“I appreciate your meeting me here at this hour. Please apologize to your wife for me. Again.”
Hervé’s wife, Caterina, was yet another person who didn’t like me, though in this case it was probably for good reason. This wasn’t the first time I’d asked Hervé for help after hours.Wellafter hours.
“I see you brought supplies,” he said, nodding to the shoe box under my arm and the backpack slung over my shoulder.
“A few. Salts and a basic brew, a few crystals. Just the usual; I try to keep the backpack ready to go.”
“In case you need to cast in a hurry?”
“I’m sure you can imagine. With the way life is unfolding lately...” I trailed off with a shrug.
He grinned. “Let’s give it a go. You really think they’ll let us in?”
“Trust me.”
“Always, my friend. But just to be sure, why don’t I wait out of sight while you ring the bell?”
I saw his point. I wasn’t all that intimidating in my floral cotton dress—better suited to a summer picnic than a midnight assignation—tangerine cardigan, turquoise Keds, and ponytail. Hervé was another matter altogether.
The Hotel Marais was a tall, thin Victorian-era building, squashed in between a large residential building and a small theater advertising a midnight all-nude male revue. Along the facade, several flags wafted lazily in the night breeze: those of France, the United States, and California with its iconic grizzly bear, and a blue one with stars that I didn’t recognize.
I climbed a short set of stone steps and rang the after-hours bell.
As a child who was shunned by the larger community of Jarod, Texas, I had developed a bit of a complex about having doors slammed in my face. But since moving to San Francisco, I had been so embraced by my friends that I had started to relax. Right now, though, the old feelings of rejection came rushing back, and I was grateful to have a friend like Hervé by my side. Hidden and crouching, but by my side nonetheless.
A thin man peered through the glass door. Young, probably a college student working a second job. He was dressed in dark slacks and a plaid shirt, but his brown hair was tousled and his eyes puffy, as though he’d been asleep.
“May I help you?” he said through the locked doors. He wore a name tag: Shawn.
“Could you open the door, Shawn?”
He sized me up, then buzzed the door open. Shawn’s eyes widened in alarm when Hervé joined me at thetop of the stairs. Shawn was forced to step back as the three of us crowded into the small foyer.
“Are you... I’m sorry. Are you guests?” Shawn asked nervously.
“No, we—”
“Sorry, but we don’t have any rooms to let.”
“We’d like to see room two seventeen, please,” I said, stroking my medicine bag and focusing my intent.
“That’s a... That room’s not available.”
“I understand. We just want to take a quick look.”
“There’s crime scene tape up.”
I took his hand in mine, gazed into his eyes, and concentrated. I wasn’t always able to influence others, but in general I had good luck with people in the hospitality business, probably because their job was to accommodate their patrons.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Shawn. I’m sorry to have awakened you so late. We’ll only need a few minutes. Why don’t you give me the key to room two seventeen, and then you can go back to sleep? I’ll leave the key at the desk on my way out. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Shawn relaxed. “Um... okay, I guess it’d be all right.”
The foyer led into a narrow hall; to the right was a cozy parlor, and to the left a small chamber filled with tiny café tables; a coffee machine, a stack of newspapers, and a platter of cookies rested on a counter. Beyond that was an office crammed with two desks topped by computers.
A statue of Joan of Arc in full armor stood at the end of the hallway; another flag and several maps of France added to the Gallic flavor of the boutique hotel. But what really caught my eye were the delicate, colorful paintings of mythological creatures along the tops of the walls, on the door panels, and winding up the columns. There were allegorical and humorous figuresand animals, along with a framework of garlands, borders, fans, piers, and cartouches with landscapes or narrative scenes. Unless I missed my guess, these were copies of the ceiling frescoes from the Uffizi museum in Florence.
“Grottesche,”I said. Hervé raised an eyebrow, and I nodded at the paintings.
