economy walls.
I was impatient for answers. Absent those, I was desperate for contact, eager to mull over the bits and pieces of what had happened, to rub them to a high polish. On my way to Doug Beeman's, I'd detoured by the alley near campus and had not been surprised to find the Honda Civic gone. Once I'd cleared the cash from the trunk, they'd cleared the car from the alley. And now silence at Beeman's door, darkness at the curtains. As I turned away, I realized just how much that concerned me.
Ariana's words were there like an echo in my head, warning of all the consequences I hadn't considered. I wished I'd found something here to assuage her concerns. I'd come back tomorrow first thing to make sure Beeman was all right; I'd already decided to go to Indio after morning classes to check on Elisabeta.
I turned away from the door. The complex--and the surrounding streets--was alive with life and movement, music and engines, the crack of beer cans opening, the giggle of children, a woman yelling into a telephone. So many people. How many were on the verge of catastrophe? An aneurysm, a lurking blood clot, a heart valve a beat away from giving out? How many of these apartments had a gas leak, a compromised roof, lethal mold growing beneath the drywall?
Which name in my address book faced a similar deadline?
At the intersection my discomfort revved into high gear. Knee bouncing, fingernails strumming, squirming in my seat like a kid before recess. The clock on my dashboard read 6:53 P.M. Seven minutes until their next e-mail hit my in-box. It occurred to me yet again that though it was Tuesday and the workday over, I had yet to hear from my lawyer with the studio's terms for the legal resolution. Were they waiting to see if I played good little soldier? I was still a rat in their box--push the lever, get a pellet.
The red light was taking forever. I rolled down my window, tapped my foot, hummed along to the Top 40 tune I was pretending to listen to. But no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, it remained at the edge of my peripheral vision, rising into view from behind the church billboard. Finally I looked over at that Kinko's sign, beckoning like neon to a drunk. In the foreground rose that redoubtable lettering--WITHOUT WOOD, A FIRE GOES OUT--and for the first time in a long time, I felt like the universe was talking to me, even if it was telling me something I didn't want to hear. It was easy enough to heed the Word; I was in the left-turn lane, Kinko's was across three lanes of traffic and up the street the opposite way. Not a temptation at all.
The only way to beat them is not to play.
Forcing my gaze ahead, waiting for the light, I listened to the click-click-click of my turn signal.
Hotel Angeleno, a cylindrical white rise a stone's throw off the 405 where Brentwood meets Bel Air. The crisp photo, perfectly framing the seventeen stories, looked like an advertising shot. The place was a Holiday Inn that had gotten a face lift a few years back, but it didn't take much to qualify as a landmark in Los Angeles.
Hunched over a computer in my corner cubicle at Kinko's, I took in the image, holding my cell-phone camera at the ready. My thumb pressed 'record,' and the Sanyo camera whirred into action. I'd acquainted my thumb with the cell-phone buttons so I could record however long, back-to-back in ten-second chunks, without moving my eyes from the monitor.
The picture on-screen faded, replaced by a close-up of a hotel-room number: 1407.
Next was a service door, sturdy and metal, the edge of a Dumpster peeking into view. The parking-lot lines and concrete exterior showed it still to be the hotel.
The next slide put a charge into my chest: my silver key chain, placed on our kitchen counter. A daytime shot, but there was no way to tell when it had been taken.
The close-up photo that followed showed one key angled free and clear of the others. Sturdy, brass. Not one of my own.
Numbly, I reached into my pocket. Lifted my key chain, flat on my palm, up before my eyes. There it was like a Christmas present, hidden in the jumble. A new key. Riding along with me all this time.
The PowerPoint presentation had moved on. Inside my Camry now, the angle from the passenger seat; the photographer must have been sitting. My glove box had been laid open and a hotel key card set on top of my tin of Altoids.
A message appeared and faded: 2AM. TONIGHT. COME ALONE. DO NOT GET SPOTTED.
Followed by another: YOU NEED TO SEE HIM.
Him. Him?
My Sanyo stopped recording a moment before the top browser window closed, leaving me to stare at the e- mail with the hyperlink they'd sent to my Gmail account. My fingers ached from being clenched around the phone. I released my fist and watched the pink creep slowly back into my skin.
I clicked 'reply' on the e-mail, and to my surprise an address appeared. A long string of seemingly random numbers, ending with gmail.com.
The digital clock on the desktop said I was late for dinner, a walk with Ariana, my life. I thought of my briefcase, bulging with unread student scripts. Our walls, torn down in spots to the studs and pipes. The house I had to get in order, with all that implied. I owed the people in my life more than this. Except the one whose neck was on the line.
I typed, I won't do this anymore. Not without knowing who you are and why you're doing this to me, and sent it off before the second thoughts gnashing at my heels could overtake me.
I sat and stared at the screen, wondering what the hell I had just done.
A comic pop sounded from the computer speakers, breaking through my black thoughts. An instant message had flashed up on the screen in its cheery little AOL cartoon bubble.
TONIGHT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING.
I hadn't even logged in to an IM program, but there it was.
Grinding my teeth, I stared at the smug little sentence. I was sick of being manipulated, toyed with, led down the gallows path one blindfolded step at a time. Something inside me had shifted, whether because of Ari's persistent reasoning or the ominous silence I'd just encountered at Beeman's front door. But my resolve had been chipped away, one assumption at a time, leaving me far from convinced that the course I'd been taking was the right one.
Breathing hard, summoning courage, I stared at the screen.
My fingers hammered the keyboard, asking the question I was afraid to know the answer to: What if I say no?
I rocked back in the chair. Across the store, the cash register jangled and copy machines whirred and clicked like futuristic life-forms. The air conditioner blew cool air down my collar.
Another popping sound, another message. This time it could just as easily have been my own thought bubble; the words seemed to look right through the windows of my eyes and read my mind.
THEN YOU WILL NEVER KNOW.
Chapter 32
Midnight.
I wasn't going to that hotel room.
Ariana asleep beside me, I lay and watched the clock. She'd taken an Ambien to help her doze off, but I was fairly certain that no sleeping pill would get me down tonight. Whatever this thing was, I had it by the tail or it had me by the neck. When I didn't show up, would they come after me, renewed? If they didn't, could I stand never knowing? Could I go back to student papers and faculty-room joking and neighborhood walks? I would have to. As Ari had said, I was tampering with other people's lives. And if I kept following instructions, when would it end? By no-showing, I was taking my fate into my own hands. And if they reacted with wrath, I would be ready for them. If the lawsuit returned, I was no worse off than I'd been two days ago. In the quiet dark, I began listing the precautions I'd start taking at first light.
12:27 A.M.12:28 A.M.
I wasn't going to that hotel room.
TONIGHT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING. Who was waiting in Room 1407? A face from the past, a wronged friend, a man in a dark suit, legs crossed, silenced pistol in his lap? Or a stranger with a gift, nothing more to me than I was to Doug Beeman? How long would the person wait before figuring out that I wasn't coming through that door?
12:48 A.M.12:49 A.M.
I wasn't going to that hotel room.
