just tell Ms. Traynor, the assistant general manager, what you need and we’ll make sure you get it.”
“It’s going to be a madhouse however it’s arranged. I know it.”
“Excuse me, sir, have you arranged for extra security for your client?”
He throws up his hands. “He won’t hear of it. He thinks he’s invulnerable.”
Neagle takes a deep breath and heads off in the direction of the elevators, shaking his head and muttering. A small round man in a blue polyester suit patting his shingle back into place and facing the fact that he’s now in the eye of a hurricane.
“It’s open,” a voice from inside 1502 says.
The best suite in the hotel. Four big bedrooms, reception room, private lounge, full kitchen, and real some of it, anyway. I hear the shower —antique furniture running in one of the bathrooms and I have a look around. On the desk is a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills fanned out. I call out to the bathroom. “Mr. Buznardo?”
“There’s money on the desk, man. Help yourself.”
I go to the bedroom door and talk to the bathroom.
“My name’s Grundy, Mr. Buznardo. Hotel security. Like to talk to you for a minute.”
He comes out of the bathroom wearing a towel — a skinny blond Jesus. “Out there on the desk. Take as much as you need.”
“Before we get to that, maybe we could talk a bit.”
There’s another knock.
“Yo,” he says.
“Room service.”
I recognize the voice. It’s Phil Marsden.
“Bring it on in,” Buznardo says. “Help yourself to a tip. It’s on the desk.”
I step back into the sitting room. Phil is holding a silver bucket with a magnum of Veuve Clicquot up to its shoulders in ice. He has two champagne glasses in his other hand. He’s staring at the cash on the desk.
“It’s okay, Phil. Take one.”
He glances at me and blinks. “Yeah?”
“That’s what the man says.”
Phil puts down the bucket and glasses, then selects one of the bills from the fan as if he’s choosing a card. “Would you like me to open this for you, sir?” Phil asks Buznardo.
“I want to talk to him,” I say.
“I’ve got to get that thing signed.”
“I think he’s good for it.”
Phil heads for the door. He still hasn’t pocketed the C- note. “Okay. I’ll pick it up later.” He turns at the door. “He wants anything else, tell him to ask for Phil.”
Phil shuts the door as Buznardo comes out of the bedroom. He lifts the champagne bottle out of the ice and peers at the label. “Want a glass?”
“No, thank you, sir.”
“It’s a celebration.”
“I guess it is.”
“I wasn’t going to get this fancy. Alvin arranged things. I don’t usually hang in places like this.”
“I guess your life’s about to change a bit.”
“Sure,” he says. “Some of the day-to-day details, for a while, anyway, but in the long run not so much.” He puts the champagne back in the bucket. “Not so much.”
I hand him the bill. “Room service will want you to sign this.”
“You bet.” He finds a hotel pen in the desk drawer and bends to scrawl his name. His towel drops to the floor. He doesn’t bother to pick it up. “Should I add a gratuity to this?”
“I think you already gave him a generous tip.”
Buznardo puts the pen and signed chit on the dresser alongside the fan of fresh hundred-dollar bills. He stares at himself in the mirror, pale and naked, his eyes flatly curious, as if contemplating a drawing. Picking up one of the bills by its corner, he shows it to his mirror image, studying the effect it makes on the composition. “How about you?”
“That’s not necessary, sir. I found one of your hundred- dollar bills in the elevator. Someone must have dropped it.” I hold it out to him.
He raises his hands as if he doesn’t want anything to do with a bill that isn’t smooth. “It’s gone. That one’s left my hands. I’m not responsible for it anymore. You keep it, or find the owner. Whatever.” He finally picks up the towel and wraps it around his bony hips. “Hotel security, that’s like a detective, right?”
“More like a watchdog. I understand you have a large amount of cash with you.”
“Want to see it?” He grabs a new Samsonite attaché case from behind the couch and pops it open. Hundred- dollar bills in hundred-bill packets with tight paper bands. Twenty-four freshly wrapped plus the broken one on the desk makes two hundred and fifty thousand, give or take.
“That’s a lot of money. The thing of it is, Mr. Buznardo —”
“Call me Buzz ’cause everybody does.” He makes it sound like a nursery rhyme.
“Okay, Buzz, the thing is the hotel’s a bit worried about having that much cash lying around. Wouldn’t you feel more secure with that case in the hotel safe?”
“No, I need it with me. As soon as the banks get their act together, I’m getting more.”
“Mind my asking what you need it for?”
“I’m not here to buy dope or anything.” He closes the case and puts it back behind the couch. As good a stash as any, I suppose.
“We’re just concerned that someone might try to steal it.”
“Aw, man, they’d be welcome, if they want it bad enough to do something like that. I don’t think of this money as mine. Not now that it is mine, and I can do what I want with it.”
“Which is?”
He lets the towel drop again and begins pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, but no underwear. The shirt says CONFOUND THE PREVAILING PARADIGM — whatever that means.
“I’m going to give it away.”
“All of it? The whole briefcase?”
“All of it. The whole six hundred and eighty-eight million dollars.”
He smiles at me again, but he doesn’t look demented or drugged or as if he’s kidding. He seems like a skinny blond Jesus with a long wet ponytail and a neatly trimmed beard and a face suffused with holy determination.
chapter three
When I get back to the office, Gritch is odourizing the room with cigar exhaust and Arnie McKellar is squatting at the second desk, filling out his report and bitching about the “special ushers” handling security on Floor Eleven for the civic function.
“They don’t ask me for ID. I ask them for ID. Where do they get off?”
“Why bother with Floor Eleven in the first place?” Gritch says. “Not your responsibility.”
“Maybe not, but I’m entitled to check it out without getting hassled by assholes in red jackets. Where do they hire these guys?”
“Leave Floor Eleven alone,” I say as I come in. “And leave your report. You’re going out again.”
Arnie doesn’t want to go. “I gotta eat something.”
Gritch snorts cigar smoke. Arnie McKellar is obese.