Revenant Rising by M. M. Mayle

bowing and scraping from lower-echelon hotel staff who have scurried in to demonstrate the obvious.
    “Thank you,” he says to the bloke showing how to open and close the curtains. “ Thank you ,” he says to another bloke working the controls for the telly. “I can take it from here,” he says to the bloke lining up bottles and glasses on a bar cabinet equipped with a mini-fridge and herds the lot of them out the door. This without any interference from Bemus who’s apparently got something else on his mind.
    “What?” Colin says once they’re alone. “Let’s have it, then.”
    “I’m waitin’ to hear why you’re puttin’ up here ’stead of at Nate’s place the way planned.”
    “That’s easy. It came to me whilst I was pacing the aisles of the plane last night. I naturally got thinkin’ about confinement and—”
    “I thought you were only thinkin’ about keeping your fans entertained.”
    “Give me a break, I needed the exercise. I wasn’t swanning, I was stretching my legs, and it came to me that if I went through with the plan to stay at Nate’s he’d be breathin’ right down my neck, wouldn’t he? Telling me what to do, when to do it, overseeing what I eat and drink, doing bed checks, I can even imagine.”
    “So this is another bid for independence.”
    “Call it whatever you want. Now, can you see about getting my things sent over here? All I’ve got left is a change of underwear and a pair of jeans.”
    Bemus busies himself with the phone. Colin rifles through the one bag he does have with him, the designer duffel that’s seen him from Denver to L.A. to New York. He’s in a sudden hurry for a dose of the headache powder that’s been his all-purpose fallback remedy for donkey’s years or for however long ago it was introduced to him by a half-forgotten studio technician in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
    “If he’s home he’s not pickin’ up,” Bemus says just as Colin retrieves the box of Polks Extra Strength from his sponge bag.
    “What the fuck,” Colin mutters when he sees that the box that was factory-sealed when last seen is now open, half empty, and leaking the fine white powder that makes the medication so quick-acting.
    “Did you hear me?” Bemus says. “Nate’s either not home or not—”
    “You been sampling my stuff?” Colin waves the box at him, creating localized fallout.
    “Not hardly. Not that crap that’s gonna get you in a boatload of trouble one of these days.”
    “Save the lecture. I’m asking if this was open when you packed my stuff in L.A.”
    “Can’t really say. All I did was gather up any loose items and zip the bag shut. But if I’d known you were carryin’ that powdered crap I might of pitched—”
    “Leave off, will you? Not the time for it. This has obviously been tampered with.”
    “If I’d seen that the box was open I woulda thought you opened it, wouldn’t I?”
    For answer Colin dumps the entire contents of the duffle on one of the couches and paws through the assortment of toiletries and clothing with mounting concern when his photo wallet doesn’t show up.
    “Somethin’ else been tampered with?” Bemus asks. “If it’s your dirty underwear you can be real damn sure it wasn’t me messin’ with it.”
    The bodyguard keeps it up, this low-level banter designed to conceal his belief Colin left home with an open, half-consumed box of Polks and simply doesn’t recall. So what’s Bemus going to believe if Colin suddenly announces the photo wallet is nowhere to be found? What then?
    Bemus soon loses interest in the laughably transparent ploy and returns to the desk to ring Nate’s numbers again. Colin uses the opportunity to search through the contents of the duffle once more and turn out all the pockets of the rumpled evening clothes he’s wearing. Still no photo wallet.
    “Now what?” Bemus notices and hesitates his dialing.
    “Relax, will you? I’m just gettin’ this ready for the valet,” Colin says of the