Double-stepping the stairs, he stopped on the fourth step and returned to the lobby. The television hanging to the right of the Chinese desk was showing pictures, with the sound down, of an electric blue Rolls-Royce Dawn Drophead coupé, parked on a street in Beverly Hills, swarming with police and forensic-suited investigators. He turned around, put his head through the beads and threw up. Breathed in, escaped the trailing beads and ran past the now emerged Chinese lady, double-stepped again and opened the door to the room.

Lomita was sitting in the chair looking like death. Well she was the bringer of death. The harbinger, the grim reaper, she did it. He didn’t want to enter into any discussion about what had happened: keep it simple.

‘Where’s Manita?’

Lomita without expression went to the bag and picked up her phone; had a freeze moment as the sight of the gun took her back; she pressed the name Manita on the recent call page.

‘¿Cuánto tiempo hasta que llegues?’

She pressed the red button.

‘Thirty minutes.’

Exhaled Lomita.

‘She’ll be another thirty minutes.’

Another thirty minutes. Had all communication broken down, what do you say now? Did either of them want to speak? Could Lomita speak? She looked like she had lived every second of her seventy-six years, the poor soul. What could he possibly say to her?

‘Did you get your water?’

Was the best.

‘Yes, thank you. What do we do with the gun?’

She asked and it had to be said.

‘In the bag. It’s still in the bag.’

‘Leave it in the bag.’

Ever said for no reason other than he had no idea what to do with it. But it sounded authoritative. And then after the longest exhalation that her tiny lungs could expel, she replenished with some innocent air.

‘What have I done to us Ever? What have I done?’

This, thought Ever in a moment of intense cruelty, could be the record that played around and around forever. The stuck record. At least for the next thirty minutes.

‘Let’s get on the road and we can talk.’

‘In front of Manita? I don’t think so.’

‘Talk now, is that what we should do? What do we do then?’

‘We go to Mexico and wait. They will find me. They have connections to me. I was the last person seen with him. I had lunch with him. They will at least find me, to ask me questions. At the very least.’

*

Ever couldn’t begin to comprehend life now.