And then there was the flare of the elevator as it opened on a familiar face—the mark, the object of every stakeout I’d sat through for the last three months, first me alone and then later, when I’d recruited her, with Ellen. He looked flustered. Pissed. I snuck a quick peek around the lobby. Luckily, most patrons were still tracking the beer-foam bath, and no one seemed to notice one of the wealthiest men in the city barreling for the door.

My pulse jumping, I reached for my purse steadily, measuring my movements in slow seconds, thankful for the commotion. I signaled to the bartender, slipping out a credit card and the room key in one motion, the number 345 scribbled in thick black strokes on an attached Post-it, being very careful not to turn and look at Hiram Klein.

Behind me, I heard someone from the bar call out, “Hey, aren’t you that movie guy—” and I turned my head, but the mark, Hiram Klein, billionaire movie producer and launcher of a thousand careers, was hustling out of the lobby. The bar patron sat back down, not enticed enough to chase after that movie guy. The bartender handed me my check, and I smiled, cozying up to him across the bar top, skin buzzing, trying to imagine what celluloid gold Jackal must have gotten if Klein was that fired up.

“Was that a celebrity?” I asked him, testing the waters. I have a reckless streak sometimes.

“Not much of one,” he said, and passed me my receipt.

The door to 345 opened with a smooth click. The bathroom was barely bigger than a closet, and I could hear the erratic drip of a leaky faucet. The room was 90 percent bed—no use wasting space. The only art on the walls was something Lou had picked out, a shamelessly tacky Thomas Kinkade wannabe’s whale scene Jackal had mounted before Ellen and Klein arrived. The eye of the whale could take up to sixty minutes of video, but the Moby-Dick we were chasing hadn’t needed it—he’d finished within thirty-five flat. The bedside alarm clock housed a speaker that Jackal monitored from the next room, magnifying everything said or whispered or moaned in that bed to a mountaintop yodel when you played it back.

In the center of the bed in question, legs butterflied, sheet dripping down her chest, was my girl Ellen. Her fluffy blonde hair was a nimbus around her head, and a few strands of it had been tugged out and dangled across the grayish-white pillowcases. A black-and-orange duvet was crumpled on the floor, like it had been yanked off. Ellen’s big black eyes were glassy—a little bit thrilled, a little bit tearful—and one bright red mark clawed across her face. I could see the outline of two fingers forming on her cheek.

So he’d used an open hand this time.

“How’d it go?”