"You'll stay in Mr. Gray's house during your visit," Janet said as she led Laura toward the stairs. "I think you'll find the accommodations satisfactory." Laura's amusement rose to a nervous chuckle as her eyes flitted from the works of Renoir to Matisse to artists whose signatures she didn't recognize.
"I do believe that you jog," Janet either said or asked; Laura couldn't tell which.
"Uhm, yes, I do." Janet must have guessed, Laura decided, from the nylon running shoes Laura wore, which squeaked loudly on the polished floors. Laura was relieved when she finally stepped off the hard wood and marble and onto the Oriental rugs fastened securely to the stairs by gleaming brass rods.
"You will find that walkways parallel most of the roads. The air is a bit thinner up here — we're at almost five thousand feet — but it is a bit cooler. Down in the Village, it can get humid and much warmer."
"The Village?" Laura asked, again smiling in amusement. The master, living atop the mountain in his castle. And the village down below.
"That's what we call the residential quarter where the employees and their families live. There are about five thousand inhabitants, and they held a competition earlier this year to give it a name. 'Workers' Paradise' was the winner, but it didn't stick."
They reached the top of the stairs and headed down a short hallway whose ceilings were domed and lit with soft, indirect lighting.
Everywhere the detail of the home's finish was complete — no expense had been spared. Why should it? Laura thought, imagining the mega-rich Gray commissioning ice sculptures for his amusement on sunny summer days and lighting Cuban cigars with hundred-dollar bills.
A succession of French doors stood open. The passage dead-ended at a hallway that curved gently out of sight to the left and right. This had to be the building she'd seen on the way up the mountain. On the outside it had looked like a resort hotel. On the inside, it looked like… Well, Laura had never seen anything like it.
Janet turned left, and Laura followed. The few doors they passed were all on the right side of the hall — on the interior of the concave hallway. The decor was less cluttered in this part of the house, just the occasional niche filled with statuary spotlighted by pale illumination. Maybe Gray was on a budget, Laura thought.
Throw everything you've got on the entrance and scrimp on the guest quarters.
Janet stopped at a twelve-foot door, which she opened into a room with fourteen-foot coffered ceilings. Wainscoting adorned the lower walls, its intricate woodwork painted glossy white. The wallpaper above was powder-blue, which transitioned to the deeper blues of the heavy draperies that were held gathered in bunches by ties. The sun streamed through the windows behind the curtains — the entire wall of glass thinly veiled behind white gauze.
Laura wandered in, marveling at the expanse of the room. A thick Oriental rug covered the hardwood floors, the sheer size of it making Laura feel small and out of place. There were bookcases with leather-bound books and tables covered with porcelain figurines.
Massive gold frames bounded oil paintings under lamps with brass shades. A grand piano stood unnoticed in a far corner, the sunlight reflecting off its black lacquered top polished clean of any trace of dust.
"This is your sitting room," Janet said, leading her toward an open doorway on the far side of the rug. Laura followed Janet past a full-sized antique desk, past sofas forming a cove around a crackling fireplace, past a bar with what Janet said was a full kitchen behind dark wood panels.
Through the door they came to the bedroom. It was spacious, but not as absurdly large as the sitting room. It had a cozier feel.
Stacks of pillows bulged atop a broad four-poster bed. Janet pulled open the curtains, and the late-afternoon sun streamed in.
Laura walked up to the window, which ran floor to ceiling the full length of the wall.
She drew a deep breath, letting it out with the word "Wow!"
The "Village" lay half buried beneath the foliage nearly a mile below. The jungle, the open green lawns, the launch pads the black sand beaches, and the eddies of blues and greens of the sea were all right there beneath her bedroom.
"I love seeing this again through the eyes of someone new to the house," Janet said. "I remember when I first arrived. The dreams I had about life in this home."
Laura looked over to see Janet's expression change completely. "Well," she said, returning to the tone of a bellman on a presentation tour of Laura's suite, "all the views are on this side of the house."
She wasn't looking at Laura or the view. "The house itself is carved out of the mountain's side, you see."
The moment — whatever it was — had passed, and Laura turned back to peer out across Gray's island. In the center of the vista stood the enormous, windowless building rising from the treeless green field.
"What is that huge thing?" Laura asked, but she felt no need to point.
There was only one structure that dominated the landscape below.
"That's the assembly building. That's where most of the manufacturing takes place. But you'll get a tour later, I'm sure."
Janet next led their expedition through the marble bathroom, which had a whirlpool so large you could do laps, and private rooms for the toilet and bidet. On seeing the separate sauna and steam room, Laura muttered, "No bathroom's complete without them, I always say," to the amusement of her guide.
They then ventured into a closet that was itself a large room. It had full-length mirrors in front of raised platforms for fittings, upholstered benches and low seats in case she needed to rest, and row after row of rails for her wardrobe. Laura immediately grew self-conscious. The clothes she'd brought would fit on three or four hangers in one tiny corner of the closet, which was every inch the size of her entire apartment back in Cambridge.
When the orientation was finally over, Janet looked at Laura — waiting.
"Oh," Laura stumbled, "this ought to do fine."
Janet burst out laughing, and she must have felt it inappropriate because she covered her mouth and turned away. She held her hand up, then finally gathered herself enough to say, "I'm so sorry."
She ended the fit of laughter with a smile of genuine enjoyment of the moment that made Laura wonder just how much Janet got out.
"Well," Janet continued, composed, "Mr. Gray's valet will see to your garments. If you need or want anything — personal items which you might have overlooked, articles of clothing, food or drink that isn't in the kitchen, anything — just dial zero on the telephone."
"What if I want to make long-distance calls?" Laura asked. She meant to Jonathan, who'd made her promise she'd call, and to whom she couldn't wait to describe what she'd seen so far. But the image of the card with the FBI number in her wallet flashed through her head.
"Just dial it like you would in the States," Janet replied.
Laura's eyes were drawn in disbelief to the full tea service that was laid out and ready for her use amid an array of sofas and plush armchairs. My closet has a tearoom, she thought in stunned disbelief.
When she looked around, Janet was gone. Laura was all alone.
She found her way back to her bedroom and saw that her bag had appeared sometime during the tour. The room was still. There didn't seem to be any noise in the great house.