Chapter 7: Power Cut

I told Hugh everything Neil had said in the hall.

I told him on Saturday afternoon, standing at the bar with my hands around a mug of coffee he had made without asking how I took it.

He listened to the whole thing with his eyes on the lake.

"He said you don't know what you're looking for," I said. "What are you looking for?"

"I'll tell you."

"When?"

"Soon. Not before service."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's an honest one," Hugh said. "I want to say it once, properly, and not with forty people arriving in an hour. Can you give me till tomorrow?"

I wanted to say no.

I looked at his face, and I said, "Tomorrow."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I'm going to ask again at nine."

"I'll be here at nine."

That should have been the end of it.

At seven, on the busiest night of the week, the whole city lost power.

The lights in the dining room went out first.

Then the kitchen fans stopped, and the cooks swore in three different voices, and the sixty people at the tables laughed.

Hugh moved through the room with a flashlight and talked to every table.

I carried candles from the supply closet because there was nothing else to do.

By eight, the hotel's generator had come on in the lobby but not on our floor.

A sommelier came out of the kitchen and said the champagne for table nine had been put in the walk-in cooler, and nobody could find it in the dark.

"I'll get it," Hugh said.

"I'll hold the light," I said.

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