Pandemonium

arms down to hide the bandages. The lobby was too cold; chills ran up my neck. With each passing moment, I felt sicker. Finally, Amra said, “Excuse me? Can someone help us?”

One of the clerks, a black woman much taller than me, reluctantly broke away from the group. “Checking out?” she said. She barely looked at us; her attention was still back with the huddle.

“Hi,” I said. My voice was gravelly, and I was conscious of the stink of my breath. “Uh, last night . . .”

Last night what? I trashed your hotel, pummeled some security guards, and was arrested, but I really need the bag I left behind. Jesus, even if they had the duffel, they might not give it to me. How many thousands of dollars did I owe them?

Amra spoke up again. “Last night, when we left the hotel, we left a bag behind in the room.”

I looked at her. That “we” touched me.

“What room was it?” the clerk asked.

Amra looked up at me. I blanked, then tried to reel it out of memory. “The thirtieth floor,” I said. “Thirty fifteen?”

She typed on a keyboard tucked under the lip of the desk; typed again; then studied the screen, her expression suddenly cold. There was no way to see what she was looking at, but it didn’t require much of a guess.

“Delacorte Pierce?” she said.

I nodded, feeling a stone drop into my gut.

“Could you wait one moment. The manager would like to speak with you about the bill.”

It was not a request.

The clerk went to the doorway and leaned in past the other clerks. The wall behind the desk strobed with colored light. I looked over my shoulder, the movement hurting, and froze. Outside, a police car had pulled into the entranceway, lights flashing. A second squad car pulled in behind it, then an ambulance. The lobby pulsed with blues and reds.

“Del?” Amra put her warm hand to my damp neck. Sweat had broken out down my back. I finally put a name to the emotion that had been growing in me since I’d woken up in the drunk tank: dread. Something bad had happened last night.

“Dr. Ram,” I said, almost whispering it.

“What?”

Two paramedics came through the door with a wheeled stretcher between them, escorted by four police officers. Everyone in the lobby stepped out of the way and froze, the pedestrian version of pulling onto the shoulder.

A few yards from me, the wall opened—a door disguised as paneling—and a short white man with precisely cut white hair strode out, followed by two other uniformed clerks. They intercepted the paramedics and police in the middle of the lobby. The white-haired man, some kind of manager, exchanged a few words with the paramedics, then led the group to the elevators. I suddenly recognized a face among the onlookers: Mother Mariette, the bald priest I’d seen talking with Dr. Ram yesterday. She wore a gray smocklike thing with baggy sleeves, black leggings, heavy boots. No clerical collar. She pressed back against a column until the cops and paramedics passed. She watched them for a second, then strode toward me and the exit, pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her. Her eyes were fixed on the exit, her expression determined. I fought the urge to duck behind Amra. But I had to know.

“Amra, just try to get my bag. Please.”

I walked away quickly—as quickly as I could, with the muscles of my back seized tight—until I was in the priest’s path.

“Mother Mariette,” I said.

Her eyes flicked toward me, but she kept moving, angling to step around me.

She didn’t recognize me, and I wasn’t surprised. She’d barely glanced at me when she spoke to Valis on the way into the hotel, and she hadn’t even seen me in the bar.

I stepped directly into her way, forcing her to stop. She looked me in the face for the first time. She was not tall, just past my shoulder. From anything farther than ten feet, her narrow face and long neck