The Guest Room

by Chris Bohjalian

  And I remember wishing I spoke French. If I did, I thought, maybe we could go to Paris. Sure there were Russians in Paris. But maybe not ones who wanted to kill me.

  …

  In my hotel room, I waited. I would have been so happy to watch an episode of The Bachelor on the TV, but there wasn’t one on.

  So I just kept pressing the channels on the remote control, smoking more cigarettes, and thinking of how I wished Sonja had not knifed Pavel. How I wished Crystal had not talked to police guy. How I wished we had not come to America. I looked out at the bricks of the air shaft and the dirt on the walls, and I wondered if my mother in heaven could see what had happened to me. I wondered if my grandmother could. I wondered what Nayiri was doing. And I thought of Richard Chapman. I guessed he was back at his beautiful office in a sunny skyscraper somewhere, surrounded by other big-deal executives like him, and their secretaries and super fast computers—not like me, all alone in a room and very scared, with only stupid TV for company.

  …

  And then two o’clock in the afternoon came. And then three o’clock. I waited there all afternoon for my phone to ring that one time and then stop. It never did.

  I kept flicking the safety on the gun off and on, off and on.

  Finally at five o’clock I called Sonja’s number, let it ring once, and then hung up. But she didn’t ring back. Not at five or six or seven. Never.

  And while I didn’t know what had happened to her, I knew in my heart I was never going to see my Sonja again. I prayed she was alive, but I was not confident. I was not confident at all. I had been in bad trouble before. I had been in bad trouble plenty of times. But this? I had never before felt so cornered and so scared for my life. They were coming for me—they had to be—and I had no idea how or where I could run.

  Chapter Eleven

  As lunchtime neared Thursday, Melissa walked between Emiko and Claudia back toward the brick school building after gym. Their class had just played soccer…yet again. Neither Melissa nor Emiko was a fan of the sport, but they certainly preferred the soccer unit to flag football. Claudia said she didn’t enjoy it either, but she brought the same feral energy to soccer that she brought to skiing and dancing and Xbox games. Still, even Claudia agreed that she would be happier in a few weeks when they were inside doing gymnastics.

  Abruptly Claudia said, “I think we all know what it means.”

  Melissa turned to her. Her friend had dirt all over her hands and arms and her chin. Claudia ran hard and kicked hard, and the girl had taken a couple of tumbles that morning. Melissa didn’t have to ask Claudia what she meant by it. Neither did Emiko. They all knew because they had all been thinking about it ever since Melissa had asked them that morning what they thought the term sex slave meant.

  “I mean, we know about the slaves and we know what sex is,” Claudia went on.

  “There were slaves who were men. Does that mean that a sex slave can be a man?” Emiko asked.

  “I guess. But I bet they’re mostly girls. I mean, it’s an expression. Sex slave. Someone who is ordered to have sex.”

  “But who owns them?” Melissa asked. “Slaves had owners.” They were entering the gymnasium now and crossing the basketball court, and Melissa lowered her voice because it seemed to echo inside here.

  “Maybe your uncle?”

  “My uncle did not own them. I’ve seen his apartment. It’s small. Where would he even keep a sex slave? Where would he keep two?”

  Emiko corrected them both: “It was the men who were killed. They were the ones who owned them. That would make sense, right? The sex slaves killed their masters.”

  Melissa could tell that Claudia was about to add something. But then the three girls saw the gym teacher watching them, and they all went silent. Melissa looked down at her sneakers. She thought about her father wanting a sex slave, and grew disgusted.

  …

  Dina Renzi found Hugh Kirn almost childishly petulant, but decided that any man with eyes that blue—they were cobalt—was probably used to being a jerk and still getting his way. Getting whatever he wanted. Now he sat across from her in one of Franklin McCoy’s smaller conference rooms, though it still had a panoramic view of the East River and Brooklyn.

  “Did you know that the only vegetarian option at Harry’s is a four-egg omelet?” she told him soon after arriving at the investment bank, not so much small talk as an attempt to build commonality. The restaurant wasn’t far from the bank’s offices on Water Street, and she had had lunch there two weeks ago. She thought a joke about Harry’s might loosen him up. “Four eggs. Does anyone—especially someone who isn’t going to order the steak sandwich—really want a four-egg omelet?”

  “It’s a steakhouse,” he said, not looking up from the manila folder in front of him that he had just opened. His hair was the color of cinnamon, and his eyeglasses were wire rims, rectangular and severe. Inside the folder, in addition to Richard Chapman’s personnel file, she could see tear sheets from some of the recent newspaper stories about the debacle in her client’s home.

  “It’s an angioplasty waiting to happen,” she said.

  “So, Richard Chapman,” he began, clearly disdaining any interest in irrelevant conversation. “Frankly, I think the man should be seriously grateful. He’s still getting a paycheck from us.”

  “I disagree. This leave is punitive and there’s no cause. He violated no company policy. He hasn’t been charged with a crime—and won’t be.”

  “If it were punitive, it would be a disciplinary leave of absence without pay. This is merely an administrative leave.”

  “Forced.”

  “It is mandatory, yes. And I would say there is cause. His presence here—and with our clients—is a public relations problem. We really don’t want to be associated with him right now. Would you? We feel the need to make a statement as a company—to distance ourselves from behavior we don’t condone.”

  “He’s a victim, too.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “He allowed his brother’s friends to have a bachelor party for his brother at his house. That’s what he did—and that’s all he did.”

  “And two people were murdered.”

  “Precisely! Two people were murdered. Your employee was doing his brother a favor and wound up a witness to a horrible crime. But he did absolutely nothing wrong.”

  “We both know that’s not true. He had prostitutes and mobsters in his home. The media has suggested it was an orgy.”

  She noticed a couple of pigeons on the window ledge, one with a boxer’s broad chest. “The media is sensationalizing the sex,” she answered carefully, because she knew that pig Spencer Doherty had some sort of video. “It was a bachelor party. I am going to go way out on a limb and guess that every male managing director at Franklin McCoy has been to a bachelor party. We all know what goes on at them.”

  “I promise you, I have never been to a bachelor party where the men were engaging in intercourse with prostitutes.”

  “And no one has accused Richard Chapman of doing that.”

  “The investigation is ongoing.”

  “It’s a murder investigation. No one is going to charge your employee with having sex with a prostitute,” she assured him.

  “I hope not—for his sake and this company’s.”

  “When can he come back?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Every day you bar him from the office you are defaming his character.”

  “Oh, that’s bullshit. We haven’t said or written anything about him that’s public.”

  “Are you sure? Are you that confident that there isn’t a single e-mail between anyone at Franklin McCoy and any of your M and A clients that would make you…uncomfortable in that regard?”

  He tilted back his chair and folded his arms. “Are you really going to play that card?”

  “Look, the entire idea that you have put him on leave is, arguably, defamatory.”

  “So, he’s going to su
e us? Really? And then expect us to take him back with open arms?”

  “No one wants to sue you. For reasons that I can’t fathom, he actually likes all of you. He misses you,” she said, hoping sarcasm hadn’t leached into her voice. She reached into her Bottega and held up her own copy of his personnel file. “And he is, from what I understand, rather good at what he does. There’s only love and more love in his performance reviews. It’s just one big happy bromance.”

  “Having him here doesn’t look good.”

  “Get over it. I promise you, your clients already have. You’re an investment bank. God, if the world can get over Eliot Spitzer and Hugh Grant, it can get over Richard Chapman.”

  He rolled those magnificent blue eyes up at the tiles on the ceiling. He wasn’t even trying to hide his vexation. “Tell me: What do you know? Do you have any sense of what’s coming in the newspapers tomorrow? Or what will be online tonight?”

  “The Middle East. Nude reality TV shows. Black boxes from aviation disasters. Taylor Swift. The usual.”

  “But nothing about our employee.”

  “Nothing about one of your managing directors—at least as far as I know.”

  “At least as far as you know,” he repeated.

  “That’s right.”

  “Let’s talk more on Monday.”

  “Let’s talk more tomorrow.”

  “You really are working those billable hours, aren’t you?”

  “I’m looking out for Richard Chapman. The billable hours are just a bonus,” she said, careful to smile in a manner that wasn’t in the slightest way disingenuous. She made a mental note that when she filled in her client on her meeting with Kirn, she would see if he had paid off Spencer Doherty.

  …

  Alone in his house, his wife and his daughter both down the hill at the Bronxville School, Richard made sure that there were no vultures—his new pet name for the news vans—and went outside. He popped the trunk to his Audi and stared at the wannabe Bierstadt, which was still streaked with the blood from a dead Russian pimp. He really did have to deal with it. Here he had nothing but time on his hands, and still he hadn’t called that detective’s cousin at NYU. Wasn’t there some expression about finding a busy person if you wanted to get something done? Maybe if he could just get the blood off the painting…

  Maybe…nothing.

  He recalled how he had tossed and turned on the futon last night and wished he had bought that hunting rifle. Or at least started the process. It would do him no good with Spencer—you couldn’t just lean back in a bar and reveal it like your hidden carry—but it might have given him some peace of mind when he thought of the Russians. He knew intellectually there was no reason to be scared for his family. They wanted the girls, not him. At least that’s what he was reminding himself now, in the clear light of day. It was in the small hours of the morning when all horrors seemed plausible. Even likely. Hadn’t his brother told him that Spencer was terrified?

  Well, maybe Spencer should be terrified. There was a guy at Franklin McCoy from Texas who once said about a bastard CEO whose company they were trying to sell, “Some people just need killin’.” He said it with a twang that only appeared when he wanted to make a point. Well, in the Russians’ eyes, Spencer probably just needed killin’—and to them it wasn’t a joke.

  Of course, Kristin would have been absolutely furious if he had brought home a rifle. She would have been convinced that he had, once and for all, lost his mind. And, perhaps, he had. Last night, he had stared up at the ceiling, awash in the superstitious fear that by failing to buy a weapon, he was inviting disaster: his family would be killed while a rifle lay dormant in its box in a gun store in Yonkers. If only…

  If only…

  Well, fuck the if onlys.

  Fuck this goddamn painting.

  Fuck Spencer Doherty.

  Fuck the news vans and the Russians and the bastards he thought were his friends at Franklin McCoy.

  He held the painting by two opposite sides of the frame as if it were a serving platter and marched to the bottom of his driveway. He stood before the antique wrought-iron post with his mailbox, raised the painting over his head, and then smashed it as hard as he could against the black metal finial, impaling it. Skewering it. The tip pierced the canvas, and the mailbox widened the gash. Then, the painting dangling on the post, he grabbed loose strips of it with his hands and shredded them, pulling them apart as if he were ripping the tenderloin from chicken breasts. He cursed it. He swore under his breath. And when he lifted the painting back off the post, the slivers dangled like entrails. For a moment he held it in his hands, unsure why he wasn’t wholly satisfied. But then he got it. Then he understood. He slammed the frame down onto the asphalt, splintering the wood on two sides and unhinging the corners.

  Fuck you, he hissed at it. Fuck you. Now he was satisfied. He had to admit when he was throwing away the frame and the canvas, he really did feel a little better. No. He felt a lot better. He almost wished there had been a vulture present to capture his madness on video for the world.

  He glanced at his watch and thought about what he would be doing if he were not killing time on this appalling leave of absence by destroying a painting. He counted back the hours to the bachelor party, numbering the intervals of twenty-four in his mind. How many hours ago had the guests started to arrive? How many hours ago had the two Russians been killed? He thought once again of that poor girl on the bed with her feet not touching the floor. She was still on the run somewhere. At least that’s what the newspapers said. She was either on the run or she was dead. No, not dead, he thought. Please, not dead. Her death, he feared, might really push him over the edge. Would make his little catharsis with the painting just now seem like a round of golf.

  He realized that he had to get out of the house. He saw that the car trunk was still open and slammed it shut. He combed his hair in the driveway, and climbed into the Audi. Then he drove down the hill to the school. There he waited in the parking lot, soaking up the cool autumn air and the bright midday sun, waiting for those two consecutive periods when he knew that Kristin was on break. The hours when she usually did errands or grabbed a bite to eat. He thought he would surprise her and take her to lunch.

  …

  Philip Chapman stood beside Spencer Doherty with his back against one of the black marble obelisks behind which statuesque young women—dressed always in black sheath dresses, spike heels, and a shade of lipstick so red the company christened it Provocateur—would check guests in and out of the Cravat, and lost what it was that his friend was telling him. He had been surveying a part of his little empire, but now he was watching a young woman in a white skirt and matching blazer nuzzle a man a generation older as they crossed the lobby and disappeared inside an elevator. The guy was handsome, and the suit was a perfectly tailored charcoal gray pinstripe from Brooks Brothers. It was so clear that the pair was about to have a lunch-hour quickie in their hotel room. He imagined they worked together at some investment bank like his brother’s, but one based in Chicago or L.A., and they were in town for a series of meetings with clients. He fantasized about the woman’s lingerie beneath that skirt and blazer. He told himself that it was okay to think like this, now that Nicole had dumped him. Broken off the engagement. But he also suspected that he would have been envisioning the woman’s panties and bra—a demi thing, he decided—even if he was still getting married a week from Saturday.

  “Anyway,” Spencer was saying, “that’s what my lawyer thinks will be the deal.”

  “Sounds okay to me,” he murmured, as the elevator doors soundlessly slid shut. “And you feel good about that?”

  “You didn’t hear a single word I said, did you?”

  “I heard a few.”

  Spencer looked at his watch. “God. You’re incredible.”

  “Okay, I’m listening. I promise.”

  “They were threatening me with sexual assault on a minor. They were threatening me with managing a sex tourism
business. Even that’s a Class D felony. Do you have any idea how many years in prison I was looking at if I were convicted of sexual assault on a minor? Do you realize how completely fucking ruined my whole life would have been?”

  “You wouldn’t have been convicted. You just used a stripper service that had benefits.”

  “But I knew they had benefits. And I did have sex with that blonde.”

  “You weren’t alone.”

  “Anyway, if you care, I told them everything—and I mean everything—and I’ve agreed to testify. So instead I’m not even looking at a Class A misdemeanor: promoting prostitution. My lawyer, at first, thought that was the goal. Get this shitstorm down to a misdemeanor. But by testifying, I’m getting off scot-free.”

  “And that nasty business with Chuck and Brandon?”

  “Really, Philip, I might have been talking to the fucking wall.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Spencer sighed, exasperated. “Brandon’s wife is still claiming to be out for the count, which my lawyer says is all part of the negotiations. But the settlement—assuming we reach one—won’t be pretty. And Chuck’s lawyer has gone off radar. Not responding to e-mails or phone calls.”

  “Which may mean Chuck has come to his senses, right?”

  “Hah! That, too, is part of the negotiations. Any way you look at it, no matter how or when or if we settle, I am financially fucked. My legal fees alone are going to be a world of pain.”

  “That whole night now is nothing but pain. None of us have gotten off easy.”

  “But some of us are in far deeper shit than others. So, tell me…”

  Philip looked at Spencer and raised his eyebrows expectedly. It was unlike Spencer to stop in mid-sentence. “Go on.”

  “So, tell me…you hear from your brother?”

  “Often. Why?” Philip noted how his friend wouldn’t meet his eyes, and thought this was odd: it was as if Spencer was actually experiencing a little guilt over the tsunami he had unleashed.

  “Just curious.”

  “God, are you getting a heart?” He clapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Are you getting a moral compass? I’m proud of you, Spencer! You’re feeling bad about this natural disaster, aren’t you?”