Even what to do now, when the guests in Room 5 had overstayed and wouldn’t answer the door.
Sterling knocked three times, as she was trained, calling for Mr. and Mrs. Lime after each. No one responded.
She pressed her ear to the door, but heard only the whoosh of her own blood flowing. Even the radio quieted, pausing between shows, playing a soft fuzz of static that ebbed like anxious breaths.
She returned to the office, reconnected the phones, and called Room 5. No answer. She redialed. Again nothing. Sterling eyed Fernando and said, “Code Strawberry.”
Fernando stared. “Are you serious?”
“They overstayed without collateral. It’s policy.”
Fernando tensed. Sterling reassured him. “It’ll befine.Mrs. Lime isn’t shy. Come on, my little starlet, put those acting classes to work,” she said, nudging him towards the kitchen with a gentle pat on his bum.
He returned promptly, pushing a cart topped with champagne and a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries. After saluting Sterling, he rolled towards Room 5.
Sterling closed her eyes, listening. Fernando knocked three times before his key clicked in the lock. The door creaked. To wake the overstayed couple, he shouted, “Monsieur Lime! I have the champagne and strawberries you so adamantly requested! I’m coming in now—”
His gasp was silenced by the door snapping shut.
The radio kicked in with Maximilian’s news hour.
Sterling ran, but stilled outside Room 5’s door. Her two roles, Concierge and worried friend, fought for dominance. She knocked once instead of the required three times, eased it open, and announced herself in the calmest voice she could muster.
“Mr. and Mrs. Lime? Is everything okay?”
Fernando’s voice came from deep inside the dim, narrow suite, muffled by the curtains dividing it: “Come in. Oh God, they’re…”
She couldn’t work out the last word. But she could tell he was crying.
The padded door shut behind her, muting the distant church bells that chimed the city awake at seven. The windowless 1,001 Nights Suite disregarded the whims of the clock. In Room 5, it was always midnight, and the stars were always shining.
She skipped over the threshold’s creaky floorboard and entered the sitting room, where the abandoned catering cart was squeezed between lush furnishings. The corner lamp cast a dim red haze, designed for ambience rather than clarity, that glinted off the gold oil lamp beside it. A genie’s lamp, like in the stories. On the wall was a mural of Scheherazade reclining in her palace bedroom, her bejeweled prison. The suite’s slow seduction was revealed as curtains between each of the three chambers were drawn aside like Salome’s veils.
Sterling continued into the darkness but froze when something squelched beneath her foot. With her hand pressed over her mouth, she inspected her shoe, finding the mutilated flesh of a chocolate-dipped strawberry pressed into the sole.
She swiped a cloth napkin from the cart, cleaned her shoe with it, and neatly folded and replaced it. The second rule of the Hotel Orient wascleanliness. They washed the secrets away with the laundry.
She pulled aside the damask curtain leading to the bedroom. The bed was arranged with folded blankets at one end and fluffed pillows at the other. Between them, sprawled on his back, was Mr. Lime.
He was still dressed in his gray suit. One foot hung off the mattress, his Italian loafer dangling from the toe of his argyle sock. His eyes stared at the draped folds on the ceiling and the dim lantern overhead.
When she stepped forward, she saw the blood.
It ran from the corners of Mr. Lime’s nose and mouth over the thick folds of his neck, where it settled in the spikes of his two-day stubble and stained the collar of his still-buttoned shirt.
She begged his open eyes to blink. They didn’t. He was dead.
— 8 —Acht
A gilded mirror hung above the bed, tilted down to provide a titillating view. From Sterling’s viewpoint, it framed a reflection of Mr. Lime’s lifeless left arm. His cuff was unbuttoned, his palm faced upward, begging for something. For a coin for Charon, for an answer, for more.
The scent of stale cigarettes that had seeped into his clothes hung in the air. Usually, rooms smelled like sweat and snuffed-out candles. Sterling’s breaths were shallow and quick as she looked towards the last room.
Fernando barred the way, curtain pulled to his chest like a child’s blanket. The serpent-shaped sconces in the bedroom clutched red bulbs between bared fangs, casting brutal crimson shadows across his face. Whatever was in there, he was protecting her from it.
She crept closer, sidestepping Mr. Lime’s feet. Fernando reached out to stop her. “Are you—”
“I’m sure,” she said.
