Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

And he, too, was readily accounted for. The cop had looked in his wallet, had seen his hotel key, had told the driver where to take him. They knew where he was, and they would surely send somebody to watch him.

“Would you like coffee, sir?”

The waitress was about twenty, very petite, with black hair cut short, hair that curved around her face like the wings of a soft, black bird, a bird determined to hatch that oval face—or if it was hatched already, to shield it from the harsh winds of this world.

“Yes,” he said. “And some orange juice, if you have any.”

She said, “I’ll have to squeeze you some, sir,” and winked.

He was too astonished to wink back; but he watched her as she trotted away. She wore polished black shoes with very high heels (because she’s so short, he decided), a little white cap, and a black silk dress with a tiny white apron, like the maid in some old movie starring Cary Grant.

The steamy fragrance of freshly brewed coffee told him she had filled his cup, though he had not noticed. The coffee was as black as her dress, as black as her shoes, and he knew that he would never be able to see anything black anyplace again—coffee or the night—without thinking about her shoes and her dress. He added cream (which he seldom did), looked through the glass wall, and remembered nights with Lara.

A big white boat was passing the hotel, half a mile or less from where he sat; passing slowly, as though fighting a headwind with its engines almost idling. A teacher had read it to him in school: “As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.”

He felt sure Lara was on that boat, that white-painted boat that would have looked so much more at home down in Florida or a place like that, on the Gulf or the Pacific or the Mediterranean. He felt sure that it was Lara watching him through binoculars as he sipped his coffee, sipped the icewater that the girl in the black shoes must have brought him too, brought him icewater even though he had not noticed, brought him water even though he sat in front of water and ice that went on forever.

She brought the orange juice, placing it before him with a delicate hand tipped with long, crimson nails, a hand naked of rings. “What else would you like, sir?”

“Right now,” he said, “I’d like you to sit down and talk to me.”

“I can’t do that, sir. Suppose the manager came in.”

“It’s lonesome here,” he told her.

“I know, sir. You’re the only guest—the only one in the whole place, I think.”

“I’m surprised they keep it open.”

“This is the worst time of year. Usually it’s pretty good through Yule, and then it picks up again in March.”

He thought frantically, groping for a question or comment that would hold her in conversation. “Do you drive out from the city every day?”

“Sure. There’s nothing to do way out here.” She glanced around to see whether someone was listening. “For us, I mean. There’s things for the guests.”

“What are they?”

“Oh, the spa, and indoor tennis courts and so on. We can’t use them. What would you like for breakfast?”

He noticed sadly that she had dropped the sir; he was no longer a customer, just another unwanted boyfriend. He asked, “What’s good?”

Under her breath: “I am.” Aloud she said, “Why don’t you have a waffle? The chef’s a real master with them. We’ve got about a dozen different kinds.”

“Whatever kind you think’s the best.”

She nodded. “I’ll be along again in a minute to give you more coffee.”

“All right. Hurry back.”

She walked slowly away, writing on her order pad. When she had rounded the partition and was out of sight, he spoke to the expressionless face of ice on the beach. “Did you get all that? Are you going to tell them everything?”

It did not reply.

Dr. Applewood had not been worried about spying, or about hidden mikes or cameras. When he had asked about the theater, Dr. Applewood had actually risen and seized the back of one of the old wooden chairs: “Do you recollect our stage properties, sir? That was what I used, like an old woman with a walker, clumping and thumping across the floor!”

But why had the doctor come to the hotel today, come with a bad leg to a hotel with a single guest? For that matter why had she said he was the only one? North was still registered. In fact, North might come back to the room while he ate his waffle, might already have come back while Dr. Applewood was bandaging his hand. They had all gotten away except Daniel—that was what the doctor had said. Daniel had been Nick, but where was North? Would North phone? Probably not—the police might tap the wire, listen to any calls to or from the room.

He sipped his coffee, which was excellent.

If he had a coat, he could walk all around the hotel; there had to be a parking lot somewhere. If North had used the little car that he had driven, he would recognize it, and the keys were in his pocket.

But North had probably not used that car. It had probably been burned when the theater burned down—he, not North, had the keys. Yet it was still possible. North had given him the keys, never saying they were the only set; and nothing would be less like North than to give somebody else the only set, to let go of that kind of power.

Anyway, thieves could start cars without the keys by hot-wiring the ignitions. North, who had made a lock pick from the hospital wiring, would know all about that.

A man in a three-piece suit came into the coffee shop and sat down not far from him. When the waitress brought his waffle, he asked her who the man was.

“Probably some guest. I don’t know—I’ve never seen him before.”

“You said I was the only guest.”

“That was yesterday, you and your friend. He probably checked in last night—I only got to work an hour ago.”

“There’s a fine for not knowing his name: you have to tell me yours.”

She grinned. “Fanny.”

“Really?”

“Would I fib about a name like that? I know yours. You’re A. C. Pine, and you’re in the Imperial Suite.”

She had gone before he could reply. As he ate his waffle (he had missed dinner the night before, and felt as though he could eat five), he vaguely considered the initials. What did A. C. stand for? Soon, he felt, he might have to tell Fanny; and it would be better if he were not stuck with something like Abner Cecil. Abraham Clyde? Arthur Cooper? By the time he had finished his orange juice, he had decided he was Adam something.

The lower level was no longer quite so deserted as it had been. Several shops showed lights, and once he heard footsteps. The first shop he looked into was a beauty parlor in which an enameled blonde was painting her own nails while she waited for customers. “Good morning,” he said.

She looked up without interest. “Hi, ya.”

“Nice day.”

“Is it warmin’ up a little?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t been outside.”

The blonde sighed, looked away, then back at him. “I have. Believe me, it ain’t a nice day. That wind could kill ya.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d get much business, then.”

She shrugged. “I might as well be here. It’s the only shop I got.”

“Suppose I wanted to change the color of my hair?”

She looked up, interested. “Do ya?”

“Not today. Maybe in a few days.”

“Sure, I could do it for ya, any color ya want. Twenty’d cover it.”

“That seems pretty high.”

“Okay, fifteen. But that’s as low as I’ll go. Ya oughta see what the hotel charges me for this place.”

“Then let’s say twenty, and you promise to keep it strictly confidential. Is that a deal?”