The television man came, tested the image, brought in a half-dozen stations.
“Seems okay to me.”
“It’s working now. Wasn’t before.”
“Well, good night.”
“Good night,” Simpson managed.
He told the operator to put him on Do Not Disturb and to wake him at seven. He called for the porter at 7:30, stopped at the cashier, turned in his key and said, “I’ve got other plans. You can cancel the balance of my reservation.”
The clerk nodded his head, made his calculations on the cash register, and handed the bill to Mr. Simpson. He looked down it, item by item. “You’ve charged me for a restricted TV channel that I didn’t put on. It was put on by your technician. He was testing.”
The clerk looked at the bill, examined the notation, hesitated for a minute, then deducted the item from the bill.
“I hope you enjoyed your stay, Mr. Simpson.”
Oliver Simpson did not reply. He turned to the porter, and followed him out the door to the taxi.
• • • •
General Manager Bradley Jiménez knew something about the methods used by President Daniel O’Hara for checking on the operation of his hotels, but even knowing about them, there was no absolutely safe way to guard against accidental bad service or incivility. Usually the phony guest, in fact an undercover employee of Martino Enterprises, materialized sometime during the month before the inspection visit by the president. But sometimes Danny tripped up his general managers, sending in the informant two months before his own visit; sometimes—he especially enjoyed this, and had pulled it on Bradley Jiménez—his informer would check in only a day or two before Danny. Several years ago, Bradley had told the desk to report to him anyone whose requests or complaints were egregious. When that happened—and such alarms were rung at least once a month—he sent out a Golden Alert on that person’s room. A “Golden Alert” was done routinely for VIPs. If Room 808 was occupied by Elizabeth Taylor, any request to any division of the hotel that registered as coming from number 808 got instant service—other postulants went to the rear of the bus. Bradley Jiménez had decided to do a Golden Alert on one Oliver Simpson, but by that time Simpson had checked out.
They drove from the airport in the hotel’s stretch limo. Danny put his legs up on the car’s facing seats. “How’re things going, Jiménez?”
“Pretty good, Mr. O’Hara. We had a fair quarter—”
“I know exactly what kind of a quarter you had. Do you think we don’t look at the records in New York?”
“Well, I thought you might be pleased with it.”
“It shows practically no growth. And an average occupancy rate of seventy-two percent. What is the occupancy rate at the Ambassador?”
“It isn’t any easier to get those figures than it was last year.”
“But you got them last year. At least, from the Ambassador.”
“Yes. But the lady got fired.”
“Fired? Hmm. Who’s she working for now?”
“Us.”
Danny nodded. Fair enough. “She must still have a friend inside the hotel?”
“Mr. O’Hara. Look, we are trying. But we don’t have the figures right now.”
At eleven o’clock, the section chiefs were assembled in one of the hotel’s meeting rooms. Danny O’Hara addressed about fifty men and women responsible for making available 126,200 man-beds per year, serving up to three times that many meals and maintaining appropriate hotel space. Danny was introduced “—for the benefit of those of you who haven’t already met with Mr. O’Hara, our president.”
He greeted them cheerfully, and without the aid of any notes, recited to them the hotel’s performance during the last quarter, compared it with the same quarter a year earlier, spoke of the need to put money aside for capital improvements, possibly including an auditorium for the use of convention guests, and then he said that the board of directors had specified that there would be no general increase in salary, beyond such increase as was necessary to compensate for inflation, until the operating figures showed an improvement. The “directors” (Danny never mentioned Mr. Martino) were willing to share the profit—“for every extra dollar made by the hotel, we’ll put half of it in salary increases. Yes, you have a question?” He pointed at a very young redhead man seated in the first row.
Bradley Jiménez broke in. “That’s John Purdy. He is a recent graduate of UCLA, he’s with our accounting department.” The young man’s voice rang out loud and clear.
“Mr. O’Hara, would that be profits before tax, or after tax?”
“Before tax.”
“Well, sir, I read in The Wall Street Journal a while ago about your speech to the Teamsters Union, and you said that hotel expenses, including food, labor, maintenance, tax and debt service, account for ninety-two percent of all income—”
“Leaving only eight percent for the stockholders—stockholder. That is correct.”
“Well, doesn’t that mean that we have to increase productivity by nine units, in order to increase your profits by one unit? And if that’s right, does that mean we have to double our productivity in order to earn a two-and-a-half-percent increase in salary?”
Danny was momentarily at a loss. He turned to the general manager. “Explain it to him, Jiménez.”
Bradley Jiménez sounded very much like a political candidate, Danny thought after sitting down on the chair onstage and looking faintly bored. Jiménez was going on and on about depreciation, taxes, competition, the need for productivity, the recession about which President Kennedy had made frequent references during the past year. Danny reconciled after a while that he had better bail out his general manager. He rose.
“Thanks, Jiménez. It is, as you can all see, a complicated question, hotel economics. But I think we have to applaud the decision of the directors to share their profit, dollar for dollar, with us. Are there any more questions?”
No.
Jiménez had instructed three subordinates to begin the applause. They did so, and their colleagues joined in. Danny thanked them, told them that on the whole they were doing a good job, and followed Jiménez to the dining room in the executive suite.
The lunch was immediately brought in. Danny went to what had once been a French window that opened out into the tiny porch. The handle no longer operated. “I hate these damned sealed-in windows.”
“I do too,” Jiménez commented, “but I can understand why you ordered them installed a couple of years ago. They are economical.”
Danny had to admire Jiménez’s preemptive strike. “Yes.” Danny turned his head slowly to look into the face of his general manager. “Yes. They are economical. But it’s all right to hate things that are economical, isn’t it? I hate vending machines, don’t you?”
“Actually,” Jiménez permitted himself to say, “I don’t. I get a kid’s sense of omnipotence from them.”
“Are they heavily used here?”
“We have them only in the basement rooms, with the Ping-Pong, bowling alley—that floor. Yeah, they’re popular. How about in New York?”
Danny poured himself a glass of wine, carefully inspecting the bottle. He grunted his approval and tasted it. He was ready to change the subject.
“I’ll spend a couple of hours with you and the accounting people. Then I want to talk with what’s-his-name—Nash?—hear what he has cooking in the way of promotion.”
“George Nash. He’s put his major effort into how to get the President to stay here on his next trip.”
“That’s easy. Put Marilyn Monroe in the adjacent room.”
“We’ve already done that.”
Danny smiled. “You kidding?”
“Not completely kidding. We got word to the White House, through who I think is the right person, that every effort would be made to make the President comfortable, and that if he consented we would invite some of his oldest Hollywood friends to meet him for a drink or a cup of coffee.”
Danny smiled
appreciatively. Then, after a pause, “On the matter of making people comfortable, everything set for me tonight?”
Bradley Jiménez reached into his pocket, took out a key and handed it to Danny. “Bel Air 807A. She’ll be there at eight. I’ve taken the liberty of specifying the food and the wines.”
“Good ho! Jiménez.” Absentmindedly, he tucked into the caviar.
There was plenty of time ahead of him before Florry would arrive at his suite at the Bel Air. He decided to walk down Rodeo Drive, which was achieving something of a reputation as a fashionable shopping center. He liked to have a bauble at hand to give to Florry. He directed Jiménez to have his driver take his overnight bag and briefcase to his Bel Air suite, and sauntered out into the California sunshine, and the sweet air.
He ambled past a gallery exhibiting oils of Maurice de Vlaminck, dead only a few years. A fancy haberdashery featuring custom-made shirts, ties for an extortionary twenty dollars. He looked at the vintages in the wine store. A 1959 Château Lafitte—why not? He entered the store and billed it to the Trafalgar.
The next store was run by Dominique LaBrave. It traded in old jewelry. He admired the Fabergé egg in the corner, and then looked up at a diamond necklace.
Danny stared. Was this a hallucination? No. He looked intently at it once more. It was unmistakably his mother’s necklace, missing since his and Caroline’s wedding. The ruby-sapphire design at the center of the pendant that hung down from the rich baguette loop had been designed for his mother by the jeweler at Palm Beach to simulate a tiny R for Rachel.
He reached for the handle, but the door was locked. He rang; a buzzer opened the door. He greeted a middle-aged woman, distinguished in her dress, bearing and manner.
“I was looking at that necklace in the window, with the ruby-sapphire design.”
“Yes, it is very beautiful, isn’t it?” the woman said, walking over to the window and bringing a key from the pocket of her trim suit. She laid the necklace on a velvet pad.
“What are you selling it for?”
The woman looked down at the coded scribble on the attached label. “That is sixty-five thousand dollars,” she said. “A lovely piece.”
“How old is it?” Danny asked.
“Not so old. World War Two. Perhaps middle forties.”
Danny’s mind was racing. The Dominique LaBrave establishment was manifestly not engaged in fencing stolen goods. He would proceed cautiously. “Do you have a provenance for it?”
“Yes, of course. And of course, we guarantee the authenticity of all our jewelry. This necklace,” she studied the label, “has forty-two carats of diamonds, and two each of rubies and sapphires.” She left the showcase and went to a recessed bookcase, brought out a thick ledger, opened it and turned to the page she was looking for.
“It was purchased at auction in Geneva from the estate of the late Viscountess Asquith.”
“Does it indicate how long she had it? Where she got it?”
“No, sir. It doesn’t. But as I say, it has been appraised, both by the auctioneer in Nice and by our own establishment.”
“That necklace was stolen from my mother,” he said.
The woman treated the declaration with equanimity.
“Perhaps you are right … perhaps not. But there is no legal question about our title to it. Or, for that matter, yours, should you decide to purchase it. I’m sure Lady Asquith bought it on the assumption that it was the seller’s to sell.”
“Tell me, from your experience. Am I bound to inform the insurance company that I have happened on a diamond necklace stolen from my mother?”
“I think that would be courteous. The insurance company is of course at liberty to attempt to trace its purchase back to when Lady Asquith, or her late husband, acquired the necklace. These things are not always easy to do, as you can imagine. And then, of course, we don’t know now how many generations of owners figure in between your mother and Dominique LaBrave. May I ask, when was the robbery?”
“It was in September 1951.”
“About ten, twelve years ago. Yes. Well.”
“You would sell it at a discount, I suppose?”
“We like to oblige, especially younger men who might make a habit of patronizing our store.” Mrs. LaBrave smiled lightly and studied the necklace, though her appraisal was of the man who made the offer. He was a cosmopolitan man in his mid-thirties, perhaps not the killer-handsome he must have been a decade earlier, but nevertheless strikingly pleasing to look at. His nose and upper cheeks showed a trace of pink. Either he had been drinking at lunch or else the strain was now ineffaceable, years of heavy drinking. His brown hair was plentiful and carefully brushed. The light blue shirt was button-down, his custom-fitting suit made of the lightest gray flannel.
“I could let you have it for forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars.”
“How about thirty-five?”
She smiled. “No,” she said sweetly. Then: “Forty-five, period.”
Danny smiled back at her. “Well,” he said, “no harm in asking, is there? Dear old Mum will have to do without her necklace. But for the hell of it, I’ll take your home number.” She gave him a card. He was talking with Mrs. Dominique LaBrave herself.
At the hotel he checked his watch. It was 9:30 P.M. in Palm Beach. His stepfather would be relaxed, enjoying the general amplitude of life. Danny rang the house; his mother answered.
“Hi, Mom. It’s me.”
Rachel Bennett sounded genuinely pleased. “Hello, darling. How are you? Where are you? Why are you calling, since you have all the money you need these days?”
“Los Angeles. You know, the usual. Hotel duty. I’m fine, but want to have a private talk with Harry about your—I won’t tell. Promised not to.”
She laughed. “Dear Harry. He thinks the party is secret. Every other person I walk into at Palm Beach whispers to me not to betray the confidence, that they’re coming to my surprise party. Are you and Caroline going to surprise us?”
“I hope so, but of course it depends on whether one of the children is about to be baptized or confirmed or ordained. You know, we have divine priorities in our household.”
“Now, darling, don’t be so negative about Caroline’s faith. I pause to say that it is in refreshing contrast to your own. When last did you attend divine service—at your wedding?”
Danny decided he would take the fork on that road. “No, really, Mom, we’d like to be there. Some things are coming up in the business so I can’t say absolutely for sure, but we’ll—”
“Surprise me?”
He laughed. “Yes, surprise you. Now let me speak to Harry. But you are not to be in the room when I talk to him. Promise?”
“That’s easy, darling. He’s upstairs in the study, watching television. I’ll buzz him on the intercom. Hang on.”
“Harry? Hi, Harry!”
“How are you, Danny? You and Caroline coming to the”—he lowered his voice—“surprise party?”
“We’re going to try. But let me tell you something exciting. You know the stolen necklace? The one you gave Mom on your first wedding anniversary?”
“They catch the thief?”
“No. But guess what, I spotted it! It’s in a very reputable store here, Beverly Hills. It really is a stunner. That design of yours, fantastic!”
“But—what kind of a price? Where did they get it?”
“We went all through that. Legitimate auction, all certified, estate of Lady Asquith, Geneva.”
“What a hell of a present that would be! To give it to Rachel on her birthday! What do they want for it?”
“They want eighty-five. But I prodded the lady real hard, told her it had been Mum’s, that you designed it. I think—I think—I could get it for seventy-five.”
Harry Bennett prided himself on being a tough man of business.
“Offer her seventy, and just walk away if she says no. Well, no, don’t walk away. Call me from the hotel. When can you get back to me?”
> “Well, the store’s closed now. But I’ll get to the woman first thing tomorrow. I’ll let you hear from me as soon as possible after noon, Florida time. If she says yes, how do you want me to handle it?”
“Call me, I’ll call the bank, they’ll have a certified check by the end of the week. Hell, that’s terrific news, Danny. You’re a hell of a thoughtful guy. The perfect surprise! Her missing necklace!”
Danny dialed, Mrs. LaBrave’s voice came on, soothing, poised.
“Mrs. LaBrave? This is my mother’s son.”
“That’s nice,” she said. “Yes, of course. You wish the necklace?”
“Yes, but there is one string attached. Not one, I’m sure, that will bother you. You will receive a certified check for seventy thousand dollars, and you will give me cash, twenty-five thousand dollars. Broker’s fee.”
“I understand,” she said. “I see no problem.”
“Good. You will be receiving a check from Mr. Harry Bennett, to whom you will send the necklace. When you get his check, go to the First National Bank at El Camino and ask for Mr. Umin. Tell him to credit Windels and Marx, attorneys, Fifty-one West Fifty-first Street, New York, the account of J. Taggart. Got that?”
There was the briefest pause.
Yes, Mrs. LaBrave said, she got it and was certain his mother would be very happy to have back so beautiful a piece of jewelry.
Danny thought the whole thing amusing. Cashing in on dear old Mom’s necklace when she lost it, then cashing in on it when she retrieved it. He could only top that one, he thought wryly, by stealing it again from dear old Mom.
Fun thought. But that would be gilding the lily.
He would have liked to share his escapade with Florry. Florry loved to hear about Danny’s maneuvers, though she would never have had reason to suppose that there was anything unconventional in Danny’s relationship with Mr. Martino. Florry was intensely interested in Danny, in his business, his thoughts, his insights and, sure, his potency. She would even argue with him on this point or that: Was it likely that a piano player in the large lobby, playing in the afternoon, would amuse the guests, tend to bring them back? She thought not, but she let Danny persuade her that he was right, and he felt after all such exchanges with her both a sense of accomplishment and a closeness with the person who had challenged him, and then succumbed to his reasoning.
William F. Buckley Jr. Page 15