Talking Business - Dessa

Champagne

Fake name

Number on a napkin

Check please

Room key

More coke for the captain

Lipstick on the filter

Sign out on the door

Seven hours til turndown services

On the second floor

Knock knock

Ten o’clock

Housekeeping with breakfast

Awe shock

Coffee hot

Airborne in the French press

Facedown on the bedspread

Color nearly half dead

Still recognizable as a

Regular guest

Missing wallet

Missing watch

Something in his tumbler probably stronger than the double scotch

Dizzy talk with

Busy cops

But no mention in the paperwork of the stash cost, the cash losses

No prints

Only hint

Blonde wig in the bathtub

APB on radio, state patrol on the back up

Nothing on the register

No plates on the rental car

Needle in the hay, girl like a shadow in the dark

But nine miles away

In the bathroom at a Texaco

Color contact lenses, freehand freckles, money in the pantyhose

Ten minutes from SFO

Cop at the counter with a photo of a brown-eyed girl in different clothes

Cash fare

Ride share

Taxi to the airport

Gate 5

On time

Baggage just a Jansport

Business class so rum and cola

Guiltless sleep til Mexico then

On the beach like any other rich resorter’s doctor’s orders

No talking business

Room service

Evening paper and a mai tai

English version

Color picture, two-inch headline:

Jane Doe versus Kingpin

Drama at a local hotel

Suspect in the wind

Drug money missing as much as half a million

Likely inside job—just too much intel for civilians bills in

A backpack

Untrackable all cash

Flight risk highly likely

Solo female on the lam

Back at the residence

Bedtime for the Kingpin kids

Mommy on the tuck-in shift

Lights out now goodnight kisses

White lie for little princes:

Daddy on a business trip

Then frantic phone calls to the lawyers: asset shelters, audit risks

No talking business

No call

No show

Nanny girl still MIA

Slow drawl

Plain clothes

But never ever out a day

Mommy at the changing station

Weak knees with the revelation

Teddy on the top shelf: stuffing out decapitation

Lens in its belly gone

Day and night always ON

Disemboweled nanny cam

Now nanny with the upperhand

Unforced error

Silly Daddy such a fool

Barely there but still this fumbling with the household golden rule

No talking business

No talking business

In the baby’s room

No talking business

No talking business

In the baby’s room