MISSING CHAPTERS?

THIS IS THE HELP THAT'S ON THE WAY FOR CHAPTERS 1 - 4

NOTICE: FOR SOME READERS CHAPTERS MAY HAVE GONE MISSING INTO THE JUNK FILE, SO I’M RE-POSTING CHAPTERS 1-4 AND 5-8 IN ORDER THAT YOU CAN CATCH UP AS NEEDED. ALSO, NEW READERS CAN PICK UP ON THE STORY.

1 ~ An Itch for Change

THE JOURNAL OF FRANCIS LEVERKUHN

The morning was just showing itself in twilight, and a cool vanilla scent drifted in through the open window. I rolled over carefully, and saw that Josephine had thrown off the covers so her round, brown tummy rose upward. I ran my fingers gently over it, but she slept on contentedly, so I leaned over carefully and kissed it. Her perfume was strongest right there where she was beginning to show, so I was sure that our firstborn would be a girl.

In a pleasant, dreamy mood, I prepared Josephine’s chai tea and my coffee. Suddenly my mood was altered and the demon woman Liuvigota stood before me again, blocking the way. I took it to be the remembered image of her rage etched in my imagination, and said to it, “Even you must have had parents!” Josephine’s steaming tea was in my hand and I offered it to Liuvigota’s rage, and the hovering image dissolved into the chai’s steam. And, then, I knew that, somehow, Liuvigota had truly been there in her image.

I poured out the tea and got a new cup.ow long has it been, since I had the itch to get into to the Los Angeles art market? Had Josephine told me what would follow, would I have let her voice guide me?

Even if she had known and had told me in her usual sensible way, and I had believed her, would I have remembered it, when that improbable door flew open at my knock, and I stepped through, too curious at each step not to take another, and, anyway, she soon followed, drawn, like me by her private passionate love for ancient language and history, just as my passion for essence-catching sketching and painting, drew me in. And then, too, we were drawn to each other.

Will we find ourselves be like moths attracted to the flame?

I knew that on my budget, finding the ideal situation for my own painting studio in Southern California was hopeless. But, so is buying a weekly Lottery ticket.

So, one week, in lieu of my improbable lottery ticket, while the itch to move was on me, I took a few minutes off to search for a place in Southern Californian, and, of course, found nothing in my price range.

But I did find one odd realtor: Vladimir Realty and Property Management. It had been in business since 1940. Was anyone from those days still alive? Vladimir had been in the same physical location and had no offerings other than the message, “Please call for information about our listings.” I fancied that they served the really rich or the very odd. I might, as a professional low income painter, qualify for odd; so I called them, it was the only way to let them tell me I didn’t have the cash.

My itch was running on an empty tank. As the phone rang I felt that I was wasting my painting time.

An intelligent sounding young man, not a robovoice answered, “This is David Harold speaking, the deceased movie star of the same name is my grandfather, how may I be of service?”

David Harold? Oh, the Chilean General with the evil sister; that was a cool old flick. Josephine had thought I could have played the General, if I’d auditioned for it fifty years ago, instead of the real David Howard; that’s how she likes to say how much she loves me.

“I’m Francis Leverkuhn, a painter in New York City, looking for a rental in the mountains, with a view of the LA basin. I know you have nothing that’s within my budget, but…”

David cut me off, “Have you exhibited?”

“Yes, at some second tier New York galleries.”

“Which ones, Francis?”

I told him.

“I see. Have you always been a painter, Francis?”

“Since I was a kid. Then I got into scientific illustration for some professors at Stony Brook. I thought that would be my career, so I got interested in the Natural Sciences and studied computational biology.”

“That was probably a good fit.”

“Yes, David, it was. But, I went back to painting—my first love.” I used his first name, like he had used mine, trying to imitate the slightly formal way he had said, “Francis”.

“Did you study calculus?”

“Yes, but artists don’t usually have a feel for that field.”

“But you do, and it’s like a secret you have to keep from your artistic peers.”

“Sadly true.” I thought that this guy could not be a full time real estate secretary, so I asked, “David, are you a college student somewhere in the LA area?”

He laughed. “Thank you for the complement on my age and the quality of my home schooling. I am the owner of Vladimir Realty. However, I know both scientists and artists in my extended family.”

“So, David, you understand first hand some of the tensions between artistic and scientific minds.” I decided that whatever game we were playing I should raise the intellectual horizon.

“Precisely.” He paused a second, then said, “Francis, will you be so kind as to text me a few photos of your work.”

Now I suspected, hopefully, that he was probably a speculator in art of up and coming artists, exactly what, on good days, I considered myself to be. I sent some images of landscapes and portraits, and last, a scientific visualization of which I was proud. I sent the images one at a time and commented on them.

And David asked good questions about each image, and about the last, he asked, “Did you use Mathematica to assist with making this image?”

“Yes, I did, I and made some use of Python.”

“How did that computing language work for you?”

“I wrote some code in Python that let me turn the original Mathematica image into Art.”

“Yes, this last scientific visualization of data has a peculiar life of its own, like all the paintings you’ve sent me.”

I was flattered, I work hard to achieve that sense of living unity that gives life to a painting, making it a work of Art.

There was a pause, then David said, please hold on a few minutes, Francis. I have another call I must answer.” He clunked his phone down, and I heard him speak briefly in Portuguese with someone on another phone a few paces off, and caught only his last words, “you were right, Auntie.” Two phones?

“Francis, we have a place which may suit your needs, and, I must confess, ours as well. Let me explain, Vladimir Realty is a small part of a family business network of long standing, sort of a clan, really. We do not seek immediate profit from every venture, but only to produce sufficient earnings from the network for work opportunities and for the modest support of all clan members, to keep out of the government network. Some of our projects are very long term and for the common good, rather than profitability. And we have one such project which is nearly completed, but there remain some loose ends to wrap up, in a leisurely way.” I caught a touch of irony in “leisurely”.

“Oh,” I asked, “is this project ‘leisurely’ in order to spread out its risks?” I emphasized his irony in the word. My mother had that habit of speaking, so I’d learned to spot it.

David laughed. “You are qualified for the job, Francis. This project, which has been closed for over fifty years, has been called the Knox Aviation Project, and, yes, its loose ends come with some risk on the order, say, of more extreme recreational activities, like mountain climbing or white water kayaking.”

“l do kayaking and I scuba dive in interesting places, often alone in situations in which a partner only serves to increase my risk.”

“Yes, exactly that kind of risk!” After a pause, he said, “Here’s my offer: A place in the mountains with the view you desire for a five year term, in exchange for which you agree to apply the time you’d normally spend on recreational activities to investigate our Knox Aviation’s project loose ends.”

“David, I’m afraid that sounds too good to be true.”

“Perhaps, but, Francis, it’s a very deep and possibly dangerous truth you will be investigating in the loose ends of this otherwise long finished project.”

At the conclusion of our conversation, David had offered to send me a free round trip air ticket and overnight accommodations so that I could check out the cabin, and, there, on the ground, he could best explain the part time work with the Knox Aviation project that they wanted me to do.

Then, I wondered, “Is your clan a ‘family’ operation, like the Mafia, David.”

“Oh, certainly not. Although we are secretive, all of our enterprises are legitimate, although none are traded on the stock market. As I mentioned, making money is not our priority, and although we must keep up with the world in some ways, we minimize our dependency upon it in others. I know what I’ve said sounds idealistic, but if you get to know us well, you’ll see for yourself.”

I decided to believe him for the time being.2 ~ Hotel of the Sun

THE JOURNAL OF FRANCIS LEVERKUHN

David’s airline ticket for me was for a first class seat from New York to the Ontario airport in the more desert east region of greater Los Angeles. He had arranged accommodations in Los Angeles County, west of the Ontario airport. I was to arrive in the early evening and David would pick me up the next morning, and he and I would drive out to see the cabin. On the way and at the cabin, David would lay out their offer for what, in exchange for five year’s occupancy of the cabin, I would have to accomplish with the loose ends of the old Knox Aviation project.

My airport shuttle pulled up in front of the Hotel of the Sun in Pomona, and, as I was stepping out of the van, a tall, uniformed young man stepped up to me. He looked Ethiopian, but with a slight German accent, asked, “Mr. Leverkuhn?” I nodded. “Allow me, sir, to carry your bags.” In my relative penury for tipping, I reluctantly gave them into his hands, but he winked and in a knowing, confidential voice, said, “I’m well paid, so consider my service gratis.” I read “Wilson” on his name tag.

The hotel structure faced a long reflecting pond over which we would have to pass on a broad floating walkway. On second glance, the pond looked as if it might surround the hotel. A little like a moat, I thought, as I studied the façade of the Hotel of the Sun as a subject for a painting. The architect had achieved a touch of the exotic, suggestive of … an Aztec temple. It was subtly done. The building sported gargoyles, but I saw that they were not European, but recognizably Aztec Glyphs. The building’s ten stories were tiered and slightly recessed, so that from where I stood the perspective cast a pyramid for the eye, not an Egyptian pyramid, but one somehow suggestive, to my artistic imagination, of the Temple of Tenochtitlan.

From my vest, I whipped out my pocket sketch pad and made a quick sketch of the structure. Then, I felt the presence of Wilson and my bags next to me. In fact, he had set them down and was gazing at the building while I was sketching it. I said in German to test his accent, “Wilson, this looks like a very pricy temple.”

“Herr Leverkuhn, do you have type O blood?” he asked in modern German, so I was sure it was his native tongue.

“Er, yes?”

“Quite acceptable, sir. That makes you a universal donor.”

I looked him in the face; an intelligent twinkle in his eyes communicated the jest. I clapped him on the shoulder, saying, “Acceptable even to the gods.”

We both laughed. “I’ve been waiting six months to try that line on someone,” he said. “You have a great eye for architectural humor. I caught the suggestion of Tenochtitlan in your sketch.”

“I’m a painter by trade, Wilson, and always on the scout for subtle visual ideas.”

“Well, the prices here are very high, but if you can pay. cash, I’m sure you’ll get to keep your blood. Many of us on the staff are graduate students, because hiring us is hotel policy, and Aztec anthropology is the field I’m studying.”

We crossed over the water, young men striking up a friendship and entered the temple of commerce.

Again, I paused in the middle of the spacious, very well-appointed lobby of the Hotel of the Sun to look around. I was startled because here, in greater Los Angeles, amid the bustle of many well-heeled persons, the air smelled fresher than on the Maine coast. I sniffed and nodded an approving gesture to Wilson on the air quality. Wilson returned the nod with an answering breath. Then I said, “And, Wilson, the lobby seems larger than I expected.” He shrugged and said, “I think that, too.”

I saw several restaurants and bars which opened to the lobby, the name of each was inscribed on a stone lintel over the entrance. One name immediately caught my attention, “The Faraday Room ~ digital free”. But, unlike the others, the entrance under this lintel appeared to waver with a strange grayness. “Faraday? The scientist?”

“He’s one of the fathers of electromagnetism,” said Wilson. “Irwin, one of our staff, who is a graduate student in physics, told me about him. He told me the room is like a big Faraday cage, as if everyone knows what that is.”

“Well, I guessed ‘digital free’ meant that my phone would lose connection to the internet. Why would that have value?”

“Privacy in conversation, maybe no electronic trail,” Wilson answered, “so, if your word is golden, you can make secret deals in there with your peers. That’s what we think. Big shots pay a lot to come here and talk very privately with other big shots in there.”

While listening to Wilson, I sensed that the entrance to the Faraday Room was like a sheet waterfall that washed away all one’s connections with the outside world. Suddenly a smartly dressed Chinese business woman stepped out through my waterfall, but I had had no sense of her approaching it from the other side. She slowed abruptly, with her arm still in the shimmering sheet, pulling another person out.

The person grasping her hand, was a thin teenage girl, complaining, “Mother, I couldn’t talk to any of my friends in there. I don’t know what’s going on anymore! Why did you do that to me?” She was speaking Mandarin, like Portuguese, one of my languages.

“To let you know it is time to grow up, daughter.”

As the mother passed by and glanced at me, I shook my head, and, in her language, said, “The younger generation.”

She looked at me without surprise, and knowingly said, ‘Don’t I know it,’ in American English.”

With that little two culture episode completed, Wilson led me to the front desk, announcing, “Mr. Leverkuhn, has arrived, Miss Cole.”

“Ah, Mr. Leverkuhn,” said the sophisticated young lady at the front desk, first looking me over, then glancing at her screen. She had a very attractive face with interesting features—a touch of the Mid East? “I see that all of your expenses, even your tips and bar tab are covered.” She looked directly at me, and said, in a somewhat private manner, “Vladimir Realty treats its clients very well and pays us promptly, better than any other enterprise.” She winked knowingly. “Enjoy your stay with us, Mr. Leverkuhn.” Her wink caused me to check out her complete name, “Annabelle Cole—Manager” and to memorize her features for a quick sketch.

She offered Wilson the room’s key card. He glanced at it, nodded, and slipped it into his breast pocket and picked up my bags. “Wilson, please conduct Mr. Leverkuhn to his quarters,” she said with business formality. As Wilson turned, he said to me, “Follow me, Francis, like a good boy.” As I turned to follow, I caught a trace of Miss Cole’s amused smile at Wilson’s quick familiarly with a client, contrary to her on business demeanor, but she had winked.

I had my sketch pad out when we got into the elevator and quickly was consumed with making a quick sketch of Annabelle’s fascinating face. While I worked, I was aware that another staff member had entered the space with us when I heard Wilson, say, in a low, conspiratorial tone of voice, “Mr. Leverkuhn, is an artist, Irwin. You should meet him some time.”

I sketched on, smiling to myself. My friends in New York called my sketch pad my personal device, and in the slowly rising elevator I felt myself to be among friends, while Wilson and Irwin conversed. “Have you verified the Faraday magic, Irwin?” “Not yet,” he replied. “But I’ve got a nice Chinese lady and her daughter working on it. Of course, they don’t know it. I’ve got their numbers; the daughter hates not being connected, and the mother doesn’t want her husband to track her all of the time.”

That remark caused me to vividly recall the mother and daughter coming out of the Faraday Room; could they must be the Chinese lady and her daughter whom Irwin was using! How? My recollection of my recent encounter caused me to miss what Wilson said to Irwin, but then I heard Wilson announce, “Top floor everybody out!”

3 ~ Sudden Friends

THE JOURNAL OF FRANCIS LEVERKUHN

Wilson picked up my bags and strode away down the corridor, but before following, I quickly finished up my drawing. Irwin stayed next to me looking at my sketch of Annabelle Cole. “Wow,” he said, “that’s Annabelle for sure. What a ringer in so few pencil lines! You could have been a police artist.”

“Thanks for the complement,” I replied. I was always surprised that people found my sketching amazing. I can’t remember not sketching. “I’m Francis Leverkuhn. Did I hear Wilson call you Irwin?”

“You did. I’m Irwin Harrington,” he said and we shook hands. “Everyone asks, but since you’re new to LA, I’ll tell you the answer: Yes, the Sheriff of LA County, Dalton Harrington, is my uncle, not my father. Our great-great-whatever ancestor was an Afro-Mexican revolutionary who married a random white rancher. He married her to get his ranch back which was on Mexican soil. That family story gave my uncle the background jazz and the looks to get the LA County vote and to keep his office. I got the looks but not the charisma, so I’m a computational theory geek from Cal Tech.”

Irwin was still holding my hand and beaming into my face; Wilson had stopped and was looking back at us, as a loud female voice from the corridor in the opposite direction to that which Wilson had taken, cried out, “Irwin!” in a way that expressed both a mother’s and a boss’s disapproval.

He dropped my hand like a hot potato, turned around and called to the rapidly approaching voice in similar volume, but acknowledging its authority by the way he offered an excuse: “Clementine, look at this! Mr. Leverkuhn made this sketch of Annabelle coming up on the elevator.”

Irwin reached out for my hand to move it so that his new interlocutor could see the sketch. I had turned and saw Clementine approaching with great speed, I read in her face that Irwin was about to be called out again for continuing his over-friendly affront to a client, so I escaped Irwin’s touch by handing my sketch pad to her.

I read her name badge, “Clementine Bishop—Operations Leader” and said, “Miss Bishop, would you please hold this for me so that I can take a picture of it to send to my special friend.” She studied my sketch, while I slowly got out my phone to give her time, as Irwin moved next to her, to see the sketch again.

I turned on my phone and I held it out so she could see the screen image—Josephine, my special friend— clearly, and her eyes widened. “Mr. Leverkuhn, are you keeping company with a Black girl like me?” It was almost the same explosion of emotion that Irwin had suffered. He suddenly looked immensely pleased and said, “My bad, Francis.”

My Josephine could be Clementine’s sister, about the same age and with the same facial features and lithe, sexy body. I lightly clapped both Clementine and Irwin on a shoulder, and declared, “Are we a merry family? In fact, I live with two guys one is gay, Irwin, and both are fellow artists, our relationships are based on our trade and sharing the rent. Josephine lives with her parents for free, she’s working on a degree like you guys. She’s studying ancient languages, right now trying to decide which one has the most mysterious history to specialize in.”

“So why is this Josephine your ‘special’ friend?”

“We’re betrothed, Clementine. Josephine likes to say betrothed, instead of engaged, because people can be engaged in many ways, but only betrothed in one.” Staring at my phone picture, Clementine was only half listening to what I was saying about Josephine. “She resembles you a lot doesn’t she?”

“She sure does; it gave me a start. I never liked the white guys I’ve dated. I’d sure never get en… betrothed to one.” Clementine stared at me closely and questioningly.

“May I call you Clementine?” I asked.

“Francis, I can tell you’re not rich enough to afford tenth floor rent.”

“Or to buy drinks at any bar here. My client is paying my tab, but I don’t know why.”

As we spoke, Wilson came back to see what was going on, and said, “Hi, Clementine, is this guy giving you trouble?”

She ignored him and said to me, “Francis. Do you want to take your picture of Annabelle? I have things to do.” She held it up my sketch, and I got up close with my phone and took the picture.

“Thanks,” I said, as she handed my sketch pad back to me. “Clementine, may I also take your picture to send to Josephine? Maybe you and she are kin.”

She smiled like maybe she was. I felt we’d crossed a tentative brother-sister hurdle. “Let’s include Irwin and Wilson, so Josephine has a lineup to study,” she said. “Come on, boys, stand one on each side of me.” Irwin picked up a tool bag overflowing with various electronic equipment that he had set down, and Wilson joined, holding my bags. Clementine in the middle was separated from each man by a bag. As I took the picture, I realized that the scent of Clementine’s perfume was the same as Josephine’s.

Suddenly talking shop, Irwin said to Clementine, “I’m checking the rumor you heard that cell phones coming out of the Faraday room remain invisible, even if turned on, when the owner doesn’t want to be located.”

“I’d never say such a thing. Got any results, Irwin?” All three looked conspiratorial for a moment. And, as if on cue, Irwin’s bag gave a muffled ring, he pulled out what looked like a thick, home-made tablet. The screen showed a maze of mathematical hieroglyphics in motion. After glancing at it, he dashed across the empty hall to look out a window. The others followed looking out adjacent windows.

I’d been so engrossed in the making-friends conversation, that I’d scarcely paid attention to my physical surroundings. Now I saw that the opposite side of the hallway to which they had rushed, was lined with tall, narrow, deeply beveled stone framed windows. The windows were so narrow that only one person could look through one of them at a time. On the elevator side of the hallway, the doors to the rooms were also recessed in the wall, with with beveled stone door posts, topped by a stone lintel with the room number carved in it. I was reminded of the names of restaurants and bars in the lobby. The walls of the hallway were of finely inlaid wood mosaics of all manner of plants and animals, both terrestrial and marine, and….

“Francis, come here!” Wilson’s voice broke into my deepening artistic revery, as I was opening my sketch pad to record my vision of the fascinating interior hallway. I looked over at him where he stood next to a window next to the window out of which Irwin was glancing back and forth between the window view and his odd device. Clementine stared intently out of the window on the other side of Irwin. She nodded to me to join and look.

Wilson stood aside from his widow to let me see, and he pointed down. “Look, there’s your very recent lady acquaintance and her daughter just reaching the other side of the bridge. I nodded as I watched the Chinese lady and her daughter cross the sidewalk and enter a standing black SUV, she got into the front passenger seat her daughter got into rear seat on the same side.

I felt a strange thrill, and Irwin asked, “Francis, do you know them?” At the same time, Clementine had asked Irwin, “Is that her husband’s car?” He answered her before I could answer him. “Yes, based on what I calculate with near certainty to be her husband’s phone active in it.”

As the car joined the street traffic, Irwin turned his full attention to me, asking what I knew about them, and I recounted to him my brief encounter with the lady who had stepped out through the sheet waterfall that my imagination had painted for me as the entrance to the Faraday Room. His fingers played eagerly over the screen of his odd device as I spoke to him.

4 ~ Ghost SWAT Raid

THE JOURNAL OF FRANCIS LEVERKUHN

When my little tale of my exchange with the lady and her daughter was finished, Clementine announced, “Okay, kids, that’s the end of our extracurricular break. Wilson, show Mr. Leverkuhn to his room.” And, to me she said, “Nice to meet you, Francis; let me know what Josephine thinks of our resemblance. I’ll mention it to my mother, too.”

“And Clementine, you can tell your mother that your perfume is the same as Josephine’s.” She cocked an eyebrow and walked quickly away, and Irwin strode off in the other direction. Wilson picked up my bags, saying, “For your information, Francis, Clementine is Irwin’s social coach, not his boss.”

“Okay, I can see that, but what did she mean by ‘extracurricular break’?”

“Satisfying our curiosity about our employer, the Hotel of the Sun, because the place is kind of weird when you get to know it. Like, the Aztec touch which you noticed and the Faraday Room, and, what does the air smell like to you up here?”

I stopped, and took several breaths with my eyes closed. “Interesting, in the lobby it reminded me of Maine, but up here, it’s more like desert air after sunset, with a touch of aromatic scents like sage. I remember that odor from when I was a kid and my family went on a camping trip to the Mohave.”

“Right. Here’s your room. Check out the room’s optics and listen carefully for the sound of the air conditioning system. The back door leads to an open roof park you don’t want to miss it.” Wilson opened the door with the card and gave it to me, saying, “This his card won’t open this door for me a second time. Now, it’ll work only in your hand. And, Francis, you might give Annabelle a call. She’s one of our Little Old Curiosity Gang. It just happens we’re all on overlapping shifts this evening, she’s off at eight, and I’m sure she’d like to see her portrait and learn that you’ve met Irwin and Clementine, too. She and Clementine are roommates.”

Wilson set down my bags in the vestibule and was gone. The door closed behind him. And, looking into my room I saw the door to the rooftop park straight ahead. I carried my luggage slowly into the room.

But the room was round and the windows which I could see were smaller, but similar to those on the outside of the hallway. They looked to be evenly spaced in a complete circle all around the room. The circle was broken by the wedge shaped bedroom and bathroom section, but looking through their open doors I saw that the windows of those rooms were part of the pattern. The door to the rooftop, set between two of the windows was a smaller version of the room’s entrance door, stone lintel and all. Wilson’s “Check out the optics.” echoed in my head at the sight, so I made the round of all the room’s windows and looked out each one, bedroom and bath room included. My circuit view of the room’s windows took me 360 around the Hotel Building—it looked as if my room 7 was the only room on the top floor! Seeing that the reflecting pond encircled the building, I had a momentary feeing that it floated in that pond, and I felt giddy and sat down on the bed. Giddy but curious.

I picked up the room phone, and it connected me with the front desk at once. After I told Annabelle Cole that I had met the other members of “the Little Old Curiosity Gang”, she agreed to meet with me when her shift was over. “Francis, I‘ll see that we get one of the best seats in the Faraday Room. Just walk in and look for me.”

When I put the room cell phone down, I already felt comfortable with the rooms optical trickery. I smelled the same comfortable after sunset desert air as in the hallway and noticed that the room’s air was not still but moved like a slight breeze blew through it. But, like Wilson implied, there was no sound or sight of an air conditioning system. Oh, well, the place was pretty high tech, why be curious about that, if it worked?

I got out my genuine old pocket windup train conductor’s watch. Josephine had given it to me. “It goes with your sketch pad habit, dear,” she had said. “You need it to complete your modest, eccentric always-working-artist image.” Her great grandfather had worked on the railway, and so the watch was also a bit of a special bond between us. I set its time to local phone time. I had trained myself to look to the pocket watch for the time, and I always felt close to Josephine when I did, and doing so did add a touch of eccentricity to my image.

The view from the circuit of the windows was the LA basin, shimmering in a clear night. I’d heard about the Santa Ana wind that cleared the smoggy haze away, and I hoped that the cabin David was to show me tomorrow would have a much more remote and higher view. I sketched the window circuit view and then got up, and, with my key card, I opened the door to the rooftop park that Wilson had said I ought not to miss.

The stairwell turned to the left and rose at a steep slope and I followed it up. As I approached the exit door to the rooftop, it opened automatically and slowly outward; I supposed it worked in that manner as a safety measure in case people were out there near the door.

The same shimmering view of the City in a clear night which I had just seen from my room greeted me. It was a park-like place and square, like the Hotel building and about the size I expected for the roof of the Hotel. Around the park’s periphery ran a stone parapet about three feet high with a sturdy wooden railing adding about a foot and a half high of height. There wasn’t a lawn with bushes and some fancy greenhouses like I had expected. The roof park was a spread of desert sand and desert vegetation, featuring rather large cacti and other desert plants, and the air smelled just like my room. I seemed to be alone, and I wandered to the center where I found a large pond, in the center of which was a two step raised platform which could be reached by a bridge in the style of the Hotel Building itself. From the markings on the surface of the platform it was clear that it was a helicopter landing pad.

I went back to the edge and looked over the parapet down the slope of the pyramid to the Hotel’s reflecting pond and the floating bridge over which I had recently passed. There, a fair number of persons were walking in both directions, and I began to sketch the scene.

At one point, I looked at to my drawing to correct a detail, and looking back at my scene, found it drastically changed!

There were no persons on the bridge and the lighting was somehow different. I saw that was because the street in front of the Hotel was empty, too. Suddenly six large vans rushed in from both directions of the street, stopping at angles in the empty street in front of the bridge and making a kind of chevron parking pattern: \\\///. I sketched it quickly, and, in the next breath, men in full body armor carrying weapons, leapt out of the vans, and formed two lines, at once trotting toward the foot bridge. It was a big SWAT team. A signal was shouted and they charged over the bridge two by two to storm my hotel in perfect formation!

I sketched the scene like mad. And then it happened: As the lead pair reached the middle of the bridge they were cast off it in opposite directions over the water and vanished beneath it like stones. I sketched even faster. Pair after pair charged to the same point, and some force cast them, too, out into the water to opposite sides of the foot bridge, but the following SWAT pairs didn’t seem to see the fate into which they were charging.