“Robert Quine,” Gibson said.
“It is good to meet you, Mr. Quine. Due to the nature of our visit in Niobe, I’ve taken the time to familiarize myself with all the hotel’s unusual guests. So many of them . . . One is tempted to hypothesize that Niobe must be very special to attract so many tourists at the same time. An exhibit or a festival perhaps. Or perhaps a celebrity. A man worth traveling a long way to meet.”
“Perhaps.”
“But such a famous man won’t have time to meet with everyone. So it will come down to who most deserves an audience with this man. A difficult question to answer, hence my interest in the guests here at the hotel. And, if I am honest, most of them are undeserving, their interests too prosaic. This is why you are here, Mr. Quine. Because there is no Mr. Quine, and that concerns me.”
With a disappointed flourish, the man placed a silver disk about the size of a hockey puck on the table. “Do you know what a rare-earth magnet does?”
Gibson’s heart sunk. “Yeah. I do.”
He’d stashed his real driver’s license in his hotel safe. Rare-earth magnets were incredibly powerful devices that could break into the average hotel safe in about ten seconds. To illustrate the point, Emerson Soto Flores slid Gibson’s driver’s license across the chessboard.
“You have a very interesting history, Mr. Vaughn. I enjoyed reading about your exploits on the Internet. Especially Atlanta. However, I could not see any connection between you and Charles Merrick.”
“Are you the fifth floor?” Gibson asked.
“No, but I speak for her.”
“And what does she say?”
“She says that no one has come farther to see Charles Merrick. Anyone who attempts to interfere with her appointment will regret it.”
“Does that pass for a threat where you’re from?”
“Where I’m from we don’t make threats, but this is the nature of women, don’t you agree?”
“We must know different women,” Gibson said.
“No. Women believe in nothing but talk. She hopes you will take her threat seriously.”
“And what do you believe?”
“I believe I will have to kill you all,” Emerson said with such casual conviction that Gibson’s mouth went dry.
“So why bother delivering her message?”
Emerson considered the question. “Your parents are both dead, yes? Your mother when you were very young.”
“Do you have a point?”
“Only that a man like you cannot understand my duty. I deliver her warning because I must.”
They held each other’s gaze like two wolves meeting in an ancient forest. Gibson said nothing but, realizing that this was a staring contest that he shouldn’t win, forced his stare downward. He counted to five and glanced up again; Emerson was smiling. Go ahead and smile, Gibson thought.
“I’m glad we understand each other.”
“Are we done here?”
“I sincerely hope not, but I think . . . yes.”
Gibson stood to go.
“The elevator is out, so you’ll have to take the stairs.”
“What happened to it?”
“It’s an old hotel.” Emerson shrugged. “Things happen.”
On the morning of the sixth day, Lea woke to a text from Swonger to meet him at the hotel. They’d all traded numbers, but until now she’d communicated only with Gibson. Curious, she threw on clothes and poured herself coffee to go.
As booked as the hotel might be, the lobby felt oddly deserted. A choral arrangement of “Good King Wenceslas” echoed eerily through the space. Two of the fifth floor’s men in the parlor paused their chess match to look her over. One said something to the other that Lea couldn’t catch, but she could guess from the smirk on his companion’s face.
Jimmy Temple emerged from the office with a wrench in hand. “Looking for your friend?”
“Ah, yeah?”
“He’s in the back. Come on.”
Confused, Lea followed Jimmy down the hall, past the “Out of Order” sign that hung crookedly on the elevator, and into the kitchen. She gave Jimmy a puzzled look. Since shuttering the dining room five years ago, he had used the kitchen primarily for storage, and only housekeeping ever came back here to use the servants’ staircase. Jimmy had taken her on a tour of the hotel once and shown her the stairs, which were a historic feature of the hotel that predated elevators. The stairs had concealed exits on each floor through which servants had once attended to their responsibilities out of sight of the guests.
They threaded their way among stacks of boxes and around a central prep table. Swonger’s legs stuck out from behind the double oven, which had been pulled out from the wall. When he heard them, he sat up and grinned at Lea.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Been trying to help Mr. Temple get this stove working.”
“I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
“We didn’t,” Jimmy said, handing Swonger the wrench. “But your friend introduced himself the other day, and he’s been a godsend.”
“Just needing to keep busy,” Swonger said and disappeared back behind the stove.
“Is that a fact?” she said and looked bemusedly at Swonger’s legs. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You texted me.”
“Oh, right.” Swonger sat back up. “Heard from Truck. We’re on.”
“We’re on? Just like that?”
“I told you. Me and Truck go back.”
They all met later at Lea’s apartment to discuss options. Truck Noble was coming to them, the meeting set for the next day at a state park on the Virginia–West Virginia state line. Lea expressed curiosity about Truck’s sudden reversal, and Gibson feared walking into some sort of trap. Swonger, however, clearly felt vindicated and insisted it would be fine so long as they played it straight and kept it to two.
“Small is good. Small ain’t threatening.”
Swonger knew Truck and Gibson knew the tech, so it made sense for it to be the two of them. Lea agreed to stay in Niobe and keep an eye on the fifth floor. With that decided, Gibson fetched beers and offered a toast. Swonger clinked bottles enthusiastically, and Lea drank her beer, feeling more optimistic than at any point since reading her father’s interview.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Swonger and Gibson left early, hoping to arrive before Truck and scope out the meeting site. It turned out to be an abandoned forest station, a perfect spot for conducting business. Isolated enough that no one will find our bodies for weeks if it goes badly, Gibson thought cheerily. Swonger, seeming considerably less concerned, fetched a cooler from the trunk and cracked open a Natty Light. He offered one to Gibson.
“It’s ten a.m., Swonger.”
Swonger didn’t see the relevance and hopped up on the hood of the car with his beer to wait.
Gibson asked him how he knew Truck Noble.
“We jailed together at Buckingham.”
“What were you in for?”
“Grand theft. I was boosting cars up in Charlottesville and delivering them to this crew in Richmond. Easy money.”