The Woman in the Fifth Read Free

whispered gently into my ear, telling me to hand over twelve euros. I did as ordered, reaching into my pocket for my money clip. There was some dialogue in the background. I stood up, leaning against the cab for ballast. I looked up at the sky and felt rain. My knees buckled. I began to fall.
     
Blackout .
     
And then I was in a bed. And my eyes were being pierced by a beam of light. With a click, the light snapped off. As my vision regained focus I saw that there was a man seated in a chair beside me, a stethoscope suspended around his neck. Behind him stood another figure – but he seemed lost in the encroaching shadows. My sleeve was being rolled up and daubed with something moist. There was a sharp telltale stab as a needle plunged into my arm.
     
Blackout.
     

Two
T HERE WAS A light shining in my eyes again. But it wasn't a piercing beam like the last time. No, this was morning light; a stark, single shaft landing on my face and bringing me back to . . .
     
Where am I exactly?
     
It took a moment or two for the room to come into definition. Four walls. A ceiling. Well, that was a start. The walls were papered blue. A plastic lamp was suspended from the ceiling. It was colored blue. I glanced downward. The carpet on the floor was blue. I forced myself to sit up. I was in a double bed. The sheets – soaked with my sweat – were blue. The candlewick bedspread – flecked with two cigarette burns – was blue. The headboard of the bed was upholstered in a matching baby blue. This is one of those LSD flashbacks, right? A payback for my one and only experiment with hallucinogenics in 1982 . . .
     
There was a table next to the bed. It was not blue. ( All right, I'm not totally flipping here .) On it was a bottle of water and assorted packets of pills. Nearby was a small desk. A laptop was on top of it. My laptop. There was a narrow metal chair by the desk. It had a blue seat. ( Oh no, it's starting again .) My blue jeans and blue sweater were draped across it. There was a small wardrobe – laminated in the same fake wood as the bedside table and the desk. It was open – and suspended from its hangers were the few pairs of trousers and shirts and the one jacket I'd shoved into a suitcase two days ago when . . .
     
Was it two days ago? Or, more to the point, what day was it now? And how had I been unpacked into this blue room? And if there's one color I hate, it's azure. And . . .
     
There was a knock on the door. Without waiting for a reply from me, a man walked in, carrying a tray. His face was familiar.
     
' Bonjour, ' he said crisply. ' Voici le petit déjeuner .'
     
'Thanks,' I mumbled back in French.
     
'They told me you have been sick.'
     
'Have I?'
     
He put the tray down on the bed. His face registered with me. He was the desk clerk who sent me packing when I arrived at that hotel . . .
     
No, this hotel . The Sélect . Where you told the cabbie to bring you last night after you . . .
     
It was all starting to make sense.
     
'That is what Adnan said in his note.'
     
'Who is Adnan?' I asked.
     
'The night clerk.'
     
'I don't remember meeting him.'
     
'He obviously met you.'
     
'How sick was I?'
     
'Sick enough to not remember how sick you were. But that is just an assumption, as I wasn't here. The doctor who treated you is returning this afternoon at five. All will be revealed then. But that depends on whether you will still be here this afternoon. I put through payment for tomorrow, monsieur , thinking that, in your "condition", you would want to keep the room. But your credit card was not accepted. Insufficient funds.'
     
This didn't surprise me. My Visa card was all but maxed out and I'd checked in, knowing that I had just enough credit remaining to squeeze out, at most, two nights here, and that there were no funds to clear the long-overdue bill. But the news still spooked me. Because it brought me back to the depressing realpolitik of my situation: everything has gone awry, and I now find