Collision

“Sir. Pardon my question. How do I know you don’t mean ill to whoever she called?” This question followed a long sigh, low in the throat. Wrestling with the ethics. Calculating how much six hundred cash would buy. The clerk was maybe twenty-two and wore a plain wedding band on his finger.

“I swear I don’t.”

“I… I…”

“Six hundred. You’re not doing a bad deed. You’re helping yourself and you’re helping me, and trust me, I deserve a little help right now.”

“I’m not sure I can even get the information…” The clerk glanced over his shoulder. “My manager…”

Ben slid three hundred-dollar bills to the clerk. “Here’s half. The rest when you get me the records.”

The clerk didn’t look at the bills. Then he picked them up and tucked them into his pocket. He went into the back of the lobby office, was gone for thirty seconds, returned, and said, “Twenty minutes.”

Ben nodded and went into the bar. A few people drank and chatted in hushed tones-it wasn’t a loud, conventioneer crowd. He had the sense he’d walked into a room of bureaucrats, here for the reconstruction, persuading themselves it was okay to relax with a beer. The TV above the bar showed the news of the emergency landing-as it was being described-on Marais Street in the still-devastated Lower Ninth Ward.

He ordered a club soda, drank half, and leaned against the bar. Then quickly turned away from the door.

Walking across the lobby he saw Joanna Vochek and a navy-suited, ash blond woman wearing large eyeglasses, moving toward the elevators, deep in conversation.

Good Lord. What were the odds? All the hotels in town… but then he thought. A constant stream of people with federal agencies came and went from New Orleans with the reconstruction. They might keep rooms on permanent reserve, and hotels made deals with agencies to keep their business. That he knew from his consulting work.

Barker’s contact here might be someone inside the government.

Ben waited for the two women to vanish inside the elevator and then stepped back into the lobby.

The clerk stood at the desk, frowning at the computer screen and looking guilty of several felonies.

“Sir,” he said in a low whisper. “I can’t get the information. The manager’s on the computer and I can’t access the phone database records, I can’t, here’s your money back…”

“Please, keep trying. But can you tell me this-is there a suite or set of rooms often used by the federal authorities who come here?”

“Yes, sir. From several different agencies. FEMA, Commerce, Homeland Security, of course FEMA’s part of Homeland…”

“I need the names of every government-connected guest who stayed here last Monday and their phone calls. Can you do that for an extra hundred?”

The clerk frowned, as though asking questions about government workers made him uneasy. “I’ll try.”

“Yes. But please, hurry.” Ben returned to the bar, stayed near the door, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Ten minutes later the clerk jerked his head toward the back of the lobby. The man’s forehead glistened like he might sweat to death, a sheen on his face that showed nerves on edge.

Ben walked past the counter, kept going toward a stairway. He glanced back and the clerk gave a short, savage nod. He went up the stairs toward a mezzanine that held conference areas and ballrooms. The landing was deserted and the clerk jogged past him, as if intent on another errand, not looking at him.

Ben followed the clerk to a closed ballroom. The clerk stepped inside and Ben followed him. The ballroom stood dark, empty; the floral aroma of carpet shampoo reeked like cheap perfume.

The clerk said: “The money, please.”

Ben handed him the rest of the cash and the clerk thumbed through the bills. Then he pushed an envelope into Ben’s chest. He opened it, unfolded the pages; the list of people with government ties at the hotel last Monday was at least fifteen names long. Each list included incoming and outgoing calls.

“We’re done. We never saw each other.”

“Thank you,” Ben said, but the clerk was already gone.

He stood in the deserted ballroom and ran a finger down the names. They meant nothing to him and there was no indication of which agency they were with… except at the end.

Margaret Pritchard in suite 1201. The clerk had penciled in, in block letters: “RECEIVED CALL ON MONDAY AT THE TIME YOU SAID.”

The name of Vochek’s boss, who had called them on the plane.

Why had Barker called her? Barker worked for Teach; he betrayed Teach and Pilgrim to Hector; how did he connect to Vochek’s boss?

Ben leaned against the wall. He scanned the printout under the calls. The next number called from Pritchard’s room was an Austin area code: 512-555-3998. He’d heard the number before but he couldn’t remember how he knew it. He racked his memory. Then he remembered a nasal stranger’s voice on his answering machine, damning him in front of Kidwell and Vochek. 555-3998 had been the number at Adam Reynolds’s office.