One Night with the Mafia Don

idea, which should h

the Harrow Hotel, eating cold fries out of a paper bag. I was twenty-four and had been a housekeeper for four

yard. "Empty all week. The board says so. You get in there, you t

id Priya. "They say the ow

ard say

is wrong ha

e brother's tuition bills waiting on my kitchen table, and some small, stubborn part of me w

. "Then I clean it. N

talking myself out of it. The hallway was thick with carpet and silence. A single black door sto

a glittering like something spilled. I took three steps in and stopped, because I could smell

man's voice. Low, dry, tired

. "I'm so sorry. The board said the room

t d

ir

old friend. "It's one in the morning, I haven't slept in three days, and you're

the carpet and found him. He was somewhere in his thirties, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, dark hair a little

s your

Maribel

t offer a hand. "Do

e job?

fferent." The corner of his mouth moved. It was not

id not look dangerous. He looked like a man holding up a house with his b

ers into a crystal g

eft a twenty under his pillow every morning for whoever found it, and it was the best part of my week. That the nicest hotels smell like nothing a

ver met. Completely. As if it w

e him,"

all I'

ooked at the window. "In my family, love

do y

e enough. "Mostly I sit up at

ok it. His palm was warm and rough in unexpected places. He did not pull me. He

aid

unhurried, and that for a few hours the loneliest man I

the dark, to a smal

a faint sweet smell on the air like peppermint. Something caught the moonlight on o

le

sl

windows and the bed was empty. A note lay

ten minutes.

ten to six, my shift ended at seven, and every sensible bone in

I took the service elevator

too, and four men in dark suits poured out and ran for the stairs. The fir