“Here it is,” she said abruptly, and I turned into an unmarked driveway, flanked on either side by a thick hedge of oleander. The plants were so tall, and the path so gently winding, that it was only when we had come around the very last bend that the hotel itself rippled into view: low, white, and crouching like a cat. It was lit dramatically from below, and I could see that it was that most ubiquitous of all Californian buildings, a stucco building with a red tile roof.

From its center rose the modest steeple, and above it, the simple cross. I felt a throb in my wrists, and my pulse skipped forward. A strange new quality established itself in my mind. Two fingers, I thought, and I saw the image of the drawing on the notepaper superimposed on the steeple in front of me, as if that one, the drawing, was the one that counted.

We pulled up to the front entrance. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a remarkably tall bellhop standing behind a podium, eyeing us with no visible reaction as we slowed to a stop.

Here I was, I thought; now, how do I get inside?

There was no reason I could not simply come back another day, I reasoned, it was not as though my father’s body were upstairs growing cold—no—whatever there was to be gleaned from this hotel, if there was anything, could be learned just as successfully tomorrow or the next day. Now that I knew where it was, I could—

I was startled from my thoughts by a sudden soft pressure on my knee. Looking down, I saw that it was the hand of the guest lecturer.

Through the windshield I could see the bellhop, who was coming slowly toward the guest lecturer’s door. Evidently, he had decided we were in need of assistance. He put his hand on the door handle and pulled it open, and I was surprised by the look he gave us through the glass—there was nothing friendly about it, and perhaps even something faintly menacing. Then he stepped back, holding the guest lecturer’s door open, and his face was plunged into shadow again.

The guest lecturer, however, was oblivious to all this. She gave the bellhop a look of unmistakable displeasure and, without saying a word, reached out and shut her door again.

“Now,” she said, replacing her palm on my knee. “Would you like to come up and have a drink?”

She was breathing, as she said the words, rather heavily, and on each exhalation rode the sweet-sour smell of wine.

I found I could not reply immediately. Instead, I looked down at her hand. I could feel the warm, sticky heat of her palm through the fabric of my pants, and I felt a nearly incapacitating desire to push it off. But, I thought, now is not the time to be so particular.