floor right away. The column in the bedroom came up about a meter from the window, creating an isolated alcove so useless that not even the crazed decorator had been tempted to use it. An absurdly wide window ledge added the final touch, separating the room from any sense of connection with the rest of the planet and underlining the impression that the hotel might actually not even be part of the known universe.
Because the room was on the corner of the building, the bedroom had windows along two walls. Looking out from the window opposite the bed, I spotted bamboo. Even here, in such a humid place, I thought, it doesn’t grow to thirty-four stories. “What is that?” I pointed.
Luis swam across the carpet. “It’s what they call a sky garden, balconies that take advantage of all of the crisscrossing structural beams. This floor doesn’t have any. I don’t know if the architect had them in the original plans, or if they were an afterthought designed to squeeze out extra money from the guests. It is hard to tell.”
“It looks to me that whoever might be lounging in the chaise down on that porch could probably see someone at this window.”
“I suppose so. We haven’t checked.”
Haven’t checked? What had they been doing for the last few weeks? “If one can see, presumably one can also hear, no?”
“Probably not. The glass is very thick. And the rooms, as you can tell, are completely soundproofed. The walls have baffling on them covered in what looks like leather. It’s like living in a cow’s stomach. Personally, I wouldn’t pay the money.”
“How much?”
“About eight thousand Macau dollars, maybe a thousand in real money, or ten of your super notes if you prefer.”
“Where’s the bathroom?”
“Can’t you wait until we get downstairs?”
“I only want to look, Luis.”
“Ah, well.” He pointed. “It’s tucked away nicely.”
The carpet stopped and a marble floor announced the entrance to a small hall that bent around a corner to the bathroom-Jacuzzi, dry sauna, and separate toilet with its own television, which worked. Opposite the bathtub was a long window, again looking down on a porch attached to the floor below.
“A reckless bather could put on a nice show,” I said. As I moved to the window, I tripped on a ledge at floor level-no doubt the Ur beam holding the whole place up.
“Not what your thousand-dollar toes want to find at three in the morning.” Luis was searching along the side of the window. “There’s a shade here somewhere, but it goes up and down electronically and the switch is the devil to locate. Most people probably don’t bother with it.”
“Let’s go back to the living room.” I limped into the tunnel and pointed out the window. A city the size of Macau is not spectacular much above the twentieth floor. The contours of the hills are lost, and the quaintness of the colonial buildings is impossible to distinguish without binoculars. Who wants to pay a thousand a night to look at the view through binoculars? “What is that? That tall wall with all the windows, at the top of what looks like a long stairway, what is it?”
“Those are the ruins of St. Paul’s. You were practically there when you came to my office. You want to go see them?”
“A lot of stair-climbing to see ruins on a hot afternoon,” I said.
“It is well to look up to God, Inspector.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “but I don’t need a heart attack in the process.” I pointed a little to the right. “And those ruins, next to Paul’s?”
“The hilltop fort. The Portuguese built it in the early sixteen hundreds. It’s a nice climb up the hill. The view from there is much better than from here, or it would be if this hotel were blown up. You probably can’t make it out, but the Portuguese consulate is down in front of the fort, at the bottom of the hill. Interesting building, very colonial. Extremely yellow.”
“Is there a room safe?”
“No, I think the Consul General keeps his valuables at home.”
“I mean in this room.”
“Of course.” We walked over to the dressing area, more dark wood, subdued lighting, muted colors. It was exactly the place to mourn the loss of a year’s worth of bribes in a single game of baccarat. “The safe is in the top drawer of the dresser. Would you like to put something in for safekeeping?”
“No, thank you.” I bounced up and down on my toes. “A suitcase full of body parts wouldn’t have rolled very well on this carpet,” I said.
“It was an expensive suitcase.” Luis opened the drawer and touched some buttons on the safe. “I think they design them for all contingencies. Besides, the floor from the bathroom is marble and, as I told you, the body was butchered in the bathroom. Rolling from the bath to the front door would have been no problem.”
“And the hallway carpet?”
“The rich are like you and me, Inspector, only smarter, more devious. They don’t let carpeting stand in their way.”
“Anything else I need to see, before you tell me what you left out in your first rendition of what was in that folder?”
“You have seen all. Shall we return to the living room to sit? You take the couch. I’ll take the desk chair.”
“And the red leather one?”
“I prefer to let it rest in peace.”
8
“So, you intend to stay with this case. You have a dogged nature; that much is clear from the way you looked at Lulu.”
It was hard not to look at Lulu. She occupied most of the field of vision. “I don’t like the smell of things.” I also didn’t like the couch. The cushions were made of concrete.
Luis sighed. “All right, I have a few more things to tell you.”
“You mean you have another version to unload?”
“Not entirely. Simply adding a layer of detail may prove to you that there is no need for you to remain in Macau. It really is a click-clack case.”
“Click-clack.”
“Open and shut. File and forget. Up the chimney and out to sea.” He pondered his next move. “We know what happened. We know who did it. The people who viewed the tapes see no crack for the daylight of doubt to enter. All we lack is a confession. Or rather, all we lack is a signature. The confession we have already written.”
“Really? We tend to wait awhile to write it out.”
“The murderer checked into the hotel at six thirty P.M. the ninth of October, a Sunday, under the name of Raoul Penza, having passed through Immigration ninety minutes earlier. He had arrived on the four P.M. ferry from Hong Kong, with a super-class ticket purchased at the ferry terminal earlier in the morning, around ten A.M. On the ferry, he refused the food tray with a gracious nod and dozed.”
“Don’t drown me in extraneous details, Luis. It takes ten minutes to get from the ferry terminal to here, but it took him an hour and a half. Surely, he didn’t have to wait in line that long at Immigration. Perhaps it was even arranged so that he didn’t have to wait in line at all.” I paused; Luis filled the space with nothing but a blank stare. “He stopped somewhere?”
“That is our feeling as well.”
“Meaning you have no idea where.”
