"Can I get my bag?" I asked.
"Five dollars," she said, smacking gum between her lips.
"You just saw me with Shawn, I-"
"Five dollars," she repeated, bored by the whole thing. I didn't want or have time to argue, and pulled a crumpled ten from my pocket. She counted change, then swung the door open and let me take the suitcase.
As I lugged it into the hall, Amanda said, "Where are we going?"
"A hotel, baby," I said.
"I thought you were kidding," she said, a joyous glow in her eye. "I have the best boyfriend in the whole world. "
She threw her arms around me again, and I nearly stumbled over a small girl trying to make her way back into the club. She called me a name that I'd most defi nitely never been called by a girl before.
Gripping the bag with one hand and Amanda with another, we stumble/bumped our way outside. A row of cabs was waiting five deep down the block, knowing every minute brought another inebriated person out who needed a ride home (hopefully to another borough).
It was a delicate balancing act carrying Amanda and the suitcase outside since they were both essentially dead weight. The next cab in the line pulled up, and thankfully the driver came outside to help me with my, er, belongings. He hoisted the bag into the trunk while
Amanda and I slid into the back. As soon as he closed the door and said, "Where to?" I realized I had no idea where we were going.
The list of New York hotels I knew offhand was quite slim, and one of those, the Plaza, hadn't reopened yet.
Before I knew what I was doing, I said, "Times
Square. The W Hotel, please."
"Henry," Amanda cooed, her cheeks flushing red her hand delicately tracing the curve of my calf. "I had no idea…"
"Me, neither," I mumbled as the cab sped away.
Amanda spent the whole cab ride either staring outside, the world swimming by her drunken haze, or awkwardly trying to grope me. Ordinarily I might have felt frisky enough to try a little something in the backseat while the cabdriver wasn't looking, but Amanda was as subtle as a hyena and I had too much on my mind to truly focus.
Who was that guy outside my apartment? Clearly somebody knew I was following leads, but nothing had been printed in the newspaper, which limited the list of culprits significantly. I wondered, could it have been
Scotty Callahan? Sure seemed like it. The notion that this guy, an admitted company man, would have spilled his guts and walked away seemed awfully unlikely. But there were others. Rose Keller. She was a friend of
Stephen's, perhaps better than I knew. Stephen was more than I'd previously thought, so it occurred to me that Rose might have been as well.
I lowered the window, breathing deeply as I inhaled the warm air. Now Amanda was leaning back against her seat, eyes closed. I wondered if she was sleeping, dreaming peacefully.
Fifteen minutes later the cab pulled up in front of the
W Hotel. I ran my credit card through the cab's machine, gave him a twenty percent tip and helped Amanda out.
We walked into the lobby quite a sight, Amanda wearing a slinky dress and clinging to my arm, me looking like
I'd just rolled out of a bed in a sewer and carrying a single suitcase. The building itself was beautiful and massive. I'd read somewhere that it housed a stagger ing fifty-seven floors, but in the dark of night it looked like even more, a mammoth structure in the heart of
Times Square. The lobby was awash in subtle blue and gray tones, and a waterfall ran down one of the walls.
There were two receptionists on duty, two young women who looked remarkably similar. They both had dark hair and skin, red fingernails and bright smiles that seemed almost attuned to one another. As we walked up they both said, "Good evening, sir."
Their name tags read Rae and Gabrielle. You could have switched the tags and I wouldn't have known the difference.
"I'd like a room, please," I said.
The one with the Rae tag began to punch some keys on her computer while Gabrielle stared at me with that same, unwavering smile. Suddenly I felt Amanda's breath on my cheek, and then a big kiss followed suit.
A split second later I felt her tongue on my jawbone, winding its way toward my earlobe.
Gabrielle was still grinning, but now it was the kind of grin you gave to your neighbor who got his morning newspaper while wearing nothing but tighty-whities.
Rae looked up and said, "We have two rooms avail able, one with two twin beds and another with one queen."
"I'll take the queen," I said, trying to push Amanda away while I feel my face turn bright red. Rae noticed what was going on, and her bright smile quickly turned like bad milk.
Gabrielle looked at Amanda, then looked at me, then looked at my suitcase. Her eyes went back and forth between the three while I stood there confused. Then I realized what she was thinking. Attractive girl wearing revealing clothes. Dorky guy wearing the same clothes he'd probably worn the last three days. A suitcase.
No doubt Rae and Gabrielle thought Amanda was a hooker, and would end up chopped to bits and stuffed into the suitcase by the end of the night. I noticed neither of them had made any movements to confirm my room or make a key.
"You okay, honey? " I asked, stressing the last word an attempt to let Rae and Gabrielle know that we did, in fact, know each other.
"I'm just peachy, Henry." I smiled. See, she knows my name!
"So…about that room…"
"I'll need a credit-card imprint," Rae said. I slipped her my AMEX, and she ran it through, never taking her eyes off of us.
"Hen- ree, " Amanda whined. "I'm ti -red."
"Just a minute, baby," I said.
Gabrielle seemed to be softening up, but Rae was eyeing me with squinty eyes, letting me know she could have hotel security at our room if she got the slightest hint that an ax might make an appearance.
"How many nights will you be staying?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "Can we just keep it open?"
"Sure," Rae said, taking two plastic cards and running them through the machine to magnetize them.
She slid them into a paper sheath, wrote a number on it and handed it to us along with my credit card. "Room
2722 on the twenty-seventh floor. Please call if you
Pinter, Jason – Henry Parker 04
The Fury (2009) require any assistance."
"Please," Gabrielle added. "Any assistance."
"Anything at all, for you or your friend," Rae added.
"One thing," I said. "I don't want anyone to know
I'm here. So can you put me down under a different name, just in case anyone calls?"
The sisters looked at each other with a worried glare.
"Sure…" Gabrielle said. "What name would you like to put on the room?"
"Put down…Leonard Denton," I said.
"All set Mr…Denton."
"Thanks. Come on," I said to Amanda. "Let's get you some sleep."
I felt their glare in my back as we headed to the ele vators. The ride was silent and smooth, and I barely felt like we were moving, let alone going nearly thirty stories. At some point, right around floor twenty-five,
I felt my eardrums pop. Once the elevator opened, we made our way down the hall to room 2722, where I managed the task of propping both Amanda and the suitcase against the wall as I opened the door. Once open, I threw the bag inside and helped Amanda in.
She collapsed on the bed, and I sat down next to her.
For the first time all night, I realized just how tired I was. My nerves were still on edge, and tomorrow would be a long day. I needed to find out who that man was, who sent him, and just how deep in my brother was.
But in the meantime, Amanda had somehow wriggled out of her dress, and was wearing nothing but a silk bra and underwear, her eyes suggesting that sleepiness had taken a hiatus for the time being.
Tomorrow would be a long day. As I climbed into