Chapter 9: The Ring

I let my mouth fall a little open, the way Jane's would.

Then I dropped my voice back down where it lived.

"I get that a lot, ma'am," I said, slow as syrup. "I did the recording for a subway line in Queens once. People hear me in their sleep."

Keely kept staring.

"Which line?"

"The G."

"Nobody takes the G."

"That's why it was cheap, ma'am."

She didn't laugh.

She tilted her head and looked at my mouth, then my chin, then the wig where it met my forehead.

My right hand was in my vest pocket.

I found the black phone by feel and pressed the call button once.

One ring. Then I hung up.

"Take off the glasses," Keely said.

"Ma'am?"

"The glasses. Take them off. I want to see something."

"They're prescription, ma'am. I can't see without them."

"Then you won't mind not seeing me for a second."

She reached for my face.

The suite phone rang.

She stopped with her hand in the air.

It rang again.

She snatched it up. "What?"

She listened.

Her face went tight.

"Fine," she said, and slammed it down. "You're wanted on the mezzanine. Your boss says it's urgent. Something about towels."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Send me someone who can actually press a blouse."

I walked out of 1810 at an ordinary speed and didn't run until the stairwell.

The head housekeeper passed me on the landing with a cart, going up.

"I'll take her," she said, without stopping. "I've had worse. I had a duchess in 1998."

Colm was waiting in his office with the door open.

He shut it behind me and stood with his back against it.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Did she see?"

"Almost."

I sat down hard on his couch, pulled the phone out of my vest and played it for him.

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