I check the bathrooms.
I check the screening room.
Nothing.
Back in the living room, I call out, Charles!
I wait, and I listen, and there is no answer.
Just silence.
For true, something is very not right.
I flop onto the sofa.
On the coffee table in front of me, I see Charles’s tablet.
I pick it up, check the hidden-camera feeds in the movie star’s apartment.
And standing right there, in the corner of the movie star’s bedroom, is Charles.
Dead straight. Dead still. Staring straight ahead at the blank wall an inch from his face.
F
IFTY
-F
IVE
On the street, I look up, and the double-helix tower looms.
Like before, I go around the building, open the gates to the underground garage and slip in.
I walk past the Range Rovers and the Aston Martins and the Jaguars.
Inside the lobby, it’s quiet. I walk up to the security desk, where Benny the guard is busy playing Mario on his Game Boy. I hear the descending electronic bleep as the plumber jumps down into a warp pipe.
Hey, I say to Benny.
Uh-huh, says Benny.
The lift dings, floor 88.
I step out into the corridor. The red carpet with the golden floral pattern, the window at the end. It’s like I was here only yesterday.
I walk towards the window. The corridor is a vacuum.
I stomp on the ground, there is no sound.
I hum, and even though I can feel my vocal cords vibrating, nothing comes out of my mouth.
The window stretches away then nears, stretches away then nears.
I look left, I look right. The proportions of the corridor, they’re all wrong, irregular angles, shifting.
I look back at the window, and I see a figure there with its back to me, staring away from me.
Hey! I say, soundlessly.
The figure half-turns its head to look in my direction, a painted face revealed, then it moves left and out of sight.
I walk past the oil painting of the old-time admiral on his warship, his gaze smug and superior. It looks bigger than it did the last time, looming.
I turn the corner, and the figure is nowhere to be seen.
Here it is. Apartment 88, with its heavy, black Victorian door and golden lion knocker.
I take the key out of my pocket.
I insert it into the keyhole, and I turn.
Inside the apartment, it’s dark.
The air is moist, hot, suffocating. It presses on me.
I flip the light switch on the wall, but nothing happens.
