The last time I’d been to the belright was on my honeymoon. We’d ordered chicken sandwiches “with extra chips” and they’d brought enough for a party. They’d also sent up champagne and a fruit basket. I guess we were pretty happy there for a little while. But it was the beginning, still, of a long decline.
The Belright back then had been pricey and plush. Declines were everywhere.
I pretended I belonged there, walked through the lobby and up the stairs, something I wouldn’t have gotten away with just a few years before. But now there wasn’t a porter or other service person in sight, only one youngish, half-bald guy behind the desk picking his nose with a ballpoint pen.
I heaved myself up the four flights and knocked on 408, waited, knocked again. Finally someone opened the door an inch or so and stuck his nose in the crack.
“Yeah.”
“You Bud Sanders?”
“Don’t know him.”
“Maybe I could introduce you.”
Inside the room someone, a man, said, “Who’s that?”
“Some wiseass nigger.”
“I interrupt something between you two fellows?” I said.
He opened the door wider and glared at me.
“Look, fellow,” he said. “We’re trying to get a little work done in here. Why don’t you just go away and let us get back to it.”
“Now let’s see. What kind of work would that be, in a hotel room with all those bright lights I see behind you there? PR film for the Belright, maybe? Hope your demographics are right.”
“Goddamn.”
It was the other guy. A second later the door opened and he stood there by Sanders, sweaty and naked at half-mast. I kicked him in the kneecap, then the stomach, and went on in.
The woman on the bed wasn’t Cordelia. She wasn’t conscious, either.
I spun around and grabbed Sanders by the neck.
“Okay,” I said, “I had to see who you had in here. Now you listen to me. First, you get some help for this woman. Then you find Cordelia Clayson-shut up and listen-and you bring her to me at the fountain in Jackson Square by five o’clock tonight.” The other guy was starting to get up so I kicked him again. “Don’t make it so I have to come find you again. Be there.”
“Man, I don’t know where that girl is.”
“Find out.” I let go of him. “We’re through talking. You better wrap it up, he’s not gonna feel much like fucking anymore.”
I went out, down the stairs, through the lobby. Going back outside felt like walking into a forest fire. Sweat burst out of every pore I had.
There were piles of garbage in plastic bags in the alley alongside the hotel. You could hear flies buzzing inside them, their sound amplified by the taut, membranelike plastic.