Security(40)

Tessa makes a similar sound, in the main elevator. Brian’s head, under her skirt, moves both gently and powerfully at once, like waves.

Camera 35

Red and green peppers fall to the walk--in refrigerator’s floor. The Killer shoves at the door. He’s unable to open it, but he is able to reach inside through a gap. He is slicing at the air with his knife. The juice concentrate has moved mostly aside, but Delores isn’t looking in that direction. Delores is instead snatching a pair of kitchen scissors off a nail; the scissors are there to open plastic pouches of refrigerated material. She raises the scissors and strikes toward the Killer’s exposed arm. The Killer sees this and flounders to pull back. He succeeds. Delores turns. Delores screams.

Camera 12

Tessa is getting close. The elevator is coming up on the twelfth floor. Tessa is trying to hide the fact that she is weeping. She is wiping her temples free of tears. The tears are on her temples because she is staring up at the ceiling as if she sees God in that apex of glass. She has hiked her skirt high enough so she can look down and watch Brian’s efforts. She begins to breathe erratically. She says Brian’s name, twice. Her * shoves at his face like she can’t help it. She can’t help it. Brian keeps his pace steady but hikes her skirt higher. He ups the pressure of his tongue. Tessa screams.



Vivica takes up a small rectangle of space inside the secret elevator, her shins flat to the floor, her back atop her calves, her arms in a tangle around her chest and head, bringing to mind Madonna’s “Vogue” music video from the early 1990s. The repeated sight of a disturbing image might numb one’s capacity to forestall insensitive associations. Delores has not seen this sight repeatedly. Delores is screaming. The Killer is bashing at the walk--in refrigerator door, and the shelves are heavy, but so is the Killer. Delores puts her fingers to her mouth, then in her hair. She doesn’t want to get into the elevator. The elevator is painted in blood. Delores makes a sound between her teeth—“Nnnnn, nnnnn”—as she steps in overdelicately, avoiding Vivica, packing to the opposite wall, pressing the button for the lobby with a shuddering fingertip. Delores gawks so dedicatedly at Vivica that she doesn’t notice the Killer finally barreling into the walk--in refrigerator, or the hideous purpose in his lunge for her, or how close he comes to preventing the elevator door’s sedate slide shut. She says, “Nnnnn, nnnnn,” and picks up the intercom phone receiver. She says, “Nnnnooo!” when she finds it’s been disabled.

The Killer bolts across the walk--in refrigerator, the kitchen, and the ballroom, toward the door for the stairwell (beside the main elevator); he pulls and pulls at the door for the stairwell, before remembering this door requires one to push. The Killer flies down the stairs, passing the eighteenth floor. He hears the main elevator ding open there. He pauses, but only for a second. Delores has obviously made him angry. Delores is obviously going for the lobby. The staff’s cars have not been disabled, because it didn’t seem possible that anyone would get to the parking lot. The Killer runs down the stairs, incensed, his coveralls stained and sticky.

The secret elevator, Delores inside it, is passing the seventh floor. She is no longer saying, “Nnnnn.” She is no longer looking at Vivica. She’s undoubtedly smelling Vivica. She is holding the kitchen scissors so tightly, her knuckles are bloodless, and she watches the seam of the elevator doors like an enemy.

Tessa leads Brian out of the main elevator by the hand. Outside the elevator, she pushes him against a wall and kisses him. She sucks his tongue into her mouth, greedily. She takes a card key out of her blouse’s breast pocket and leads him to Room 1802, the deluxe penthouse. She leads him, but this time not by the hand. Brian walks awkwardly. His erection looks enormous, but only in proportion to his overall body size. It’s an average erection. While Tessa puts the card key the right way around, Brian pushes her into the closed door with his pelvis, filling his hands with her hair so he can lick the nubs of bone in her neck; he fits his teeth around one. “Hurry,” he says. She does. The door to Room 1802, the deluxe penthouse, explodes open with the force of their combined weight. The doorknob makes a slight dent in the wall before Brian slams it shut.

Tessa does not notice the dent in the wall: next, the seas will boil.

Tessa’s grasping at Brian’s pants. “Bed,” he says, “where’s a bed?”

Tessa says, “Why?” but yanks him by the shirtfront toward the spiral staircase in the middle of the lavish entryway. Brian pulls her down in the middle of the spiral staircase and rips her bra in half so he can tongue Tessa’s left nipple.

“Bite it,” she growls. He does. She curses, loudly. Brian picks Tessa up and carries her upstairs. It’s easy to carry Tessa. Tessa’s thin. It might seem romantic that he’s carrying her, but it’s not; it’s easy. True romance is predicated on difficulty. Protection is fantastically difficult.

It’s dark. “Where’s the bed?” Brian says.

Tessa tugs him by the belt loops.

The secret elevator—with Delores inside it—opens into Franklin’s office. Delores has the scissors raised. There’s no one in Franklin’s office.

Delores tried her cell phone in the secret elevator, but there was no reception. She takes cautious, soundless steps. The Killer is racing down the stairs. He is passing the ninth floor. Delores is entering the foyer, looking around, seeing no one. She is tiptoeing underneath the chandelier she cleaned less than an hour ago, beginning to walk faster. The Killer is passing the sixth floor. Delores digs in her apron pocket and takes out her car keys. She can see her car in the parking lot. She’s in sight of the main doors, and the parking lot is well lit. Well--lit parking areas are safe parking areas. The Killer is passing the fourth floor, putting on speed. Delores can hear him, which is why she hurries, running for the main doors, twenty feet away. Now fifteen, ten. The Killer passes the second floor.