by Sasha Grey
In a way, I have.
According to what I found online, when she first came to Vegas, Inana moved into a little apartment near the Strip, eager to immerse herself in the bustle of the place to research a mysterious project that I can’t find any information on, needing to feel the pulse of Sin City. Yet less than a year later she moved to a bungalow a little ways outside of the city limits.
Her sister gave me the key, and her blessing to explore as much as I wanted.
I should feel guilty about the gratification I feel at being granted access to her place, should feel shame, like a stalker who gets carte blanche access to his victim’s underwear drawer, but I don’t. Satisfaction coats me like a second skin, and for the first time in a few days I feel like I’m close to something important.
Something voyeuristic, but cathartic.
Inana’s bungalow sprawls alone on the left side of the road, a pale collection of modern right angles mixed with rustic, blocky fencing made of rough-hewn logs. There’s no overgrowth blocking the way to the door—we’re in the desert. Come, go, stay, it doesn’t care and isn’t going to try to cover up your presence. All that happens is that the wind blows more sand over any traces of life.
No tire tracks or footprints in the short driveway.
Lola says she hasn’t been able to make herself come back here since Inana was found inside. Can’t say I blame her. Maybe she should have sold the place and been rid of it, but perhaps it’s a last connection to her sister. Even though it’s empty except for bad memories, it’s a connection. It’s somewhere that Inana walked through, ate in, sat looking out the windows, touched things. If she sold it, what else would be left?
We never know what we’d do until we’re faced with those decisions ourselves.
The door is heavy and shut tight, but I push it open and flick on the light, surprised to see a fine layer of sandy dust covering everything, muting the colors of the furniture and floors. I half expect to see an old woman in a ruined wedding dress waiting for her errant lover—or revenge—but it’s as silent as a grave.
No carpet to absorb the dust, so the tiled floor is dull underfoot, and my boots leave faint footprints. The walls are a light buttery yellow, bringing a warmth to the dull emptiness, but I expected something more vibrant for Inana.
Then again, she herself would have been the brightest thing in any room she was in, no matter the décor. I guess she didn’t want to compete with the furniture.
I wouldn’t say it’s in shambles, but it’s obviously fallen into a state of neglect. Lola said I was welcome to stay here, but it needs some cleaning before that can happen.
People live differently in their houses. Some treat their place like storage, packing every spare room and drawer with things, occupying the space but not really living in it. With them it always feels like they’re not unpacked, not staying.
Others use it like a rock band in a hotel room, wearing things out at an alarming rate—living in the space but not loving it or treating it as permanent. It’s amazing how badly people will treat a space they don’t have to clean.
Houses that are treated like homes feel different, smell different.
Despite the dirt and neglect, Inana’s home is the latter. She lived and loved here. I want to see it the way she saw it when she was still living here, so I head for the kitchen and, sure enough, under the sink I find cleaning supplies. I get to work dusting every surface, cleaning the grime from windows. I tug the area rug from beneath the couch and hang it over the railing on the front porch to air out. Heading back inside, I sweep the dust from the corners of the floor.
I find a vacuum and set to cleaning the couch and two chairs in the dining nook.
Did Inana do this herself, or, like most stars, did she have someone in to clean? It’s a little bit of a drive to get out here, but it’s not like she couldn’t have afforded it.
An hour or two later I’ve made it decent, and admire the subtle charm of the place now that it’s restored. I wander to the window in the living room, trailing my fingertips over the sill, imagining Inana doing this years ago. I’m touching the place she probably touched. But she died here, too, I realize with a start, rifling in my purse for my phone to look at the police reports about Inana—when she was found.
No stain marks the place on the floor where her bright star faded to black, full of pills with her wrists cut—insurance in case the pills weren’t enough to do the job, I guess. I sit on the couch, staring down at that blank space where she breathed her last breath. How did she feel at the end? Did regret seep into her consciousness, or did she look forward to whatever was next, no matter what it was, with the same lustful curiosity she had for everything else she tried?
I can’t wrap my mind around her doing this. Ending things.
Macabre, maybe, but I get to my knees and lie down in the spot where Inana was found. Her heart stopped here.
Her life as we know it ended.
Why?
Is her sister right that she was murdered? But even if Inana did kill herself, that doesn’t mean it was anything more than an accidental overdose. Except for the wrists, whoever did it and however, it wasn’t an accident.
A small town’s worth of people have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge to their deaths. But did you know that almost thirty people have jumped—and survived? The common thread through all of their stories was that in that brief time between when their feet left the bridge and when they hit the water, they realized that all the things they’d thought were insurmountable—all the problems they hadn’t seen a way out of—became nothing. Trivial, infinitely solvable. Except for one.
The fact that they’d just jumped off a fucking bridge.
Some prayed for God to save them and give them another chance. Others didn’t have time.
What did they do with their lives after the “miracle”? That would make a good story.
Then again, worth is a relative concept as well. If someone gave up a high-flying job to become a turnip farmer in Arkansas because it made her happy, other people might think she was fucking loopy.
Happiness is relative as well.
Did Inana have a moment after the pills, after the cuts, where she regretted the choice to do it and would have given anything to take it back? Or by then had the narcotics turned her brain waves to something syrupy and slow, made her not care at all, made dying another adventure to be experienced?
What a waste. My heart aches for them all, and the sudden need to connect with Jack, tell him how much he means to me, presses close, surrounding me, and I pull out my phone and call him.
“Hello?”
I smile at the sound of his voice. “I love you, Jack.”
“You got there safely.”
“I did. It’s such an isolated place for someone like her.” I’ve given Jack a very stripped-down version of my story about Inana. He seemed a little less than excited about it, but he was going on the road with Bob anyway. It’s not like we’d have been together at home if I hadn’t decided to do this.
“Some people like the quiet.”
“I guess so. How are you?”
A woman’s voice murmurs in the background. Jack clears his throat. “Listen, Cath, I’ve got to go. Bob’s giving an interview and I need to help prep him. Talk to you soon.”
Annoyance at competing with Bob makes me hesitate and take two deep breaths before telling Jack I love him, but he’s already hung up. I exhale frustration. Is it too much to ask for a little enthusiasm about what I’m trying to do? Maybe it’s not as important to Jack, but it matters to me. That should make it matter to him too, right?
Maybe this story is as big as Jack’s campaign. I just need to focus. I turn my head, my eyes landing on Inana’s bookshelf across the room. It’s only one shelf, nine small squares of equal size, but the books seem well-used. Some people keep books to be pretentious, hoarding trendy bestsellers—thanks, Oprah—and classics that they’ll never crack the spines of. Rarely will you come across
a true bibliophile who loves books the way most people love their children, and they’ll hang onto first editions or favorites signed by authors they admire.
In today’s age of digital everything, where we can download entire libraries to our phones, the physical books people keep mean something. Hundreds of years ago, people used to press flowers between the pages of books, flowers that were given to them by gentle suitors with good intentions and manners. Back when volumes were spoken based on types of flowers, colors.
I prefer the plain language of today, where we women are allowed to make our feelings known as well.
There’s an unassuming black volume that I nearly don’t notice, but the title grips me.
Fantazius Mallare: A Mysterious Oath by Ben Hecht.
The book Inana referenced in her diary.
I grab it and flee back to the couch, anxiously flipping through it to find the quote.
“I must explain this to her. If she loves me well enough she will understand. All things are possible in love. I will explain to her that I possess her at will without the loathsome absurdities of sex.”
What did Inana find relevant enough about this quote to scrawl it in her diary and underline it three times? The quote itself suggests love not held to the strictures of physicality, but not selfless, either. Is it more about the mind? Sexy, complete dominance and ownership of someone even when sex isn’t part of the equation? What are the “loathsome absurdities” of sex?
Sex itself can be hilarious when you stop to break down any part of it, but I don’t think that’s what he means. Is it that sex isn’t enough? The way people attach other attributes and emotions, commitment and meaning, bondage of emotion, to something as simple as fucking. No one looks glamorous with a cock in her mouth, but it’s not about how it looks.
It’s about how it feels.
Maybe that’s what resonated with Inana. She never gave a shit about what her journey looked like to others. It was about how it felt to her. Inana was using her body instead of words, but who speaks her language? Not many people, sadly.
I’ve got the rudimentary bits down, but I’m not fluent. Still, I speak enough to know she was onto something.
What she did, what she showed, made me feel something. Maybe that’s all that she wanted.
Maybe that’s enough.
But I need to know for sure. I need to know her thoughts, her angles. I need to see the things she did.
I find the quote on pages 71 and 72.
But there’s also an address and the words La Notte.
I search for those online, and I’m somehow not surprised when absolutely nothing turns up.
Was this a favorite spot of Inana’s? It’s not late, 9:38 p.m., so I text Inana’s sister, asking if she knows anything about La Notte and Inana’s connection to it.
Her reply sets off a plan.
La Notte is where Inana worked for six months before she disappeared. It’s a hotel.
And it’s where I’m going to go tomorrow morning.
NINE
REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT some hotels working on the same principle as testing military strategies? A means of making mistakes so they don’t get made in the real world?
That’s what this hotel is, too—the one I’ve come to, seeking answers. This was a model that was never intended to reach the market. It’s a place designed to enable indiscretions that need to be hidden from the real world, appetites and perversions that need to be kept under wraps. A place for people who have something to lose.
How much? Inana lost everything.
There are no higher stakes than that.
I turn down a dirt road, following it through a little valley, and as I go around a turn, it comes into sight.
La Notte is a towering black monolith in the red desert, and it’s intimidating even from a distance, the structure arcing slightly so that it appears sleek and graceful instead of boxy. Dangerous the way a crouching panther is before it pounces. Its darkness reflects back the panoramic sunrise, blinding me with everything I’m not looking at while I stare at the hotel itself.
The Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel in Dubai has got nothing on La Notte.
I pull into visitor parking, though nothing is labeled. Everything here is anonymous, I guess, which won’t aid my snooping around, but it won’t hinder it, either.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to bend the rules a little for a story, but I wasn’t expecting anything on this scale.
You hear “hotel” near Vegas and picture something way smaller, tackier, grimier than this. That aging showgirl, still flashy, but past her prime.
But my heels click on impeccably clean Italian marble stairs, and there’s not a single crack in the flawless façade of the building. The doorman opens the door for me and I stride inside.
The lobby smells like wealth. You know what I mean. There’s that certain indefinable yet undeniable scent that screams it.
Boutique designer shops in Milan—the ones where nothing has a price tag, because even when you’re buying things, talking about money and prices is gauche.
The inside of a crocodile Birkin.
The inside of a Maybach Exelero.
The powder worn by some women whose great-grandparents were born with trust funds. The scent of never having worked a day in your life.
The aroma of entitlement. Class.
This lobby gleams with cleanliness, but you could stop by every hour on the hour and not catch anyone cleaning, because that defies the illusion of perfection—and there’s no reek of vinegar on the windows here, just the elegant breeze of gently circulating air. They probably use the same air filters that hospitals do, the filters that keep the smell of death nonexistent.
Doors are closed, and the few windows are covered with heavy curtains.
No sneaky peeks to catch a glimpse of the Wizard here.
Lola told me that Inana was a VIP concierge here, which would have given her unfettered access to guest information and the hotel itself. It’s a strange juxtaposition in secrecy and PR. The concierge is the one who is basically the face of the hotel, the one everyone sees, the one you’re supposed to feel confident can grant all your requests, so she must be professional, competent, and appealing—someone you feel like you can trust.
But she’s also the one in on the secrets. As VIP concierge, Inana would have been making things happen for celebrities and other high-profile clients. A supposedly sober rock star wants a bottle? She’d have been the one bringing it—or making sure it was sent by someone who was trusted. A married actress tells you she’s got a “friend” coming by in the middle of the night? You shut your mouth and arrange the cab of shame when he leaves at three in the morning reeking of sex.
The VIP is a seller of security, the one who makes illicit dreams come true like a fucking genie without the lamp—because celebrities are what keep these places going. You’re the face in the light when things go wrong, and you’re the fleeting shadow at the bottom of the door, making sure things are going as smoothly as possible. Oh, concierges are never supposed to allow or facilitate anything illicit or illegal.
But celebrities don’t color within the same lines as the rest of us. They have crayons in shades we’ve never heard of.
If a real celebrity takes a piss in your restaurant, you can capitalize on that for the next ten years. Even if no one else ever stays for a meal, you’ll get tourists—or locals, celeb hunting.
But this place is different by its very nature.
Something tells me they don’t give a shit about Yelp reviews or the general public. And for a business driven by tourism? That’s hinky as shit. The clientele must be invited.
I skirt the front desk at the other side of the lobby, heading down a passage going off to the left. The hallways are long and well-lit without being harsh, but there’s no activity, no small groups of people I can trail behind to gain access to an event or a bar. I stick out like the proverbial sore thumb as much as if I were wearing a damn tren
ch coat and aviators.
But I manage to keep my cool when a slim young man, wearing a suit that subtly mirrors the hotel’s black-and-gold décor, taps my shoulder. “Can I help you?”
“Are you the manager?” I ask, glancing at his chest for a name tag, but there isn’t one. Not because guests will forget his name, but because it doesn’t matter what his name is, who he is. What he does is all that matters to the people who stay here.
He frowns. “Are you here to apply for the position?”
“Yes.” The word slips out in my breath of relief. This is my in.
“Follow me.” He leads me back the way I came (disappointingly), behind the desk into a little office. Was this Inana’s office? Did she spend a lot of time back here? “Have a seat.”
I take the chair across from him. The concierge’s office is roomy, but there are no windows. No prying eyes, except for a small security camera in a corner by the ceiling. I pretend not to see it, instead focusing on the painting on the wall. I know it’s worth more than my car, or myself—and it’s not a print.
“I’ll take your resume now.” I hesitate, and his brow furrows.
“I didn’t bring one.”
“You—”
“I’m sorry, but I can always e-mail it over later. See, it’s been my experience that ninety percent of any job isn’t about what’s on paper. It’s what happens when you’re dealing with people. It’s what happens when you have to think on your toes because things start going wrong and you’re the only one who can fix them. Reading my work history will be impressive, but not as practical as if you see me in action.”
“What’s your name?”
I tell him, and he types it into the computer, likely doing a search on me. Learning that I’m a reporter will be a strike against me in a place that runs on confidentiality, but maybe that works in my favor, too—journalists know how to keep our mouths shut to protect our sources. Plus, I’m here. Knowing how to get here is half the battle. I hope I can bluff my way through the rest.
