When a hand fell on my shoulder, I expected roughness and pushing and shoving, but the hand stayed there while its owner began talking to Chase. I was not even listening at first, too wrapped up in hysterical woe, but my ears began to prick up when the voice appeared to belong to Lloyd.
'. . . your famous last stand? Because it isn't a very glorious one, if it is.'
'Get out, Ellison. I have no intention of discussing personnel issues with my cocktail waiter.'
'Enjoy your final few moments as manager, Chase. Sophie will be a fixture here for a lot longer than you will.'
'Get out! Get out!' I had never heard shrillness from Chase before; even in the throes of my darkest hour, I had to satisfy my curiosity and look up. His usually impassive face was transformed into a mask of rabid panic. There was even spittle in the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a good look. He was jabbing the button for Security so hard I thought it might break.
Lloyd pulled me up by the shoulder and began to escort me from the room, turning at the door to deliver a parting shot.
'I might call the papers myself. I know a story they might find interesting.'
Chase threw a paperweight with some force, narrowly missing Lloyd's head as we bolted through the door and towards the bar. My cocktail champion steered me past the leather banquettes and the marble-topped counter, past the gleaming mirrors and the tasteful Christmas decorations into the stock room again. We slid down on to the floor together, backs to a tower of wine boxes, and he held me while I choked and spluttered on his shoulder.
Once his shirtsleeve was completely drenched and my tear ducts drier than the Sahara, I raised my puffy face to his.
'What was all that about?'
Lloyd kissed the tip of my nose. 'Chase won't be here much longer,' he said.
'Why not?'
'He has debts. Enormous debts, to the wrong kind of people. At first they were personal debts, but he's been dipping into the hotel takings as well.'
'What? How on earth do you know this?'
'I needed a second income, so I have a sideline working in a casino. Not a legit casino, though. A private gambling club on the other side of the park. Chase is a member.'
'Oh! Is it above a peep show?'
Lloyd widened his eyes questioningly, but I was not about to give away the secrets of my stalker past.
'Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. Let's just say that Chase's luck has not been in lately. He is way down. Too far down. The owners want their money back. And the hotel shareholders don't know what's been going on. At least, not yet.'
'Shit. How . . . is he going to pay them? What if he can't?'
Lloyd mimed a throat-cutting slash. 'I've a feeling he might have a flight booked for later on,' he said. 'To somewhere very, very far away.'
'Blimey.' We sat in sombre silence, ignoring the pleas of the junior barman for some help out there. 'I think I need a cigarette.'
'You don't smoke.'
'No, but let's get out of here anyway. Let's go outside.'
Behind the kitchens there was a yard cowering in the shadow of the multi-storey hugeness of the Luxe Noir. It housed bins and laundry hampers, but beyond a wicket gate was a small herb garden with a stone fountain at the centre. We went to sit on its plinth. Lloyd offered me a cigarette, but I didn't really want one. He lit one for himself, breathing in deeply and exhaling a wavy blue column of unspoken tension.
'Filthy habit,' I remarked.
'Not that you'd know about those,' he parried, flicking ash on to the hard, cold earth. 'You won't lose your job,' he said ruminatively. 'I'm pretty sure the new manager would want to keep you on.'
'I just can't believe it. I can't take it in. Chase. I thought he had some kind of pervy secret sex life. Nothing like this.'
'You would think that,' said Lloyd, ruefully affectionate. 'Sex-mad Sophie.'
'Lewd Lloyd.' Comparisons with the driven snow were rarely drawn when Lloyd was the topic of discussion.
'I'd say we were pretty well suited, wouldn't you?'