Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje [47]
As soon as he entered the Grand Hall, the pumped-in oxygen hit him. He’d driven all afternoon and much of the night, and now the buzz of tiredness in him dissolved. A pompous decor surrounded him. He sat on the twenty-foot-long leather sofa and stretched his legs. When a waiter offered him a drink, Cooper tipped him a ten-dollar bill and asked for a wet espresso. He carried the tall glass towards the tables. So far he’d seen no one he knew, but the Tahoe night was young. Fifteen hours ago he’d been boxing his heart out, sparring at a gym where there was Astroturf for carpeting.
Cooper knew that if he made himself visible, Bridget would find him, so he moved through the palatial rooms, the waterfall of noise, the haphazard slow motion. Eventually he sat down to play. He lost the first hand intentionally, as he always did. The game was faster than in the south, but these were amateurs around him. It was four a.m. He was still wide awake.
An hour later, looking up during a deal, he saw her. Something lurched in his body. How long had she been standing there like that, so still, watching him? She was taller than most of the onlookers. He finished the hand and swept up the chips. He’d made enough tonight in any case to rent something good on the south shore, if he or she needed it.
Cooper.
She gripped his arm at the cash grill. He put his face against her neck, white, almost gold, the muscle there taut, perhaps the centre of her confidence.
They walked up wide carpeted steps. As soon as they escaped the Grand Hall they were free of its noise and a memory came into his mind of himself as a boy canoeing round a bend of San Antonio Creek and losing instantly the roar of a nearby set of rapids. He followed a step or two behind Bridget. She spun around and said, ‘I’ve just been for a swim.’ She was drifting on a light foot. No one else in Harrah’s appeared to have such casual strength. There was an efficiency in her he hadn’t seen before. In the elevator she held off his embrace.
Wait.
As if that word explained it all.
Wait for what?
We have to talk. Are you checked in here?
No.
Because you can’t stay here, in this hotel.
He said nothing to that, and they rode the rest of the way in silence. His car was at Caesars, he could have stayed here.
It was now about five-thirty, and the two of them sat down to breakfast. He looked out the windows from the eighteenth floor, and the sky was still a magenta dark above all the lights. Cooper didn’t raise the issue of why he shouldn’t stay here. It felt to him that Bridget was armed in some way, and he needed to circle her carefully. He needed to know what her intention was. Though if she was up to something, it would be wise to keep quiet about it in a building where the eye in the sky could be anywhere. He realized she’d coaxed him into a place where he couldn’t argue and accuse. Instead he brought up her old dinner partner at Jocko’s. ‘That hardware store fellow …’ he asked. She lolled her head side to side as an answer. ‘What’s his name? You never told me. Does he live in Tahoe? Is that why you are here?’ She waved everything away except to admit that the man from Jocko’s was here.
Underneath Caesars Palace he unlocked the Chrysler, and let her in the passenger side. There was that familiar sense that the air and the uncertain lighting in the underground garage were left over from an earlier decade. He walked slowly around the car and got in beside her.
I should go back to Santa Maria.
Huh? Her head jerked towards him.
Why did you leave? What are you getting me into, Bridget?
Let’s just drive out of this place.
No.
Can we drive—
I’m not ready for that sun yet.
Okay. She ran her hand slowly down his arm. Well, you didn’t go to seed.
Oh, I hit bottom, don’t worry.
She kissed his right eye, then his forehead, then his mouth. He accepted everything. Her hands