“Easiest thing in the world,” I said. “He checked in the day before, just in case. He was setting things up. When he got the word that I was looking for him, he went back to my hotel, went up to his room, then went to my room and let himself in. The locks in my hotel aren’t much of a challenge. He took off his clothes and sharpened his machete and waited for me to come home.”

“And it almost worked.”

“It should have worked. He could have waited behind the door and killed me before I knew what was happening. Or he could have stayed in the bathroom a few more minutes and given me time to get into bed. But he got too much of a kick out of killing and that’s what screwed him up. He wanted us both naked when he took me out, so he waited in the bathroom, and he couldn’t wait for me to get into bed because he was too keyed up, too excited. Of course if I hadn’t had the gun handy he’d have killed me anyway.”

“He couldn’t have been all alone.”

“He was alone as far as the killings were concerned. He probably had partners in the emerald operation. The cops may get somewhere looking for them and they may not. Even if they do, there’s no real way to make a case against anybody.”

He nodded. “What happened to the brother? Kim’s boyfriend, the one who started everything.”

“He hasn’t turned up. He’s probably dead. Or he’s still running, and he’ll live until his Colombian friends catch up with him.”

“Will they do that?”

“Probably. They’re supposed to be relentless.”

“And that room clerk? What’s his name, Calderón?”

“That’s right. Well, if he’s holed up somewhere in Queens, he can read about it in the paper and ask for his old job back.”

He started to say something, then changed his mind and took both our cups back to the kitchen to refill them. He came back with them and gave me mine.

“You were up late,” he said.

“All night.”

“You been to sleep at all?”

“Not yet.”

“Myself, I doze off in a chair now and then. But when I get in bed I can’t sleep, I can’t even lie there. I go work out and take a sauna and a shower and drink some more coffee and sit around some more. Over and over.”

“You stopped calling your service.”

“I stopped calling my service. I stopped leaving the house. I guess I been eating. I take something from the refrigerator and eat it without paying attention. Kim’s dead and Sunny’s dead and this Cookie’s dead, and maybe the brother’s dead, the boyfriend, and what’s-his-name is dead. The one you shot, I disremember his name.”

“Marquez.”