[Redacted]

[Redacted]

Apologies to everyone but…

“The Hotel is undergoing a deep cleaning at the moment.

Bedbugs, damn things. And look at the state of this hallway”

Click: static picture.

Click:

Grainy cheap videotape of Arthur Pinch standing in the lobby, center frame, drying oxidating brown blood, once oxygenated crimson, wiped down the side of his left cheek. Someone slid their fingers down his face, or tried to claw at him.

“See how awful the hallways are?

If you wander by today expecting to take a room, as the head concierge, I do so apologize, the doors will be locked for the duration of the day while maintenance is performed. I’d thank you for your understanding.”

The recording blinks, shrinks, and collapses to black.

“There’s blood on your face,” Grim says from behind the tripod and ancient silver chipped plastic video camera.

“At this point I don’t care, just, hand that off to Luxe or something,” Arthur flicks four bone fingers at her, elbow cupped in his other hand, and turns to the lobby.

Malick is wrapping bodies in blue, grey, brown tarps, duct taping them, stacking corpses in a cordwood pile. He’ll use ratchet straps laid under them already to tie them for a rusted squeaky wheel cart trip down service elevator 9. Directly to the pits.

Housekeepers are picking up brass shell casings and scrubbing blood from hardwood across the lobby. The Sanctum is a gutted animal. Arthur sees the perversity to it. Window shattered on the floor, brass bars broken apart and wrenched outward, a human sized bullet made an exit wound to the underside of the Hotel.

“Have to cut up the rugs here,” Malick says after hoisting the last body on top of the pile. “Stains sat too long.”

“Let the fucking housekeepers try first Malick, for the love of God.” Pinch is snippy. Without his spot behind the window there’s nowhere for him to stand and feel like himself. Takes off his hat and sits on a rondel. Pinch puts the hat on his knee and runs his hands through his hair.

Is this what he needed? Or what he deserved? Certainly not what he wanted.

“Stains won’t come up,” a housekeeper says. Arthur moans did she try hydrogen peroxide. “It’s been lay too long Mr. Pinch.” He closes his eyes so tight he sees colors pinwheel.

“Said so,” Malick is ratcheting the piles of bodies together at the middle with two straps. 2 inch thick bright yellow tie downs with an 1800 pound break strength and Malick is so hard at it, eyes still clenched tight, Pinch fidgets at the idea of them breaking.

“Always giving us something new,” Arthur startles at Valentine’s voice.

“You never come to the lobby.” he lifts his head to look at his old friend, rubbing his temples.

“You know I met that misses Xenia, in the elevator,” Valentine says. He stands staff straight, one hand behind his back, the other holding his umbrella out slanted handle away from him, tip resting near the toe of his shoe. “She was carrying a Mossberg, but she was very polite. Insightful woman.”

“The shotgun probably left a better impression than her Broadway act,” Pinch is bitter or tired.

In the background, Peroxide isn’t taking it up neither, what should we do? Call the service? Pinch hears everything.

“Arthur, friend.” Pinch looks up to Valentine and the blind elevator operator looks down at him, eyes locked from behind his silk wrap. “I think we can say you being an ass from all things I could tell. You deserved this one.”

Arthur sweeps his right arm across the lobby, “if, and only if I were to entertain that thought, do you that the hotel deserved it? The hotel breached, the sanctum defiled, all these fucking bodies and bullet holes.” Background noise, blood won’t come up, and Arthur yells, “Oh call the fucking service.”

Malick has strapped the bodies tight and is hauling six tarps of impossible corpse weight onto a rust speckled metal platform truck by two inch wide ratchet straps. His ease at the task would terrify anyone unfamiliar with who he is and why he’s called the Plumber. “Told you blood was too soaked, in the floor by now probably too.”

“Just worry about keeping that pile on the fucking cart on your way down,” Pinch yells, but Malick is already using a third tie down to secure the heap of corpses onto the platform truck. Gives Pinch a thumbs up over his shoulder.

Weight on the rondel next to him. Valentine sits.

“Arthur, your brain, your propriety, your utter pompous seriousness about this bitch of a hotel.” Has Arthur ever seen Valentine sitting? “You yell at everyone in this aftermath like I didn’t hear those two come in, and how you treated them.”

A lazy cat grin settles onto Valentine’s face and he lies back on the rondel next to Pinch, umbrella lying in his lap, he reclines, arms stretch wide, bones crack, and he pats Arthur on the back.

“This one time, Mr. Arthur Pinch has gotten both what he needed, and what he deserved.” Valentine’s featherweight French accent comes out of his mouth and weighs a ton. “And I never thought I would see the day it happened. But my brother, Pinch, here we are.”

Arthur reached into his vest pocket and pulls out the note Xenia left him, unfolds it and reads it again.

“Make peace with them. They work for the man up there.” Valentine points with his cane. “And no one scares Arthur Pinch but the man upstairs.”

“Her note,” resigned. Arthur sighs and his voice drops low. “It’s a polite note for a bitch.”

“Better to have friends who can turn your lobby into this scene yes?” Valentine points around the lobby’s carnage with the end of his umbrella, other hand still on Arthur’s back, the ants trying to clean it, the blood, the exit wound in the sanctum, the spot where one of those Greek sisters, the older one, Calypso’s head was beaten into the floor. Blunt bottle bottom smashed with so much force bone lodged into the floor and the hardwood underneath splintered. “They who can do this here and stay, consider allies, consider.” He pauses a beat. “Consider a scene like this, anywhere but your lobby.”

Pinch surveys the carnage. Malick is wheeling the platform truck down the deep back corridor, one wheel squeaking, srkik skrik skrik. The maids are calling the services.

"And you make it sound like they were not injured, this is just veneer my friend. We needed a new coat of paint anyway. The Russians are both at the Barber. But they put Bosch in a hospital bed.” No one knows how Valentine knows, but he knows everything. Bosch? Arthur asks. “Quite seriously, he has been injured.” Valentine puts the umbrella back in his lap and holds out his hands balled into fists in front of him. “Need,” he says and opens his right hand palm towards the ceiling. “Deserve,” and he opens his right hand, palm down, towards the bowels.

“I’ll send a Magnum of our finest lukewarm Corbel Brut with no ice, a piece of chocolate cake, and a nice note to their room. We’ll be friends.” His voice drips on the floor. Sarcasm? Does it matter.

“Arthur, my brother, you’re still a prick.” Valentine says.