Security(29)

Justin says to Brian, “Don’t worry about it, man. Security has it down. They’ve taken every precaution in the book.” Justin hands the cell phone to Jules. “They’ve written a whole new book of precautions.”

“Yeah.” Brian shoves his fists in his pockets aggressively, scanning the ballroom. He inspects the mural on the ceiling, and his eyes bounce from cherub to cherub, as if he’s counting them.

On the twentieth floor, the other Killer—the Thinker, the Thinker—returns to his game of solitaire. He was busy with his phone, composing two text messages: one to Delores, signaling the all clear, and one to the Killer, telling him Henri was bound for a dinner break. The Thinker has the latest--model cell phone. He leaves it on the security counter. It’s on vibrate. He resumes sitting cross--legged on the floor, his chin in his hand.

The Killer, in Room 717, picks up a matching phone from the bedside table and reads a text message. Leaves Room 717. Remembers his knife.

Tessa is speaking to the sous--chefs. Henri has finished his crackers; he shakes his head when Tessa asks him something. She says something stern in reply. He goes with his sous--chefs toward the main elevator. He takes the crackers with him.

Jules is handing Delores her cell phone. Jules’s medication seems to have taken effect. Her body possesses the loosened, laid--back jointlessness of someone who’s either just received the best massage of her life or who has been sipping fine brandy by the fire for too long. Or who took a double dose of Xanax. She drapes an arm over Delores’s shoulders, raises a finger, reaches in her back pocket, produces a glossy piece of paper, and unfolds it. It’s a knitting pattern. Both Delores and Jules enjoy knitting. Jules is terrible at knitting, but she’s aware she’s terrible. She gives out her projects as gifts. She always safety--pins a card to the shapeless bag or unraveling sock. The card always says something like, “For you: my epic fail.” Delores, who can spot intoxication at a thousand yards, shrinks beneath Jules’s half embrace and waits for it to be over.

Brian has been telling Justin, in the kitchen, where they’re propped against the door frame facing each other, “This isn’t right.”

“What?” Justin says.

“First thing you learn when you do jumps? The safest trick is the simplest trick.” Brian nods at Delores, who’s receiving her phone. “Where are these guys, anyway? Where’s headquarters?”

“For security?”

“Yeah.”

“Twentieth floor.”

“I want to talk to them. For five minutes—hell, for one minute.”

Justin is shaking his head. “None of us has clearance. Only Charles and other members of the security team can access the twentieth floor. That’s the first thing we learned.” Justin’s stance is placating, slightly forward, arms a relaxed fold, to counter Brian’s anxious uprightness. “Brian, listen, Charles hired them first. He installed them first. The twentieth floor got finished before the rest of the hotel had walls. We don’t even know how the hell they get up there, dude. The stairs and elevator dead--end at nineteen. And they can run a scenario—any kind of whack--a--doo scenario they want—at any time.” Justin was a surfer. Sometimes he tucks back long hair that isn’t there anymore. “But that’s why this is the safest place in the world.”

“And you saying that?” Brian says. “Is why this might be the most dangerous place in the world.”

The Killer is on the secret elevator. He steps on Vivica’s forearm and bumbles his balance. He kicks Vivica’s forearm, picks up Vivica’s body and tosses it, twists and crushes it, until it folds like a box with broken corners—rigor mortis has only started to set in. The secret elevator door opens, and the Killer presses the controller button on his hip, but he does not open the cleaning closet’s slatted door on the fourteenth floor. He stands close to the slats and waits.

Henri despises the break room. He considers it an insult to his dignity to eat in a room with taupe tile, eggshell white walls, and a view of either three--dozen light brown lockers or a fridge/microwave/ coat--hooks combo.

Because Henri despised the break room, Tessa—when wooing Henri to be head chef at Manderley—took him on a tour of the luxury suites, and told him to choose the one he liked best. She assured him that if he accepted the position of head chef, the suite of his choice would be the last rented to guests, and that if no guest had rented it, Henri could cook in the suite’s kitchen and dine in the suite’s dining room on his dinner breaks. Henri toured the luxury suites like a shah in the market for a new hearth rug. He had no idea there were penthouses in the hotel that made the luxury suites look like Quonset huts. He still does not know this. He is stunningly unobservant about anything but the finer points of food and the slights incurred by his own ego.

He now bids his sous--chefs a desultory au revoir, and exits the ele-vator on the fourteenth floor. He turns and walks toward the closed cleaning closet. The main elevator lowers with excruciating slowness. The Killer, behind the cleaning closet door, does not move. Henri turns right, bears left, and unlocks Room 1408. He goes inside. The sous--chefs’ observing faces disappear.

The Killer opens the door to the cleaning closet, exits, presses the controller button on his hip, and the bloody mess of the secret elevator vanishes behind linens and bottles. The Killer goes to the door of Room 1408. He takes out his card key. It will unlock the door. It will unlock any door but the deluxe penthouse, Room 1802. He’s not aware of this. No one, except one person, is aware that no one, except two people, have access to Room 1802.