All Things Thriller

November 1, 2020

Texas, the South, the NFL and the Waiting Game

So I love American football. I love it so much that right now, I’m a little bit irked that I used the term “American Football.”

I use the term because I realize that outside the U.S., football means soccer. I really do understand that intellectually, though I struggle with it emotionally.

Of course, it is not unusual for women to like football in the South. After all, the South is the home of the S.E.C., i.e., the Southeastern Conference of college football.

…Apparently, according to the movie Silver Linings Playbook, it’s not unusual for women in Philadelphia to like football either, which is good to know…I guess…

The S.E.C is a big deal. Or so I’m told. Personally, I don’t watch college ball unless Texas or Texas Tech is playing. And that’s because I don’t watch football like a nice girl from the South watches football.

No.

I watch it like a woman who grew up in Odessa, Texas watches football. And that’s a whole different feminine animal. Trust me.

West Texas is crazy about football.

That said, I don’t like the Dallas Cowboys. Never did.

I was a Houston Oiler fan.

So it’s only natural that I became a Tennessee Titan fan since they were the Oilers before they moved to Nashville and became the Titans even though, at the time, I had sworn off football altogether.

Sometimes you can love something too much, like my husband does.

Take what happened last week with the Titans for instance. We were playing the undefeated Pittsburg Steelers. The Titans were undefeated too, but no one was giving us a chance.

Sure enough, the first half was terrible. We were down 24-7 at halftime. We couldn’t keep the offense on the field–it didn’t matter if it was third and 20 or third and three–and we couldn’t get the defense off the field. It was brutal.

But the Titans charged back in the second half. We took advantage of the luck factor and made some big offensive plays. The much maligned defense made some stops, came up with some interceptions and forced a couple of field goals. With seconds remaining in regulation, the Titans kicked a field goal to go into overtime…and the kicker missed wide left.

Sure, our hopes were momentarily dashed. And, yeah, it hurt–falling on the jagged rocks of defeat always hurts. But it’s just football. And we’ve only lost one game.

Plus we fought almost all the way back. We captured big MO and forced him to play on our side. All in all I was pleased, even if we didn’t win the game.

But not my husband. He was super pissed at the kicker. For the rest of the day he sulked and didn’t want to watch the other games.

That’s no way to be. It’s childish.

Tomorrow I’m going to watch the Titans play Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals. I’m going to root my heart out for the Titans. I’m going to cheer every first down and plead for Joe Burrow to be sacked. Yes, hurt; not badly, and only temporarily, but shook up and discombobulated.

I’m going watch football all day.

And I’m going to pray.

And I’m going to wait.

October 31, 2020

Countdown To Soundness

“Our shared values define us more than our differences. And acknowledging those shared values can see us through our challenges today, if we have the wisdom to trust them again.”
John Mccain

October 30, 2020

Countdown To Synthesis

“Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom of one group of people and deny it to others.”
Coretta Scott King

October 29, 2020

Countdown to Reckoning

“If Ever the Time Should Come, when Vain and Aspiring men shall Possess the Highest seats in Government, our Country will Stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to Prevent its Ruin.”
Samuel Adams

October 28, 2020

The Rise of a Narcissistic Populist Despot: A Face in the Crowd, a Movie Directed by Elia Kazan, 1957; Political Drama

Larry Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is a shiftless drifter. A lay-about. A no-account. He is also one heck of a performer. Man alive can he strum that guitar! He can belt out the Country Blues with conviction too, but it’s the way he spins a story out of thin air, keeping folks hanging on his every word, that’s special.

But Larry drinks–a lot. Plus he’s a hot head, a letch, impulsive and–Damn!–he’s got a big mouth. It’s no wonder that when he’s discovered by an ambitious radio programmer he’s in jail.

Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) roams the backwoods and small town streets of rural Arkansas looking for talent for her radio program “A Face in the Crowd”. Smart, industrious and eager to prove herself as something more than just the boss’ niece (her uncle owns the small town radio station where she works) Marcia talks a local yokel sheriff into letting her record some of the prisoners in the drunk tank. She’s got her eye out for the next Will Rodgers or Lead Belly.

Initially, Rhodes–nursing a hangover–is cantankerous and uncooperative, but he eventually warms to the opportunity to show off. What’s more, this is his big chance to embarrass the sheriff in front of the pretty lady and that’s just what he does. He makes up a bawdy little number on the fly with witty lyrics that rubs the sheriff’s nose in his lack of sophistication. He works the room–stalks it, is a more apt description–with a beguiling confidence.

The gall of the man to strut like a king when he’s in vagrant’s clothes. So arrogant and yet so accessible, he wins over the occupants of the drunk tank and Marcia Jeffries too. She knows the it factor when she see’s it and Rhodes has got it. But he also has penchant for cruelty, which she quickly recognizes, though his gargantuan charm bats down the red flags–at first.

Ms. Jeffries uses her own considerable attributes, convincing the sheriff who is sweet on her, to let Rhodes out early and–yes, you guessed it–they embark in a business relationship that, initially, takes them to nearby Memphis and then all the way to the big time of national television vis-a-vis New York City, and in an ill advised affair that very nearly destroys them both.

Director Elia Kazan’s naturalistic signatures, e.g., sweat streaked shirts, unshaven faces, the curve of a woman’s breast straining against flimsy fabric, torn wall paper and grimy fixtures pulse like a carnival midway in A Face in the Crowd. So much so that during the arc of the film when opulence bests squalor it’s obvious that Kazan preferred the gritter canvas where his visual artistry gleamed.

Even so, visual artistry is/was not the essence of Kazan’s genius. Instead his brilliance was in his ability to bare and dissect the human condition in order to persuade the audience–with compassion and dignity for the subjects–to think.

And the instrument of this persuasion? The actors from whom he was able to coax magnificent performances.

As Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, Andy Griffith is no exception to this most prominent feature of Kazan’s methodology, though at first glance it is easy to dismiss his performance as a gluttonous case of scenery chewing. But to do so would be to ignore the most obvious trait of the portrait. Lonesome Rhodes is a grotesque and Griffith conveys this essential quality with unabashed brio.

Rhodes is obnoxious in every sense of the word. He’s a big guy, so he makes himself even larger by taking up as much space as he possibly can. He sprawls, rather than sits. He towers rather than stands.

Then there’s his laugh. It too is big.

No, I take that back. It’s enormous. When he laughs his face distorts into a cavernous mouth with wild, leering eyes.

Even so, Lonesome Rhodes is funny. He really is. And his wit is as sharp as a scalpel; his talent and charisma are undeniable. Possessing both eloquence and folksy charm, he sets his ire on the rich and powerful, which ingratiates him to everyone else.

As his influence grows so does his bank account, his malignant ego, his cruelty and dishonesty. And, most ominously, his misanthropic disdain intensifies for the very people who have lifted him to his throne, those that he has supposedly championed–“the common man.”

Patricia Neal, always wonderfully reliable, does not stray from her usual earthy, practical elegance. As Marcia Jeffries, there is no snobbery in her educated, cultured Southern draw. Hardly a pushover, she is initially mesmerized by Rhodes’ sheer force of personality even as she is a little leery of his sincerity, or lack thereof.

So when Lonesome Rhodes plunges into a decent of decadence and self delusion, threatening to take down much of the country that is under his sway, Marcia has long abandoned any romantic notions of the man. She stays on, firstly, because she feels responsible for unleashing this monster on an adoring and completely buffaloed populace. Secondly, because he has offered to buy her out at a paltry ten percent and she wants and deserves an equal partnership and lastly, because, in spite of his tyrannical abuse, she pities Rhodes, the lonely, hateful pariah, who loathes everyone, but not as much as he loathes himself.

A Face in the Crowd launched the career of then fledgling comedian/ musician Andy Griffith, introducing him to his most diverse and largest audience yet. But the film tanked at the box office and received lack luster reviews.

Modern audiences, however, especially cinephiles, have been captivated by this very timely film that, with the explosion of social media, has become even more relevant today than when it was released some sixty years ago. In 2008 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

In his 1986 Guide for the Film Fanatic author Danny Peary prophetically wrote,

“Lonesome Rhodes is guilty of taking advantage of the medium – through which you can fool all the people all of the time – but (screenwriter) Budd Schulberg is attacking us, the ignorant public who sits like sheep and believes whatever it sees on the tube. The scary thing is that if today Rhodes were caught expressing his real thoughts while thinking the mike was off, his popularity would probably go up.”

October 2, 2020

Lenny; a Serial, Part VIII

The man that sat in front of her reeked of Arimas. And if not for the Arimas, he would have reeked of menthol cigarettes.

She smiled at him. Radiantly. Behind his back she called him greaseball.

“So, Maggie. Tell me what’s going on with Detroit,” he said.

“Not Detroit, Geo. Just Lerner.”

He frowned. “But Lerner is Detroit, Maggie.”

“I know that…now!” She chided him playfully.

But she sounded nervous when she did it. And that upset her.

Geo groped the inside pocket of his sport coat. “You got a cigarette?”

“Oh sure,” she said, pushing her pack of Virginia Slims toward him. “Sorry. No menthol.”

“Why are you sorry?”

She cleared her throat. “You smoke Salem’s, right?”

“Yes. I smoke Salem’s,” he said.

She thought about her response. If she was too quick to answer he might not be able to resist the urge to lash out. Or so she reasoned.

“I should have had them on hand for you,” she said.

“You knew I was coming…that hippopotamus told you, didn’t he?”

…he said, “you knew “I” was coming,” but he gestured to the two guys that stood to the right and left of him when he said it…

Maggie reached across the desk and lit his cigarette. She used the solid gold Dunhill lighter that he gave her for her 50th birthday. Then she put it in the drawer and closed it. When she did, she ran her hand under the desk where a 357 Magnum was holstered in a gun mount.

“He told me, Geo. No excuses.”

“It’s a shame that I had to take time out to come down here and handle your business, because you couldn’t handle it yourself. If you’d just come to me first…if we’d talked about it, I would have told you who Lerner was and this whole thing could have been avoided,” he said. “Cigarettes and everything.”

Maggie rested her finger on the trigger guard.

“I know. I wish I had reached out to you, Geo. I do,” she said. “I thought the guy was a peon that I could make a buck off of. That’s all it was. I didn’t know he was Detroit’s book keeper.”

“Not book keeper, Maggie. Forensic accountant. Si Lerner is Detroit’s forensic accountant.”

Maggie let her eyes drop.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Then she waited…and waited…

Finally, Geo sighed.

“If the guy’s so smart, why didn’t he just let it go? So the girl got over on him a little bit? So what? Everybody was still in the dark. His wife was still in the dark. His people were still in the dark…but she ran off on him. And that’s what this is all about. It’s not the money.”

Maggie didn’t say a word. She just kept looking down.

“And you let her get away.”

“Yes. I did,” she said. “I thought she had a good thing going. I didn’t think she’d want to run off.”

“So you just didn’t stay on her?…”

She peered up at him. “Not like I should have.”

Geo glared back at her until she looked away.

“Who’s on this?”

“Ranger,” she answered.

“Ranger?…That guy from Muncie?”

“Yes.”

“…Okay. So here’s the deal…If he, Ranger, can…Lerner wants the girl in one piece.”

Maggie tried to soothe her throat by swallowing. It was so dry she could barely answer, “You mean alive?”

“That’s right. He’s obsessed with her, apparently. He’s gonna pay extra if she’s alive. A lot extra.”

Maggie smiled.”That’s great, Geo,” she said.

“It is,” Geo agreed. “Just at the right time too. There’s a horse that I’ve got my eye on. A filly as it turns out. A little two year old.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “That’s an interesting coincidence, isn’t Maggie?”

“Yes it is.”

“A lot of guys I know don’t bet on fillies. The purses aren’t big enough. That’s what they say. But I’ve always done very well with them. All and all, I’ve probably done better with them than any other horse.”

“Interesting,” Maggie said.

He smiled. “You think so?”

“I do,” she said.

“I just hope she doesn’t disappoint me.”

“Me too, Geo.”

“But first you’ve got to get me that money, Maggie. That extra. Otherwise,” he frowned dramatically and shrugged, “it’s all for naught. Like my mother used to say.”

Maggie took her finger off the trigger guard and put her hand in her lap.

She smiled at him. Radiantly. “You can count on me, Geo,” she said.

The guy in black climbed the stairs making his way to the the second floor.

“Stop right there you bastard,” Lenny said under his breath. But the guy didn’t. He kept on going.

That’s when Lenny saw enough. He put the Beretta in his waistband and got out of the car. Then he trotted toward Trish’s apartment.

The guy stopped at the first doorway of the third floor corridor–Trish’s apartment. He stood on his toes to reach the sconce and began unscrewing the light bulb.

“Hey!” Lenny yelled.

The guy froze and for a split second Lenny got a look at him through the stairwell railing. He wore a black stocking cap. He had a pointed nose.

Lenny bolted up the the stairs. He got to the third floor just in time to see the guy jump from the back guard rail and land awkwardly on the green way behind the complex.

Lenny didn’t jump. Instead he ran back down the stairs and sprinted between the apartment buildings to the green way. He saw the guy about twenty yards in front of him, limping as he ran.

“Stop!” Lenny yelled.

The guy stumbled and fell. When he got back up he was in a crouched position. Lenny heard a stifled bang. Instinctively he dove to the ground and rolled.

He heard another bang. His body stopped moving. A searing pain engulfed his neck. He tried to discern the panicked cries that reverberated with his pounding heart.

They were his own.

Ranger made it to the side of the apartment building where he braced against the wall and hopped on his right foot. When he got to the corner, he looked down the long row of parking spaces where his car was about sixty yards away.

Gingerly he put his left foot down again. Immediately he was met with crushing pain. It was broke. No doubt about it.

Even though he was in excellent physical condition, there was no way he could hop all the way to his car on one foot and he knew it.

He steeled himself for what he was about to do.

And he did it.

When he got to his car he threw up. Then he got in, started it up and drove out of the complex.

He barely noticed his phone was ringing.

So this will be the last installment of the serial Lenny. I hope you have enjoyed it. Who knows? Perhaps I will continue Lenny as a short story or expand it into a novel. Regardless, thank you for the words of encouragement, and as always, thanks for reading. –Pam

September 25, 2020

Lenny, a Serial; Part VII

That night, after Lenny got home, he couldn’t sleep. But not for lack of trying.

He tossed and turned. He watched TV. He smoked a joint…

He did some soldering on the sub-woofer of his surround sound. He vacuumed his fish tank. He got Griffin stoned by blowing smoke in his face and pestered him with the laser pointer…

Nothing worked.

Finally he threw in the towel. Even though he knew it was wrong–in fact, it was possibly the worst thing he could have done at that particular moment–he drove to Trish’s apartment. But he didn’t take the Ranchero. He drove his crappy Dodge Intrepid instead.

But before he did that, he did the absolute worst thing he could have done at that moment, or whenever…he triggered the fake panel in his bedroom closet where the safe was and grabbed his 92G Beretta. Just in case…

So when he gets there–Trish’s apartment complex–he backs into one of the furthest parking spots, but where he still had a good view.

John Garabedian’s Open House Party was on. It was about 2:30 a.m.

He could see Trish’s bedroom window. Her light was off.

∼

He was in that netherworld between consciousness and sleep when the sweep of intense headlights jolted him. A car slowly passed. The driver pulled up, not far from where he was parked, and backed into a parking place.

Lenny slid down in his seat. He watched the car, waiting for the dome light to come on. It didn’t. A figure in a dark hoodie suddenly stood up between the cars.

Lenny felt–like a lurch–of ice water course through his guts and run down the nerve endings of his legs. The sensation shocked him. He had felt this feeling only once before–when he was magnet fishing in a business park on South Main and almost stepped on a copperhead.

The figure quietly shut the door and emerged from the cars dressed from head to toe in black. It was obviously a guy…a guy on the smallish side.

Before he walked across the road toward the apartments, the guy stood perfectly still except that his head moved as he scanned his surroundings. Then he started walking in the direction of Trish’s apartment.

Lenny eyes were glued to the guy’s every move, even though he told himself that there was no way he was going there. No way. The guy was going someplace else. To his own apartment…or to a friend’s.

Lenny told himself that until the guy walked up to Trish’s stairwell and began to climb the stairs.

“What the hell?” Lenny said out loud.

∼

She had debated with herself about whether or not to have a big presence. Ultimately she decided to go it alone. Well, almost alone.

She looked at the enormous man; his left arm was in a cast from his hand to his elbow, which she didn’t understand. He had just screwed up his hand.

But Fletcher insisted that he needed surgery. And she guessed he really did…since Fletcher was only a family doctor. If he’d been an orthopedic doctor she would have demanded a second opinion.

“Jo Jo, when they buzz the door, you buzz me before you let them in.”

Jo Jo fiddled with the console to the security screen.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah. You’ve said it a thousand times. I’ll buzz you before I let them in.”

She poured the vermouth into the Gordon’s and stirred. “And if you hear anything, shouting…whatever, you let whoever they leave out here have it. You understand?…Then you go pick up your girl and your mom and you get the hell out of town.”

Jo Jo nodded. “But nothin’s gonna happen,” he said.

She picked up the martini glass and walked through the curtain. But before she did she told him, “I’m sure you’re right. We just have to be prepared. Like I said, your mom and your girl. No one else. There won’t be time.”

∼

September 22, 2020

Thief (1981), a Film Directed by Michael Mann, Staring James Caan; Neo-Noir

I grew up with James Caan, in a manner of speaking; that is to say, I grew up with him the way we all did…while watching his films.

I don’t know much about his life other than he was born and reared in the Bronx and that he has a reputation of being a tough guy.

…And if my mother was alive, she’d be his age now, which is 80.

James Caan is one of many Hollywood tough guys–on screen and off. A tender heart and a threadbare vulnerability differentiated him and his characters, making it almost impossible to root against them and–existentially–him. And that made him a blue-collar superstar in the late 60’s to the early 80’s and fueled his resurgence in the 90’s.

James Caan is sexy. Women like him. Men like him.

In Michael Mann’s 1981 debut feature film, Thief (1981), Caan’s “Frank” is a career criminal on top of his game. The only footsteps he hears behind him are from Father Time.

Frank, takes down big scores. He deals only in cash and diamonds that he procures with a skeleton crew of trusted professionals in elaborate, carefully orchestrated heists. He isn’t greedy. And he stays clear of the mob.

Frank lives very comfortably. And he lives alone.

He is nearing his forties. He wants a family and a normal life.

To that end he becomes acquainted with a pretty cashier/hostess in the cafe where he takes his meals. There is an attraction, a familiarity, though they do not know each other. Her name is Jessie (Tuesday Weld) and Frank pursues her immediately, with blatant determination so honest, so desperate that she agrees to be his soulmate on a whim.

Jessie too, has a criminal past that she has been keeping at a respectable distance. Frank assures her that he is one big heist away from being able to retire in style.

And style is very important to Frank. It is the one thing that slows the dogged pursuit of his own self doubt.

Jessie tells him she can’t have children. Frank shrugs it off. “We’ll adopt,” he says.

Michael Mann takes these familiar troupes of noir and runs with them in Thief, starting with his own screenplay that borrows from the memoir of jewel thief, John Allen Seybold’s Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar. Seybold served as a consultant to the film while he was being hunted by the FBI.

It is fun to watch Mann’s directorial signatures taking shape before anyone knew who he was. Signatures like wet streets with neon colors reflecting off them, elegant camera work capturing the frailty of life through the lens of grindhouse spectacle and intricate attention to the art of the heist and sporadic violence, all of it set to a pulsing, synthesized soundtrack.

Yet, for all that (and one of the greatest heist sequences in movie history in which the industrial arts inform the cinematic) Thief is essentially a tragic character study, wrapped in the trappings of a neo-noir. It is the story of a man who has spent his entire life on the outside looking in, a man who takes great pride in his work but can barely speak of it.

It is a story of a thief with principals shaped in foster homes and prison cells who will set his dreams ablaze for the sake of them–and for revenge.

September 13, 2020

Lenny, a Serial; Part VI

Lenny had to play his cards just right so that Trish would allow her Civic to be towed. He wanted them to ride back to town together.

“You wouldn’t let them tow your precious Ranchero GT,” she said.

And she was right.

She hardly said a word to him on the four hour trip. The silence hummed in his head like tinnitus from hell. He came this close to pulling over and having it out with her. She was the one who just disappeared one day with no explanation except for that stupid note. But he didn’t.

Instead he bought her stuff he knew she liked–Chex Mix and diet Sprite–when they stopped for gas. And he got her one of those single long stemmed roses.

“What are you, sixteen years old?” she asked when he gave it to her.

Trish had never been so belittling to him. Her words cut through him like his SOG Strat Ops Automatic.

It hurt so bad, he felt so frustrated that he just wanted to bang his forehead on the steering wheel, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He just took it.

When he drove up to her apartment he asked her one last time to spend the night at his place. He would sleep on the couch if she wanted.

She just looked at him with hard black eyes.

Then she gathered some of her stuff from behind the seat and shut the heavy door of the Ranchero with with her foot.

He hauled the rest of her stuff up the stairs to her apartment.

After that he went home.

∼

The girl pointed at the miniture golf course. “I want to go there,” she said.

Ranger laughed. “Miniature golf?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, if you’re a ten year old girl.”

“Or a ten year old boy,” she said.

“Or a ten year old boy,” Ranger repeated. “We can always go bowling. I know you like that.”

She sighed. “No. Game Putt’s fine.”

“Good. It helps me with my golf game.”

He cruised down the circular street leisurely. It was a nice day. Even so, he wanted to stay in the air conditioning as long as possible.

“Dad likes to golf, ” she said.

“Yeah. And he’s pretty good at it too.”

“Whose better? You or him?”

“I am. Though he’d probably tell you differently. And I’m sure he has.”

“We don’t talk that much. He’s always with Jordy now. Playing golf or whatever.”

Ranger pulled the Toyota Camry into the Game Putt parking spot. He let the engine idle as he cleaned his sun sunglasses on his shirt.

“Your dad loves you, Mia. You know that. Right?”

“I guess,” she said.

“Well, I don’t guess. I know…I know a lot of things about your dad. We’ve been friends for a long time. He’s a professional. He’s good to his friends.”

She nodded.

“I know he could be a better dad, Mia. I know that. But, look, when all is said and done, he does the best he can. He really does. Someday you’ll understand what I mean by that. When you understand, you’ll know what to do. It’ll be easier. But, always remember, your dad loves you…Okay?”

“Yeah,” she sniffed.

He wiped the tears from her cheek with his thumb. “Yeah what?”

“He loves me.”

His cell phone rang. “All right. Now you stay right here. I’m going to step outside and take this call. And then we’ll play Game Putt…Go bowling…Go to the movies…I’ll take you shopping. Whatever you want…Except miniature golf. I can’t do that. What do you say?

“Okay.”

“And what I said about your dad…it’s just between the two of us.”

She nodded.

∼

September 8, 2020

Lenny: A Serial, Part V

The first thing Lenny did was double check the parking lot. Trish’s white Honda Civic was nowhere in site.

From there he drove to the exit and cruised through a convenience store parking lot, the one he knew she filled up at. She wasn’t there either.

Then he took the interstate to Carrows where, Wendal, Trish’s manager told him she’d picked up her check and quit–left him shorthanded.

Wendal was disappointed in Trish, but he told Lenny he’d take her back if she showed up. Lenny told him he’d tell her.

From Carrows, he jumped on the interstate. He checked the gas stations and convenience stores on the last three exits and then headed out of town.

∼

The hostess led him to a table for one, which he refused, asking for a booth instead. He ordered pinot noir before dinner, and cabernet sauvignon with rack of lamb in mustard sauce, spicey cucumber salad and grilled carrots with purple potatoes.

He sipped his pinot while he watched the couple in the booth to right of him, hoping he would have time for desert.

∼

Lenny timed himself according to Trish’s itinerary…rather, the itinerary he presumed she was going by.

For instance, he knew she didn’t like to drive at night so he estimated where she’d be on her route about thirty minutes before the sun went down.

And he called her–an embarrassing amount of times.

It always went straight voice mail.

Until finally she answered.

∼

Ranger sat in the atrium next to the water fountain with a Stoli/cranberry straight up and watched the heavy, wood-carved door to Sullivan’s Cove.

He didn’t read. He didn’t piddle with his phone. He just watched.

Finally the couple came out.

He mirrored them, walking with them side by side, if not for the atrium wall. They approached the elevator at the same time. He stumbled into them while simultaneously, stealthily jabbing the man in the stomach with the needle of the syringe. The man doubled over as the door opened and they spilled into the elevator.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

The man backed into a corner of the elevator. He gasped, his eyes wide, his face confused. The woman draped her arms around him.

“Drew! What’s the matter?”

“Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. You must have knocked his breath out!”

“Oh my gosh! Do you want to go to your floor or…”

The man was gulping as if he couldn’t catch his breath.

“No! Open the door.”

He pushed the button and the elevator door opened. He bolted into the lobby. “I’ll notify the front desk, ” he said.

But he didn’t. He walked out the revolving doors which led to the parking lot instead. Quickly.

But not too quickly.

∼

Lenny wheeled the serving cart quietly to Trish’s side of the bed. He unwrapped the cellophane covering the water and juice glasses and peeked under the cloches.

Soft scrambled eggs, link sausage and a single pancake. No syrup. Tomato on the side. A pot of black coffee. Check, check, check and check.

He sat on the edge of the bed and watched Trish sleep. The nasty beginnings of a purple bruise was visible on her upper arm, just below her bare shoulder. Already, he could make out faint finger marks.

Nausea gripped the pit of his stomach. Disgust mixed with caustic bile scorched his throat.

But he couldn’t wait for her to sleep any longer.

He placed his hand gently on her hip and shook it.