The Glass Hotel: A novel by Emily St. John Mandel Read Free Book Online

know.” Paul nodded toward Leon Prevant.
    “That isn’t Alkaitis.” Walter was watching Paul closely. He was flushed and looked even more miserable than usual.
    “I thought it was.”
    “Alkaitis’s flight was delayed. You didn’t see anyone lurking around outside, did you?”
    “Lurking around?”
    “Anything suspicious. This just happened in the last hour.”
    “Oh. No.” Paul wasn’t looking at him anymore—another irritating trait; why did he always look away when Walter was talking?—and was staring at Leon, who was staring at the window. “I’m going to go see if Vincent needs the kegs changed,” he said.
----
    —
    “What was unusual?” Raphael asked.
    “Inquiring about guests like that. How would he even know who was checking in that night?”
    “It’s not the worst thing for a houseman to take a look at the guest list, familiarize himself with the lay of the land. Just playing devil’s advocate.”
    “Okay, sure, I’ll give you that. But then, the way he looked straight to that point on the glass when he walked in, straight at the potted plant. I just don’t think the philodendron was that obvious,” Walter said.
    “It is obviously out of place, to my eye.”
    “But is it the first thing you look at? Especially at night? You walk into the lobby from the side door, at night, you look past the double row of pillars, past the armchairs and the side tables, halfway down the glass wall…”
    “He does clean the lobby,” Raphael said. “He’d know better than anyone where the potted plants go.”
    “I’m not accusing him of anything, to be clear. It’s just something I noticed.”
    “I understand. I’ll speak with him. Was there anything else?”
    “Nothing. The rest of the shift was completely normal.”
----
    —
    The rest of the shift:
    By four a.m., Leon Prevant was beginning to yawn. Paul was somewhere back in the heart of the house, mopping floors in the staff corridors. Walter had finished his report and gone through his checklist. He was gazing out into the lobby, trying not to think too much about the graffiti. (What does Why don’t you swallow broken glass signify, if not I hope you die ?) Larry was standing by the door with his eyes half-open. Walter wanted to wander over and talk to him, but he knew Larry used the quiet hours to meditate, and that when his eyes were half-open, that meant he was counting breaths. Walter considered going to talk to Vincent, but it wouldn’t look right for the night manager to linger by the bar while a guest was present, so he settled for a leisurely inspection of the lobby. He straightened a framed photograph by the fireplace, ran a fingertip over the bookshelves to check for dust, adjusted the leaves of the philodendron so that they better covered the paper taped to the glass. He stepped out for a moment into the cool night air, listening for a boat that he knew was not yet en route.
    At four-thirty Leon Prevant rose and drifted toward the elevator, yawning. Twenty minutes later, Jonathan Alkaitis arrived. Walter heard the boat long before it came into view, as always, the motor violently loud in the stillness of night, and then the lights on the stern swung over the water as the boat rounded the peninsula. Larry set off for the pier with a luggage trolley. Vincent put away the newspaper she’d been reading, adjusted her hair, reapplied lipstick, and took two quick shots of espresso. Walter put on his warmest professional smile as Jonathan Alkaitis walked in behind his luggage.
    In later years Walter was interviewed three or four times about Jonathan Alkaitis, but the journalists always left disappointed. As a hotel manager, he told them, he lived and died by his discretion, but in truth there wasn’t much to tell. Alkaitis was interesting only in retrospect. He’d come to the Hotel Caiette with his wife, now deceased. He and his wife had fallen in love with the place, so when it’d come up for sale he’d bought the property, which