A flower shop caught his eye. It had an exterior entrance, but it also had a doorway that led directly into the hotel lobby. He thought for a moment, then checked his billfold. Forty-eight dollars and change. He went back outside and walked to the flower shop.
"One red rose? How romantic," the woman said, her eyebrows arching, a skeptical note in her voice. The hotel was expensive. Shadow Love was not the kind of man who would have a lover inside.
"Not my romance," Shadow grunted, picking up her skepticism. "I just dropped her off in the cab. Her old man give me ten extra bucks for the rose."
"Ah." The woman's face broke into a smile. Everything was right in the world. "For ten dollars you could buy two roses…"
"He said one and keep the change," Shadow Love said grumpily. He had forty-eight dollars between himself and the street, and this flower shop was selling roses at five dollars a pop. "Her name is Rothenburg. I don't know how you spell it. Her old man said you could get the room."
"Sure." The woman wrapped a single red rose in green tissue paper and said, "Is the card to be signed?"
"Yeah. 'Love, Lucas.' "
"That's nice." The woman picked up the phone, rapped in four numbers and said, "This is Helen. You got a Rothenburg? Don't know the spelling. Yeah… Four-oh-eight? Thanks."
"We'll send it right up," the woman said as she gave Shadow Love his change.
Room 408. "Thanks," he said.
He left the shop and went outside. It was late afternoon, getting cooler. He looked both ways, then walked away from the car toward Loring Park and took a long turn around the pond, thinking. The woman was good with a gun. He couldn't fuck up. If he waited awhile, then went straight in to the elevators, as though he belonged there, he might get up. Then again, maybe not-but if they stopped him, they wouldn't do more than throw him out. He dug in a pocket, took out a Slim Jim sausage and chewed on it.
If he got up, what then? If he knocked on her door and she opened it, bang. But what if the chain was on? He had no faith in the idea of shooting through the door. The pistol was a.380, good enough for close work, but it wouldn't punch through a steel fire-liner. Not for sure. She'd recognize him. And she was a killer. If he missed, she'd be all over him. It'd be hell just getting out of the hotel…
Have to think.
He was still working it out when he got back to the car. A Federal Express truck stopped across the street and the driver hopped out. Shadow Love, his mind far away, automatically tracked him as he went into the lobby of an office building and began emptying the local package box. A moment later, when the driver came out with his load of packages, Shadow Love skipped out of the car and walked into the lobby.
The Federal Express box had an open rack of packaging envelopes and address slips, with ballpoint pens on chains.
Lily Rothenburg, Police Officer, he wrote. Room 408…
He still didn't know how he'd get in her door. Sometimes you had to pray for luck. When he got back on the sidewalk, it was dark…
The rose was totally unexpected: the last thing she would have expected, but it thrilled her. David sent flowers; Davenport did not. That he should…
Lily put it in a water glass and set it on top of the television set, looked at it, adjusted it and sat down with Ander-son's computer printouts. In two minutes, she knew she couldn't read.
Davenport, God damn it. What's this rose shit? She took a turn around the room, caught her image in a mirror. That's the silliest smile I've seen on you since you were a teenager.
She couldn't work. She glanced at a copy of People, put it aside and walked around the room again, stopping to sniff at the rose.
She was in a feeling mood, she decided. A hot bath…
Shadow Love went straight through the lobby with the Federal Express package in his hand, slightly in front of his body, so the bellhops could see the colors. He stopped at the elevators, poked 4 and resolutely did not look at the desk and the bellhops. The elevator chimed, the doors opened… he was in, and alone.
He gripped the knife, feeling its holy weight, then touched his belly, feeling the gun there. But the knife was the thing.
The doors opened on the fourth floor and he stepped out, still holding the package in front of him. Room 408. He turned right and heard a vacuum cleaner behind him. He stopped. Luck.
He turned back, went around the corner and found a maid with a vacuum cleaner. There was nobody else in the hallway.
"Got a package," he grunted. "Where's four-oh-eight?"
"Down there," the maid said, flipping a thumb down the hall behind her. She was a short woman, slender, early twenties; already worn out.
"Okay," Shadow said. He slipped a hand under his jacket, looked around once to make sure they were alone, pulled the gun and pointed it at the woman's head.
"Oh, no…" she said, backing away, her hands out toward him.
"Down to the room. And get your keys out…" The woman continued backing away, Shadow matching her pace for pace, the muzzle of the gun never leaving her face. "The keys," he said.
She groped in her apron pocket and produced a ring with a dozen keys.
"Open four-oh-eight… but let me knock first." He thrust the package at her, his voice rising, an edge of madness to it. "If she answers, tell her you've got a package. Let her see it. If you try to warn her, if you do anything to spook her, bitch cunt, I'll blow your motherfuckin' brains out…"
The thought that the maid might betray him gripped Shadow Love's stomach, and the black spot popped into his line of vision, obscuring her face. He forced it down, down, concentrating: Not this one; not yet.
The maid was terrified. She clutched at the package, holding it to her chest.
"Here," she squeaked.
The black spot was still there, smaller, floating like a mote in God's eye, but he could read the number on the door: 408. Shadow reached out and knocked, quietly. No answer. The killing rush was coming now, like cocaine, even better… He knocked again. No answer.
"Open it," he said. He pressed the gun against the woman's forehead. "If there's a noise, I'll fuckin' kill you, bitch. I'll blow your fuckin' brains all over the hall."
The woman slipped the key into the lock. There was a tiny metallic click and she flinched, and Shadow Love tapped her with the barrel. "No more," he whispered. "Open it."
She turned the key. There was another click and the door eased open.
Lily got out of the bathtub, steam rolling off her body; she felt languid and soft from the bath oils. She heard the knock and stopped toweling. It wasn't a maid's knock. It was too soft, too… furtive. She frowned, took a step toward the bathroom door, looked through the bedroom to the outer sitting room; it was dark. A lamp was on in the bedroom, as were the lights in the bathroom. There was another knock, a pause, then a click. Somebody coming in.
Lily looked around for her purse, with the gun in the concealed holster: outer room. Shit. She reached back, hit the bathroom light switch and started for the lamp.
Shadow Love pushed the maid forward. The door opened and the woman went through. There was little light, apparently coming from a bathroom… No. There's another room. Fuckin' rich bitch has a suite… The light suddenly went out, and they were in darkness, Shadow Love and the maid silhouetted against the light from the hallway.
Lily killed the lamp as the door opened. She felt a tiny surge of relief when she saw the small woman and the familiar colors on the package. She reached again for the wall switch, then saw the man behind the woman and what looked like a gun.
"Freeze, motherfucker," she screamed at the dark figures, dropping automatically into her Weaver stance, her hands empty. But the movement, in the dark, might be convincing…