He needed the sleep desperately, he knows this, and yet he’s ashamed to have missed his first chance with Viola Fabian. It’s ten-thirty in the morning when he finally inspects the glow-in-the-dark hands of his Baby Ben. The woman is probably up and gone, running a conference session or at least attending one. Hastings is unshaven, barely rested, and still wearing yesterday’s bow tie, his knees and ankles aching prophetically. He stops by her room and calls her twice but gets no answer. With any luck, the story of the disappearing girl hasn’t gotten out of control; with any luck, Hastings will catch her during lunch, in a manner timely enough to still be considered professional. But his luck has left the building. By eleven-fifteen, when he rolls down to the lobby, the rumor is a living thing. Everybody knows about the dead girl. The kitchen staff, down to the new help brought in specially to work the festival, knows. The chambermaids and the check-in girls and the girls who push the vacuum around the lobby are blazing like firecrackers with every sordid detail.
