“How bad is it?” I asked.

“Not bad, he’s trashed the room, but he hasn’t hurt himself yet,” Tony said.

“He alone?”

“He’s alone and lonely. He tried to grab Angelika here,” Tony said. “She doesn’t speak Spanish so good; she didn’t know what he wanted.”

Angelika nodded. She was a flat-faced Indian girl, probably just in from the highlands. I pulled out my wallet and removed ten twenty-dollar bills. I gave them to Angelika and said to Tony, “Tell her she didn’t see anything, nothing happened here.”

Tony nodded and told her the same thing in Quechua, the Indian language of the mountains.

Angelika took the money, seemed very pleased, and curtsied to me.

“She can take the rest of the week off,” I said. “Maybe have a little vacation.” I gave her five more Andrew Jacksons.

“Muchas gracias, Señor Forsignyo,” Angelika said.

“It’s nothing, I’m sorry this had to happen to you,” I said and Tony translated.

I gave her my empty coffee mug and said “Yusulipayki,” the only word I knew in Quechua. She thanked me in return and shuffled off down the corridor. She’d be ok. The crashing continued from inside the room.

“He keeps saying that he’s not happy,” Tony said.

“Nobody’s bloody happy.”

“No. Except my dog,” Tony said.

“Hey, it isn’t Peter Buck, the rock star, is it?” I asked.

“Peter Buck? Which group is he a member of?”

“R.E.M.”

“This one I am not very familiar with,” Tony admitted. “But the gentleman is fifty or perhaps sixty years old, bald and fat, he does not look like a rock star to me.”

“Maybe it’s Van Morrison,” I said, took a deep breath, and barged into the room.

I rode the elevator down to the seventh floor and walked along the corridor to my corner room. Here the carpets were less plush and the pictures on the wall were prints. But it was still nice.