The Glass Hotel

The narrative shifts to a first-person plural perspective (“we”), as the workforce in Alkaitis’s office reorganizes around who knew what, and when. At one o’clock on the day of the office Christmas party, Alkaitis announces that the business is “having liquidity problems” and that “we all know what we do here” (163). This is not strictly speaking true, as guilt for the “Arrangement” falls mainly on key members of Alkaitis’s asset management team. Nevertheless, an air of dread is discernible even to the company’s newest employees, such as the receptionist Simone.

Among the senior executives of the company, reactions in the next months will vary. An executive named Joelle will loudly declare her innocence, while Harvey admits to everything. Enrico will act quickly to extradite himself to another country, whereas Oskar will only dream of doing so, before leaving the office to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Clueless Ron still believes the business has legitimate activity in London, though the other senior people understand that the London office is a front. The business is split between floors 17 and 18; the FBI will later conclude that the 18th floor conducted legitimate brokerage, while the 17th floor (and every senior executive with an office there) engaged in criminal activity.