and put on the jacket. Not a bad fit.
He hit the waiter again and hard enough that he wouldn’t move for hours. Then he threw trash on the man, went directly to the service entrance, and used the ID in the electronic security box. He grinned when it opened.
Entering the empty service hall in the basement at the rear of the hotel, Sunday smelled bread baking, bacon frying, and coffee brewing. Fighting off the nausea the smell of bacon provoked, he grabbed one of three room service carts parked to one side of the hall, pushed it into a less well-lit part of the hallway. He threw his gym bag on the cart’s lower shelf. He found a white tablecloth and then several plates. He tossed on a napkin and silverware, a steak knife, two drinking glasses, and an empty coffee carafe.
“Java’s almost up,” a woman commented.
The writer turned, smiling in welcome. Fifteen feet down the hall, in her early fifties, wearing a flour-dusted apron, she shook a cigarette from a pack.
“Excellent,” Sunday said agreeably.
“New?” she asked, squinting as if she couldn’t see him very well.
“I am,” he said. “A temporary gig, but could turn permanent. Happy here?”
Her laugh became a smoker’s cough. “Happy as you can be slaving at a four-hundred-degree oven at four a.m. on Sunday morning. Good luck. Gotta have a cig.”
“Enjoy.”
The service door opened and shut. Sunday waited and then went to the doorway where the woman had appeared. He found a staging area outside the already bustling main kitchen, which was visible through a pass-through window. Three coffeemakers were bubbling to the right of the pass-through. He grabbed a carafe, walked over, and was filling it when a man called from the kitchen, “Denver omelet, bacon, and no potatoes up.”
The writer filled the carafe three-quarters full and waited for the chef to leave before grabbing the breakfast plate and hustling back to the hall. He set the plate under the stainless cover and hurried ahead, looking for a service elevator.
He found one around the corner, got in, and pushed the button for the fourteenth floor, keeping his head down. When the doors closed, he squatted, got the gym bag, and unzipped it, hoping he had the correct room.
Shortly after leaving the hotel the evening before, he’d used a throwaway phone to call the Mandarin Oriental and ask to be connected to Timothy Jackson’s room. Jackson had answered and Sunday had affected a British accent, saying, “This is Mr. Mulch with the front desk. We’ve been getting reports of loud noise and music in room 604, next door to you, sir, and wanted to—”
“You’re way off, Mulch. I’m in 1401,” Jackson said, irritated. “But while I’ve got you on the line, I want breakfast at six forty-five. I’ll hang the order on the door.”
“Very good sir,” Sunday had said, and rung off.
From the gym bag, the writer removed a white 120-milliliter bottle with a label that read:
QZT VAPES
92.2% TASTELESS NICOTINE LIQUID
EXTRACTED FROM THE FINEST SOUTH CAROLINA FLUE-CURED LEAVES
Seeing that the elevator had already passed the seventh floor, Sunday quickly opened the bottle. Happy again for the latex gloves he was wearing, he poured several ounces into the coffee.
Ding! The elevator doors opened. The fourteenth floor.
The writer glanced at his watch. It was 5:25 when he set off. He felt no fear, had no thought of capture, only pure intent. He spotted the security camera high up on the first corner, pulled a small can of Pam out of the gym bag, and sprayed the lens with vegetable oil as he passed.
He did the same with the three other cameras on the floor before going to room 1401, where he knocked sharply.
As Sunday half expected, he got no answer the first time, so he knocked even more loudly and said in a Hispanic accent, “Room service.”
He heard cursing inside and then someone coming to the door. The writer smiled at the peephole with total confidence. The bolt threw, the door opened. A pissed-off Timothy Jackson looked out at him.
“I said six forty-five,” Jackson complained. “It’s five twenty-five.”
Sunday acted flustered. “Oh,” he said. “Sorry. They write down wrong?”
“So much for the five-star rating,” Jackson snapped.
“You want I should come back?” the writer asked.