I DECIDED TO leave the hotel, alone. Nothing would matter once I left. If I simply disappeared and didn’t return, there would be no shooting. Lily would live.
I cut through the ballroom on my way to the back exit. It was dark and littered with chairs. On the wall played images from the accidental video, the steps to Lily’s apartment, the shadows cast by me and Screwdriver as he carried her home, her blood splattering on dusty steps. Despite the chilled air, I broke into a sweat. My head hurt more than it had moments earlier, pulse tapping behind my eyes. I wanted to look away, but that was hard, too.
Most of the Elders I passed watched the flashing wall, alert and attentive, hands on knees, fingers worrying along pant seams. One or two cried, tried to keep it quiet, failed, cried anyway. There was no consoling, no hands on backs, no kind words. They were too like me to find and offer consolation in any way except mutual suffering. I walked through the scattered selves, drew attention as I passed. It would have taken effort not to notice the suddenly steeled eyes that followed me. Had something changed from my last time through here, or would they pretend to sleep when the Suit passed?
Seventy sat near the projector, turned slightly away from me but aware of my approach. Had I really thought the Inventor could lure him upstairs? I’d unleashed my own problems yet again. I sat next to him. We stared at the wall for a few minutes. Above us the video played to the end and Seventy hit a button on the remote, the tape rewound, still playing, pulling everything backward at a slightly-too-fast pace. The gentle bounces of the camera became harsh shaking, a panic as the point of view was no longer that of the pursuer but the pursued.
I said, “How many times do you show it to them?”
“Oh, I lost count. It’s all they care about.”
On the wall the staggering figure holding the woman lurched backward down the stairs.
“I prefer the film this way,” Seventy, all nostalgic, whispered. “Easier to take, knowing that she’s gaining life as it goes on, rather than losing it.” He never had quite the same expression as the other Elders. Understanding and secrets floated behind his eyes, words I knew he wouldn’t share. What event had changed the quality of him, I couldn’t imagine. I wondered exactly how tethered he was to the others that he alone could treat me well. No, not well. Respectfully.
“I’m leaving the hotel.”
“I know you’ll try.” Eyes on the wall, shuddered lights reflected back at me, my silhouette at the center, inside what would be my own pupils.
At last his face turned toward me. “No. I heard. Just not going to happen’s the problem. Others won’t let you.”
“The Youngsters—”
“Not Youngsters I’m talking about. You’ve got to be a bit more self-aware, pun intended. These fellas haven’t been too happy with you ever since you put on that suit.” His hand stayed on the remote, fingers on buttons, waited for the video’s start, waited to press the action forward again. But in that hand I saw muscles twitch. He tried, with effort, to force calm into his limbs. How much of that was just elderly tremors? I wondered. How much was what I feared, that he was no more in control of events than I was, that the Elders were as much a mob as the Youngsters? He forced a casual smile to his lips. “You’ve been under the gun yourself. Will be again if you try to leave. And I heard that your raft is missing.”
“I’ll just go find one of the Youngsters’ rafts.”
“That would mean leaving the hotel. And that’s not happening.”
For an instant I couldn’t help myself, looked up at the wall, saw only Screwdriver’s shadow, distorted by Lily’s hanging arm and hair. I looked away, saw dark eyes shine in my direction, the video playing in each one. Elders watched me watch them.
“You told me the Youngsters were the threat.”
“They were and are. But right now you’ve got to move forward with your mind on who you’ll be, not who you were.”
Seventy leaned back in his chair. He was done with talk. The rows of heads turned away from me to watch their film. I edged close to the wall and made for the hallway, aware that some of them must have watched me leave. I rushed to the front doors and looked through the glass to the street. Elders waited, hands in pockets, eyes locked through the dirty glass on mine. I gave an absurd wave, and they returned one, smiles on their faces too genuine.
Testing them was pointless. I’m sure more would show up if I tried. I was tired of everything. Something told me to hide in the finished room. Up the main stairs, I heard only dripping water. The Youngsters’ hunt for the Suit and Lily must have taken them upstairs by now. Possibly as far as the dumbwaiter. I found myself on the fifth floor, in front of that door unlike the others. Clean and cared for. My door, open. I sat on the bed under the burning lights and looked at the mess the Suit had left. The bed was rumpled, the video equipment still warm. I checked the bottle under the bed and found it nearly empty, as I knew I would. I finished what remained. Beside it was the brown paper bag. Written on it was the message in my handwriting—“In case of emergency, break glass”—the message that I hadn’t written. My hands shook as I read it.
The bathroom sparkled with splashed water. I added to the puddles, washed my face, my neck. Suddenly I was desperate to wash away the filth of the Drunk and stripped to the waist. I looked at the reflection in the mirror, watched water drip from long whiskers, run down my neck and onto my chest. My cheek glowed red with Screwdriver’s punch. My hair hung in greasy ropes to either side of my face. I had never seen myself this filthy before. I washed myself again, stripped naked, scrubbed at myself with wet hands. I looked around the bathroom and found no soap but a pile of scratchy towels. I wet one in the sink, ran it over myself again and again, turned it gray on one side and switched to the other side, then another towel. Standing before my reflection, cold, tired, bruised, I couldn’t care what might have happened before. I held a strand of my long hair in my hand and pulled at it, felt the grease it left on my fingertips. I remembered the shooting, the hooded eyes of the Drunk, the angry whispered words condemning whomever they lit upon. Perhaps me, perhaps Lily. No one. Who did I blame for this? I pushed back my hair and looked at my face, my eyes. Red and puffy, they blamed no one. The Suit needed that, to see my eyes, to recognize I wasn’t a threat.
The liquor bottle smashed easily in the tub, curtain drawn, reduced to a handful of large shards. I picked up the largest shard and turned it in my hand until I found the best angle, careful to avoid cutting myself. I ran water and went to work with the glass blade. Handfuls of hair fell away, shaved with a minimum of skin cut free. The water ran. Hair clogged the drain, the bowl began to fill. I worked blind on the back of my scalp, yelped when I nicked myself, brought my hand back covered in blood, ignored it and cut more hair. I felt with oversensitive fingers for hair too long to be called stubble and worked the glass edge at it. At last the uneven shave was done. My scalp ran red in some places, but not for long, I imagined. I looked nothing like the Body. His beard wasn’t on my face. If I died, I couldn’t be him.
I hoped I’d miss the gathering upstairs but knew I wouldn’t no matter what I did. Still naked, I climbed into bed and fell into a dream where I managed to bury the gun in the soil behind my childhood home and walk away, certain that no one saw, no one knew. I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke to the sound of water splashing on the bathroom tile. I hadn’t turned off the hair-clogged sink. It had overflowed, and an inch of water covered the carpet. I stood in it, watched the ripples move to the periphery and return. On the bathroom counter was the gun, the one I’d left on the toilet tank downstairs. Seeing it made me feel sick, but not surprised. Someone was placing all the necessary pieces together for a bloodletting. I felt sympathy then for Screwdriver, working so hard to do what he thought right, putting pieces into place that would lead to someone’s bleeding to death on the penthouse floor, and as I felt sympathy for him, I felt a little of it melt into me as well.
I dressed and pocketed the gun. The suit, still wet from rain and sliding under the bathroom stall’s door, stank like I’d already died in it. I put it on anyway, ill at its odor, its clammy grip. I stood at the door and pretended I wouldn’t go upstairs, pretended that the Elders weren’t outside the door at that moment, ready to put the gun in my hand and make me shoot myself or take that bullet as the Drunk had before.
I went upstairs.