Pipe Burst Guest novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Pipe

A pipe bursts in the suite booked for Nico Varrone, the rival Don who controls the river docks. Marisa moves him next door to her own suite, and he works out within the hour that she cut the pipe herself.

The pipe in suite 502 burst at four in the afternoon, exactly when I had asked it to.

I was standing behind the front desk in the lobby when the water started coming through the ceiling.

It came in a brown sheet over the chandelier, then over the marble, then over the shoes of a man who had been about to sign in.

The man stood perfectly still while the lobby filled with shouting.

He was tall and broad, in a dark coat that was now soaked to the shoulders.

Behind him two men with bags did not move either.

"Mr. Varrone," I said, and came around the desk with a towel. "I'm so sorry. I'm Marisa Brancato, and this is my hotel."

Nico Varrone looked at the towel and then at me.

His eyes were dark and unhurried, and he did not take it.

"Mrs. Brancato," he said. "Your husband booked me that room personally."

"My husband didn't check the plumbing."

"Evidently."

Water dripped from his hair onto his collar.

I turned to the night manager, who had been told to say exactly one sentence, and who said it with great feeling.

"Suite 502 is unusable, Donna, there's water in the walls."

"Then Mr. Varrone takes the suite next to mine on six," I said. "At the Arden's expense, for as long as he needs it."

"The suite next to yours," Nico said.

"It has the better view."

"I'm sure it does."

He took the towel at last and wiped his face with it, slowly.

I made myself look at the lobby clock instead of at the line of his throat.

"Your men can take the rooms across the hall," I said. "I'll have dry clothes sent up."

"That's generous."

"It's the Arden's name on the building."

He gave me a long look, and then he nodded to the two men, who went to the elevator with the bags.

I walked him up myself.

Neither of us spoke in the elevator.

The doors closed on our reflection, his wet coat and my dry black dress, and I watched his hands.

His right sleeve had ridden up as he lifted the towel.

A scar ran down the inside of his forearm from the wrist to the elbow, a long pale line, old and straight.

He saw me looking and did not cover it.

"Wire," he said. "A man who wanted my watch."

"Did he get it?"

"He got six months in county."

"And the watch?"

"I still have the watch."

The doors opened on six.

I opened the suite and put the key in his palm.

His fingers closed over it and did not brush mine.

He walked through the sitting room to the window and looked down at the river, and for a while he said nothing.

"Mrs. Brancato," he said at last, without turning around.

"Marisa."

"Marisa."

He said my name carefully, trying it out.

"I read the maintenance log before I came," he said. "It's a habit. The Arden replaced every supply line on the fifth floor in March."

I kept my face still.

"Old buildings do strange things," I said.

"A copper line that new doesn't split along a clean cut."

He turned around.

"It splits along a clean cut when someone puts a pipe cutter to it on Monday night," he said. "I saw it on the floor of 502 while your people were mopping."

The room was very quiet.

"You went into the flooded room?" I said.

"I wanted to see what kind of woman floods her own hotel."

"And what did you decide?"

"I haven't yet."

He took off the wet coat and hung it over a chair.

Under it he wore a white shirt that clung to his shoulders, and I looked at the carpet.

"I have a truce meeting with your husband tomorrow morning," he said. "He sat me in a room that was going to fall on my head, in the one hotel in this city that you actually own."

"The Arden belongs to my family's trust."

"So the man who sent me here knows it's yours."

"He knows it's mine on paper."

"Then he doesn't know you."

I didn't answer.

Nico came across the room and stopped an arm's length from me.

"You want something from me," he said. "You wouldn't have gone to this trouble for a handshake."

"I want you to stay until the Commission meets."

"A week from Sunday."

"You've been reading more than the log."

"I read everything about the Brancato family," he said. "Your husband has been trying to buy my docks for two years."

"Then you know why he can't have them."

"I know why I won't sell them."

"I need your docks to vote with me."

His eyebrows rose a quarter of an inch.

"With you," he said. "Not with Cesare."

"No."

"You're the Donna, Marisa."

"Not for much longer, unless I win."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"I'll stay," he said. "On one condition."

"Name it."

"Tell me why a woman who has everything wants a rival in her bed."

"In her hotel," I said.

"Of course," Nico said. "Her hotel."

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