My new room was much like my old room, as it was like almost every other room at the hotel. The Paragon wasn’t the kind of place with bridal or presidential suites. It wasn’t the kind of place with suites at all. There were some larger rooms on the top floor that the original owners had built to be their club floor. I caught myself shaking my head in the mirror, thinking about a club floor at the Paragon. No one came here to be pampered or to have free wine at five or complimentary continental breakfast in the morning. People came here to leave. I caught something else in the mirror, too. The room might have looked the same as my old one, but I didn’t. I looked tired, but also alive. There was light in my eyes. I hadn’t been able to say that for a very long time. Maybe that had something to do with meeting Casey. Maybe not. It was very odd, I thought, that I should feel this way in the wake of Tommy D.’s murder and getting a chunk of my calf shot off. I didn’t question it.
