"Yes, ma'am." He stopped, annoyed, and brushed back his long hair. It would be tricky. If I was not to lose the girl, I would have to act quickly.
"I'm looking for a friend," I said. "She's an older lady but quite attractive. Blue eyes. Long, gray hair. She travels with a young woman who has dark, curly hair."
"No, ma'am. No one like that is registered here."
I reached out and grabbed hold of his forearm tightly. I released the girl and focused on the boy. "Are you sure?"
"Mrs. Harrison," he said. His eyes looked past me. "Room 207. North front."
I smiled. Mrs. Harrison. Good God, what a fool Nina was. Suddenly the girl let out a small whimper and slumped against the wall. I made a quick decision. I like to think that it was compassion, but I sometimes remember that her left arm was useless.
"What's your name?" I asked the child, gently stroking her bangs. Her eyes moved left and right in confusion.
"Your name!"
"Alicia." It was only a whisper.
"All right, Alicia. I want you to go home now. Hurry, but don't run."
"My arm hurts," she said. Her lips began to quiver. I touched her forehead again and pushed.
"You're going home," I said. "Your arm does not hurt. You won't remember anything. This is like a dream that you will forget. Go home. Hurry, but do not run." I took the pistol from her but left it wrapped in the sweater. "Bye-bye, Alicia."
She blinked and crossed the lobby to the doors. I handed the gun to the bellhop. "Put it under your vest," I said.
"Who is it?" Nina's voice was light.
"Albert, ma'am. The porter. Your car's out front, and I'll take your bags down."
There was the sound of a lock clicking, and the door opened the width of a still-secured chain. Albert blinked in the glare, smiled shyly, and brushed his hair back. I pressed against the wall.
"Very well." She undid the chain and moved back. She had already turned and was latching her suitcase when I stepped into the room.
"Hello, Nina," I said softly. Her back straightened, but even that move was graceful. I could see the imprint on the bedspread where she had been lying. She turned slowly. She was wearing a pink dress I had never seen before.
"Hello, Melanie." She smiled. Her eyes were the softest, purest blue I had ever seen. I had the porter take Mr. Hodges's gun out and aim it. His arm was steady. He pulled back the hammer and held it with his thumb. Nina folded her hands in front of her. Her eyes never left mine.
"Why?" I asked.
Nina shrugged ever so slightly. For a second I thought she was going to laugh. I could not have borne it if she had laughed-that husky, childlike laugh that had touched me so many times. Instead she closed her eyes. Her smile remained.
"Why Mrs. Harrison?" I asked.
"Why, darling, I felt I owed him something. I mean, poor Roger. Did I ever tell you how he died? No, of course I didn't. And you never asked." Her eyes opened. I glanced at the porter, but his aim was steady. It only remained for him to exert a little more pressure on the trigger.
"He drowned, darling," said Nina. "Poor Roger threw himself from that steamship-what was its name?-the one that was taking him back to England. So stirange. And he had just written me a letter promising marriage. Isn't that a terribly sad story. Melanie? Why do you think he did a thing like that? I guess we'll never know, will we?"
"I guess we never will," I said. I silently ordered the porter to pull the trigger.
Nothing.
I looked quickly to my right. The young man's head was turning toward me. I had not made him do that. The stiffly extended arm began to swing in my direction. The pistol moved smoothly like the tip of a weather vane swinging in the wind.
No! I strained until the cords in my neck stood out. The turning slowed but did not stop until the muzzle was pointing at my face. Nina laughed now. The sound was very loud in the little room.
"Good-bye, Melanie dear," Nina said, and laughed again. She laughed and nodded at the porter. I stared into the black hole as the hammer fell. On an empty chamber. And another. And another.
"Goodbye, Nina," I said as I pulled Charles's long pistol
from the raincoat pocket. The explosion jarred my wrist and filled the room with blue smoke. A small hole, smaller than a dime but as perfectly round, appeared in the precise center of Nina's forehead. For the briefest second she remained standing as if nothing had happened. Then she fell backward, recoiled from the high bed, and dropped face forward onto the floor.
I turned to the porter and replaced his useless weapon with the ancient but well-maintained revolver. For the first time I noticed that the boy was not much younger than Charles had been. His hair was almost exactly the same color. I leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"Albert," I whispered, "there are four cartridges left. One must always count the cartridges, mustn't one? Go to the lobby. Kill the manager. Shoot one other person, the nearest. Put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. If it misfires, pull it again. Keep the gun concealed until you are in the lobby."
We emerged into general confusion in the hallway.
"Call for an ambulance!" I cried. "There's been an accident. Someone call for an ambulance!" Several people rushed to comply. I swooned and leaned against a whitehaired gentleman. People milled around, some peering into the room and exclaiming. Suddenly there was the sound of three gunshots from the lobby. In the renewed confusion I slipped down the back stairs, out the fire door, into the night.
Time has passed. I am very happy here. I live in southern France now, between Cannes and Toulon, but not, I am happy to say, too near St. Tropez.
I rarely go out. Henri and Claude do my shopping in the village. I never go to the beach. Occasionally I go to the townhouse in Paris or to my pensione in Italy, south of Pes-
cara, on the Adriatic. But even those trips have become less and less frequent.
There is an abandoned abbey in the hills, and I often go there to sit and think among the stones and wild flowers. I think about isolation and abstinence and how each is so cruelly dependent upon the other.
I feel younger these days. I tell myself that this is because of the climate and my freedom and not as a result of that final Feeding. But sometimes I dream about the familiar streets of Charleston and the people there. They are dreams of hunger.
On some days I rise to the sound of singing as girls from the village cycle by our place on their way to the dairy. On those days the sun is marvelously warm as it shines on the small white flowers growing between the tumbled stones of the abbey, and I am content simply to be there and to share the sunlight and silence with them.
But on other days-cold, dark days when the clouds move in from the north-I remember the shark-silent shape of a submarine moving through the dark waters of the bay, and I wonder whether my self-imposed abstinence will be for nothing. I wonder whether those I dream of in my isolation will indulge in their own gigantic, final Feeding.
It is warm today. I am happy here. But I am also alone. And I am very, very hungry.
