Security(33)
“It was nothing you did,” Brian says. “It wasn’t you.”
“It’s not you, it’s me,” Tessa mocks. She’s wiping her eyes and nose, furious with herself for crying.
“It wasn’t either of us.” Brian inhales deeply. Exhales. “It was Mitch.”
“Oui?” Henri says. “I help you how, Monsieur Franklin?”
Henri takes his plate and bowl to the dining area. The dining area is open, visible from the living room and kitchen. This is why it is inferior to the dining area in the penthouses. The regular penthouse, Room 1801, has a dining room around the corner from the kitchen. It is a separate space. The kitchen in Room 1801 is likewise divided from the living room by a breakfast bar and a tastefully placed fainting couch, its foot pointing to a tucked--back staircase, which ascends to a spacious bedroom. In the deluxe penthouse, there is, upon entering, the kitchen to the right, the living room to the left, and straight ahead, a winding staircase that leads to a sumptuous, panoramic view of the ocean and the interstate, Los Angeles’s smog turning improbable colors in the far distance. The bed is a Tempur--Pedic king and a half.
Henri favors an austere place setting: crystal water glass containing light ice and Pellegrino to the left of a wine goblet, silver ice bucket with a chilled chardonnay ready to decant, a single fork, a single spoon, a good knife.
The Killer, in his haste, forgot his knife. He waits until Henri has set his dinner to the most flattering angle.
“I dine now,” Henri says as the Killer approaches. “You make funny at me when I fin—eh!”
The Killer throws Henri far from the table. Henri tumbles over the living room sofa. The Killer takes the knife out of the place setting, being careful not to upset any other aspect of the place setting. He goes to Henri, who is spinning in an attempt to get up, like a round beetle flipped on its back. The Killer grabs Henri’s thick, dark, curly hair and draws the blade across his throat slowly enough to relish the act, but quickly enough that he can drop the bleeding--out chef, speed--walk to the kitchen, discard the knife in the sink, wash up, take a new knife from the wooden rack beside the blender (Manderley Resort fully stocks the penthouse and luxury room kitchens; the regular rooms do not have kitchens, they have only coffeemakers; breakfast on the nineteenth floor is delicious and not at all affordable), and situate himself in the dining chair, napkin in lap, steam still rising from the cuisine, the first forkful of which—he chooses a bite of cordon bleu and half a broccoli floret (Henri steamed some broccoli as a side)—he pulls the chin of his mask away from his mouth to eat. The Killer nods, approving.
Blood from Henri’s carotid artery sprays the living room like a leaking fire hose. He reaches for the wound with the raw human instinct to stanch the blood flow. He makes no sound, as his vocal cords have been cut. Henri falls on his left side. The oven dings. The Killer’s head tilts. He goes to the oven, cracks the door, searches the counters. He puts on an oven mitt, moves the peaches to a lower rack, and sets the oven dial to “Warm.” He is returning to the dining area, when he retraces his steps and looks in the freezer. A pint of top--quality Belgian ice cream, vanilla flavored, stands alone on the shelf. The Killer all but skips back to his seat and resumes eating. Henri gurgles his last.
“What?” Tessa said—twice—to Brian’s obscure confession that “It was Mitch.”
Brian said, “I have to tell it all at once. I can’t—I can barely do it at all, but I know I can’t do it in pieces. The pool’s private, right? Nobody will interrupt us there?” Tessa managed one nod, and now they ride the last few floors down in silence. Brian appears ready to jump out of his own skin and run away. Tessa seems to wish she could dissolve into the elevator’s glass wall. She cleans her eyes and cheeks of tears, but more keep falling. When the elevator descends through the foyer’s ceiling, she jabs the intercom button, dialing the extension for the ballroom.
“The lobby chandelier’s dusting up again. Del, do it the easy way, please. No ladders.”
Jules’s voice rejoins tinnily, “Roger that, Captain.”
Brian points at the speaker. “Those two seem happy.” He says it like it’s a test.
Tessa doesn’t answer, except to look at Brian with a cocked eyebrow: Really?
Brian nods. Tessa passed.
The elevator settles on the first floor and dings open. Tessa walks. Brian follows. They pass the check--in counter, moving westward. They pass the information desk. They are bound for the large door opposite the hotel’s main entrance. They are walking away from a parking lot full of vehicles that could take them far from Manderley.
Jules speaks to Delores, presumably informing her of the need to dust the foyer’s chandelier. Justin’s acquired a cart to hold the dishes no longer required in the more florid place settings.
The Killer is eating his soup second. Philistine.
CAMERA 7, 64, 7, 4, 12
Tessa and Brian appear on the dunes. Her right boot heel gets stuck in the sand, and she lurches. Brian reaches out to help her, but she slaps his hand. He says something. He says something else. Tessa ignores him.
The rear fa?ade of the hotel is virtually identical to the front, though it seems flatter, duller. This is because no one who exits the hotel from the west would possibly bother looking at the hotel itself. The view is too fine. It’s the well--worn panorama on millions and millions of calendars, screensavers, and posters with inspiring quotes: sky meeting sea in a melted crayon box of colors and a sugary foreground stretching infinitely to either side. It might still strike some as boring, as any other beach. Except there is the pool.