Angel and I walk up the stairs behind a group of people. They're talking about the guy who killed himself. They all seem to think that he was murdered. I roll my eyes and look up at Angel.
"Why can't we just tell everyone that we heard him shoot himself?" I ask him as we walk down the all to his room.
"Because then everyone will wonder why we didn't try to get help." I shrug.
"If you would have let me eat him maybe then they wouldn't be thinking up such stupid rumors," I grumble.
Angel glares down at me and I shrug again. We stop at the door to his room and he starts to unlock it. He opens it and we are about to go it when another door a little ways down opens and Judy leans into the hall.
"Hey," she calls. "Can you come in here for a second?"
Angel and I step into her room and I close the door behind me.
"Did you hear?" Judy asks.
"Hear what?" Angel asks.
I sit down on a chair and stare at the ceiling.
Hear what he says, I think. What has everyone in this blasted hotel been talking about?
Judy pulls out a cigarette. I consider asking her for one but Angel would just tell her not to give it to me.
"The guy in 215...it wasn't a suicide. He was murdered." Judy says. I bite my lip to keep from laughing.
"I don't think so," Angel replies.
"No, it's true," Judy insists. "Which means there is going to be police. And...and questions, and...and I though that you'd want to know, in case, maybe..." She stops and laughs nervously. "I'm not implying that you've got something to hide but..."
"Everyone here's got something to hide," I say. "Even us."
Angel looks back at me. Warning me to shut my mouth. I giggle and shrug again.
"Yeah," Judy agrees. "I just figured that I owed you two a heads up, on account of what you did for me before. So..."
"Thanks," Angel says.
Judy tries to light her cigarette but the match won't light. Then it breaks so she just gives up. She still has her back to us.
"I guess if we left now it would look, I don't know, bad, huh?" she asks.
"That all depends. This have anything to do with that PI I tossed out of here?" Angel asks.
Judy turns and looks up at him.
"You knew he wasn't my boyfriend," she says.
Angel flicks his lighter for her and she uses it to light her cigarette.
"I had a hunch," Angel replies.
I laugh.
"I had more than a hunch," I say.
Judy sighs.
"I'm pretty sure he works for my former employers, the City Trust Bank of Salina, Kansas. I was a teller there."
She goes over to her bed and pulls a bag from under it.
"I think maybe they want this back."
She opens it and Angel and I look inside. It's full of rolled bank notes, 1000 marked on each of the wrappers that we can see.
"I haven't spent any of it. Not a dime. I...I can't even bring myself to touch it."
"Why take it?" Angel asks.
"I don't know. I was angry...and I...I guess I panicked. I mean, things were going so well! I...I loved this job, and I loved this guy," she said. "We were going to get married, and they found out about me at the bank, and so they fired me. And then Peter found out why and he broke it off and I just couldn't go back to where I came from. I just couldn't. So I took this and I...I just ran."
Neither of us say anything.
"Aren't gonna ask me why they fired me?"
"Why'd they fire you?" we ask in unison.
"Because I'm not what I say I am. I've been passing since I was 15 years old," Judy answers.
"Passing?" Angel asks.
Judy nods.
"For white. My mother was colored, my father...I didn't even know him! My blood isn't pure," she explains. "It's tainted."
Angel steps closer to her smiling slightly.
"It's just blood, Judy," he says. "It...it's all just blood."
I laugh again. Judy and Angel look at me.
"He's right," I say laughing harder. "Blood can't be tainted. It's just blood. It's all the same!"
"Nobody believes that!" Judy snaps "Not even my mother's family. I'm not one thing or the other. I'm nothing."
"I know what that's like," Angel says.
I look up at him. Judy gets quiet and then puts a hand on her stomach.
"Yes. Yes, I am," she says. "I am something."
She sinks into a chair and looks up at us.
She's lost it, I think.
"I'm a thief!" she cries.
She gasps.
"I've never stolen anything before in my life. It's just...god, the things that they called me."
"Fear makes people do stupid things," Angel says.
Judy shakes her head.
"It was stupid. And I wish I'd never done it."
"I didn't mean you. I meant your former employers. They were afraid. That's why they fired you."
"What am I going to do? I'm trapped!"
Angel shakes his head now and I roll my eyes. He cares about her! This is...this is disgusting!
"You're not trapped," Angel says.
He walks over to the bag of money. Judy gets up.
"I am! Look, if I leave now it'll look too suspicious, but if I stay here and the cops find this..."
"They're not gonna find it," Angel insists.
Judy stares at him.
"'Cause we're gonna help you."
Angel puts a hand on her back and leads us out of the room, the bag in his other hand.
"What'd you mean we?" I ask as I follow them.
Angel leads us down into the basement.
"I guess I'll be okay down here. It's only for a few days. Just until the cops are gone," she says.
Angel looks down at her.
"Judy, there are no cops," he says.
"Just stupid rumors," I add. "But no cops."
"Well, not yet," Judy argues. "Oh god, I can't go to prison. It's just...I can't. Just the thought of being confined, trapped. It would be like death. No. No. It would be something worse than death. It'd be...it'd be like...like being buried alive!"
She's pacing and babbling while Angel hides the bag in the ceiling behind some pipes.
I hear some demonic whispering. Angel must hear it too because he comes to stand beside me.
"I want you to go back to your room and stay there," he says to Judy as we take a few steps deeper into the basement. "There is something in this hotel, something that's making people crazy."
"Hey, do you think that if...if somehow...the money ended up on the banks doorstep, and they saw that I didn't spend any of it, you think they'd call off that detective? Maybe I could be free of this whole thing," Judy asks.
Angel and I keep looking around, listening to the whispering.
"Maybe," Angel says softly.
"I mean, there is such a thing as forgiveness, right?" Judy replies.
Angel and I look at her.