Except not today. Today, Hannah excuses herself to hurry to a women’s restroom on another level of the hotel, where (she assumes, correctly) she won’t encounter any of the Historical Society members, then exits the hotel to the parking garage where, vexed, flush-faced, she rummages through the oversized handbag failing to locate the little cardboard parking stub she’d carelessly slipped into it—not the first time that Mrs. Jarrett has lost a ticket in an oversized handbag but no matter, the courteous parking attendant remembers Hannah, attractive older blond white lady driving the new-model Buick Riviera he’d parked on B-level. Roughly half of the (female) lunchtime patrons of the Marriott misplace their parking stubs in their oversized handbags, no point in becoming exasperated, or upset, or enraged, nor is Zekiel Jones likely to betray any emotion other than good-natured affability, he has lived his entire life within a radius of twenty dense-packed miles and most of these within the fabled “inner” city of Detroit ravaged by the construction of I-75 in the late 1950s and later by the “riot” of July 1967, smiling as he parked the white lady’s white Buick for her and now as he retrieves it for her, wide boyish smile, as handsome as (a darker) Harry Belafonte, as Hannah, embarrassed, murmuring an apology, genuinely contrite (yet) not surprised that she has been so readily forgiven by the parking attendant, presses on Zekiel Jones a ten-dollar tip though the parking charge is but three dollars and twenty cents—Thank you, ma’am!

  Calling after, as Hannah prepares to drive away—You have a good day, ma’am.

  Predator, Prey

  On the sixty-first floor of the hotel tower he awaits her.

  Tall vertical plate-glass windows whose blinds he has yanked up brutally to open to the sky.

  Glaring light, he loves it. As a fighter pilot he’d loved it. Full sun, all exposed, nowhere for prey to hide in such light.

  Vacancy of blue, froth of clouds. For hundreds of miles no impediments to the predator’s vision.

  Cruising, soaring on wide wings that can appear languorous, lazy from a distance but you’d be mistaken: The predator is always on the hunt.

  Below, the timorous prey. Weak eyes, dim brain. Heightened heartbeat and nostrils rapidly sniffing as if death came upward from the earth, not swooping down from above.

  Glide of wide wings, a shadow passes over. Frantic scurrying for cover but—too late.

  Flapping wings, razor claws, tearing, terrible scimitar beak.

  Of what are you capable? You have no idea.

  Is that Hannah? A figure comprised of pixels.

  Watching herself entranced. On a monitor in the hotel lobby, in fact a sequence of monitors set in a wall at a height of about twelve feet, grainy blurred screens and on each screen a woman’s imprecise figure, wraithlike, suspended, crossing the lobby of the Renaissance Grand Hotel.

  Let him wonder if I am coming to him.

  Already she has resisted: She is late arriving at the hotel. Fifteen minutes, now twenty minutes. Soon she will be a defiant half hour late.

  Turning left leaving the driveway at the Far Hills Marriott was the decision. All that has followed, consequence.

  Taking her second parking ticket of the day from a uniformed (smiling, courteous) young attendant at the Renaissance Grand, Hannah was careful to place this ticket in a zippered compartment in her handbag, doesn’t intend to make the same foolish mistake twice in one day.

  Nor does she pass by the concierge’s desk in the hotel lobby. Not about to risk the portly jovial smiling uniformed man recognizing her in a squint—Ma’am? M.N.?—no message for you today.

  The atrium lobby is crowded. Several conventions are being held at the hotel of which one is the Midwestern Radiologists’ Association: a preponderance of women, attractive young women, plastic ID badges on their lapels.

  She might have been one of them, a radiologist conferee having coffee in the lobby of the Renaissance Grand with other conferees.

  A useful life. A life in the service of others. Medical science, knowledge. Maybe she’d never married … Only the weak fall in love, they see no way of living otherwise.

  But her parents would not have approved. Wouldn’t have paid her tuition. Service occupation, hands-on. No.

  One of the radiologists, first name Linda, smiling at Hannah as if she knows her—“Hi!”—but in the next instant realizes her mistake, doesn’t know Hannah.

  Hannah in her beautiful clothes, steep-heeled Saint Laurent pumps. Not a radiologist.

  Rich man’s wife at the luxury hotel to meet friends. A friend.

  In the row of TV monitors on the wall the solitary female figure reappears still wraithlike, imprecise. Face blurred.

  At the row of elevators waiting with others who wear ID badges and chatter among themselves but when an elevator arrives, engorged with passengers, spilling out passengers, Hannah draws away, doesn’t join the chattering women who step into the elevator, waits for another … She is becoming mildly anxious now, she needs to be alone.

  An elevator at the farther end of the row of elevators, glass door slides open, no choice.

  Pressing the lighted numeral—61.

  Admiring her manicured nails, nails newly polished, pearly saffron, which is a new shade. Yes, and she’d had her hair rinsed, “lightened.” Streaks of gray, silver-gray, at her temples, she’d seen in distress in the mirror, now vanished.

  So very tired of sick guilt, Hannah is unapologetic caring (for once!) for herself. The fact is, Katya did not die of meningitis, was nowhere near dying in the hospital. In this, Wes is certainly correct.

  Hannah’s rings glitter with miniature fractals of light.

  Hannah is newly vain about her hands, never gave her hands a second thought but concerned in recent months that blue veins will (soon) emerge in the smooth skin of the backs of her hands. And at the edges of her eyes, tiny white puckers like those faint creases at the corners of Marlene Reddick’s eyes.

  Stricken eyes, avoiding Hannah’s.

  Of course! He has been her lover, too.

  Rising silently into the hotel atrium as into the sky.

  Thinking of the stricken eyes of women: Hannah’s mother was the first.

  Closing the door to Hannah as the child hurried to her—No. Go away. Not now, you are not wanted now.

  Rising into the hotel atrium as into the sky as her mother had never done, never dared.

  And why?—because at the roadway at the Far Hills Marriott she’d turned the steering wheel of the Buick to the left. Of her own volition, she’d turned the wheel. Until that moment it had not been clear to Hannah which way her hands would turn the wheel.

  Yet not certain if she’d turned the wheel or if the wheel had turned Hannah’s hands.

  Lightly sweating palms of Hannah’s hands.

  Then, as in a dream: south on the interstate into the sprawling sepia haze city of Detroit.

  South, as the land slants toward the Detroit River. Pull of gravity, fate.

  What were those smooth cool stones laid upon her eyes?—claim, doom.

  Feeling slightly dizzy as the hotel lobby sinks away. All your life you fear fainting in a public place, losing consciousness—falling.

  A struck, staring blond woman in the glass cubicle. White-faced as if bloodless. Entranced by open floors, railings, stretches of concrete wall dropping rapidly as the elevator rises. Glimpses of faces, individuals awaiting a down elevator, fleeting and gone in the next second.

  A catacomb of the dead. Skulls’ flat blank faces, empty eyes.

  But she is not among the dead, is she? Hannah is certain, she is not.

  On the sixty-first floor of the tower the sleek glass cubicle stops with a hiss and a mild jolt, the glass door slides open. No choice but to step out.

  He will think that I’m not coming …

  Now Hannah is feeling less defiant, more repentant.

  … he may be gone. To punish.

  (Wondering if he is waiting near the elevator—but no, no one in sight.)

  (Of course. No one in sight.)

  Even after the steering wheel of the Buick had turned left—(Hannah is beginning to recall distinctly, the wheel seemed to turn of its own accord: all she’d done was not resist)—it hadn’t been decided irrevocably.

  For at each of myriad exits along I-75 Hannah might have exited her vehicle and returned (home) on the northbound highway. Even after the white Buick exited the interstate for the Renaissance Center it had not been irrevocably determined that Hannah would proceed to park her car at the hotel, handing over the ignition key to a parking attendant; it had not been irrevocably determined that Hannah would pass through the revolving doors, cross the hotel lobby, linger amid radiologists having a coffee break from panels and presentations, and (at last) take the sleek glass cubicle to the sixty-first floor where he is awaiting her.

  It’s a fact: At each juncture Hannah is free to make a contrary decision that carries her away from, and not toward, him; a decision that carries her away from, and not toward, the devastation of lives which going to him will precipitate. Fascinating to Hannah, who has constructed her life as a means of exploiting her own passivity, to be forced to see how free she is: how alert, excited, aroused and aware and in a state of anticipation she really is, and not “fated.”

  Considering that she might bypass the Detroit City Center exit, continue on to the tunnel beneath the river and into Windsor, Ontario. She might, for she has the option, continue into the northern wilderness of the vast province of Ontario, Canada, where she knows no one and is known by no one.

  Where do the missing go, when they disappear?

  For surely the missing are not missing to themselves, only to others.

  Quickly, before she can change her mind, as soon as she stands before the door marked 6183, Hannah rings the bell.

  A beat, two beats. No response.

  Inclines her head to the door, listening. Does she hear Y.K. speaking?—on the phone? Thinks she can hear—something …

  Can’t breathe. The tension is so great, a vise around her chest, her weak lung about to collapse …

  Poised on the brink. Precipice. Thinking—But I can leave, none of this has happened yet.

  Then, the door is opened inward. Y.K. in the doorway, taller than Hannah recalls, more heft to his body. In her memory his features have blurred and softened but in person he’s exactly as before—sharp-boned face, ridge of bone above the eyes, heavy-lidded eyes glistening with reptilian mirth. His hands grab roughly at her, a kind of playful roughness, mock-playful roughness pulling the woman into the room, at once the door is shut behind her, safety chain secured.

  Stumbling in stiletto heels like an ungainly long-legged bird, forced smile, terrified eyes.

  Did you think I wasn’t coming?—Hannah has rehearsed a brightly flirtatious edgy greeting, Hannah will not allow herself a pleading apology—I’m sorry, I was caught in traffic …

  Y.K. doesn’t hear, isn’t listening, as one would not trouble to listen to the chattering of a frightened child, pulling Hannah through the white-walled sitting room into the adjoining bedroom and to the enormous (unmade) bed in that room as Hannah tries to keep pace to keep from losing her balance and falling, how absurd to fall, humiliating, laughable for Y.K. would simply lift her, drag her to the bed, Joker Daddy shakes his head at such ignominy, such shame, for desperation in the weak is shame, how taken by surprise Hannah is this second time stepping out of a corridor and into room 6183 as if there might have been another scenario awaiting her behind a door from which the sign DO NOT DISTURB hangs with insolent intent.

  By the time the gliding shadow passes over, already the prey has been extinguished: delicate bones crushed, brain reduced to pulp, fleeting shadow-memories mere soot.

  Far above her he regards her. A conquered territory, for which the conqueror feels mingled contempt and tenderness for it is his territory, devastated and unresisting before him.

  Her groping hands try to reach him but fall short. Her fingers are weak, her wrists are broken. He is deep inside her, she is impaled upon him as upon a hook piercing her lower body. A terrible searing flame shoots upward, in waves. His hands move upon her pliant torso, her fatty breasts, these are the hands of a blind man coolly curious to see the woman by touch, kneading and squeezing with fingers that do not hesitate to exert their strength. Like a sculptor’s hands running over her, shaping her, gripping her breasts as if to test the resiliency of her flesh, its very texture. Her breasts ache with sensation like the breasts of a lactating mother, nipples as raw as if Hannah has been nursing, small hungry sucking mouths have been feeding on her, tearing at her, pitiless in appetite.

  Hannah has begun to writhe, the flame rising through her body is unbearable. Darkness opening at the back of her skull like black blood. She has no name for the man, she has forgotten his name, when she cries out desperately to him he covers her mouth with the flat grammar of his hand—No.

  Close by are twelve-foot windows, unfettered blinds pulled to the ceiling. A white-glaring sky, light ricocheting off surfaces so evenly that there are no shadows.

  In such light the prey is exposed, scurrying across the ground in search of a burrow, even a shadow in which to hide. But there are no shadows.

  Sixty floors below the river is so roughened by wind you could not say in which direction the current is flowing.

  • • •

  I have a lover. This man is my lover.

  Half conscious, Hannah hears her lover moving about the room. Not daring to open her eyes from her heavy, stuporous sleep that came over her like ether.

  Fearing that if he sees she is awake, he will indicate that he wants her gone.

  Lying in a trance of oblivion scarcely daring to breathe. Not-moving, suspended as in a dream. Has her back been injured? Her spine fractured, broken? As if her lover dropped her from a great height like a mollusk dropped from the beak of a raptor so that its shell cracks on rocks, its moist boneless white flesh can be easily sucked out, devoured.

  Yet Hannah feels a rush of joy. Wild joy, springing tears from her eyes.

  I have a lover …

  She is laughing, gloating. She is suffused with pride: astonished.

  Sixteen miles from the house on Cradle Rock Road where they know her as wife, mother.

  Little wifey, good Mommy.

  Joker Daddy is utterly astonished, speechless for once.

  Is this Joker Daddy’s daughter? No more.

  A phone rings, startlingly close to Hannah’s head. He curses under his breath, goes into the adjoining room of the suite to answer it.

  Hannah will not lift the receiver on the bedside table. No.

  Hannah seems to know that if she lifts the receiver, if she hopes to eavesdrop on a conversation not meant for her to hear, Y.K. will storm cursing into the bedroom, knock the receiver flying from her fingers, and for good measure slap her stunned face backhandedly … And so, Hannah does not lift the receiver.

  But Hannah has roused herself from her trance, rises from the rumpled bed. Makes her way raw-naked, barefoot, spine aching as if it has been fractured, to stand at the shut door, inclining her head to listen.

  Y.K.’s voice is lowered, near-inaudible. But Hannah can hear that he is furious.

  … fuck told you not now.

  I said—not now. And don’t call back.

  I will call you.

  Hannah hears Y.K. hang up the receiver. Backs away quickly from the door.

  Mesmerized by the man’s life, apart from her. All that in him is unknown to her.

  Another call, in the adjoining room. This one, Y.K. is making himself.

  Is he calling another woman?—Hannah wonders, stricken.

  So petty! Sex-jealousy, a woman of her age …

  Making plans, of course the man is making plans. You are either part of a man’s plans, or you are not.

  Hannah thinks, rebuffed: She is not wanted now, it is time for her to leave.

  Better for her to leave, surprise Y.K. by leaving earlier than he’d have expected, if he offers her a drink from the minibar she will decline. Wish I could but they are expecting me back home, the children will be just home from school.

  As if Y.K. might feel a twinge of jealousy, at the thought of Hannah’s domestic life in Far Hills …

  In a closet with paneled mirrors for doors Hannah discovers a white terry-cloth robe, of a size to fit her. A larger robe, kingly, enormous, fit for a man, hangs on a hanger beside it.

  With some effort Hannah puts on the smaller robe. The terry-cloth fabric is strangely heavy, the robe weighs on her shoulders like lead. But Hannah is relieved, no longer naked, as vulnerable as a mollusk without its shell.

  Avoiding the face in the mirror. Makeup gone, mascara smudged. Reddened mouth, smudged. She will lock herself in the bathroom with the Prada bag in which she carries crucial supplies in small quantities. Wash her sticky smelly battered body, try to repair the damage to her face, hair … Yet she moves slowly, like one awaiting instructions.

  In the next room Y.K. is speaking on the phone. Hannah feels a pang of envy, whomever Y.K. has called is someone to whom he has something to say, his voice lowered, urgent. Hannah listens but cannot decipher his words.

  He has never spoken to her like that, Hannah thinks.

  He has never taken her seriously like that.

  While Y.K. is on the phone Hannah dares to examine his clothes hanging in the closet—several dress shirts, two pairs of trousers, two matching coats, all of excellent quality. In the (silk-lined) coat pockets, nothing.

  And there, on a stand at the foot of the bed, Y.K.’s suitcase.

  The suitcase, too, Hannah dares to examine but discovers nothing exceptional inside—neatly folded undershirts, shorts, (black, silk) socks; most of the suitcase has been unpacked.

  In a zippered compartment in the suitcase which might have been easy to overlook Hannah discovers a miscellany of financial statements, legal documents, computer printouts of long columns of figures, a small address book, a U.S. passport.

  Hannah dares to leaf through the passport, which is thick with visas—Egypt, Israel, China, India, Thailand.