“Well, if this helps, I’m happy to offer you the position of night auditor. It’ll be six nights a week, I’m afraid. I can only cover one night and still keep my sanity.”
“I’m happy to work seven nights,” Richie says. “I’d prefer it. It’ll keep me out of trouble. It’s best that I keep busy so I don’t miss my kids as much.”
Lizbet exhales with obvious relief and looks right at the space that Grace is occupying. For the first time, Grace wonders if maybe Lizbet is supernaturally sensitive and can see a stolen hotel bathrobe and her missing Minnesota Twins cap floating in the air. Definitely not, Grace thinks. The poor woman is merely exhausted. But even so, Grace rises a bit.
Lizbet says, “We have a family in suite one fourteen, a mother with two children. They’re paying their bill in cash. You’ll invoice them every week, and then Kimber, that’s the mother, will bring down cash, which you can just keep in the safe until I find time to go to the bank to deposit it.” She smiles. “I can trust you with the safe combination?”
Richie laughs. “My references will all vouch that I’m a perfectly average good-enough guy.”
“Have you ever done any marketing?” Lizbet asks.
“I sat in on all the meetings at Kick City.”
Lizbet frowns. “Occupancy at the hotel is below fifty percent, and I just don’t understand why. The hotel was, admittedly, mediocre for a long time. I’m not sure if it’s the lackluster reputation we’re grappling with or…”
“Or?”
“Well, some people say there’s a ghost.”
Richie hoots. “The hotel is haunted? That’s fantastic! I would think that would draw people to the hotel rather than keep them away. You should be promoting the ghost story.”
“We should?” Lizbet says.
“Absolutely yes,” Richie says. “Advertise the ghost! Market the ghost!”
Hmm, Grace thinks. There’s still a stench coming off Richie Decameron—something’s wrong; she can’t say what—but she’s willing to plug her nose and ignore it because it sounds like Richie is interested in her story. Hello, Richie! she calls out nasally, though of course he can’t hear her. I’m here! I was murdered!
Everything Alessandra Powell owns fits into two （knockoff） Louis Vuitton duffels that she bought at the Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio in Florence.
Michael told Alessandra that his wife and children were due on island on June 18—but Alessandra had wormed her way so deeply into Michael’s psyche that she thought, just maybe, he would decide to leave his wife. It would be quite a coup, though not her biggest （that would be Giacomo, who gave up both his runway-model mistress and his heiress wife for Alessandra）。 From what Alessandra can tell, Heidi Bick is the kind of wife and mother who meets her besties for yoga every morning after dropping the children off at their progressive and obscenely expensive private schools, then swings by the organic grocery on her way home so she can whip up whatever eclectic dish Sam Sifton has recommended that day in his New York Times cooking column. （On Wednesday, maybe a tahdig…） Heidi not only takes care of the four Bick children, she’s also the point person for Michael’s father, who has Parkinson’s.
Alessandra met Michael Bick on the fast ferry back in early April. Alessandra had feared it would be slim pickings as far as male prospects were concerned—nearly all the men were sporting Carhartt’s and work boots and dropping their r’s—but then Alessandra spied Michael with the Vacheron watch and his master-of-the-universe posture. At the ferry snack bar, he ordered a Sam Adams and a clam chowder, and Alessandra popped behind him in line and ordered the same. She took a seat one row over facing him and pulled out her well-worn copy of The Sun Also Rises. She drank her beer, let her chowder cool, and—surprise, surprise!—caught Michael staring at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not every day I see a beautiful woman drinking a beer and reading Hemingway.”
By the end of the ride, Michael had moved into the seat across from Alessandra and bought them another round of beers; their respective chowders had gone untouched, and Alessandra’s book lay facedown, forgotten. They had both stretched the truth about their situations. Michael said he was “taking some time apart from his wife,” who was “back in Greenwich with the kids.” Alessandra said she had been living in Europe for the past eight years and was “treating herself” to an American summer.