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Show 96 Hall battles a migrain. He sees Jewel wake, use the telephone. He sees her in a bra and panties. He sees her pinching an acne spot by her nose. He sees her remove a fingernail, zooms in, sees the chewed nail underneath, watches as Jewel fastens the false nail on again. Then -- sweating, dizzy with scotch - Hall sees Jewel disappear from the monitors altogether, gone: not in her room, not in the casino, not in the Steak House or the Mediteranian Piazza or The Coffee Shop. She's on no camera. Hall panics. Hunt's throat is dry. The air conditioner in the Benton Harbor room seems to have discharged something talcy, and Hunt's breathing grows unsettled, fast. Hall is walking, carrying his warm scotch in a heavy highball glass, along the I-beams of the grid, where, below, through the one-way glass, are wide, stretching angles of tables, all the dealers in white shirts and blouses, their hands moving. Hall wonders, tired, unsteady. It is crazy light, the chandelier brilliance below, beam to beam. And Hall's drunk. Hall's eyes seem dry in his head; he has trouble opening and closing them. The highball glass nearly drops. He hesitates. He lowers himself, bending, and sets the glass on the glass, the scotch on the mirrors. It rests there, like a flaw in some synthetic gem. Hunt gets up from the bed and goes to the bathroom. He draws cold water in a plastic cup. "Something the matter?" Leah asks him, sleepy, when he returns. He pats her, slips an arm around her. "Just thirsty," he says. And Leah falls back to sleep. |