“This will be the last chance in your life to see him. I would rather have you remember him as a little mouse running through a maze, from one door to the next, looking for the one that is unlocked. What was that you called Gregory, ‘Monkeyboy’? I want you to think of your husband as a fool, not strong enough to hold onto you when someone else has the will to take you from him.”

There was no point in arguing, not when watching Sam on television might let her see a way of helping him. Using the remote, Chino turned on the set and changed the channel. Billowing up on the screen was a shadowy image of Sam tiptoeing carefully along an exterior wall. “He’s still outside,” Chino said with disgust. “At least he’s going in the right direction.” He threw the remote on the bar. “Don’t try to get away,” he said at the door. “We’re all locked in this suite of rooms together, to protect us from your Monkeyboy.”

Sam turned a corner. Chino headed down the hall, away from the security room. Amy had another thought — could things be so simple? She went around the bar to the refrigerator for a fresh bottle of champagne. At the door she looked up and down the hall. Empty. For luck she took another look at the television set. Sam tried to open a window, but it wouldn’t budge. He moved on. Amy headed down the hall toward the security room, the champagne bottle at her side, behind the line of her robe.

How tough would it be to bang a line drive off Gregory’s skull? He’d feel less pain than she would if the bottle shattered and gashed her hand. Anyway, was she really worried about her pain? His back to the door, he was watching Sam on one of the large screens. Sam had found the unlocked door. The angle cut to the interior, the door opening. Amy moved closer, lifting the champagne bottle behind her back like a Louisville Slugger.

Gregory wheeled around in his chair to face her, his small automatic pistol pointing at her chest. She stopped cold.

“Put the bottle down, please.”

She stood at the end of the console.

“If I had my choice, you would be dead or dying now. Did you think I wasn’t watching you too?” He waved toward the small screens, where one showed them from the back corner, the banks of television screens a wall of glowing postage stamps beyond them.

“Were you watching Chino and me?”

“What you really want to know is, was I ever going to turn the camera off?”