Talking Business

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