Admittedly, I wasn’t the regular Infinity clientele, what with my red high-tops and my canvas overnight bag, a gift my mother had ordered from a catalog, monogrammed JTW (John Timothy Welch). But I was a person, goddammit. I’m a person, too!

“Your name?”

“Trammel. I’m Mr. Trammel.”

At the eleventh hour, I had called Anna to suggest we check in using fake names. Just in case. I could tell she was put off by my idea. She said she was coming as herself, but I could be whoever I wanted. I told her that I’d be checking in under the name Trammel.

“I’ll need a major credit card, Mr. Trammel,” Mahogany said.

“I don’t think you will.”

“We always ask . . .”

“I was told everything had been arranged.”

Which was true. Anna had arranged everything, even for me to be Mr. Trammel.

“By whom?”

“Anna Brody. Or I suppose it could be under the name Ashworth.”

Mahogany sighed, clicking the tongue stud against the back of her front teeth. She typed on her keyboard, and whatever came up on the computer screen had a transformative effect on Mahogany, whose features softened. She practically purred when she said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Trammel—you’ll be a guest of Mrs. Ashworth. She’s taken care of everything.”

Soon enough, a bellman/model/actor decked out in black appeared with a cart.

“Mr. Trammel, this is Nils. He’ll show you to your room.”

Nils gestured toward a candlelit elevator that was open, waiting.

As we went up: “Is this your first time staying with us, Mr. Trammel?”

“Yes, and it will be my last.”

“May I ask why?”

“I’m only doing this once.”

Nils hesitated, then began his spiel about the Infinity and how, for a year, it had been a well-kept secret, then after a change in ownership, someone pressured Architectural Digest into doing a sixteen-page spread, and ever since last spring, the hotel had been booked full. “You have to be someone to get a room.”

“Really,” I said, in an attempt to appear interested.

The elevator sprang open on the seventeenth floor. The floor was dark, and it snaked along like an ear canal, a fallopian tube.

“Everybody stays here. We sign a confidentiality agreement because of the rock stars and other famous types. Like I can’t tell you who’s here now, for instance.”

“That’s a relief to me.”

“It is?”

“I wouldn’t want you talking about my business.”

“I would never . . .” Nils stopped in front of room 1701. Upon seeing its placement—the center door at the end of the hall, no doors to other rooms nearby—I braced myself for what was to come.

Nils unlocked and held the door as he gestured for Mr. Trammel to step inside, which I did.

“Yes, fine,” I said.

“Are you unhappy with the accommodations, sir?”

I shrugged. “Just out of curiosity, what would this normally cost me?”