switches to Henri yelling at his sous--chefs in the kitchen. Henri is turning purple and using copious French profanity. His sous--chefs are all Californians. None of them speak French. They trade looks of derisive confusion, enraging Henri all the more. The feed switches to the ballroom. Delores holds a duster that rests on the end of a stick that can reach twenty feet above her head, to the bevels above the high windows. Jules is pocketing her phone, laughing at Henri’s eminently audible theatrics. Her face lengthens, becoming gradually more disturbed at Henri’s vocal volume and profane inflections. The feed switches to the main elevator. It is on the fourteenth floor, then the twelfth floor. There is no thirteenth floor. Brian’s and Tessa’s laughter has calmed. They’re each looking off in an imagined distance. They share a past. They’re watching it like a movie. Brian knew Tessa when she was young and innocent. If he was remotely decent, he guarded that innocence, as did his stupid dead twin brother, but then they abandoned her, both of them, so what right does he have to steal an eyeful of Tessa like the sight of her is a nutrient of which he’s been deprived?

The Killer gets his coveralls from the dryer. He’s hurrying. He doesn’t run; he walks faster. He’s careful not to make noise. Justin’s right downstairs. He remembers his knife and the heavy quartz paperweight, and—he pauses, his masked head tilts—he goes back for US Weekly. He checks the TV. Brian and Tessa are down to the sixth floor. They are fidgeting. Tessa is fixing her hair, releasing its thickness from the knot at the nape of her neck, so that all of it tumbles around her face, setting off her bright eyes, and she plumps it with her nonbandaged hand. Brian takes off his motorcycle jacket and puts it over his arm. He has underdeveloped arms. He should lift weights. He is risking osteoporosis, like an old, frail woman. The Killer turns off the TV, reboards the secret elevator, et cetera, and Brian says, “You look good,” like that’s not the most obvious thing in the world to say, and Tessa says, “Thanks. You, too,” offhandedly, and . . .

Camera 34

. . . upstairs, in the kitchen, Henri has calmed enough to give his sous-chefs what he calls “une tentative finale” to craft the cherry coulis, reassigning flavor profiles and giving instructions in a mixture of French, and English so heavily accented that it might as well be French. The sous-chefs exchange low, anxious mumbles, trying to decode what their mentor is imploring them to do, as Henri has turned unctuous with desolation, certain his minions will fail him. Henri is a f*ckhead, but so is Brian.

Camera 33

. . . upstairs, in the ballroom, Jules continues to be relatively worthless, shadowing Delores as the poor maid tries to dust and forming theories. “Do you think they were ever a thing?” Delores doesn’t answer. “No,” Jules answers herself. “No, I doubt it. He and his brother were pretty much the only family Tessa ever had, but”—she reaches to a table, folds a napkin into a rose, and holds it up—“I don’t think it was ever sexual.” Jules then folds the napkin into what looks like a vagina. “But it is now.” She titters.

Camera 9

. . . downstairs, in the lecture hall, Justin says, “Hey, sexy,” his voice deeper than usual. “Thanks for the video today.” His mistress says, presumably, that he is welcome. She’s a flight attendant named Charlene. Justin calls her Charlie or, more often, Sexy. Their dalliance began nine weeks ago. It’s been eight weeks since Jules started seeing a psychiatrist. It is legitimate to wonder, in one’s duller moments, whether Justin’s affair caused Jules’s mental problems or Jules’s mental problems caused Justin’s affair.

Camera 42

. . . downstairs, in the lecture hall, Justin says, “Hey, sexy,” his voice deeper than usual. “Thanks for the video today.” His mistress says, presumably, that he is welcome. She’s a flight attendant named Charlene. Justin calls her Charlie or, more often, Sexy. Their dalliance began nine weeks ago. It’s been eight weeks since Jules started seeing a psychiatrist. It is legitimate to wonder, in one’s duller moments, whether Justin’s affair caused Jules’s mental problems or Jules’s mental problems caused Justin’s affair.



Brian’s hand ghosts the bottom of Tessa’s back as she precedes him out of the elevator, onto the second floor. Tessa’s saying, “Hey, Viv?” She doesn’t seem to feel Brian’s hand. He must not quite be touching her back.

“Do you smell that?” Brian says.

“Yeah. Somebody microwaved their dinner too long.”

Brian sniffs, disturbed. Tessa doesn’t notice, as she is describing the layout to Brian. “We figured the business types and conference--goers would be inspired being on the same floor as the real workers in the hotel, so we’ve got eight seriously lavish conference rooms behind us and to either side. For the huge--deal CEOs, there’s a high--ceilinged lecture hall off the lobby.” (There, Justin lazes in a back--row business chair. He says, “Return the favor? What do you think I am, a freak?” and chuckles at an expected response. He says, “I don’t know—I’ve only got about five more minutes,” and takes a pair of clips from his pants pocket. They’re chip clips, for holding bags of pantry foods shut. He’s using them to clip his iPhone to the seatback in front of him. He puts a Bluetooth in his ear—“Better talk dirty so I finish fast”—so he can use both hands to pleasure himself, which he is now doing. I fervently hope he does not put the chip clips back in their designated kitchen pantry tub.) “I’d show you the space, except catering’s using it as a staging area for the party’s lobby décor, so it’s full of tables and extra seating and textiles and trays, and Justin promised he’d fillet anybody who went in there and screwed with the supplies, so—” Tessa’s tone and the rate of her words are painstakingly casual, as are Brian’s assent to them, his nods.