Security(62)

The secret elevator opens.

Tessa and Brian bound out. The lamp on Franklin’s desk glows. Tessa’s limp right hand knocks it over. Brian bats Franklin’s top desk drawer open. The drawer sails backward and to the floor. Adrenaline is making Brian’s movements too powerful. He squats and grips a large pair of scissors; he precedes Tessa to the foyer. He turns right, but Tessa says, “Not that way,” reminding Brian the front doors are locked. He tosses a look of yearning at the police car in the driveway. They go left, out the rear exit, stepping around the dead girl in the gold dress. Brian squints at the reddened windows of the pool, but Tessa’s intent—pulls him by his belt loop to the left, then left again at the corner, where Manderley’s glowing white edge meets the night.

The Killer’s mask floats in the pool. A portion of his head floats facedown beside it.

The Thinker is passing the fifth floor. He’s invigorated, running again. Holding the gun like something he treasures, holding it to his chest with the arm that’s not wrapped in a perfect field dressing. He jumps at the sound of the fire alarms, the earthquake alarms, and the bomb threat alarms, all going off at once. They’re of different tones but all terrible and unavoidable and un--sleep--through--able, and continuing, and continuing, like a church choir in hell, or a Brooklyn Saturday morning when one is trying to sleep in. He covers one ear with his functional hand, tries to lift his shoulder to cover the other, but it hurts his shoulder too much. He groans and I groan. Graphite is puncturing the tip of my tongue, but I don’t care.

I can access wider hotel systems more easily. So easily I have to stop myself from making every faucet go full--blast, every door slam open and shut. Targeted assaults. The foyer chandelier, a stupid, expensive pinecone that dusts up every time a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa. Off.

In green, black, and white, the Thinker hurtles into the ink--dark foyer. He stays calm and commits to a direction. He runs. He remembers that the front doors are locked but not that a skinny gold--clad trophy date lies between him and the rear ex—A once--in--a--lifetime wipeout! Masked--face--first into the stain--destroyed Italian marble floor. I laugh and laugh, coughing saliva and spools of blood onto the counter. I’m a little worried, but I can’t stop.

Brian and Tessa round Manderley’s front. The police officer pops from his cruiser, points his revolver at them, and shouts, “Freeze!” Brian and Tessa skid to a stop. Brian puts his hands up. Tessa puts her left arm up, but her right hangs, loose and streaked red. They start shouting in tandem. Brian stops so Tessa can do the talking. I shut off the alarms so Tessa needn’t shout.

“I’m the one who called,” she says with admirable composure, when Manderley stops screeching. “We need help.”

“Drop those,” says the cop, referring to the scissors in Brian’s right fist. The rookie’s gun trembles so much, it could conduct “Flight of the Bumblebee.” “No sudden movements.”

Tessa repeats, “We need help.”

Brian says, “He’s got—”

A bullet strikes the police officer square in the forehead. Brian dives and takes Tessa with him. They hit the ground crawling, while the policeman folds to the driveway. Silent shots punch loud holes in “Serve” and “Protect” on the cruiser’s side panel. Brian and Tessa shamble behind the right--rear tire. The whirling lights of approaching emergency vehicles are still a mile away. Brian and Tessa can surely see them. But there’s only one terrible option. They nod at each other, and disappear into the hedge maze.

The Thinker is loading a new clip. He’s steady; this is business. He must not lose his cool as he did in the ballroom. He’s a professional, and in his profession, there must be no survivors.

This is stupid. It’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever had. I select every light in every room. Courage is how people die. I know this; I learned this. I watched men learn it, and it was the last thing they ever learned. The Thinker is walking toward the maze. I hear a grunt come out of my throat. I look at myself in the monitor for the twentieth floor, like I’m confirming I’m really there. That poor man, his arms and legs like drop cloths on his office chair. His eyes blinking at me through salty sweat. I see you.

I tap the lights on. All Manderley’s windows—hundreds and hundreds—shine bright, and darken. Brighten, darken. In varying speeds, specific rhythms—Morse code.

SOS.

The Thinker’s mask stretches in a manner that suggests his jaw just fell open.

Come on, come and get me. Come on now. Leave them.

I had little hope he’d comply, and he doesn’t. He turns from the hotel and enters the maze with the eerie noiselessness of a panther. I reset the override system so I’m standing in my empty driveway again. I enter the maze and walk where the Thinker walks.

Tessa and Brian went straight for the maze’s center. They’re a dozen feet from the fountain shooting its spray at the sky. They’re cocooned in each other. I manipulate the eraser up, up, expanding my view to the maze’s convoluted diagram. I’d forgotten how convoluted. It’s a grid overlaid with a mess of systems: sprinklers in case of fire, arc lights in case of guests lost at night, auxiliary cameras in case of same. Tiny icons indicate where each tool of each system resides in the maze, so I’m squinting at a chessboard with hundreds of blue water drops dispersed across it, signifying each of the sprinklers. And yellow lightbulbs for arc lights, and green lenses for cameras. I coded the program to be user--friendly, but it’s dizzying. It’s too much. It’s tempting to think how comparatively easy it must be to take those short, quiet strides the Thinker is taking, how refreshing the smells of soil and dew he inhales in the chilly morning, how exciting the encroachment of flora all around him. The delicious challenge of picking a path. Narrow openings begetting forward motion. Switchbacks that are often the only method of progress. The rare straightaway stretching for twenty--five yards to his either side.