Ex-Purgatory: A Novel (14 page)

He cranked the hot water and washed his hands twice. The water felt hot, but not hot enough to scald him. He scrubbed his face, too, and snorted some water into his nose. It rinsed out red, then pink, and then clear.

His fingers were free of all residue. The nails were clean. The knuckles didn’t have any cuts or scrapes.

None at all.

He turned his head and pulled at his ear. The dark-haired dead woman had chewed on it for almost a minute. He twisted the lobe back and forth, but couldn’t see a scratch. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled his collar down. His shoulder wasn’t even bruised where the other monster had gnawed on him.

A young man walked in wrapped in a towel. He was carrying a bucket of shower supplies. He glanced at George, smirked, and headed into one of the shower stalls. A moment later the sound of running water echoed in the bathroom.

George buttoned up and headed back out to his car. He stood by it for a moment and looked around. A trio of students walked across the parking lot. He closed his eyes, counted to five, and looked at them again.

Still just students.

He dropped into the driver’s seat and pushed the key into the ignition. It took him a minute to gather his thoughts. Then he pulled out his phone. He tapped a few keys and closed his eyes again while it rang.

The ringing stopped. Nick’s voice echoed over the phone. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“I need a favor.”

“Yeah, sure, what?”

George paused for a moment. “It’s a face-to-face favor,” he said, “but I can’t get over there, and I don’t think I can wait until next time we go out.”

“Okay.”

“I need a work favor.”

“What?”

“I need you to find out something for me.”

He could hear Nick’s brow furrowing. “Okay.”

“You said your agency represents pretty much every big name, right? Actors, directors, models.”

“Yeah, right. If you know their name, odds are pretty good they’re with us.”

“What about Karen Quilt?”

Nick made a sound like a grunt. “Pretty sure she is, yeah.”
The
click-click-click
of a keyboard echoed over the phone’s speaker. “Yeah, we rep her. And I can tell you right now, she’s not dead.”

“It isn’t that.”

“You want an autograph or something?”

“I need to know what hotel she’s staying at.”

Silence stretched out between them. When Nick spoke again, his voice was lower and more muffled. “George,” he said, “I can’t give that sort of thing out.”

“I just—”

“I can get
fired
for giving out that kind of information,” stressed Nick.

“It’s important,” George said. “I swear. It’s nothing creepy or stalker-y, it’s just …”

“Just what?”

“Do you trust me?”

“What?”

“Yes or no. Do you trust me?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Nick. “I’d trust you with my sister. Or money, even.”

“Then just believe me,” George said. “It’s important, okay?”

Another silence lived out its brief life. “No,” said Nick. “Sorry, this is one of those lines I can’t cross, y’know?”

“Nick, please—”

“No,” he interrupted. “The conversation’s over, okay? Done. Finished.” There was more tapping of keys. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll talk to you later.”

Nick hung up.

George slumped in the driver’s seat. It had been a stupid request. Nick had told him horror stories of people doing similar things. He’d just become one of
those
people.

Except those people couldn’t pick up dumpsters. They didn’t get attacked by walking corpses. And if they were, he was pretty sure the monsters’ teeth didn’t break on their skin.

He had to find Karen Quilt.

He reached for the ignition. His fingers were three inches from the key when the car started. The engine purred. The dash lit up. The radio flared to life. It was between songs. “That,” said
the deejay, “was totally awesome. Good to see you in action again, man.”

He froze. Had he turned the key? It was a muscle-memory thing he did a lot of the time without thinking. There were so many things going on in his mind he might’ve started the car and then just blanked it out until he went to turn it again. Maybe a wiring issue? He could’ve turned the ignition earlier and it didn’t engage until he moved and made something in the car shift. It was a lame explanation, but of all the things going on, his car starting without a hitch didn’t rate that high. Heck, a wiring problem might even explain why it kept stalling in the mornings.

The deejay launched into a diatribe about divorcées and saints. George shut the radio off. How did it keep getting back to religious stations, anyway? More bad wiring?

He brushed it from his mind. He needed to head home and scour some articles online. Maybe he could find a hint about where Karen Quilt was staying. He’d been assuming it was a hotel, but maybe she had a condo somewhere in Hollywood or Santa Monica or somewhere. Common sense told him there were enough celebrity-stalking websites out there that someone had to have a general sense of where she was.

His phone beeped. Nick had sent him a text.

George smiled and backed his car out.

The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills stood tall, flanked by a handful of massive palm trees. It bristled with balconies but still had the color and faint lines of Spanish architecture. The entrance was discreetly blocked off from the rest of the world with a series of hedges and smaller trees.

George drove past the entrance. Through the gap in the high
shrubs he saw several valets and very few parking spaces. He went a little farther down and turned onto a side street. It took him another few minutes to find parking, and two more to find a sign that told him how long his car would be safe there.

He walked back to the hotel. He paused to tuck his shirt in and brush himself off before he stepped through the pillars of greenery and onto the grounds. There were a few life-sized iron statues of people scattered around the entrance. He kept glimpsing them in his peripheral vision as he crossed the driveway. Their stillness was a bit unnerving. They flickered in his eyes and for a moment he saw them covered with years of green tarnish.

The men at the valet station didn’t give him a second glance. George was sure he wasn’t the first person to dodge valet parking. He returned the doorman’s tight smile and stepped inside. The lobby looked expensive in an elegant way. It was the kind of expense that didn’t feel the need to flaunt it by being oversized.

He saw the counter off to the side and tried to decide if he needed to speak with the regular clerk or the concierge. His experience in fancy hotels was limited to a pair of parties with Nick, neither of them at this hotel. He chose the main desk on the hope lower-ranking staff members would be more helpful than higher ones. A slim man and woman in matching shirts and blazers stood behind the high counter.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said the man as he approached. “Welcome to the Four Seasons. How can I help you?”

“Hi,” George said. “I’m trying to get in touch with one of your guests.”

The man’s hands slid to a keyboard. “Of course. What room number?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have it.”

“Name?”

He drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Karen. Karen Quilt.”

The man looked up from his computer screen. He locked eyes with George for a moment, then his gaze slipped to something just over George’s shoulder. There was a large mirror behind the desk, and in it George saw a man by the elevators straighten up.
He was a large man, as tall as George but wider in the chest. He wore a black tee with his dark suit.

“Is Miss Quilt expecting you, sir?” asked the clerk.

“I’m not sure,” he said. It felt like an honest answer. He looked at the phone by the man’s hand. “Could you tell her … George is here.”

“George …?”

“George Bailey.”

The man’s face twitched. Not in a good way. His eyes flitted back to the large man wearing the T-shirt with his suit.

George was ready for it. He’d been dealing with it his whole life. “No,” he said, “really. That’s my name.” He slid his driver’s license from his wallet and held it out to the clerk.

The man looked at the license, then to George, and then back at the license. He tilted it between his fingers under the light, then handed it back. “You have very cruel parents,” he said with a polite smile.

“They were pretty cool past the whole name thing,” said George.

“However, Miss Quilt was very clear she did not want to be disturbed this afternoon.”

“I know,” ad-libbed George, “but this is kind of important, and she’s not answering her cell phone.” He decided to risk winging it. “Neither is her assistant.”

The clerk sighed. “I will check, sir, but I’m quite sure what the answer will be.”

George put up his hands. “If she doesn’t want to talk, I’ll move along quietly.”

“Yes,” said the clerk, “you will.”

His fingers danced on the keyboard’s number pad and he picked up the phone. He turned halfway from George so the handset muffled his voice. He spoke for a few moments, listened, spoke again, and then listened again. His eyes flitted from George down to his computer screen.

George turned away and tried to look casual. He gazed around the lobby. His eyes met the large man’s for a moment, and George gave the man a polite nod that wasn’t returned.

“Sir,” said the clerk. “She’s waiting for you. Sixteenth floor, the Royal suite.” He gestured at the elevators.

George stood for a moment, just as stunned by the news as the clerk was. He was pretty sure the clerk was hiding it better, though. He managed a “thank you” before he walked away.

The elevators were all mirrors and brass. Like the lobby, they felt expensive. George looked at his reflection in the doors and brushed a few more wrinkles out of his jacket. He saw his boots and wished he’d switched into sneakers or something more casual. He was pretty sure there was a pair of sneakers in his car. He wondered how long it would delay him to run and get them.

The elevator doors opened to reveal a smaller lobby, just as elegant. He checked the signs and headed down the left-hand hallway. It was dotted with small tables and flower arrangements.

A man was waiting for him at the door. He was maybe an inch taller than George, but slim. His dark clothes accented that slimness. The man’s steel-colored hair was bristle-short, and a pair of round spectacles balanced across his nose. George couldn’t decide if the John Lennon glasses made the man look more like a hipster assistant or some sort of undercover Nazi officer.

“Mr. Bailey?” His voice was dry, but not in a weak way. It was the kind of dryness found inside pyramids. A powerful rasp with tons of weight and history behind it.

“Yeah.” George nodded and held out his hand.

The man made no move to take it. He didn’t even seem to notice it. He gestured George through the open door and closed it behind them.

George followed the man into the hotel suite. It was cream colored and gigantic. He was pretty sure his entire apartment would fit inside the main room. One wall was all windows and French doors leading out to two different balconies. He walked past a sprawling, L-shaped couch and a glass-topped table to stare at a flat screen the size of his bed. George was pretty sure any one of them cost more than his monthly rent.

“You have ten minutes,” said the man. He pointed at a chair with two fingers. The chair looked expensive, too.

“Thank you, Father,” someone said.

George turned and saw the woman on the couch. She was slouched just low enough that he hadn’t seen her there. She set her book aside and straightened up without using her hands. Her body flexed and pulled her up to a sitting position. She also gestured at the chair.

Living in Los Angeles, George had seen more than a few celebrities. He’d run into Lindsay Lohan once hiking up in Runyon Canyon, and seen Scott Bakula at a pizza place in Larchmont. One time, around Christmas, he’d stood in line at Target with Biff from
Back to the Future
, and one summer he’d sat across from the redhead from
Six Feet Under
at a coffee shop for half an hour. It made him aware of how human celebrities were. Without special lighting or an hour of makeup, when you just saw them from any old angle, most of them lost a degree of beauty and appeal. They were still all a lot more attractive than him, but it was clear they were just people like everyone else.

Karen Quilt looked better in person than she did in photographs and on television. She wore a black tank top and form-hugging sweatpants. If she had any makeup on he couldn’t tell. Her dark hair draped across her bare shoulders. Her arms were muscular.

Her gaze flitted down to his shoes and back up to his face. She had gorgeous eyes. Sky blue. They had an edge to them that was hard but didn’t look cruel. He kept watching them, hoping to see a spark of recognition.

If there was one, she hid it well.

“George Bailey,” she said. “The main character in the 1946 motion picture
It’s a Wonderful Life
. I would recall meeting someone with such a distinctive name.”