The Key

59

The elevator doors slid open and Dick stepped on to the blue-grey carpet of the seventh floor. He stood for a moment, scanning the long empty corridor, listening for any sounds through the early-morning quiet of the hotel. Turning right as the receptionist had instructed, and moving silently despite his size, he listened to each room as he went by.

He passed a tray covered with the gnawed remains of a room-service order, a couple of doors with ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs dangling from their handles, but other than that the corridor appeared to be unoccupied.

The hydraulic arm of a fire door hissed as he pushed through into the corridor furthest from the main stairwell. His own room was just inside, but he drifted past, drawn by sharp predatory instincts and the faint murmur of something at the end of the hallway. He followed the sound, barely more than a whisper, until he stood by the door it was coming from.

Dick reached out and touched its surface with his fingertips, feeling the tiny vibrations coming from the other side. Then he leaned forward, and pressed his ear to the door. It was fire regulated, which meant it was solid and therefore an excellent conductor of sound waves. Inside the room he could hear a TV tuned to a news channel and beneath it, softer and less distinct, the sound of two people talking.

He shifted his position, careful not to make any noise, and pressed his ear tighter to the surface. He had planned to improvise his way into her room under the guise of room service or housekeeping and break her neck the moment she opened the door. But another person put an entirely different complexion on things. He would have to wait a while longer.

For a brief moment he thought about kicking the door in with one mighty blow and taking his chances. It was what his old self would have done. But that was not the way he worked any more. He had learned to contain his violent exuberance and form his feelings into words. Words gave him control, and the word for this situation was clear:

Patience