Physically, too, as Iâve already stated.
Luis pulled up in front of the Royal Opal. âHere we are. How do you want to do this?â
âNothing special,â said Mickey. âLetâs just go up to the room and pack, and then come down and check out, and weâll keep our eyes open for anything.â
Luis said, âOkay.â Mickey turned to me. I didnât move. I didnât want to move. I sure as hell didnât want to go back into that hotel. This was a very bad idea and I should have insisted on going to the airport. But Mickey and Luis started getting out of the car, and I didnât want to stay there by myself. I didnât want to do anything by myself right then. So I opened the back door and stepped out. Mickey shut the door and took my hand.
Luis told the bellman that weâd be right back and tipped him so that the taxi could sit there for a while. We headed toward the elevatorsâa straight shot this timeâand breathed a sigh of relief when the doors shut after us. We got out on eighteen and walked down the hall to our suite. Mickey pulled the key card out of his wallet, opened the door, and we walked in.
My stomach lurched. Not from buffaloes this time. Just pure fear.
The place was ransacked. Trashed. Furniture turned over. Drawers turned upside down. The fruit basketâwhich, when I was kidnapped by Jake, had a couple of mangoes, a pear, and lots of strawberries left in itâhad been stomped into a gooey mess. The bed looked worse than the morning after the most raucous night of sex I could ever imagine, with the sheets and blankets and pillows all balled up and on the wrong ends. The pictures had been removed from the walls. The stupid little hotel safe had been busted open. My clothes were thrown all over the place. Mickeyâs, too. It looked like the wake-up scene in The Hangover, but there was nothing funny about it.
I lost it. I started shaking so hard I sat down on the nearest sittable thing, which happened to be the coffee table, tipped over on its side. I was hyperventilating and crying at the same time. Apparently, Mickey and Luis didnât think this response was inappropriate. They simply let me sit there and shake and cry. Mickey went back to the door and engaged the dead bolt. Luis opened closet doors. Then they started drifting around the room like homeless people, picking through stuff, holding up a sock here, a belt there, and dropping the items back on the floor. Eventually they came over and sat on the couch and just kind of watched me. I guess it was a shock thing.
When you lose it like that, you only have so much to lose, and then it is lost, and you can breathe again. This happened to me. I suddenly took a deep breath, wiped my eyes, and swallowed hard. âWe should get out of here, right now.â
Mickey reached his hand out to my knee. âWhoever did this is gone. Letâs get what we need and then split.â
âTo the airport, right?â He squeezed my hand. âRight.â
So I got up, went over to a pile of my clothes, picked up my khaki pants, a white t-shirt, and clean underwear, and headed for the bathroom. I stripped, got in the showerâeven though it had only been about three hours since my last oneâstood there for as long as it took for my shoulders to unhunch, turned off the water and dried myself, and got dressed. Thatâs when I realized I had picked up Mickeyâs khakis instead of mine. They were comfy and not so tight around my waist, and that could help the rash situation, so I kept them on and rolled up the legs so I wouldnât trip on them. I combed my hair straight back, wet, cleaned my glasses and put them on, and walked back out into the suite. I found my SF Giants baseball cap, put it onâbill forwardâand sat down with Mickey and Luis. They hadnât moved an inch.
âOkay,â I said. âIâm ready.â
Luis got up and headed for the