The credit man nodded. “I'd say there's nothing to worry about. I'll look into it, though; find out what the charge is going to be, then have a talk with Mr. Wells. If he has a cash problem we could maybe help out, give him a little time to pay.”
“Thanks, Sam.” Christine felt relieved, knowing that Jakubiec could be helpful and sympathetic. She recrossed the main lobby, acknowledging “good mornings” from bellboys, the florist, and one of the assistant managers. Then, bypassing the elevators, she ran lightly up the central stairway to the main mezzanine.
Since last night Christine had found herself thinking about Peter a good deal. She wondered if the time they had spent together had produced the same effect in him. At several moments she caught herself wishing that this was true. Over the years in which she had learned to live alone there had been men in Christine's life, but none she had taken seriously. At times, it seemed as if instinct were protecting her from renewing the kind of close relationship which five years ago had been broken so savagely. All the same, at this moment she wondered where Peter was and what he was doing. Well, she decided practically, sooner or later in the course of the day their ways would cross.
Back in her own office in the executive suite, Christine looked briefly into Warren Trent's, but the proprietor had not yet come down from his fifteenth-floor apartment. The morning mail was stacked on her own desk, and several telephone messages required attention soon. She decided first to complete the matter which had taken her downstairs. Lifting the telephone, she asked for room 1410. A woman's voice answered – presumably the private duty nurse. Christine identified herself and inquired politely after the patient's health.
“Mr. Wells passed a comfortable night,” the voice informed her, “and his condition is improved.”
Wondering why some nurses felt they had to sound like official bulletins, Christine replied, “In that case, perhaps I can drop in.”
“Not for some time, I'm afraid. Dr. Aarons will be seeing the patient this morning, and I wish to be ready for him.”
It sounded, Christine thought, like a state visit. The idea of the pompous Dr. Aarons being attended by an equally pompous nurse amused her. Aloud she said, “In that case, please tell Mr. Wells I called and that I'll see him this afternoon.”
The conference in the owner's suite left Peter McDermott in a mood of frustration. Striding away down the fifteenth-floor corridor he reflected that his meetings with Warren Trent always went the same way. As he had on other occasions, he wished that he could have six months and a free hand to manage the hotel himself.
Near the elevators he stopped to use a house phone, asking Reception what accommodation had been reserved for Mr. Curtis O'Keefe's party. There were two adjoining suites on the twelfth floor, and Peter used the service stairway to descend the two flights. Like all big hotels, the St. Gregory pretended not to have a thirteenth floor, naming it the fourteenth instead.
All four doors to the two reserved suites were open and, from within, the noise of a vacuum cleaner was heard. Inside, two maids were working under the critical eye of Mrs. Blanche du Quesnay, the St. Gregory's sharp-tongued but highly competent housekeeper. She turned as Peter came in, her bright eyes flashing.
“I might have known that one of you men would be checking up to see if I'm capable of doing my own job.”
Peter grinned. “Relax, Mrs. Q. Mr. Trent asked me to drop in.” He liked the middle-aged red-haired woman, one of the most reliable department heads. The two maids were smiling. He winked at them, adding for Mrs. du Quesnay, “If Mr. Trent had known you were giving this your personal attention he'd have wiped the whole thing from his mind[78].”
“And if we run out of soft soap in the laundry we'll send for you,” the housekeeper said.
He laughed, then inquired, “Have flowers and a basket of fruit been ordered?” The magnate, Peter thought, probably grew tired of the inevitable fruit basket – standard salutation of hotels to visiting VIPs. But its absence might be noticed.
“They're on the way up.” Mrs. du Quesnay looked up and said pointedly, “From what I hear, though, Mr. O'Keefe brings his own flowers, and not in vases either.”
It was a reference – which Peter understood – to the fact that Curtis O'Keefe was seldom without a feminine escort on his travels. He ignored it.
Both suites, Peter saw as he walked through them, had been gone over thoroughly. There was nothing else to be done, Peter thought.
Then a thought struck him. Curtis O'Keefe, he remembered, prayed frequently, sometimes in public. One report claimed that when a new hotel interested him he prayed for it as a child did for a Christmas toy; another, that before negotiations a private church service was held which O'Keefe executives attended dutifully.
The thought prompted Peter to check the Bibles – one in each room. He was glad he did.
As usually happened when they had been in use for any length of time, the Bibles' front pages were dotted with call girls' phone numbers, since a Bible – as experienced travelers knew – was the first place to seek that kind of information. Peter showed the books silently to Mrs. du Quesnay. “Mr. O'Keefe won't be needing these, now will he? I'll have new ones sent up.”
Taking the Bibles under her arm, she regarded Peter questioningly. “I suppose what Mr. O'Keefe likes or doesn't is going to be important to people keeping their jobs around here.”
He shook his head. “I honestly don't know, Mrs. Q. Your guess is as good as mine.”[79]
Mrs. du Quesnay, he knew, supported an invalid husband and any threat to her job would be cause for anxiety. He felt a genuine sympathy for her as he rode an elevator to the main mezzanine.
In the event of a management change, Peter supposed, most of the younger and brighter staff members would have an opportunity to stay on. He imagined that most would take it since the O'Keefe chain had a reputation for treating its employees well. Older employees, though, had a good deal more to worry about.
As Peter McDermott approached the executive suite, the chief engineer, Doc Vickery, was leaving it. Stopping, Peter said, “Number four elevator was giving some trouble last night, chief. I wondered if you knew.”
The chief nodded his bald head. “It's a poor business when machinery that needs money spending on it doesna' get it.”
“Is it really that bad?” The engineering budget, Peter knew, had been cut down recently, but this was the first he had heard of serious trouble with the elevators.
The chief shook his head. “If you mean shall we have a big accident, the answer's no. But we've had small breakdowns and sometime there'll be a bigger one.”
Peter nodded. He inquired, “What is it you need?”
“A hundred thousand dollars to start. With that I'd rip out most of the elevator guts and replace them, then some other things as well.”
Peter whistled softly.
“I'll tell you one thing,” the chief observed. “Good machinery's a lovely thing, and most times it'll do more work than you think it could. But somewhere along there's a death point you'll never get by, no matter how much you – and the machinery – want to.”
Peter was still thinking about the chief's words when he entered his own office. What was the death point, he wondered, for an entire hotel?
There was a pile of mail, memos and telephone messages on his desk. Another thing: he must drop in soon to see Christine. There were several small matters requiring decisions from Warren Trent. Then, grinning, he told himself: Stop rationalizing! You want to see her, and why not?
As he debated which to do first, the telephone bell shrilled. It was Reception, one of the room clerks. “I thought you'd want to know,” he said. “Mr. Curtis O'Keefe has just checked in.”
Curtis O'Keefe marched swiftly into the busy lobby. Glancing around, his experienced man's eye noticed the signs. Small signs, but significant: a newspaper left in a chair and uncollected; a half-dozen cigarette butts in a sand urn by the elevators; a button missing from a bellboy's uniform; two burned-out light bulbs in the chandelier above.
In a hotel of the O'Keefe chain, there would have been whip-cracking action[80], and perhaps dismissals. But the St. Gregory isn't my hotel, Curtis O'Keefe reminded himself. Not yet.
He headed for Reception, a slender, six-foot figure in a pressed gray suit, moving with dance-like steps. His lithe athlete's body had been his pride through most of his fifty-six years.
At the marble-topped counter, barely looking up, a room clerk pushed a registration pad forward. The hotelier ignored it. He announced evenly, “My name is O'Keefe and I have reserved two suites, one for myself, the other in the name of Miss Dorothy Lash.” Now he could see Dodo entering the lobby: all legs and breasts, radiating sex like a pyrotechnic. Heads were turning, as always happened. He had left her at the car to supervise the baggage. She enjoyed doing things like that occasionally. Anything requiring more cerebral strain[81] passed her by.
His words had the effect of a thrown grenade. The room clerk stiffened, straightening his shoulders. As he faced the cool gray eyes which seemed to bore into him, the clerk's attitude changed from indifference to respect. With nervous instinct, a hand went to his tie.
“Excuse me, sir. Mr. Curtis O'Keefe?”
The hotelier nodded.
“Yes, sir. I'm sure your suites are ready, sir. If you'll wait one moment, please.”[82]
O'Keefe stepped back a pace from the counter, allowing other arrivals to move in. Outside, in bright, warm sunshine, airport limousines and taxis were discharging passengers who had come on the breakfast jet flight from New York. He noticed a convention was assembling. A banner suspended from the vaulted lobby roof proclaimed:
WELCOME DELEGATES
CONGRESS OF AMERICAN DENTISTRY
Dodo joined him, “Curtie, they say there's a lotta dentists staying here.”
He said drily, “I'm glad you told me. Otherwise I might never have known.”[83]
“Geez, well maybe I should get that filling done[84]. I always mean to, then somehow never…”
“They're here to open their own mouths, not other people's.” Dodo looked puzzled. Some of O'Keefe's acquaintances, he knew, wondered about his choice of Dodo as a traveling companion when, with his wealth and influence, he could have anyone he chose. He thought of her mild stupidities as merely amusing – perhaps because he grew tired at times of being surrounded by clever minds.
He supposed, though, he would part with Dodo soon. She had been with him for almost a year – longer than most of the others. There were always plenty more starlets to choose from the Hollywood galaxy. He would, of course, take care of her, using his influence to arrange a supporting role[85] or two.
The room clerk returned to the front counter. “Everything is ready, sir.”
Curtis O'Keefe nodded. Then, led by the bell captain, their small procession moved to a waiting elevator.
Shortly after Curtis O'Keefe and Dodo had been escorted to their suites, Julius “Keycase”[86] Milne obtained a single room.
Keycase telephoned from the Airport to confirm a reservation made several days earlier. In reply he was assured that his booking was in order and he could be accommodated without delay.
Keycase was pleased at the news, as he had planned to make reservations at all of New Orleans' major hotels, employing a different name for each. At the St. Gregory he had reserved as “Byron Meader,” a name of a major sweepstake winner. This seemed like a good omen, and omens impressed Keycase very much indeed.
They had seemed to work out well. His night entry into various Detroit hotel rooms had gone smoothly and rewardingly, largely – he decided afterward – because all room numbers except the last contained the numeral two, his lucky number. It was this final room, without the digit, whose occupant awakened and screamed just as he was packing her mink coat into a suitcase, having already put her cash and jewelry in one of his topcoat pockets.
It was bad luck that a house dick had been within hearing of the screams. But now, having served his time[87] and having enjoyed a successful ten-day foray in Kansas City, he was anticipating a profitable fortnight or so in New Orleans.
It had started well.
He arrived at the Airport, driving from the cheap motel where he had stayed the night before. It was a fine, modern terminal building, Keycase thought, with lots of glass and chrome as well as many trash cans, the latter important to his present purpose.
Strolling through the airport terminal, a trim, well-dressed figure, carrying a folded newspaper beneath his arm, Keycase stayed carefully alert. He gave the appearance[88] of a well-to– do businessman, relaxed and confident. Only his eyes moved ceaselessly, following the movements of the travelers, pouring into the terminal from limousines and taxis which had delivered them from downtown hotels. Twice he saw the beginning of the thing he was looking for. Two men, reaching into pockets for tickets or change, found a room key which they had carried away by mistake. The first took the trouble to locate a postal box and mail the key, as suggested on its plastic tag. The other handed his to an airline clerk who put it in a cash drawer, probably for return to the hotel.
Both incidents were disappointing, but Keycase was a patient man. Soon, he knew, what he was waiting for would happen.
Ten minutes later he was rewarded.
A balding man, carrying a topcoat, stopped to choose a magazine on his way to the departure hall. At the newsstand cash desk he discovered a key which passing a trash can he threw in.
For Keycase the rest was routine. Strolling past the trash can, he tossed in his own folded newspaper, then, as if abruptly changing his mind, turned back and recovered it. At the same time he looked down, found the key and took it quietly. A few minutes later in the privacy of the men's toilet he read that it was for room 641 of the St. Gregory Hotel.
Half an hour later, a similar incident ended with the same kind of success. The second key was also for the St. Gregory – a convenience which prompted Keycase to telephone at once, confirming his own reservation there.
From the terminal building Keycase returned to the parking lot and the five-year-old Ford sedan. It was an ideal car for Keycase, neither old nor new enough to be noticed or remembered. The only feature which bothered him a little were the Michigan license plates – an attractive green on white. He had considered using fake Louisiana plates, but this seemed to be a greater risk.
He drove the fourteen miles to town, carefully observing speed limits, and headed for the St. Gregory which he had located the day before. He parked a few blocks from the hotel, and removed two suitcases. The rest of his baggage had been left in the motel room. It was expensive to maintain an extra room. But it was prudent. The motel would serve as a hiding place for whatever he might acquire and, if disaster struck, could be left at once. He had been careful to leave nothing there which was personally identifiable.
He entered the St. Gregory with a confident air, giving his bags to a doorman, and registered as B. W. Meader of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The room clerk, conscious of well-cut clothes and firm features of his face, treated the newcomer with respect and allocated room 830. Now, Keycase thought agreeably, there would be three St. Gregory keys in his possession – one the hotel knew about and two it didn't.
Room 830 turned out to be ideal. It was spacious and comfortable and the service stairway was only a few yards away.
When he was alone he unpacked carefully. Later, he decided, he would have a sleep in preparation for the serious night's work ahead.
The morning newspapers lay around the Duchess of Croydon's bed. There was little in the news that the Duchess had not read thoroughly and now she lay back, propped against pillows, her mind working busily.
On a bedside table a room-service tray had been used and pushed aside. Even in moments of crisis the Duchess was accustomed to breakfasting well.
The Duke, who had eaten alone in the living-room, had returned to the bedroom a few moments earlier. He too had read the newspaper as soon as it arrived. Now, he was pacing restlessly. Occasionally he passed a hand through his disordered hair.
“For goodness sake, keep still!” The tenseness was in his wife's voice. “I can't possibly think when you're parading like a stallion at Ascot[89].”
He turned, his face lined and despairing in the bright morning light. “What bloody good will thinking do? Nothing's going to change.”
“Thinking always helps. That's why some people make a success of things and others don't.”
His hand went through his hair once more. “Nothing looks any better than it did last night.”
“At least it isn't any worse,” the Duchess said practically, “and that's something to be thankful for. We're still here – intact.”
He shook his head wearily. He had had little sleep during the night. “How does it help?”
“As I see it, it's a question of time. Time is on our side. The longer we wait and nothing happens…” She stopped, then went on slowly, thinking aloud, “What we need is to have some attention focused on you.”
The Duke resumed his pacing. “Only thing likely to do that is an announcement confirming my appointment to Washington.”
“Exactly.”
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