He pauses in the doorframe on his way out, just long enough to reach and turn on the lights. Checking to see if the room really is empty, which of course it is. Pointless. Curtis’s gaze tracks the tile floor, the mahogany armoire, the wrought-iron divider, the tables and the couches, until it arrives at the windows, which show him the parts of the room he can’t see from where he stands: the big rack, the door to the head, his own small shadow in the corridor. The fancy room reminds him of the waitress who took his order in the Oculus Lounge, and also of some of the nurses at Bethesda: good at what they do, so good that their skill becomes a screen that conceals the fact that they don’t care. It’s a plush room, but it’s not comfy. Nobody’s home.
For an instant—only an instant—Curtis is scared that he might die out here.
The room seems ready for him to leave, so he does. He switches off the light, and the dark comes in behind him.
13
From the way the numbers run on his floor, Curtis can hazard a guess as to where Veronica’s suite is, and he climbs the stairs at the opposite end of the building.
Four flights. Taking his time. The door opens on a hallway identical to the one he just came from. He moves silently down the corridor, past the elevators, counting the numbers down, listening hard as he goes. There’s no sound beyond the drone of air ducts. Curtis is thinking that everyone must be at the tables down below when a door opens ahead, and two women in floorlength fur coats step out. They exchange parting words with a male voice inside, and the door closes behind them. Both women wear shiny red latex gloves; one carries a black attaché case. They smile brightly at they pass. Hi! they say.
When Curtis reaches 3113, he stands outside for a long time. A soft ding comes from down the corridor: the elevator opening for the women. Curtis steps back, listens at the door on the left, at the door on the right, at the door across the hallway. Overhead, the HVAC system switches off. After a while it switches back on.
Curtis knocks. The tiny point of light in the convex peephole goes dark. Then the door clicks, swings open.
Veronica is wearing an ornate gold cat-face mask. Curtis can’t help himself: he gasps when he sees it. She laughs at him, a nervous laugh, and backs into the room. The mask clashes badly with her bare feet and frayed bluejeans and baggy Cypress Bayou sweatshirt. Hey, Curtis, she says. Little jumpy tonight, huh?
You gave me a start there.
Sorry about that. Come on in. Oh—make sure that door pulls shut, okay?
Curtis turns to tug the handle and instantly gets a bad feeling, but it’s already too late; there’s a rustle of fabric, the rapid creak-and-click of a spring and a slide, and her pistol is just behind his ear. Smooth and quick.
Arms up, she says. Spread your legs wide. Toes out. Do it! Now fall forward. Put your hands on the doorframe. Higher! Do not fucking move.
Curtis feels a tremble in his bladder and a few hot drops on his thigh, and he fights hard to keep the rest inside. This is something that has always happened, every time he’s been shot at, or thought he was about to be. It used to shame him badly afterward: the memory of coming out of situations with wet legs and darkened trousers. Now he’s surprised to find that the feeling is almost a comfort. It calms him down, reminds him that he knows what to do.
Curtis? Veronica says. You still with me? You doing okay?
Curtis takes a deep breath, lets it out. I been better, he says.
I’m not gonna shoot you. Okay? I have to pat you down. Do not move at all.
He’s scared she’ll search him with the gun in her hand, but she knows what she’s doing: it goes away, and there’s a swish as she secures it at her waist. She reaches under his arms, unclips his revolver from his belt, sets it on the deck behind her and pushes it away with her foot, off the tile, onto the carpet. Then she works front to back, top to bottom, crushing and twisting each pocket before she reaches into it. She finds the speedloader in his jacket and the wallet in his jeans, and she drops them on the deck by the revolver. Then she pats down his groin, his legs, his ankles. She does all of this while wearing a gold cat-face mask.
She’s backing off now, collecting his things, retreating farther into the suite. Leaving him there. He wants very badly to open the door, to walk down the hallway, to run. Hey, he calls to her. We finished?
Her voice, muffled a little by the walls: Yeah, she says. Sorry. Come on in. Make yourself at home.
He pushes himself upright, straightens his clothes, turns around. The reflector bulb directly overhead is lit; a table lamp glows at the far end of the room. Aside from that the suite is dark.
He steps forward. Veronica’s suite is a looking-glass version of his own: higher up, maybe a little bigger—she’s got two queens instead of one kingsize rack—but he’s got the nicer view. One of her closet doors is ajar; nothing’s inside. He looks around for luggage, but there isn’t any.
She’s on the couch in the sunken living area, with his gun unloaded on the coffee table before her, speedloader and five loose bullets beside it. Her own pistol—a black SIG, small enough to fit in a purse—is on the cushion next to her, in her shadow, about an inch from her hand.
He pauses on the steps. Her mask glitters in the dim light: gold paint and rhinestones, tufts of peacock-feather at the ears. She’s flipping through his wallet: his VIC, his TRICARE card, his Pennsylvania ID and concealed-carry permit. I thought you were married, she says.