Warren Trent lit a cigar, motioning to McDermott to take a cigarette from a box beside him. When he had done so, Peter said, “I talked with the Roosevelt. If we’re in a jam tonight they can help us out with maybe thirty rooms.” The knowledge, he thought, was reassuring—an ace-in-the-hole, though not to be used unless essential. Even fiercely competitive hotels aided each other in that kind of crisis, never knowing when the roles would be reversed.
“All right,” Warren Trent said, a cloud of cigar smoke above him, “now what’s the outlook for the fall?”
“It’s disappointing. I’ve sent you a memo about the two big union conventions falling through.”
“Why have they fallen through?”
“It’s the same reason I warned you about earlier. We’ve continued to discriminate. We haven’t complied with the Civil Rights Act, and the unions resent it.” Involuntarily, Peter glanced toward Aloysius Royce who had come into the room and was arranging a pile of magazines.
Without looking up the young Negro said, “Don’t yo’ worry about sparing my feelings, Mistuh McDermott”—Royce was using the same exaggerated accent he had employed the night before—”because us colored folks are right used to that.”
Warren Trent, his face creased in thought, said dourly, “Cut out the comic lines.”
“Yessir!” Royce left his magazine sorting and stood facing the other two. Now his voice was normal. “But I’ll tell you this: the unions have acted the way they have because they’ve a social conscience. They’re not the only ones, though. More conventions, and just plain folks, are going to stay away until this hotel and others like it admit that times have changed.”
Warren Trent waved a hand toward Royce. “Answer him,” he told Peter McDermott. “Around here we don’t mince words.”
“It so happens,” Peter said quietly, “that I agree with what he said.”
“Why so, Mr. McDermott?” Royce taunted. “You think it’d be better for business? Make your job easier?”
“Those are good reasons,” Peter said. “If you choose to think they’re the only ones, go ahead.”
Warren Trent slammed down his hand hard upon the chair arm. “Never mind the reasons! What matters is, you’re being damn fools, both of you.”
It was a recurring question. In Louisiana, though hotels with chain affiliations had nominally integrated months before, several independents—spearheaded by Warren Trent and the St. Gregory—had resisted change. Most, for a brief period, complied with the Civil Rights Act, then, after the initial flurry of attention, quietly reverted to their long-established segregation policies. Even with legal test cases pending, there was every sign that the hold-outs, aided by strong local support, could fight a delaying action, perhaps lasting years.
“No!” Viciously, Warren Trent stubbed out his cigar. “Whatever’s happening anywhere else, I say we’re not ready for it here. So we’ve lost the union conventions. All right, it’s time we got off our backsides and tried for something else.”
From the living room, Warren Trent heard the outer door close behind Peter McDermott, and Aloysius Royce’s footsteps returning to the small book-lined sitting room which was the young Negro’s private domain. In a few minutes Royce would leave, as he usually did around this time of day, for a law-school class.
It was quiet in the big living room, with only a whisper from the air conditioning, and occasional stray sounds from the city below, which penetrated the thick walls and insulated windows. Fingers of morning sunshine inched their way across the broadloomed floor and, watching them, Warren Trent could feel his heart pounding heavily—an effect of the anger which for several minutes had consumed him. It was a warning, he supposed, which he should heed more often. Yet nowadays, it seemed, so many things frustrated him, making emotions hard to control and to remain silent, harder still. Perhaps such outbursts were mere testiness—a side effect of age. But more likely it was because he sensed so much was slipping away, disappearing forever beyond his control. Besides, anger had always come easily—except for those few brief years when Hester had taught him otherwise: to use patience and a sense of humor, and for a while he had. Sitting quietly here, the memory stirred him. How long ago it seemed!—more than thirty years since he had carried her, as a new, young bride, across the threshold of this very room. And how short a time they had had: those few brief years, joyous beyond measure, until the paralytic polio struck without warning. It had killed Hester in twenty-four hours, leaving Warren Trent, mourning and alone, with the rest of his life to live—and the St. Gregory Hotel.
There were few in the hotel who remembered Hester now, and even if a handful of old-timers did, it would be dimly, and not as Warren Trent himself remembered her: like a sweet spring flower, who had made his days gentle and his life richer, as no one had before or since.
In the silence, a swift soft movement and a rustle of silk seemed to come from the doorway behind him. He turned his head, but it was a quirk of memory. The room was empty and, unusually, moisture dimmed his eyes.
He rose awkwardly from the deep chair, the sciatica knifing as he did. He moved to the window, looking across the gabled rooftops of the French Quarter—the Vieux Carré as people called it nowadays, reverting to the older name—toward Jackson Square and the cathedral spires, glinting as sunlight touched them. Beyond was the swirling, muddy Mississippi and, in midstream, a line of moored ships awaiting their turn at busy wharves. It was a sign of the times, he thought. Since the eighteenth century New Orleans had swung like a pendulum between riches and poverty. Steamships, railways, cotton, slavery, emancipation, canals, wars, tourists … all at intervals had delivered quotas of wealth and disaster. Now the pendulum had brought prosperity—though not, it seemed, to the St. Gregory Hotel.
But did it really matter—at least to himself? Was the hotel worth fighting for? Why not give up, sell out—as he could, this week—and let time and change engulf them both? Curtis O’Keefe would make a fair deal. The O’Keefe chain had that kind of reputation, and Trent himself could emerge from it well. After paying the outstanding mortgage, and taking care of minor stockholders, there would be ample money left on which he could live, at whatever standard he chose, for the remainder of his life.
Surrender: perhaps that was the answer. Surrender to changing times. After all, what was a hotel except so much brick and mortar? He had tried to make it more, but in the end he had failed. Let it go!
And yet … if he did, what else was left?
Nothing. For himself there would be nothing left, not even the ghosts that walked this floor. He waited, wondering, his eyes encompassing the city spread before him. It too had seen change, had been French, Spanish, and American, yet had somehow survived as itself—uniquely individual in an era of conformity.
No! He would not sell out. Not yet. While there was still hope, he would hold on. There were still four days in which to raise the mortgage money somehow, and beyond that the present losses were a temporary thing. Soon the tide would turn, leaving the St. Gregory solvent and independent.
Matching movement to his resolution, he walked stiffly across the room to an opposite window. His eyes caught the gleam of an airplane high to the north. It was a jet, losing height and preparing to land at Moisant Airport. He wondered if Curtis O’Keefe was aboard.
3
When Christine Francis located him shortly after 9:30 A.M., Sam Jakubiec, the stocky, balding credit manager, was standing at the rear of Reception, making his daily check of the ledger account of every guest in the hotel. As usual, Jakubiec was working with the quick, nervous haste which sometimes deceived people into believing he was less than thorough. Actually there was almost nothing that the credit chief’s shrewd, encyclopedic mind missed, a fact which in the past had saved the hotel thousands of dollars in bad debts.
His fingers were dancing now over the machine accounting cards—one for each guest and room—as he peered at names through his thick-lensed spectacles, glancing at the itemized accounts and, onc
e in a while, making a notation on a pad beside him. Without stopping, he glanced up briefly, then down again. “I’ll be just a few minutes, Miss Francis.”
“I can wait. Anything interesting this morning?”
Without pausing, Jakubiec nodded. “A few things.”
“For instance?”
He made a new note on the pad. “Room 512, H. Baker. Check-in 8:10 A.M. At 8:20 a bottle of liquor ordered and charged.”
“Maybe he likes to brush his teeth with it.”
His head down, Jakubiec nodded. “Maybe.”
But it was more likely, Christine knew, that H. Baker in 512 was a deadbeat. Automatically the guest who ordered a bottle of liquor a few minutes after arrival aroused the credit manager’s suspicion. Most new arrivals who wanted a drink quickly—after a journey or a tiring day—ordered a mixed drink from the bar. The immediate bottle-orderer was often starting on a drunk, and might not intend to pay, or couldn’t.
She knew, too, what would follow next. Jakubiec would ask one of the floor maids to enter 512 on a pretext and make a check of the guest and his luggage. Maids knew what to look for: reasonable luggage and good clothes, and if the guest had these the credit manager would probably do nothing more, aside from keeping an eye on the account. Sometimes solid, respectable citizens rented a hotel room for the purpose of getting drunk and, providing they could pay and bothered no one else, that was their own business.
But if there was no luggage or other signs of substance, Jakubiec himself would drop in for a chat. His approach would be discreet and friendly. If the guest showed ability to pay, or agreed to put a cash deposit on his bill, their parting would be cordial. However, if his earlier suspicions were confirmed, the credit manager could be tough and ruthless, with the guest evicted before a big bill could be run up.
“Here’s another,” Sam Jakubiec told Christine. “Sanderson, room 1207. Disproportionate tipping.”
She inspected the card he was holding. It showed two room-service charges—one for $1.50, the other for two dollars. In each case a two-dollar tip had been added and signed for.
“People who don’t intend to pay often write the biggest tips,” Jakubiec said. “Anyway, it’s one to check out.”
As with the other query, Christine knew the credit manager would feel his way warily. Part of his job—equally important with preventing fraud—was not offending honest guests. After years of experience a seasoned credit man could usually separate the sharks and sheep by instinct, but once in a while he might be wrong—to the hotel’s detriment. Christine knew that was why credit managers occasionally risked extending credit or approved checks in slightly doubtful cases, walking a mental tightrope as they did. Most hotels—even the exalted ones—cared nothing about the morals of those who stayed within their walls, knowing that if they did a great deal of business would pass them by. Their concern—which a credit manager reflected—involved itself with a single basic question: Could a guest pay?
With a single, swift movement Sam Jakubiec flipped the ledger cards back in place and closed the file drawer containing them. “Now,” he said, “what can I do?”
“We’ve hired a private duty nurse for 1410.” Briefly Christine reported the previous night’s crisis concerning Albert Wells. “I’m a little worried whether Mr. Wells can afford it, and I’m not sure he realizes how much it will cost.” She might have added, but didn’t, that she was more concerned for the little man himself than for the hotel.
Jakubiec nodded. “That private nursing deal can run into big money.” Walking together, they moved away from Reception, crossing the now-bustling lobby to the credit manager’s office, a small square room behind the concierge’s counter. Inside, a dumpy brunette secretary was working against a wall which consisted solely of trays of file cards.
“Madge,” Sam Jakubiec said, “see what we have on Wells, Albert.”
Without answering, she closed a drawer, opened another and flipped over cards. Pausing, she said in a single breath, “Albuquerque, Coon Rapids, Montreal, take your pick.”
“It’s Montreal,” Christine said, and Jakubiec took the card the secretary offered him. Scanning it, he observed, “He looks all right. Stayed with us six times. Paid cash. One small query which seems to have been settled.”.
“I know about that,” Christine said. “It was our fault.”
The credit man nodded. “I’d say there’s nothing to worry about. Honest people leave a pattern, same as the dishonest ones.” He handed the card back and the secretary replaced it, along with the others which provided a record of every guest who had stayed in the hotel in recent years. “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 just as helpful and sympathetic with a genuine case, as he was tough with the bad ones.
As she reached the office doorway the credit manager called after her, “Miss Francis, how are things going upstairs?”
Christine smiled. “They’re raffling off the hotel, Sam. I didn’t want to tell you, but you forced it out of me.”
“If they pull my ticket,” Jakubiec said, “have ’em draw again. I’ve troubles enough already.”
Beneath the flippancy, Christine suspected, the credit manager was as worried about his job as a good many others. The hotel’s financial affairs were supposed to be confidential, but seldom were, and it had been impossible to keep the news of recent difficulties from spreading like a contagion.
She recrossed the main lobby, acknowledging “good mornings” from bellboys, the hotel florist, and one of the assistant managers, seated self-importantly at his centrally located desk. Then, bypassing the elevators, she ran lightly up the curved central stairway to the main mezzanine.
The sight of the assistant manager was a reminder of his immediate superior, Peter McDermott. 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, then checked herself with an inward warning against an involvement emotionally which might be premature. 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, she sometimes thought, it seemed as if instinct were shielding her from renewing the kind of close relationship which five years ago had been snatched away 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 hotel 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.” There was the impression of a guardian hand raised firmly. “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.”
4
The inconclusive conference in the hotel owner’s suite left Peter McDermott in a m
ood of frustration. Striding away down the fifteenth-floor corridor, as Aloysius Royce closed the suite door behind him, he reflected that his encounters with Warren Trent invariably went the same way. As he had on other occasions, he wished fervently 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, inquiring from Reception what accommodation had been reserved for Mr. Curtis O’Keefe’s party. There were two adjoining suites on the twelfth floor, a room clerk informed him, and Peter used the service stairway to descend the two flights. Like all sizable 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 whine of a vacuum cleaner was audible as he approached. Inside, two maids were working industriously 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, as if I couldn’t figure out for myself that things had better be just so, considering who’s coming.”
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.”
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