Blue Room Confidentials: Vol. 3 Page 3

  “Shit...” Jaymie sighs.

  “Come on!” Terrence is wild with fear. “We have to get to that room – hurry!”

  Chapter 3

  Shit.

  Shit shit shit.

  Ben has vanished, along with whoever it was that broke him out of there, and with him any chance at finding an answer to the mystery of the Blue Room. Our closest call, our nearest lead – gone.

  “Hurry!” Terrence is running up ahead of us, panting heavily, all but out of breath. “I know a shortcut! Staff exit.” He leads us to the back of the hotel, where we all but tumble down the stairs on our way down in the hopes of getting closer to the culprit.

  “I don't get it,” Terrence cries, furrowing his brow as we rush. “Nobody knew he was in there. Nobody but the four of us – and we're all here. And I'm the only one with the key to get into that room.”

  We stop at the entrance to the room, panting for breath, choking on our own winded exhaustion.

  “I don't understand,” says Staci as we all stop. “How did that...that figure, that thing get into the room, if it was so safe?”

  “There must be a way,” I sigh heavily. I should have known Terrence's flawless, foolproof plan had a loophole in it somewhere. “And whatever it is, I have every intention of finding out how the culprit did it.”

  We stare at the door.

  “Wait!” Terrence cries. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some white powder.

  “Really, Terrence, cocaine?” I begin, rolling my eyes, but he shushes me.

  “No, look, watch...”

  He sprinkles the powder on the doorknob. No fingerprints.

  “The door hasn't been touched.” He now opens it, only to find it still locked. “Nobody's touched it. Nobody's unlocked it. Nothing.”

  We all look at one another with wide, confused eyes – me and Jaymie, Terrence and Staci. How could anyone have gotten into the Blue Room's secret dungeon – or out, for that matter? I silently gesture to everyone to be quiet. Slowly I reach into my pocket, feeling the revolver in my inside pocket. Anyone could be in that room now – anyone at all.

  The gun feels good, strong, hard against my hand.

  Staci's eyes widen when she sees it, her lips moistening into a ripe O.

  “Well,” Jaymie says, her head cocked, her eyes traveling up and down the length of the revolver. “I'll be. We got ourselves a cowboy.” I can't figure out whether she's teasing me or now.

  “Okay,” I nod at Terrence, mouthing the words as I do so. “We're ready. Unlock the door.”

  Terrence slowly turns the key in the lock. Silently he flings open the door.

  The room is dark, and so at first it's hard to see anything at all in the shadows. Then our eyes adjust and we look around. We open the door fully and creep in, one at a time. The place looks almost completely undisturbed. The only thing awry is the bed, which has clearly been slept in. Other than that, it's as pristine as any one of our hotel suites.

  “Well, I'll...” Jaymie begins.

  “Shush!” Terrence hisses, turning to her.

  I gesture for everyone to stay where they are. No use anyone else getting hurt because of Terrence's foolhardy plan.

  I look inside cautiously. Nobody here. The only place they could be is the bathroom. I cock my gun, ready to shoot at a moment's notice. Then, padding as silently as possible, I make my way to the bathroom, silently pushing open the door. I step in as quickly as I can, checking the showers and behind the door. I look out to tell the others that the coast is clear.

  “Guys...”

  Then I see it. A shadow, moving among other shadows. A darkness in the dark.

  “Hey!” I start to cry out. But I'm too late.

  A figure all in black, his – at least I think it's a he – face covered with a black hood jumps out from the curtains in the shadows. He grabs Jaymie and before she can fight back, lifts her like a rag doll over his shoulders and runs out the door.

  Jaymie starts to scream and pound at him with her fists, but he's too fast for her – he's too fast for all of us.

  “Shit!”

  We follow them both, gun cocked, sweating and desperate, as the assailant carries a screaming, fighting, writhing Jaymie down the corridor.

  “No!” cries Staci.

  The assailant has lifted Jaymie into an elevator, and the doors are rapidly closing.

  “Run! Run!” cries Staci.

  Then comes a team of waiters – all with their trays – down the hall, crossing our path.

  I hurriedly put away my gun.

  The staff stop between us and the elevator. At first, I think they're part of the assailants plan. But then to my horror I realize they're just afraid of me, of Terrence, of the bosses, and trying to make a good impression.

  “Good day, Mr. Blue – and Mr. Blue,” one says.

  “Good day,” Terrence and I say at the same time.

  We all titter nervously, doing our best to keep those tight smiles on our faces.

  No sooner do we pass the waiters than we start to search. We split up – Terrence and Staci checking out one floor while I take the other – heading from floor to floor on the stairs in the hopes of finding some sign, some trace, any trace, of Jaymie and the mysterious assailant.

  “There's no way they're going to be able to get out of the building, Terrence says.

  “Just like there was no way they were going to be able to get out of the room?” I ask bitterly.

  “You don't have to be like that!” sighs Terrence. “I'm freaked out enough about it as it is. Whoever that was, was able to take someone as strong and self-possessed as Jaymie – they must be serious. Not to mention, they know the hotel like the back of their hand. They know everything – the layout of the hotel, the employee tunnels. And they knew how to get in and out of the secret room without being seen.”

  “Whoever he is,” Staci looks worried, “now he has Ben and Jaymie. This can't be good. This can't be good at all.”

  I sigh deeply. It's time to come clean about everything. “I know we wanted to keep this under wraps,” I say to Terrence. “Believe me, I wanted that too. You, me, and Danny – we had a plan. But this is now so much bigger than I've anticipated. And...” I turn to Staci who is staring at me with wide glassy eyes. “What I've uncovered – it has a lot to do with Staci. That's why I called you in earlier, Staci, why we needed to talk as soon as possible. I had to see you in person, Staci, I had to tell you…”

  “Tell her what, uncle?” Terrence has a note of impatience in his voice. Clearly I've stirred up his possessive streak. “What did she need to know that was so important you couldn't tell her in front of me?”

  “It's about Gloria Tannenbaum,” I say. “It's about her dealings with the Blue Room. It was about more than finding out stock tips and gleaning favors. The patrons of the Blue Room are a far more interesting – and far more dangerous – bunch than any of us could ever have imagined.”

  Chapter 4

  Xander

  Now I have their attention. A part of me is perversely happy about this. After they’ve all ignored me for so long – Staci going off and getting engaged to Terrence, the two of them settling in so happily into their new life, their new routine, their new existence outside of the Blue Room and outside of me, at last it’s nice to know something they don’t. To be something other than half a step behind, constantly trying to keep up with the machinations of Jaymie and the romantic caprices of Staci. My love for Staci has unmanned me. It has made me weak, made me vulnerable – me, Xander Blue, who had never lost a business deal or admitted weakness to a competitor in his life! It made me sick, the person I had become.

  Although my love for Staci was pure, the way it made me act wasn’t. In the eyes of Jaymie, of Staci, of Terrence, I was a has-been, an also-ran. But not any longer. Right now, I know the secret of Gloria Tannenbaum, and it’s the only thing I have over them. I know how petty it is, how childish. I know I should be ashamed of my behavior. But a part of me –
a part of me that lurks deep down inside me, and of which consciously I am ashamed – enjoys being able to delay the moment of their satisfaction, enjoys having Staci lean in towards me with her neck long and a look of utter rapt fascination on her face, the same rapt fascination with which she’d behold me in the days when I used to lick her softly between her legs, brushing so delicately along her most sensitive part and then delving deep inside her until she moaned. Her face is the same now as it used to be, an expression of need that transcends both sex and the lack thereof.

  She wants me. It’s a glorious feeling. Staci wants me. Sure, it’s not in the same way. I have information she needs, not a cock she wants inside her. But it’s a feeling that reminds me a little of the feeling of the old days. A feeling I’ve missed so much.

  “Come on,” I say. “We have to speak in private. Let’s step into my office.” Once I was Chairman of the Board I’d decorated a beautiful mahogany-paneled office on the east end of the Blue Towers, something that was fitting to my newly elevated station. I welcome them all in, walking quickly and hoping they’d be able to catch up. We don’t have much time now. Between Gloria Tannenbaum’s secrets and Jaymie’s kidnapping, we are in a bigger mess than before. I should never have trusted Terrence, his gadgets, his new-fangled ideas. Leave it to Terrence to fuck everything up again – and in more ways than one.

  “We have to get Jaymie back!” Staci cries. “I don’t know what that…that…” She scrunches up her face like she’s trying to think up a word bad enough to call him. “I don’t know what that whatever, that crazy….whatever plans to do with her. Not to mention Ben…” Her voice is low and soft, like a kitten’s whimper.

  “Rick,” Terrence and I cut in at exactly the same time.

  “Whoever he is,” Staci almost snaps. “He’s gone, too. And whatever intel he had, whatever Jaymie wanted him to share with me – it was important. Jaymie knew what she was doing. She wouldn’t have gone to get me and bring me back to the Blue Room with Ben or Rick or whoever he was for a couple of Cosmos and a few laughs about old times.”

  Terrence furrows his brow, his eyebrows kneading close together. “No,” Terrence sighs deeply, exhaling so violently that it’s like the color leaves his body along with the breath. “But they both knew that if I knew about it – if I knew anything about Rick being back after what he did to you, Staci, I’d do everything in my power to beat that no-good, dastardly, idiotic son-of-a-you-know-what to a bloody, messy, pulp. Whatever they knew – they kept the full force of their knowledge from both of us. They both know something. And they should have told us earlier.”

  “Ben…” Staci’s lips were trembling. “Ben told us he knew who it was that killed Roz. He told me he was going to tell me. Then you walked in and everything got so chaotic all of a sudden.”

  “I guess I’ve still got the old Blue temper, huh, uncle?” Terrence says with a sudden rakish smile, clapping me on the shoulder so hard I start suddenly.

  “We’ve got to put all the facts together,” I say. “If you hadn’t been so hot-headed, Terrence, perhaps we’d have had a clearer answer by now…”

  “Are you telling me you wouldn’t beat anyone who tried to hurt, let alone kill, Staci to a bloody pulp?”

  “I’m telling you that not everything can be solved with a quick pair of fists, Terrence!” I can’t help but snap. “And now we’ll never know what Ben – Rick – you know what I mean. We’ll never know what he had to tell us. Not to mention Jaymie…” Her lithe, lovely, Amazonian form appears before me – memories of the night we shared, the intensity, the passion, those words a white knight that reminded me so hauntingly much of the way Marina used to say them. “Listen up, you guys. Jaymie told you that she only met Ben because he was apparently another private investigator, just like her, working on the case. And she wanted to pick his brains about what he knew. Which means he might not have double-crossed you after all. Maybe Ben was playing the long game.”

  “Rick,” Terrence says with a smarmy smile. I love my nephew, but I swear – sometimes I really just want to punch his stupid face right off.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I reflect, sighing as I muse. “Why on earth would Jaymie trust our nameless friend in the first place? She’s not exactly the world’s most trusting person. Even if he said he was a PI – what motive would she have to believe him? Jaymie doesn’t believe a thing unless she can see the truth for herself. So we have to assume she had a reason to think our friend Rick” – I say the word through gritted teeth, “was telling the truth – or else that by talking to Jaymie there was something in it for him, too. And if so, what?”

  “Well,” Terrence says, putting his hands on his hips threateningly. “I know one thing for sure. Jaymie told us that he was working for you.”

  “Working for me?” That liar again! I all but splutter. “He wasn’t. I know that for sure.” I sigh. Not that they have any reason to believe me, at this point. Beyond my feelings for Staci, that is. Everybody and their first cousin knows that they are unassailable. “So, why on earth would Jaymie want you to believe that Ben was my guy? I mean – think about it! He nearly did away with Staci – which anyone who knows me knows I never would have dreamed of allowing or suggesting.”

  “But – but – but,” Staci interrupts with a shaking voice. “Jaymie was Rita’s friend! And believe me, I know Rita. Rita would never be friends with anyone she thought she couldn’t trust. She was still such a great judge of character – right until the end. So we have to trust Jaymie, don’t we? Because Rita cared for her. And we – all of us – cared for Rita.”

  I can’t stop myself from putting a hand on Staci’s delicate, bared shoulder, feeling her heartbeat in the neck beneath my fingertips. How sweet she was still – and so innocent! Despite all that’s happened to her, all the games she’s been forced to play as a result of the machinations of the people around her, Staci has still maintained the most incredible light, the most astounding sense of trust and love in others. Despite how many of us betrayed her. Despite how I – to my eternal shame – betrayed her.

  Despite how Jaymie may have betrayed her. Or did she? Without Jaymie here to speak on her own behalf, we’re utterly trapped in our own confusion, stuck without knowing who we are and how we relate to one another, stuck without knowing who we can trust and who we can’t. We are utterly at sea – our anchor vanished long ago.

  I sigh as I look at Staci, take her all in. When I thought of her as just another Blue Girl, just another high class escort whose passion in bed, whose desire for the deepest and darkest intensity of human flesh on human flesh, I hadn’t realized that what I would love her for was her goodness, her purity of spirit.

  But where is Jaymie now? She too confuses me as much as ever. Could that passionate Blue Girl, who made my eyes roll into the back of my head with some of the tricks she’d mastered over me in bed – could she be untrustworthy, too? Something doesn’t add up. The way she’d met up with Rick, the affectionate moment the two of them had shared, the suspicious way she had donned the wig that made her look so uncannily like my beloved, my lost Marina – something was definitely suspicious there.

  “Jaymie…” Staci whispers sadly. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? If something goes wrong. I’m the one who vouched for her. I’m the one who brought her into our little circle of trust. If I did…oh, if I made a mistake. I hope I didn’t but –oh! – if I did!” Her little voice began to shake once more. “I don’t know what I’ll do. It would be like if I had betrayed you all directly, putting all your lives into her hands.” I’d never seen her so distressed. It made me long to take her into my arms once again, to hold her tight, to tell her that everything was going to be okay, that it wasn’t her fault, that she wasn’t to blame…

  Poor, poor Staci.

  I wonder if now is the time for me to bring up Jaymie and Marina – that uncanny likeness, my sneaking suspicions that she isn’t quite who she pretends to be, but I decide against it. It would make me sound crazy,
at any rate, if it wasn’t true – after all, who the hell thinks that someone they’ve known and spoken to and fucked, for goodness’s sake, is actually their dead wife come back to haunt them? And if it was true – if Jaymie wasn’t who she said she was – it would only make Staci feel worse at this point. There was nothing better to do. I need to find answers to this question on my own before I can give any resolution to Staci herself.

  But before we do any of that, we have to find Jaymie – and Rick. Before it’s too late.

  Just when I open my mouth to speak, to tell them about the Gloria Tannenbaum papers and my suspicions about the criminal element the Blue Room was involved with, I am interrupted by the ping of a text message.

  Of all the people in the world I expect to hear from at the moment, it’s Danny. As far as I know, he’s out in New York on a weekend performance with the Never Knights.

  You up? Danny writes me.

  I write him back at once. Yeah, what’s up?

  Danny types furiously:

  I got your text about how deep this shit is at the Blue Room. Terrence texted me too about what happened to Ben and Jaymie. This is a nightmare – not to mention, some bad, bad timing.

  What are you talking about, Danny?

  Because of the Never Knights playing at the Blue Room. I don’t know how it got out but people are aware some shit’s going down here. A tabloid reporter is trying to get in touch with me and the other members of the band – hounding us. Apparently she’s getting a tip that we’re all having crazy sex orgies at the Blue Room. Three guesses why. It would ruin our rep if any of this gets out. Our publicist is having a nervous breakdown as we speak, trying to keep all this crazy shit under wraps. The Blue Room is a liability, and I can’t risk the Never Knights just because of Daddy’s sick dealings. We’re doing everything we can to keep that reporter at bay, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be enough. Can’t we keep the Never Knights separate, already?