Long after Leo had left, Rhea was still thinking about what turndown service might mean.
If the Gentleman really had some connection to the Voss, Leo now had every reason to look closely at its staff, and Rhea was one of them.
She had come here to search the hotel quietly, without a detective asking questions, so the thought of it happening worried her.
The lobby was at its quietest at that hour, with only the night staff left in it.
She was turning things over when the bell rang in the Birdcage.
Gus closed the gate and took the lift up, while Rhea watched the brass arrow above it climb all the way to the seventh floor, where the chairman had his office.
At the door, Samson straightened his coat, even though nobody was coming in.
Mimi leaned out of the office behind the desk, just as she had on Rhea’s first night when the Glasshouse called.
This time, she was holding a bottle of whisky.
“The chairman’s back,” she said in a low voice.
“He’s been away since the day you started, and he only got in this evening.”
Rhea had spent the whole week expecting to see him.
It had never occurred to her that he might not even be in the building.
She felt a little foolish, but considering it more closely, it did allow her to have an entire week to settle in first.
“Whenever he’s here, he comes down about now,” Mimi went on, nodding at the old green armchair beside the desk.
“He sits there and asks for one whisky. Just the one.”
“Every night?”
“Every night he’s here.”
In all her nights at the desk, Rhea had never seen anyone sit in that chair, not even a guest waiting for a taxi.
“Does he want anything else?”
“No. He doesn’t talk much either, so don’t try to make conversation.”
“Right.”
Mimi set the bottle and a clean glass on the desk.
“Not too much,” she added, then went back into the office.
Above the Birdcage, the arrow started down again, one floor at a time.
Rhea closed the logbook and made sure her badge was straight.
For twelve years, Victor Voss had been the last two words of her mother’s voicemail.
Rhea had taken this job to find out what he had done to her mother and make him pay for it.
She had been preparing to face him ever since she applied, though she had always imagined him walking past the desk, not sitting down right beside it.
The gate folded open, and he stepped out of the lift.
He was older than in the newspaper photographs, yet he held himself very straight.
Apart from his height, she couldn’t see much of Matthew in him.
He crossed the lobby without hurrying, and Rhea had to hold back an anger stronger than any she had ever felt.
It wasn’t only because of the voicemail.
She didn’t even know whether her mother was still alive at all, and here he was, walking through the hotel as calmly as if nothing had ever happened.
When he reached the desk, she was perfectly polite all the same.
“Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening.” He sat down in the green armchair.
“One whisky.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rhea poured a little into the glass and set it on the small table at his elbow.
She was glad to see that her hand was steady.
He didn’t touch the whisky.
As she straightened up, he read her name badge.
Nothing in his face changed as he did, and Rhea went on smiling politely.
She then went back behind the desk and opened the logbook again, mostly to keep herself from overthinking things.
Her name wasn’t a common one, and she had grown up around this place.
Until she was fourteen, she had spent more nights here than she could count, doing her homework while her mother worked, so Victor must have seen her many times.
She had considered applying under another first name, but a false name was the quickest way to lose the job if anyone checked.
Now she had no way of knowing whether he remembered her.
If he did, he could put her out of the Voss while she still had nothing to show for it.
That thought frightened her.
“Who hired you?” he asked.
“Mr. Graff, sir.”
“When?”
“A week ago, sir.”
“And you like working nights?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I ask because the last three didn’t.”
“So I’ve heard, sir.”
He asked everything almost as if he were giving orders, and Rhea answered as briefly as she could, since she didn’t trust her voice with anything longer.
“I’ve been told my son calls this desk at night,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“If he becomes a nuisance, you’ll tell me.”
“He hasn’t been, sir.”
Victor studied her for a moment, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
Then he let it go.
It was more or less true.
Besides, she didn’t want the chairman to think she couldn’t manage his son.
After that, Victor didn’t say another word.
He simply sat looking out across the dark lobby with his hands resting on the arms of the chair, while the whisky stood untouched beside him.
Rhea had always pictured him as a hard man who enjoyed being feared.
Sitting there in the dark, he mostly looked tired.
But she quickly reminded herself that mere appearances changed nothing.
When she looked up from the logbook again, she noticed she wasn’t the only one watching him.
Samson stood very still by the revolving door, and there wasn’t a sound from Mimi’s office.
Gus was waiting in the open lift, though he was looking at Rhea rather than at the chairman.
She already had her suspicions that he had known her mother, so being watched by him made her uneasy.
Mimi had said the chairman didn’t talk much, so perhaps they were simply surprised that he had talked to her at all.
Still, Rhea had a feeling there was more to it.
He stayed for nearly an hour.
When he finally stood up, he buttoned his jacket and left the whisky exactly where it was.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night, sir.”
Gus took him back up, and the arrow climbed to the seventh floor again.
Rhea sat down, more tired than she had been all week.
She had imagined facing Victor Voss so many times, but it turned out to be nothing like she had expected.
She couldn’t tell whether her name had meant anything to him, or why he had asked for a whisky only to leave it untouched.
When she went to take the glass away, Mimi called from the office.
“Leave it. Samson takes care of that.”
***
The glass stayed beside the green chair until morning.
At the end of her shift, Samson came over from the door, picked up the full glass and carried it into the office.
Rhea followed and watched him pour the whisky back into the bottle without spilling a drop.
“Does he ever drink it?” she asked.
Samson put the bottle back on its shelf.
“Ten years I’ve done that,” he said.