Red Gloves, Volumes I & II

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Well, I’m the managing director of the consortium that owns it,’ said Lassiter, managing to make the role sound unimportant.

  ‘He’s being modest,’ said Court, ‘he owns the entire chain.’

  If Vienna was impressed, she was too smart to show it. Her deal was with the maître d’. She only cared about her direct contacts. ‘Is it owned by the Americans?’

  ‘No, it’s mainly Indian and Russian money.’

  ‘They charge non-guests an entrance fee just to look around the lobby of this hotel,’ she said, ‘but I guess you know that.’

  ‘I don’t suppose that affects you.’ It seemed that, having made the effort to talk to the girl, Lassiter was happier talking to Court. ‘You’re not staying at the Burj Al-Arab, Oliver?’

  ‘Even I can’t justify that kind of expense. Besides, loyalty dictates that I stay here. I suppose you’ve got a suite.’

  ‘Penthouse sea-facing corner, but not the royal suite,’ said Lassiter. ‘That’s reserved for heads of state.’

  ‘I heard quite a few of the rooms are empty.’ The Middle East was part of Lassiter’s domain.

  ‘It’s not just here. There’s been a lot of over-construction. Look out of the window along the coastline. Everyone’s been affected by the bad publicity lately, those stories of raw sewage being pumped into the sea, but it doesn’t stop them from building.’

  ‘You’re not worried enough to reduce the cost of a room yet,’ Court added. ‘So, do we get to see your view?’

  He wants to bring the girl, Lassiter thought in some surprise. How will this work out? ‘Sure, if you want.’

  Court paid without checking the total and stood up, placing his hand in the valley of Vienna’s back. This small gesture was enough to seal the deal. She showed no reaction as she rose and left with them, the light from the neon bar-sign casting a crimson stripe across her neck that appeared to sever it.

  ‘At these prices I thought you’d have your own elevator,’ Court needled gently.

  ‘Only the royal apartment has that. For security purposes.’ Lassiter stabbed at the illuminated gold lift button. ‘We need to invent something better than first class. The whole concept of privilege has become debased.’

  ‘I read somewhere that you need to earn six million per annum to live like a millionaire these days,’ said Vienna.

  Court watched his boss against the dark golden glass of the elevator. Lassiter had started to put on the kind of weight he would never be able to shift. His new suit was already becoming too tight. He was in his mid-sixties but showed no desire to stop working or even slow down. Sharks drown if they stop swimming, Court thought. The only way he’ll stop is if he dies. I’m surprised Elizabeth still puts up with it.

  He wondered if Lassiter went around telling people how he’d given Court a start in the hotel business. Mentors had a habit of doing that.

  ‘Welcome to my world,’ said Lassiter without an obvious hint of irony as he held open the door for Vienna. The suite displayed all the accoutrements of wealth without any of the concomitant taste. A curved bar was lined with gold-leaf piping that rose to enclose a range of vintage whisky bottles presented on sheets of underlit crimson glass like items of baroque jewellery.

  ‘Want to try the whisky?’

  ‘I’m staying with vodka.’

  Vienna watched until her own drink had been poured, then went to the bathroom.

  ‘She’s very beautiful,’ Lassiter conceded.

  ‘She doesn’t have to be here if she doesn’t want to,’ said Court. ‘She’s with your hotel, which presumably means she has quality control.’

  Lassiter walked to the glass wall and looked down to the beach. Spotlights picked out the tall wavering palms that had been transported fully grown and impatiently planted into the unfinished esplanade. The crystal blackness reflected every glittering pinpoint in the apartment, creating a second starscape above the sea. There was no natural sound in the suite, only the faint but steady hiss of cold ionised air pumped up through the ventilation system, and the settling chink of perfectly cubed ice on glass.

  ‘Allow me,’ said Court, pouring a heavy measure of scotch. ‘It’s a nice view. Although I don’t like to look at the sea. I’d prefer to be surrounded by buildings. City boy at heart.’

  Lassiter accepted the proffered drink and downed it in one. He had been drinking hard all evening. The New Business Model Seminar was so stultifying that everyone had been pushing their upper alcohol limits for the past three days, and there was still another day to go.

  ‘Did you learn anything at all today?’ Lassiter asked. ‘Spare me all those speakers from the Far East with their strangled English and aching politeness. Did you actually get anything out of it?’

  ‘No, but I didn’t expect to.’

  They studied the view. Lassiter pressed his chilled tumbler against his forehead. ‘Look at it. There’s no-one out there and nothing to see. You could be in Monte Carlo, Geneva or Madrid. That’s the beauty of our European hotels, Oliver. Whichever one you use, there you are, home and safe again. Sometimes I wake up and have no idea where I am. And it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘How’s the seminar working out for you?’

  ‘I’ll go home four days nearer to my death with a sun-reddened face and a portfolio full of brochures my PA will eventually tip into the bin.’

  ‘It’s not like you to be a cynic,’ Court observed. ‘I remember when you first saw potential in me, the things you taught me, all that practical advice and optimism for the future.’

  ‘I’m afraid my hopes atrophied somewhat when our so-called first-world society decided to hand over the reins of financial responsibility to a bunch of cowboy bankers.’ He drained his glass, the ice clinking against his white teeth. ‘I’m old enough to remember when selling was a challenge. These days I feel like a nurse spoon-feeding paralysed patients. Christ, I want to start smoking again, but these rooms are alarmed. Pour me another, will you?’

  Court headed back to the bar. He picked up a matchbook, crested and labelled ‘Royal Persian Hotel, Dubai’ and slipped it into his pocket. ‘How come there are no cameras in the corridors?’ he wondered aloud.

  ‘The Arabs are like the Swiss when it comes to issues of privacy. The rich need to treat each other in an adult manner because there are so many dirty secrets to keep tucked away.’

  Court was not familiar with this reflective side of Lassiter. The man who had elevated as many careers as he had destroyed was going soft. Men became vulnerable to strange fancies when they felt their sexual powers waning.

  ‘The most powerful religious leaders emerge from desert states, have you noticed?’ Lassiter mused. ‘Whereas political leaders nurture their theories in cities. One thinks of Pol Pot’s agrarian revolution being discussed in smoky Parisian cafés. In my darkest nightmares I imagine a new business model, one where morals and decent behaviour are considered detrimental, where only grabbing the next million in the next hour commands any respect at all. And at some point—I’m not sure when—my nightmare became real. This is what we do, Oliver, and we all collude in the process. The definition of a conspiracy is the combination of any number of people in a surreptitious agreement to commit a secret, unlawful, evil and wrongful act. Think about what we do and ask yourself if you really want to join the next level.’

  He’s lost it, thought Oliver. The great Sean Lassiter is stepping out of the ring to watch sunsets and talk hippy-dippy shit. This is too good to be true.

  ‘You’ve made your money, Sean. If you feel like this, why don’t you just sell up?’

  Lassiter regarded him from beneath hooded eyelids. ‘There’s no-one I trust enough. You want to know if that includes you. I groomed you, I knew what would happen. Give someone the benefit of your experience for long enough, and it stands to reason they’ll eventually try to buy the company out from under you. I never held your success against you, Oliver.’

  ‘That’s because your own success always remained greater.
It’s easy to be magnanimous when you’re at the top. What if I really wanted to buy the company now?’

  There it is, thought Lassiter, the real purpose of dinner. ‘I wondered when you would finally ask.’

  ‘You don’t think I’d look after the staff.’

  ‘My people? I replace them like batteries.’ Lassiter looked towards the bathroom door. The girl seemed to be taking a long time.

  ‘Then why not sell to me?’ Court walked over to the balcony and unlocked the doors, rolling them silently back. The cool night air was a relief after the chemically conditioned atmosphere. ‘Hey, we can smoke out here. Doors and windows you can open forty floors up, they’d never allow this at home.’ He laughed, patting his pockets.

  With one last glance back at the bathroom, Lassiter joined him on the balcony. He leaned over the edge and looked down. ‘You’re right, there’s hardly a light on in the entire building. We should be renegotiating the prices of the suites. Europe holds too many festivals and seminars at this time of the year. Half the salesmen in America leave home in March and don’t get back until their houseplants are dead.’

  ‘Your profits are down, and I’ve heard the next quarter will be even worse.’

  ‘Maybe we did expand Europe too quickly. When a wolf is sick, the others decide what to do; whether you live or die depends on how important you are to the pack. You think we’re going lame, one of the pack lagging behind?’ He sighed wearily. ‘Are you going to bite me on the leg and drag me into the bushes? Why not, it’s what I would have done.’

  The only sign of life came from the headlights of the gravel trucks swerving past each other in the distance, like tin toys on a track. Their thin bright beams shone into total blackness. Back along the coastline, a line of steel towers glowed through the sea-mist like a phantom stockade.

  Court realised that to get an answer he would have to give one. ‘You asked me. What do I want?’ he repeated. ‘I want to reach the top of my profession.’

  ‘That’s not a desire, it’s an instinct, like releasing air from a diving tank.’ Given the amount he had drunk, he surprised himself with the analogy. It was true; his career was as lonely and claustrophobic as being under the sea.

  ‘All right. Then I desire respect.’

  Lassiter turned to study him. ‘Surely you have that already. Don’t you?’ From the way he said it, Lassiter made it clear that Court had yet to earn it from his teacher.

  ‘I suppose so. In that case, I don’t know. That’s the answer to your question; I really don’t know.’

  ‘Fair enough. I suppose that’s more honest than saying you want our hotels to be the finest in the world. You’re still only in your thirties—’

  ‘Thirty-four.’

  ‘You have time on your side. Now I suppose you want an answer to your question.’ Lassiter lit the proffered cigar and drew hard on it. ‘I can’t sell you the company, Oliver.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It would be too obvious.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s what you want. I can always tell what you’re going to do next. You’re positively metronomic in your habits. I can see inside your head, which means that from a business point of view I can always out-think you. And if I can, others will. That’s not good.’

  ‘It’s because I learned everything from you. You’ll always be the one person who knows exactly what I think. You’ll always outguess me.’

  The ocean air should have started sobering him up, but it was having the opposite effect. Lassiter struggled to understand what Court was saying to him. The air was completely still, and there was no sound. Even the distant trucks moved past each other in silence. If his wife was here he knew she would appreciate the beauty of the night, but she was asleep in London. It was late and he was still wearing his business suit, and polished black shoes that pinched.

  ‘You know the story of the Caliph of Jaipur?’ asked Court, draining his glass and setting it down on the balcony table. ‘He hired the finest painter in the land to create a fresco of heavenly angels for the walls of his harem. When it was finished, he asked the artisan if it really was the best fresco in all the kingdom. The painter told him that there was no finer artwork to be found beneath the horizons, nor would there ever be again until someone else could afford his services. So the Sultan had him beheaded.’

  Lassiter looked at him blearily. Only the whites of Court’s eyes showed in the jet night, and then they were gone. A streak of silver sparkled in the ocean like a flash of static electricity, the signature of the moon. He felt tired and looked for a place to sit, but Court was crouching beside him. When he rose, he was holding Lassiter’s right ankle. Court stood taller and taller, rising higher and higher, until Lassiter realised he could no longer remain upright. ‘You’re not drunk,’ he said absurdly.

  ‘I don’t drink whisky.’ Court raised his old friend’s ankle higher, until pain shot through Lassiter’s thigh muscles.

  ‘Vodka—’

  ‘Because it looks like water. Sure you don’t want to sell?’

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  Court shrugged his shoulders. ‘That was the general idea.’ With both his hands clasped beneath Lassiter’s foot Court leaned suddenly back, like a Scotsman tossing a caber, raising his arms smartly so that Lassiter lost his battle with gravity and found himself cleanly lifted into the air, over the wall of the balcony. His mouth opened in shock, but only the smallest sound emerged. His fingers grasped at the air beyond the low rail, too late, and he tumbled silently down, past the empty dark floors. The first part of the fall seemed to last forever, as if he was wheeling through the night in slow motion, like a firework that had failed to ignite, or a spaceman with a cut cord.

  But then he hit his head on the concrete lip of the thirtieth balcony, and this sent him spinning madly out of orbit. His head turned from white to black, leaving a matching stain on the building wall. His leg hit another ledge, his arm another, his head again, his arm, his leg, until there was hardly a bone in his body left unbroken—and that was long before he hit the ground.

  Court stepped back into the room. ‘You might want to come out now,’ he called. ‘We’re alone.’ He heard running water stop.

  The bathroom door was padded crimson with gold studs. It opened cautiously. Vienna emerged with her makeup refreshed, like a meticulously restored painting. She took in the suite, three glasses, one occupant less, an open balcony door, and decided to say nothing. Had she an inkling of what had just happened? Her face was a mask. Court’s decision to act had been spontaneous. He knew she could not have seen anything, and Lassiter had made no noise. He doubted that she cared anyway. It was not her job to care. She worked in a service industry.

  ‘My colleague had to leave. Thanks for coming up,’ said Court, feeling inside his jacket. He unclipped her handbag and dropped in a roll of banknotes. ‘Maybe we’ll see each other again.’

  ‘I’d like that.’ Vienna’s smile was unreadable. She turned and walked to the door, seemingly aware of exactly how many steps it would take. ‘You know where to find me.’

  And she was gone.

  Court closed the window and rinsed the glasses, placing them back on the bar shelf. He had left no other mark in the suite. Letting himself out, he padded along the corridor and caught the elevator to his own room. He had paid the girl too much, but would not have been able to get Lassiter back to his suite without her. Everyone knew that even though the old man loved his wife, he still needed to prove himself with the ladies.

  He would heed his mentor’s advice and not suggest the buyout immediately; that would be crass. There were plenty of other preparations he could be making while the company came to terms with Lassiter’s death. It would be interesting to see how long they could keep it out of the news.

  Before the last day of the conference began, he took a stroll outside. The sky was a painful deep blue, sharper than knives. The pavements had been hosed down, and were already nearly dry. He circl
ed the hotel but found no sign of any disturbance. Shielding his eyes, he squinted up at the balconies, trying to spot where Lassiter had hit the building, but realised that he was standing beneath the ledges, and would not be able to see anything.

  The day dragged past in parades of PowerPoint bar charts, each more candy-coloured than the last, as if their radiance could make up for their dullness. At lunchtime he saw two men who looked like plainclothes police. They were standing motionless in the reception area, in mirror shades and shiny blue suits. By the time afternoon tea was served, even Lassiter’s reservation had disappeared from the records. Clearly, the hotel’s reputation was more important than its founder’s demise. The things we create outgrow us, thought Court, shutting down his laptop. One day you own the company, the next even your PA can’t remember you. I thought there would be repercussions. I guess Sean was right. It’s all part of the new business model.

  —

  Two weeks later, Court found himself at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow. He always seemed to be holding meetings in departure lounges. In the business class bar he had bumped into an old English friend, a nervy, sticklike redhead called Amanda, and had invited her to join him. Watching snow fall on airfields from behind picture windows always had a calming effect on him. Amanda was a seasoned executive with half a dozen personal communication devices in her briefcase and no hint of a private life. She told him she was going to try internet dating when she finally settled in one city long enough to do so.

  ‘I was wondering what you thought about Sean Lassiter,’ she said, slowly emptying another miniature bottle of Tanqueray into her glass. ‘There’s a rumour going around that Elizabeth was about to leave him.’

  Court had no idea. Suddenly the lack of publicity surrounding his death made sense. ‘I heard something to that effect,’ he said.

  ‘They hadn’t been sleeping together for years,’ she told him knowledgably. ‘I was reading an article in The Economist about the similarities between successful businessmen and serial killers. They share the same lack of compassion, the same selfishness and determination to succeed. They exploit the flaws of their opponents, and lose their ability to judge on moral grounds.’