What I Loved

questions. A gun in a suitcase. Weren't these the familiar elements of crime fiction? Didn't Giles play with these conventions in his art? Wasn't it very likely that I had become a pawn in some conceptual "murder piece" Giles had dreamed up? Or was I giving Giles credit for more intelligence than he actually had? I remembered the round-faced boy in the hallway gripping a plastic purse filled with Lego blocks and had the sudden absurd thought that I had left home to face a possible murderer unarmed. I owned no weapons except kitchen knives anyway. Then I thought of Matt's Swiss Army knife lying in my drawer at home. As I continued to hold the image of the knife in my mind, I found it increasingly unpleasant. I remembered the young Mark down on his hands and knees in Matt's room. I saw him sliding underneath the bed, and then, after a couple of moments, reappearing, his wide blue eyes looking up at me. "Where could it have gone? It must be here somewhere."
    The lobby of the Minneapolis Holiday Inn was a vast room with a glass elevator, an enormous curved reception desk, and a distant ceiling ornamented with an undulating piece of thin metal in an ugly shade of maroon. I looked for Mark but didn't see him. The café to my right was dark. I sat down and waited until twelve-thirty. Then I used the house telephone to call room 1512, but no one answered. I didn't leave a message. What would I do if Mark didn't show? I walked over to a clerk behind the desk and asked if I could leave a message for one of the guests, Mark Wechsler.
    I watched the man's fingers press the letters into the computer. He shook his head. "We don't have a guest by that name."
    "Try Giles," I said. "Teddy Giles."
    The man nodded. "Here it is. Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Giles in room 1512. If you'd like to leave a message, the house phone is over there." He moved his head to the left.
    I thanked him and returned to my seat. Mr. and Mrs.? Giles is in drag, I thought. Even if the entire business was a scam, wouldn't Mark have met me to keep it going? As I considered my next move, I saw a very tall young woman out of the corner of my eye. She was crossing the lobby and walking quickly toward the door. Although I couldn't see her face, I noticed that she had the confident, self-conscious gait of a beautiful girl. I turned around to look at her. She was wearing a long black coat with a fur collar and boots with low heels. When she entered the revolving door to the street, I glimpsed the side of her face for an instant and had the uncanny sensation that I knew her. Her long blond hair moved in the wind as the door turned. I stood up. I felt sure I knew that woman. I strode toward the door as fast as I could and noticed a green-and-white taxi waiting outside. The door to the backseat opened, and at the same moment the car's interior light illuminated a man's face in the backseat. It was Giles. The woman slid in beside him. The car door slammed, and with that sound I knew what I had seen—Mark. The young woman was Mark.
    I rushed into the cold night air, waved my arms at the moving taxi, and shouted "Stop!" It drove out of the entrance and turned onto the road. There were no other cabs, and I turned around and walked back inside.
    After getting a room for the night, I left a letter with the clerk "Dear Mark," I wrote. "You seem to have changed your mind about returning to New York I will be here until tomorrow morning. If you want a ticket home, call me in my room—7538. Leo."
    The room had green carpeting, two queen-sized beds with floral orange and green spreads, a window that couldn't be opened, and a gigantic television set. The colors depressed me. Because I had promised to call Violet even if it was very late, I picked up the phone and dialed her number. She answered after one ring and listened in silence as I told her what had happened.
    "You think it was all a lie?" she said.
    "I don't know. Why would he tell me to come all the way out here?"
    "Maybe he felt trapped and couldn't figure out how to get out of it. Will you call me in the morning?"
    "Of course.''
    "You know that I think you're a wonderful man, don't you? "
    "I'm glad to hear that."
    "I don't know what I'd do without you."
    "You'd do just fine," I said.
    "No, I wouldn't, Leo. You've held me together."
    After a pause of a couple of seconds, I said, "It goes both ways."
    "I'm glad you think that," she said softly. "Try to sleep."
    "Good-night, Violet."
    "Good-night."
    Violet's voice left me