Michael Connelly - Void Moon

After thirty seconds he opened the door, looked both ways in the empty hallway, and then down at the table. He realized there were no plates on the table. He lifted the tablecloth and looked underneath. There was a warming oven built in below the table. Satisfied, Karch pulled the table into the suite. The table was difficult to move and he made a mental note to tell Grimaldi the carpets were too thick in the rooms. He kicked the door closed and pushed the cart toward the bedroom doors, putting the. 25 down on the entrance table as he went by.

After opening the doors he pushed the cart into the room and beside the bed.

"Come and get it," he said to the girl.

"I'm not hungry," she said.

Karch gave her a look and said, "Suit yourself. I'm starved."

He flipped up the end of the tablecloth and opened the plate warmer. A blast of warm air greeted him. There were two dishes with aluminum covers sitting on a shelf. He pulled the first plate out and was holding it with both hands when he realized it was burning him. He quickly brought it up and put it down on the table.

"FFFFFUUUUCCKKKK, that's hot!"

He shook his hands out and bent down to look under the shelf. There were three cans of Sterno flaming directly below the aluminum shelf where the plate had been.

"Fuckers!"

He looked at the girl to make sure she wasn't finding humor in what had happened. She was just staring at him, a note of fear on her face.

"I know, I talk dirty. I gotta put some water on this."

As soon as Cassie heard the water running in the bathroom she crawled out from beneath the other end of the room service table. Kneeling on the floor next to the table, she took a quick look around to see if Karch had left a weapon nearby. He hadn't.

"Hey!"

She turned to Jodie and quickly leaned over the bed. She had her ears trained on the sound of the water. The bathroom door was open and she could see Karch's back in a mirror reflection. She knew as soon as the water went off she had to be out of sight.

"Jodie, I'm here to take you away from that man," she whispered quickly.

"Good, I want – "

Cassie put her finger across the girl's lips.

"Whisper, whisper, so he won't hear. Do you want to go with me?"

The girl was a fast learner. She nodded.

"Okay, then you have to do what I tell you, okay?"

Jodie nodded again.

Karch pulled his hands out of the cold water and looked at them. Both his thumbs and index fingers had red marks. He cursed again. He felt like going down to the hotel kitchen and grabbing whoever was responsible and holding his head down on a hot stove. He went into a short reverie in which he envisioned doing it, then realized the person whose head he was holding over the stove was Vincent Grimaldi. Karch looked at himself in the mirror and smiled. He was sure there was something a shrink could do with that.

He turned the water off and went back out to the bedroom. The girl was now standing at the other end of the table and looking under the tablecloth. Karch came over quickly and, realizing the. 25 was in the other room, brought his hand inside his jacket to his Sig. He didn't want to draw it in front of the girl if he could help it.

"What are you looking at?"

"Nothing."

He pulled her aside and then whipped up the tablecloth, ready with his other hand to pull the Sig. There was nothing underneath on this side.

"Looking for a place to hide, huh?"

"No, just looking."

Karch grabbed one of the napkins off the top and went back around to the plate warmer. He used the napkin to take the second plate out.

"So let's see what we've got," he said.

Still using the napkin he removed the cover from the first plate. It contained a New York strip steak in a pool of still sizzling butter next to a pile of mashed potatoes. The steak was rare and bloody juices were mixing with the hot butter.

"Gross," Jodie said.

"What are you talking about? This is a goddamn thing of beauty. Now let's see what you got."

He removed the other cover revealing a large bowl of rigatoni with meat sauce.

"That's not Spaghetti-Os."

"You're right. But what do you care? You're not hungry, remember?"

He walked over to the bed and took the pillowcase off one of the pillows. He folded it to quarter-size and then put it in his open palm. He used the napkin to push the hot steak plate onto the pillowcase and then put a set of utensils into his shirt pocket.

"Tell you what, I'm going to eat out there and leave you with your cartoons in here. Eat, don't eat, I don't care, kid. Doesn't bother me one way or the other."

"Fine, I won't, then."

"Good. Just don't burn yourself on that plate."

He carried his food out to the desk, then went back to the bedroom for his Coke and the salt shaker. After he left he tied the doorknobs again with the phone wire. He then went over to the entrance table and brought the. 25 back to the desk. He started sawing through the steak and putting large hot chunks of it into his mouth.

"This is fucking good," he said with his mouth full.

CASSIE rolled out from under the bed, put her finger to her lips to remind Jodie to be quiet, and picked up the television remote. She slowly raised the volume so that it would better cover their whispering and any other noises that were made. She then walked around the side of the bed to where Jodie was sitting. Cassie pulled her daughter into a heartfelt embrace but noticed the girl's arms were held down at her waist. Jodie had no idea who this woman was who was hugging her. Cassie pulled back and put her arms on the girl's shoulders and leaned down close to her to whisper.

"Jodie, are you all right?"

"I want my mommy. I want my daddy."

Cassie had thought about this moment for a long time. Not these circumstances but the moment when she would be close to her daughter and what it was she would say and try to explain.

"Jodie, I'm…," she started but didn't finish. In that moment she decided this was not the right time. The child was already confused and scared. "Jodie, my name is Cassie and I'm going to take you out of here. Did that man hurt you?"

"He made me – "

Cassie quickly put her finger across Jodie's lips to remind her to whisper. The girl then started over.

"He made me go in the car with him. He said he was a magician and that my daddy was having a party here for my mom."

"Well, he's a liar, Jodie. I am going to get you away from him and out of here. But we have to be very – "

Cassie stopped when she heard a sound from the doors.

Karch unwrapped the telephone line from the knobs and opened the bedroom doors. He stepped in and looked at the girl lying on the bed, her face propped in her hands. He stepped further in and surveyed the room and saw nothing amiss.

"Loud enough for you?" he asked.

"What?"

"I said, 'Loud – ' "

He stopped when he saw her smile, realizing the joke. He pointed a warning finger at her and stepped over to the curtains. He opened them, revealing another floor-to-ceiling wall of glass. He stepped close enough that he could see his breath on the glass and looked down. He could see through the atrium below to the crowded gaming tables.

"They're all suckers," he said. "Nobody beats the house."

"What?" Jodie said from behind him.

He turned and looked at her. Then his eyes moved to the room service cart and her untouched plate of pasta.

"I said you better eat your dinner, kid. You won't be getting another."

"I'll eat when my daddy comes."

"Have it your way."

He stepped through the door, closed it and this time decided the telephone wire wasn't necessary.

"Where's she gonna go?" he said to himself as he returned to his steak.

After she heard the bedroom doors close Cassie closed her Swiss Army knife and got down off the toilet, where she had been poised to jump and attack if Karch had come in to search the bathroom. She went out to the bedroom and whispered into Jodie's ear that she had done a fantastic job in handling his visit to the room.