Privacy Room – A room inside a restaurant/club/establishment where patrons can go for privacy, separated from the rest of the facility.
- All Things Beautiful - To appease Brent Holloway once while Simon Lastrobe was on vacation, they “gave him a free spin in the mood tube and a Deluxe O to chill him down.” Yvette explained to Eve in Holiday in Death that was “O for orgasm. Privacy room, with his choice of VR, holo, or droid LC. We aren’t set up for human licensed companions, but we have all the alternatives. The Deluxe O runs five hundred, but it was worth it to take him down. You gotta keep your regulars happy.”[1]
- Athame Club – There were a dozen such [privacy] rooms on this level, all with heavy black doors bearing chrome plaques with names such as Perdition, Leviathan, and Hell and Damnation.[2] Eve told Roarke in Ceremony in Death, “the cost of a privacy room in a place like this has to hurt.”[3]
- Down and Dirty Club – In the privacy room there were shimmering red drapes that were supposed to add sensuality to a room designed for quick, cheap sex; there was a narrow bed inside with a satin pillow.[4]
- Privacy rooms lining one wall were open, airing out the musky stink of stale sex in Rapture in Death.[5], although in Passions in Death, Crack said he keeps the rooms locked whether or not they’re in use: “Crack wants the privacy rooms locked, occupied or not, right? We don’t want anybody sliding in one of them without paying. Or if someone’s using one, the door has to be secured or it’s a violation.”[6] Erin Albright was murdered in privacy room five during her and Shauna Hunnicut’s pre-wedding girls’ night out party.[7]
- In Immortal in Death, Boomer came in “with a pocket full of credits. Bought himself a bottle, a few tabs, and a privacy room.” He and Hetta Moppett hooked up there[8]; both were subsequently murdered.[9]
- Jake Casto tranq’d Eve and shoved her into a privacy room (number five) during her pre-wedding bachelorette party; since she hadn’t been drinking, wanting to marry Roarke with a clear mind the following day, Casto miscalculated the sedative he used.[10]
- When Eve met with Nadine in Holiday in Death to give her a statement twenty minutes before the press conference, they met in a privacy room at the D&D: “Wrinkling her nose, Nadine stared at the stained walls and rumpled bed -- the only piece of furniture the room could boast.” Before they started, “Nadine glanced at the bed, calculating the varied body fluids that might have been spent there, and opted to stand.”[11]
- Economy rooms were available but, apparently, “deluxe” meant the room had an actual bed rather than a cot or pallet. The ceiling was mirrored and there was a menu screen with an order slot, along with a very small table and two chairs.[12]
- From Treachery in Death, when Eve met Webster to discuss the wrong illegals cops under Renee Oberman: “By midnight, the place would be ass-to-ass and elbow-to-elbow under swirling lights. Upstairs in the privacy rooms people -- many who’d just met -- would be humping away at each other like crazed rabbits.”[13]
- Gametown – Eve and Peabody interviewed Ledo in one: “As amenities went, it was a zero, with its narrow cot, smudged view screen, and sticky floor. But it was private.”[14]
- Haven Funeral Home - After Jenna Harbough’s memorial in Random in Death, Jake Kincade and the rest of Avenue A came to offer their condolences to Jenna’s parents. Dr. Julia Harbough said they had Shane’s brother take their parents to the privacy room, and they asked Louise and Charles to take their son, Reed, into the reception so they could speak with the band in private.[15]
- Master Lu’s martial arts studio offered privacy rooms for meditation in Survivor in Death.[16]
- Mermaid Club - Patrick Murray worked there as maintenance in Vengeance in Death; his tasks were: “mop up the spilled liquor and bodily fluids, scour the toilets and sinks, be sure the privacy rooms were aired so they didn’t smell like someone else’s come the following day.”[17]
- Nexus Club - When Eve tagged Peabody while she and McNab were on a date in Witness in Death, Eve “heard, very clearly, McNab’s hissed suggestion of what would be fun to do in one of the club’s privacy rooms.” Roarke pointed out, “You have to give him points for imagination.” The club was in the core of Broadway’s never-ending party district.[18]
- Purgatory - Privacy rooms ringed the top level (third floor). When Eve asked Roarke if he knew of any reason an NYPSD detective would have been working undercover there in Judgment in Death, he didn’t know. “I’ve not been informed of anything overt. Some illegals might change hands in privacy rooms or under tables, but there’s been no large transactions here.”[19] When Roarke set up his meeting with Max Ricker, he had installed weapon “scanners at all entrances and exits, in the bathrooms, and privacy rooms.”[20]
- In Dark in Death, the requirements of the potential clubs for the third murder included: “It’ll be licensed for consensual sex and have privacy rooms.” The clubs that fit the profile and were frequented by rockers and their hangers-on included: Dive Down, Hellfire, Screw U, and Styx.[21]
- Screw U, the only one described in detail, had booth and tables crowded in together, some with privacy domes, some with filmy curtains. After Loxie Flash was murdered, the group she was with was moved upstairs to a privacy room and interviewed there.[22]
- Unknown:
- All but one of the pictures Lisbeth Cooke received of “J. Clarence Branson” (actually a droid) and a young blonde in Loyalty in Death were taken in a privacy room at a club. They were grainy, which fit if they’d been duped from disc. A club could lose its sex license if the management was caught running video of privacy rooms.[23]
- In Purity in Death, Jay Hippel told Eve he and Mary Ellen George “went out to a club, had some laughs, got ourselves a privacy room and banged.” When they came back out she caught him scoping out some skirts and they argued and broke up.[24]
- Nick Greene had scoped out Hannah Wade before bringing her home, according to his journal: “She hangs around the clubs, targets her mark, and talks him into getting her in. Straight up to a privacy room most times.”[25]
- In Celebrity in Death, Julian Cross described his activity after landing the lead in Forgiven: “We were all high from celebrating, and at this sex club. In and out of the privacy rooms, you know how you do.”[26]
- Unnamed bereavement facility downtown, only blocks from Cop Central: During the memorial for fallen officer Kevin Halloway in Purity in Death, Mrs. Halloway spoke with Eve in a small privacy room upstairs, although presumably that was a different sort of privacy room. It was described as a small sitting room with flowers, soft fabrics, and heavy drapes[27]
References:
- ↑ Holiday in Death, Chapter 13
- ↑ Ceremony in Death (ISBN 0-425-15762-8), p. 96
- ↑ Ceremony in Death, Chapter 7
- ↑ Immortal in Death (ISBN 0-425-15378-9), pp. 282, 286
- ↑ Rapture in Death (ISBN 0-425-15518-8), p. 35
- ↑ Passions in Death, Chapter 2
- ↑ Passions in Death, Chapter 1
- ↑ Immortal in Death (ISBN 0-425-15378-9), p. 140
- ↑ Immortal in Death (ISBN 0-425-15378-9), pp. 146, 287, 289
- ↑ Immortal in Death (ISBN 0-425-15378-9), pp. 282-291
- ↑ Holiday in Death, Chapter 15
- ↑ Origin in Death (ISBN 0-425-20426-X), p. 280
- ↑ Treachery in Death, Chapter 6
- ↑ Conspiracy in Death (ISBN 0-425-16813-1), p. 79
- ↑ Random in Death, Chapter 17
- ↑ Survivor in Death (ISBN 0-425-20418-9), p. 214
- ↑ Vengeance in Death, Chapter 18
- ↑ Witness in Death, Chapter 16
- ↑ Judgment in Death, Chapter 1
- ↑ Judgment in Death, Chapter 21
- ↑ Dark in Death, Chapter 14
- ↑ Dark in Death, Chapters 16-17
- ↑ Loyalty in Death, Chapter 7
- ↑ Purity in Death, Chapter 10
- ↑ Purity in Death, Chapter 18
- ↑ Celebrity in Death, Chapter 9
- ↑ Purity in Death, Chapter 15