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…
The scream startled him. Shadow Love sensed the cop woman dropping into a shooter's stance, and swept the maid's feet from under her and went down on top of her. He could feel the woman moving sideways in the minimal light in the room, and he pivoted and kicked the outer door shut. The dark was complete.
"Got a woman, here, a maid," Shadow Love called. He pointed the gun toward where he thought the other door was, although he was disoriented and felt he might be off. But if she fired at him, he'd get her in the muzzle blast. "Come out and talk; I just want to talk about the Indians, about the Crows. I've worked with the police."
Bullshit. Shadow Love. Must be.
"Bullshit. You move, motherfucker, and I'll spread you around like spaghetti sauce."
Lily, nude, crawled across the bedroom floor in the dark, her hands sweeping from side to side, looking for a weapon. Anything. Nothing. Nothing. Back toward the bathroom, creeping in silence, waiting for the killing light… Into the bathroom. Groping. Up the walls. A towel rack. She tugged on it. It held. She put her full weight on it, bouncing frantically, and suddenly, explosively, it came free. She went flat again, frozen, waiting for the light, but nothing came. She went back to the floor and, with the towel bar in her hand, crawled out the bathroom door toward the front room.
There was a sudden, terrific clatter. Shadow Love started, put his face next to the maid's and whispered, "Move, bitch, and I'll slit your fuckin' throat." He could feel the woman trembling in her thin maid's uniform. "And I got the gun; if you go for the door, I'll shoot you."
He left her then, and crawled toward the spot where he thought the inner door was, feeling his way across the carpet in the dark.
What was the noise? What was she doing? Why hadn 't she-risked a light? She wouldn 't be any worse off…
The problem was, the first one to turn on a light would be most exposed…
"I'm not here to hurt anybody," he called.
His voice was a shock: he was so close. Two feet away, three. And now she could smell him: his breath. He'd been eating something spicy, sausage maybe, and his warm breath trick- led toward her over the carpet. Could he smell the bath oils on her? She thought she might be a yard from the door, and he was coming through. She rolled to one side, a slow, inching, agonizing movement, holding the towel bar between her breasts.
Where was she? Why wasn 't she answering? She could be standing over him, pointing a.45 at his skull, tightening on the trigger. The injustice of his death gripped him, and for a full beat, two beats, he waited for the crashing blow that would kill him. There was nothing. He reached ahead in the dark, feeling the baseboard on the wall ahead, sliding his hand to the right, finding the corner and the doorway. The bathroom… that noise she made, that sounded like it came out of a bathroom, the hollow-sharp sound you get from tile walls… What was she doing in there? Moving a few inches at a time, he crossed through the doorway, low-crawling toward the bathroom. Nothing from her. Nothing. Maybe she's not armed…
"Don't got no gun, bitch. That's it. Well, I'm putting my gun away, you know? You know why? 'Cause I'm getting my knife out. Cut open Larry Hart with it, you know? You know what I did then? After I cut him? You know?"