Episode 4: Room With A View

There are days on which the sun shines and everything seems like it should be wonderful, and yet something feels wrong. The light is a little too bright. Little too stark. As they navigate the streets of their city, people seem to be in a haze. As if they're not quite here, or this is not quite real. And if they took a wrong turn, across the wrong street, all the familiar signifiers would drop away, revealing an unknown, alien landscape. Okay. One hundred and thirty seven dead.

137 young men whose lives were deemed unworthy of attention. And why? Because of an accident of birth? Because they were different, because they were born into poverty, and the lives of the poor are not fit for the evening news. And even here, amongst my flock, it shames me to say I hear voices filled with cruelty. These boys were sinners, they say. Very well. So they were. Now tell me, which of you has the right to judge them? Raise your hand if you are without sin.

Good morning. I'm usually the first to arrive. Mm-hmm. Did you sleep here? I I didn't I didn't sleep. I've been digging into Vathic Holdings, the company that used to own the warehouses and Trying to make sense of the toxicology report. Maybe you can help me with that. I found this forensics textbook on poisons because of the neurotoxin and the the lab wrote that. You really need to get some sleep. I'm fine.

Is Harrison here yet? No. Why is he late again? We have to work on the case. We've so many tapes to go through. Then you're delirious. You need to sleep. I can't sleep, okay? Not when there's 137 bodies and nobody gives a shit. Please don't take this the wrong way. I know I can be unintentionally rude, but right now you're not capable of working the case. And if you don't get some sleep before Harrison arrives, you'll slow us down. Yeah, you you're right. It's never good when I get like this.

Sorry. I actually understand you quite well. I used to hate sleeping. It frightened me. Really? The idea of losing consciousness it felt like a kind of death. What makes us people if not the continuity of experience? If that can be just interrupted, how do I know I'm even the same person as before I fell asleep?

I never thought of that. A and the way that we fall asleep disturbed me. It still does to be honest. The fact that we can't remember it happening. That one moment we're lying in bed thinking and then what? The world doesn't gently fade to black, you just vanish, and you can't remember it. Every night, every single one of us enters this in between state, and none of us can remember anything about how we get there. So how did you get past that?

Like it like how do you go to bed without thinking about all that and freaking out? Cause I could freak out right now just thinking about I tell myself that nothing is accomplished by worrying about things we have no control over, and that if I don't get enough sleep, I get cranky. And that works. Mostly. Who wants coffee? You're early. And you smell. Hey, we had a shitty end to a shitty case, so I went for a drink. Sue me. You don't smell like one drink. And what do you mean end?

The case is still open. We have to find out who did this. Based on what? The toxicology doesn't tell us shit. The company that owns the building went bankrupt years ago. Okay, what about the guy with the scorpion tattoos? Th the van? If I had to guess, the van's long gone, and scorpion tattoos are a dime a dozen. You want us to bring in every gangbanger with a scorpion tat?

I get it. I get it. We don't have a lead. But can you at least tell your CIs to keep an eye out? I already did. Thanks. So what's next? Coffee? So Jerry, you hear about those dead junkies they found by the docks? Yeah. More than a hundred of them. Can you believe it? Must have been quite the stench. You know what I call a hundred dead jumps? A good start? You know, my wife told me the police is investigating the murders. I said, why? She says they want to give the guy who did it a medal.

Thank you.

Good morning, Detective. Good morning, sir. I have a case I want you to look into. Where are your colleagues? Amen. Before I answer, I'd like to point out that Detective Wade worked through the night while Detective Crane he uh um They're asleep, aren't they? They're taking a break. I can hear them snoring. It's mostly crane. Sorry, sir. I realize it's unprofessional, but given the circumstances. Don't worry. I'll take care of it. Hmm. Gentlemen! What? What the fuck? Where am I? I I was just

I was just resting my eyes. Gentlemen, I realize that this thirty-year-old couch has grooves perfectly fitted to your bodies, and that the dulcet sounds of the pornographic theater next door could lull any man into a gentle sleep. But this place, peaceful and inspiring as it may be, is your place of work, and when you are here, I expect you at the very least to be conscious. Sorry, I'm I'm so sorry, sir. I would I was trying to make sense of the toxicology again and I I just I don't I just

I was gone. Yeah, um I uh I have a case I would want you to focus on. So uh if you would. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. Which case is it, sir? I've been trying to organize the files. Just came in. A murder in the Sagittarius Hotel. What's weird about it? I mean if we're getting it, it's weird already, right? We have an unidentified body in a locked room, locked from the inside. Victim's been shot in the head.

But there's no gun. Weird enough? I've had weirder. When did this happen? Yesterday. Wait, what? Should we be getting a case that fresh? This one's a favor. The manager's a friend, so I pulled some strings. She'll fill you in on the details and make sure you have full access to everything. All right. Sounds great. Shall we, Benny Boy? Actually I want all three of you there. Oh

Uh are you sure, sir? I I'm not Yes. The more eyes we get on this the better. I have I have a strange feeling about this case. I've learned to trust my gut. After you, Blondie. I still can't believe this is our car. Fun fact, there is a crushed beer can under my seat and it's stuck to the floor so hard that I can't get it off. I just wish there wasn't so much gum everywhere. But I think there's a chance that if we remove it, the whole car will just fall apart. That's funny. Thank you. Oh. What?

Sorry, I I was looking at the files and I noticed the name of the manager. Charlotte Donovan. Is he married? Divorced, I think. Wait, so we're helping his ex? I wonder what it takes to be married to someone like Donovan. God help us. When the rain comes again. It is a relief. The light is the light is gray, diffuse, strange. The light is a relief. The lights is gray shadow here. Or what happened? I should hate the Sagittarius.

It should embody everything that I oppose in my art. The aesthetics of power and wealth. An emblem of the egomania of the people who own this city. And yet I don't. I cannot deny that for all its opulence, it has a certain Maybe the people who built it still retained a certain amount of vision. Maybe they wanted to show that they were more than just businessmen, wanted to feel proud of what they built. In any case, that there's something beautiful about the Sagittarius.

It may be no more than the melancholic beauty of something old. The slowly going extinct. It's beauty, nonetheless. Welcome to the Sagittarius Hotel. I assume you're Franklin's boys and girl. Captain Donovan sent us, yes. If you could step into my office. We don't need to alarm anyone, do we? I spent years trying to restore this hotel's reputation, you know. A somewhat Sisophean task, as you can see. There's always something.

One day the comp controller gets caught with his wife's driver. The next the mayor's aide decides to experiment with auto-erotic asphyxiation and you have to install new closets. And now this bloody murder. That's what we're here for. Could you walk us through what happened? Isn't it in your file? We uh we we have the basics.

Caucasian male, dark hair, early forties, killed by a single nine millimeter round to the forehead. No gunpowder residue on the victim's fingers, the room locked from the inside. But we need uh how do I The facts are just facts. We need to understand what connects them. Well put, dear. I'm sure you're Franklin's favorite. And like this one, I bet he's driving him mad. Hey, I didn't even open my mouth. I have a sixth sense for these things. Anyway, do you want to see the room?

Here we are, room seven three one. The maid was supposed to clean the room at eight AM. Was anyone staying in here? No. It was booked for the next day. But when Maria tried to unlock the door, she realized it was locked from the inside. That's the problem with these old doors, but I've always resisted doing something about it. These keys are about a hundred years old. Look at how elaborately they're made. You don't get such craftsmanship anymore.

They're part of the experience. So what did you do when you realized someone had locked himself into the room? Well, first we were just confused, because stealing a key from the front desk is almost impossible. And quite unlikely, don't you think? But when we saw key 731 was missing, we called a locksmith. Not the police. We can't have the police beating down doors willy-nilly, can we?

There's no way to run a hotel. Fair enough. When we opened the door, well that's when we did call the police. Can you describe what you saw? There was a man on the floor with a hole in his head. Right in the middle of his forehead, like a third eye, he was wearing an old fashioned suit. the kind you'd expect from a man in his eighties, but he only looked about forty. Mildly handsome, though the bullet hole rather marred the effect.

There was an empty suitcase over there, and on the bed there there was a pile of passports in all sorts of colors. According to the file, there were seventeen passports. All of them shared the same picture of the victim, but the name was different in each one. Lucius Finster, Reynard Falkenrath, Malachi Bidwell, Victor Look. Victor Lamont? What? That can't be right. I have a Xerox of his passport right here. Victor LeFuckin' Mont.

Excuse me, but who is this man whose name you keep repeating? That's a good question. Five minutes ago I would have told you he was just another shitty, dirty cop who fucked up a case we worked on. Now

I don't know. A spook maybe? Oh, dear. Spies are terrible for the hotel business. I used to run a luxury hotel just across the border from the war. I think half my staff were spies. One time a waiter dropped a gun while pouring wine. Nearly shot the Secretary General. That's the intelligence community for you. Hold on. We don't know that this guy is the actual Victor Lamont.

Didn't Lamont retire? Shouldn't he be like, I don't know, sixty? That's a good point. Ma'am, do you have a fax machine? Yes. Could you ask your um Captain Donovan to send us a photo of Victor Lamont from the Samantha Perry case? Don't you have a police radio or something? Ha no. Unfortunately, the UCCT doesn't rate such luxuries. Ah, Franklin. Always making friends in high places. All right, my dears. I'll see what I can do.

Even if it's not him, it's a pretty weird fucking coincidence. Absolutely. But we shouldn't get stuck on the name. Maybe it's a clue, maybe it's not. But if we focus too much on that angle, we might miss something more significant. You're pretty good at this, Blondie. You should come along more. Thanks. You have no idea how much I despise every single moment of this. You're right, though. Let's treat this like any other investigation. Split up and interview the guests and the staff. Ugh.

Interviews. I I I I was right next door, but I didn't hear a gunshot. I I did take my pills that night, but gunshots are are pretty loud, aren't they? I mean I mean never I've never heard one in real life. No. No, this hotel isn't quite what it used to be. Surely we're entitled to some privacy. Was he murdered? How exciting. I'm sorry, Detective. I haven't seen the sm And now if you'll excuse me. Any luck?

Nope. Man, my head's killing me. I swear I saw the guy in the lobby just standing there staring. I was gonna ask Miss Donovan about it, but then he was gone. And I figured maybe he'd just been waiting for someone, you know. It does look a little familiar. Hold on. Was he in Gilman's production? Simply dreadful. No wonder her script for Carcosa.

I wasn't in that day. Poor Maria. Have you talked to her? I'm trying to find her actually. Do you know where she is? Oh, try the fifth floor. An older guest had an act. I need to take a break. I'm sorry. I just So many people in one day, it's my head is buzzing. Hey, so is mine. It's okay, don't worry. Take a break. Actually, if you want to go through that door over there, there's kind of a reading nook. Looks comfy.

Thanks. That sounds great. I'm gonna go down to the basement to talk to that security guard. They have cameras, so maybe they have recordings. Oh, that that's excellent. And Ben's headed up to the fifth floor to talk to the maid who found the Vic. Good. Just rest up and let's meet in the lobby at noon. I'll go through the files again. Sure. Just take it easy, all right? Thanks, Harry. No worries, Blondie. Alright, show me what you got.

I just keep in mind like most of the cameras in the hotel aren't actually recorded. Miss Donovan doesn't like to waste money on tapes and you know they wear out after a while. But I've got the lobby, the main corridor on each floor, a couple of others. Okay. Let's uh let's start with the lobby. Uh look um Yeah, I've already checked all the tapes. It's the first thing I did. Is he on there? Uh yes, but it's sort of weird. Weird how? Hold on, I'll show you.

So this is the day before yesterday, right? He's standing in the lobby, staring at nothing. Looks a bit like he's talking to himself, but you can't really tell. Okay? Now, if you go back Okay, he's coming out of the elevator. Exactly.

Right, he was already in the hotel, but if you check the other tapes, he's not on them. I mean he's n he never gets into the elevator. Is there an entrance that's not covered? Technically the elevator can go to the maintenance area on the ninth floor, but I mean it needs a key to do that. Hmm. Yeah, it gets weirder. This This is the tape for the night of the murder.

And he appears out of the elevator, walks to the room, turns around and is he looking at the camera? Yeah. And then he just starts laughing. Creepy motherfucker. Then he unlocks the door and goes inside, and then Nothing. I mean I could fast forward through the whole night. Nobody else entered that room. Is there audio? No. Sorry. Well, it is pretty weird, but Well that's not all. Oh? Yeah.

This is the tape for today. The lobby. Watch the side of the screen. I don't see what the fuck? Is is that him? Uh-uh, that's that's impossible. Now if I pause it, right here you can see the face more clearly. It's him. What the fucking fuck? And who's the bald guy next to him? I don't know. I mean he isn't on any other tape. That's a big suitcase. A lot bigger than the one that was left in the room. Yeah. Is there anything else? That's all I got.

Any chance there's an error with the recording tapes? Like maybe today's video is actually from yesterday? Well, yeah, if you fast forward, you could see you and your colleagues enter the building, right? Look. Here there you are. See? Fuck. Like to be totally honest with you, at first I thought I screwed something up. I mean, I'm not an expert, okay? I mean my last job was making the jumbo pork at Sandy's, but I swear to you, there's nothing wrong with the tapes. This

This is what happened. I mean, he got out of an elevator that he didn't get into, went into a room and got shot by someone who wasn't there. Then another guy who looked exactly like him showed up in the lobby with a creepy bald dude in a big suitcase. It's just It's just really fucking weird.

There you are, dear. I heard back from Franklin. He says that after some digging there seems to be no picture of Victor Lamont on record. So there's nothing to fact. He's asked around, but nobody seems to remember what he looked like either. That's very unlikely. I do find most men to be rather forgettable, but perhaps not quite to this degree. Maybe we need to approach this another way.

Victor Lamont, whoever he is, is associated with the mayor. Does the mayor have anything to do with the hotel? The mayor? Yes, actually. One of his aides, uh mister Schofield, kept harassing me about selling my share in the hotel. You own a share in the hotel. Yes. I was hired directly by the hotel's founder, William Stratford Blackstone.

He knew my task was difficult, and he made sure I was properly compensated. And this mister Schofield, what can you tell me about him? Oh, well, he works for the mayor, so he's a right cunt, of course. Of course. He wanted me to sell my share to some company. Ah what was it?

Parson Tech, that's it. They're buying up property all over the city. Parson Tech. You don't think they had something to do with this, do you? To be honest, I don't know how any of this fits together yet. Can you tell me more about Mr Blackstone? Of course. I was a secretary initially. He was already quite old by then. He He spent most of his life and most of his fortune on various forms of spiritualism. He was desperate to reach beyond the ordinary world, to discover some deeper truth.

He'd lost two sons in the war, you see. It's a strange story. Both of them were killed on the same day, in the same hour, perhaps even the same moment, a hundred miles apart. That's when the world stopped making sense to him. And he couldn't go on without trying to find an answer that restored some kind of logic to the universe. Did he? Did he find an answer, I mean? No. I don't know what happened, but when I met him, he was deeply unhappy and.

Disappointed, I think. He tried so hard for so many years, and whatever he found, it wasn't what he was hoping for. I think that's why he was so kind to me. So what, Victor Lamont has a twin? If it even is Victor Lamont. This doppelganger bullshit is really giving me a headache. That's probably the hangover. And another Parson Tech connection too?

What the fuck are those people up to? Why do they want to buy a hotel? We don't have enough data. We need to dig deeper. Did you find the maid, by the way? Yeah, I did. She didn't want to talk on the record, in case people think she's crazy. That sounds promising. She did talk though. She said she'd never liked that room. Always got a bad feeling in there. She said that once she saw She said that once she saw a goat.

A ghost. She didn't use that word, but it fits. Call it an apparition if you prefer. It was an older man tanned with white hair and a goatee. A ghost with a goatee. Really. That's what she said. What did the ghost do? It just said one thing. It's not me. Then it vanished. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it really freaked her out. She was convinced that something terrible was about to happen. She was so convinced she almost quit her job.

You think she was telling the truth? Oh yeah, 100%. She was terrified even talking about it. I know it sounds silly, but as she was telling it, like I really felt it. Ghosts don't exist. There's a logical explanation for what she saw for all of these events. Is there? Yes. Reason is all we have. It's the core of our job. We work with evidence.

Sure. I'm not saying we throw logic out the window, okay? But just in theory, there might be things we don't fully understand. My dad never believed in ghosts until he saw one. A ghost in Mayberry? Yeah. Okay, there was there was this room and my aunt's well, I think technically she was my great aunt, but whatever. We called her Aunt Rosa.

Anyway, there was this room where you weren't supposed to sleep, because if you did, you would see this angry old man and he would try to choke you. My dad always laughed about that story, and one day, to prove it was just superstition, he slept in the room. And He dreamt that an angry old man was trying to choke him.

That's not surprising. He was essentially primed to have exactly that dream. True. But when he woke up, his whole throat was bruised like someone had really been choking him. A psychosomatic effect. I don't know. If it was anyone else, I'd probably agree. But my dad wasn't that kind of person.

Look, swapping ghost stories is fun, but can we head back? We have digging a doin'. I need some aspirin. Ibuproven would be better. Whatever you say, I just need this to stop. And a burger. I really need a fucking burger. Hey Jerry, I think this is a great moment to remind our listeners that this episode is sponsored by DucaCore. Tired of the messy complexities of home ownership?

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Oh, finally I feel human again. My god, you know we can actually smell that, right? Hey, sharing is caring. Fucking taste it. I'm going over there. Do you have any fries left? Yeah, plenty. Help yourself. Oh, I used to live all this stuff. Really? You? I imagine you growing up on I don't know, healthy stuff. Spinach and berries and shit. You know, rabbit food. No offense. Uh uh it it it wasn't like that. So what was it like? Come on, we don't know anything about you.

I don't I I don't usually talk about it. We can all share something if you want. Ben's dad was anti Griffith, mine was a drunk. Oh, I'm I'm sorry. He wasn't abusive, just Fucked himself up real good. It started with a back injury. He was fixing a roof, fell down, fucked something up in his spine, then pills, booze, you know how it goes. In the end, he rammed his car into a telephone pole.

At least he didn't kill anybody else. Fuck. How old were you? Seventeen. Joined up the next year. Wow, that young? Yep. But that's a shit show for another time. Mm. A failure. I he always claimed that he was an entertainer, but the truth is he was a con man. Except the con was his whole life, his whole conception of himself.

I'm honestly not certain whether he could distinguish between reality and his own inventions. It's something I think about a lot because If if he believed his own lies, he was just sad and pathetic, but if he knew he was lying. He was the coldest, most cruel person I have ever met. And no matter how much I think about it. I don't know. I I really don't know. Wow. Sounds like you had a worse dad than I did. When he finally left my mom. We had nothing.

Nothing. We lived in We lived in Chit City for a long time. That's how I know Doctor Nyar. I'm so sorry, Susan. I I know I I'm too formal sometimes, too analytical, but reason and logic and clarity of thought, those were the only things that kept me sane. This old woman, I I can't remember her name. She used to live in the tent next to us. She gave me this book, Cooper's Simple Introduction to Dialectics.

I don't know what she was thinking. I must have been fourteen, fifteen. Most kids would have thrown it away, but I liked reading, and I could never afford new books, so I just read it anyway, and even though I probably understood less than half of it. It changed my life. It let me observe my situation from the outside with something resembling objectivity instead of just being stuck in the misery of my day-to-day subjective experience. That change of perspective was such a relief.

It made me feel less trapped, less Ashamed, I suppose. Well, Blondie, from one fucked up kid to another, I think he turned out pretty good. So, I'm not a robot. Hey, robots are cool. That is true. More fries? Yes, please. How's the case going? We have a potential connection to Parson Tech and Victor Lamont. Nothing solid though. Parson Tech again? Have you had any other run-ins with them? There was another case a couple of years ago.

Someone kept sending threatening letters to a professor at the university demanding he stop publishing. He thought it had something to do with Parson Tech, like he'd infringed on their territory or something. Did you catch the guy sending the threats? I did. Brought him in. But he had friends in high places and the evidence had a little accident. Two days after they let him go, he stabbed the professor in the chest.

Shit. Did he die? No, but after that he pretty much became a recluse. No idea if he's still alive now. Who was the attacker? Perp's name was uh it was a weird one. Uh Lou Lucius Lucius Finster. What? That was the name on one of the IDs recovered from the murder scene. Like Victor Lamont. Show me one of those Xerox. God damn it, that's him. So there's a pretty good chance that the guy that messed up the Perry case is also the guy that tried to stab the professor, and he works for Parson Tech?

And he got shot in a hotel owned by your ex-wife, which Parsentech is trying to buy, and was caught on camera leaving said hotel after he was supposed to be dead? This is nuts. I have to go. What? I have some suspicions I need to investigate. While I'm gone, I need you to do something. These are my files on Parson Tech. Do not let anyone know that you have them. Especially not anyone associated with the mayor or the commissioner. You got that?

Do not fuck around with this. We won't, boss. Pinky promise. I need you to compare these files to the documents for the Quinn case. There has to be an answer in there somewhere. I I think I've found fragments of it before, but it's It's hard to put them together. It's hard to Retain the details. So many names, so many crimes. Games being played behind our backs.

Patterns, connections we feel but can't prove. That's what's driving everyone crazy. We all know something's wrong, that things aren't the way they should be, but we don't know who's responsible. Do we blame each other or ourselves or uh whomever looks different? Someone is behind this. And I'm gonna find out who. It's the quiet moments that I miss. Those long Sunday afternoons when the light was golden and we would sit on the pier and play music and watch the stars rise over the sea.

It was so innocent then. Before it all began, before that night when we ascended. I didn't appreciate those moments when I had them. แล้วไม่ได้ไปแล้ว I can't ever go back. I see him. I see you. I see you. I see him. Azutoth Blues was written and directed by Jonas Kiradziz, with music and sound by Chris Christadulu. Speak their names in the ancient Η Ονά Κυρατζή και Χρήστο Χριστό. Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Casey Camp, Sean Branny, and Peter Wingfield. For more information.

or the official website at azetothblues.com.