Jenn had come to the side of the mattress to physically block me from getting up. “You need to stay down.”
“She left yesterday? How long ago? I have to find her. How long ago was yesterday?” I sat up, tried to get up, then nearly stumbled as I took my first step on the carpet.
“Adam.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You need to lie down.”
“I know. What do you have on you? You must have an official conference guide.” I pointed to her purse. “With keynote speakers.”
“Huh?”
“Do you have a brochure for the event?”
She’d blocked me from getting to my feet, which, based on my state, didn’t take much. “I know you need me to be supportive and that’s what I’m doing but I’m gonna be honest with you and tell you that some random girl whose skill is to get inside men’s heads has gotten into yours—”
“No.”
“And now you’re—Let me finish—You’re refusing to believe you’ve lost objectivity.”
“Can I see your brochure?” I pointed to her purse. “They have the profile pics. If I can glance through the pics, I can—”
She held her purse away from me.
“Seriously?” I said to her. “Seriously?!”
This wouldn’t come cheap.
I was going to have to negotiate with her.
So, I told the entire story, start to finish.
“Okay . . .”
Against my better judgment I told Jennifer Graham everything I could, summarizing from day one, hour one, everything that’d happened, omitting only a handful of tangential details, definitely omitting what happened in this bed earlier, but providing a clear sense of just how convoluted the situation had become, including a description of what I hadn’t told Katarina—which was how the usher had dealt with me. My whole story took twelve minutes to tell, twelve minutes I hated to waste but Jenn wouldn’t budge without it.
“And so now I need a brochure of some sort because if I can identify this tall, red haired, high-pitched forty-ish-year-old man, I can predict where she’s going next.”
She’d listened patiently. She took a little longer to self-deliberate than I anticipated but that was a credit to how much respect she showed someone else’s point of view.
“Look . . .” she said. “I get that she went through a lot at an early age, I get it. It’s worse than I can ever imagine, I myself live a privileged life, and I can’t imagine how hard hers was. Yes, I get it, but right now you are being used. This girl is using you.”
“I agree. Fuck. I’m not saying she’s not using me. I agree I’m getting played. But I don’t think that’s a moral lapse on my part. She’s in a bad situation and I can get her out.”
“She’s not being honest with you and you don’t even know what that situation is. She burned a man alive—”
“We don’t know that.”
“Oh, we know the cops think you did it.”
“Are you going to give me the brochure?”
“No.”
“You don’t believe me?! You really after all these years think I would make this shit up? I mean, if we—”
“He’s not listed.”
“—can’t—What?”
She nodded.
“Who’s not listed?”
“The man you’re talking about,” said Jenn. “His name is Hans Schering. He’s not listed.”
“The . . .?”
“Hans Schering, whom you described, is not in the banking industry.”
“You know him?”
“He’s a commercial architect who has residence here. Amsterdam. Yes, I know him. I’m the one who coordinates the entire earth, remember? Yes, I can probably find his address in the directory. No, I don’t want to because, no, I don’t believe our bank sends top executives to some dark, secret dungeon to drink goblets of blood. You spent an entire day on psychedelic drugs and now you’re fighting an infection and feverish. You’re not hot on the trail of some evil mastermind. So, if I help you at all, if at all, it’s because you’re going to warn Hans not to touch any psychopath hookers today. For all our sakes, understood? A warning. Understood?”
“A warning. Understood.”