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the cart forward at
     full speed, all of fifteen miles an hour, causing enough wind to push a few of Sharon’s hairs out of place. The sight wasn’t
     unappealing. He could almost picture her in dark glasses, ornamenting a convertible. Maybe she was an ant who given a chance
     could be a grasshopper, sort of like that thin person who was always supposed to be screaming to get out of a fat body.
    “Annual event tonight,” said Am.
    Dumb, he thought. I’m even beginning to sound like that goddamn ant.
    Sharon looked over, the slightest interest in her face.
    “Staff party,” he said. ” ‘Come as a Guest.’ “
    “Come as a guest?”
    Am nodded and decided to give her a tame description. “We dress, and act out the characterizations, of our most memorable
     guests. You might consider coming.”
    A smile breached Sharon’s solemnity. “I’m afraid I don’t know your guests.”
    “I can help you in that,” said Am. “I was in charge of the sign-up sheets and know which guests were taken and which are still
     available. A couple of plum roles are still open.”
    “And you say this is an annual staff party?”
    Am nodded. “One of two. We also gather for the Feast of St. Julian the Hospitaller on January twenty-ninth.”
    She looked suspicious. Nothing she had seen so far indicated any piety in hotel life. “St. Julian?”
    Am looked incredulous. “You mean Cornell didn’t teach you about the patron saint of innkeepers?”
    She shook her head, and then Am shook his, feigning great sorrow. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Why advertise to students
     that their professional patron saint was a murderer? Might make you wonder about your chosen field.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Saint Julian, to whom I frequently pray.”
    “What’s this about him being a murderer?”
    “That happened in his pre-saint days,” said Am. “One day Julian was away when his wife received a tired couple at their door.
     The man and woman asked for food and board, and Julian’s wife gave them both. She left them in the one household bed and went
     to market, and in her absence Julian returned.
    “When he saw the man in his bed, Julian assumed the worst. He grabbed a knife and stabbed the couple to death. Then he ran
     from his house, only to meet his wife on the road coming from the market. To atone for what he had done, Julian decided to
     spend the rest of his life tending to the needs of strangers.”
    “Saint Julian,” Sharon mused.
    “Our remembrance isn’t exactly reverential,” admitted Am. “Hotel staff being what it is, you can imagine the menu for our
     St. Julian feast: ladyfingers, Bloody Marys, and deviled-made-me-do-it eggs.”
    Her smile grew. “What’s the menu at tonight’s party?”
    “Everything but the usual eating crow. Coming?”
    She was clearly tempted but didn’t answer immediately. Then, as if determining what her boundaries should and should not be,
     she finally shook her head. At least she didn’t offer a lame excuse.
    “If you change your mind…” But Am knew that she wouldn’t.
    He pulled the cart into a well-worn path. Guards didn’t walk except at the point of a gun. The security office was about as
     far from the gardens, and marble, and ocean as anything on the Hotel California’s forty acres. To call it unprepossessing
     would have been an overstatement. The office was a surplus World War II Quonset hut hidden behind shrubbery.
    The guard on duty was more interested in the sports section than in greeting visitors. He put down the paper reluctantly.
     Am noticed it was three days old. He wondered if the guard had made that discovery yet.
    “Control post,” said Am. “We try to maintain a presence here twenty-four hours a day. The guard stationed on this post acts
     as a dispatcher to the rover on patrol and also checks pass keys in and out.”
    Sharon was already taking her own tour, her attention captured by a wall lined with dozens of photographs.