McGrave's Hotel

by Steve Bryant

  James’s own thoughts on Germany were far from indifferent. When the man from the government came to confirm what James already knew, that his parents were dead, the man explained:

  “It was all about German war plans,” he said. “In March, they started rebuilding their air force at an alarming rate. Incredible numbers. They will need pilots for all those planes, and your parents stumbled onto a special school where young boys are being trained. Your parents tried to get photographs of the school, but we don’t know what happened after that. Their radio broadcast was interrupted.

  “They were posing as tourists, and it should have been easy for them to get in and out. In the end, we think they were betrayed. The innkeeper where they stayed worked for the Nazis. I’m sorry, James. We are all truly sorry.”

  “Did they leave a message?” James said, refusing to cry. “Something before the last broadcast?”

  James knew it was standard spy craft procedure to use a dead drop or dead letter box. They could have left a message in advance. They would have. They would have left one for him.

  Yet the man knew of no message, and none had surfaced in nearly a year since James’s parents had perished.

  James blinked away the memory as best he could, gave the painting of Mr. McGrave a friendly parting glance, and turned to take measure of who was in the facility this evening. It was time to get to work.

  James began each evening’s shift by surveying the goings on in the Boneyard Club, the hotel’s world renowned supper club, dinners served twenty-four hours, French cuisine a specialty, reservations recommended but not required, music for dining and dancing from nine to three, fortunes told tableside upon request. Tables adorned with black tablecloths, sparkling wineglasses, and fresh-cut blood-red roses rimmed the wooden dance floor. Additional bands of tables spread out in concentric rings from the closest, each tiered a little higher so all the diners had a clear view of the dancing. At the entrance, a pair of life-size skeletons pointed the way to the seating and helped establish the theme. For the current Christmas season, the skeletons looked festive in black top hats and red bow ties.

  Miss Charles provided the soothsaying while the hotel’s talented Negro piano man, Count Otis Monroe, provided the music along with his group, the Transylvania Five. They said there was voodoo in Count Otis’s fingers, for his music seemed to cast a hypnotic spell over the audience. He could make them dance to “Moonglow” and “Red Sails in the Sunset,” he could make them fall in love to “The Way You Look Tonight,” and he could make them cry to “Lullaby of Broadway.” It was magic, and the boast was that few would go home remembering any details of the evening.

  This evening, during the expiring moments of the early-bird dining session—six to nine nightly, twenty percent off your ticket, thirty percent off anything moving on your plate—mere minutes before Count Otis would sit down at his keys, James noted a few regular customers.

  There were the gray-faced Ackerman brothers who sipped only red liquids and always took the long way around to their table to avoid mirrors.

  There was the thin, hairy young man who once a month insisted on sitting far in the back, away from any moonlight streaming through the windows, and who complained if his meat had been barely warmed, much less cooked.

  There was the usual contingent from the sideshow attraction, Hubert’s Museum, in Times Square, including a bearded lady, a tattooed lady, and a two-headed man. Maurice, the night waiter, never knew what to charge him.

  There was the family of telepaths that frustrated Maurice by attempting to order from the menu without ever saying a word. Maurice claimed he thought he knew what they wanted, but did he?

  There was the chemistry professor from NYU working on a formula for invisibility. From time to time, he would wrap himself in bandages and wear a homburg and dark glasses, but whether he was invisible beneath the wrappings was only a guess.

  Despite James’s extensive world travels and his far-from-normal education, often involving danger, it had always been earthly danger. James had no experience with otherworldly entities prior to coming to McGrave’s, though he found them all fascinating. What boy wouldn’t find vampires and werewolves and invisible men fascinating?

  James thought he might have seen a ghost once, before coming to McGrave’s, but decided it was only his imagination at work. It was the night he knew his parents had died, two days before the man from the government arrived to make that grim news official. It was the night James had seen the apparition in the mirror. The mirror hung over the chest of drawers, the mirror his mom used to freshen her lipstick. The apparition was the blackest thing James had ever seen, like someone dead and rotten dressed up for Halloween. It filled him with an overwhelming sense of sadness, the dread that something terrible had happened. James first assumed he was looking at a reflection of something standing in the room, but quickly scanning the room saw nothing. When he looked back at the mirror, the creature had vanished, but the sense of dread remained.

  Was the apparition a figment of James’s mood? Or had the apparition been real and caused the mood?

  Of course, at McGrave’s, plenty of normal folks helped populate the Boneyard Club each night, ordinary couples seeking a little excitement on the dangerous side of New York City nightlife. These were the folks who purchased souvenir photos from the hotel’s roving photographer, a thin, pale girl named Miss Hollingworth who mysteriously never spoke. (Some said she carried a voodoo likeness of herself whose lips were sewn shut.) She dispensed the photos in little black cardboard frames whose captions read, “McGrave’s Hotel—It’s to Die For.”

  Back in the Grand Lobby, among the busy comings and goings of such normal patrons, James spied other longtime regulars.

  Seated in his easy chair in a pinstriped gray suit and smoking a pipe was the tall, retired gentleman known as Dr. Otto. According to the hotel grapevine, Dr. Otto had his license revoked years earlier, at least his license to treat live patients. It was something to do with experiments involving the reanimation of human body tissue and graveyard trespassing charges. Nonetheless, he had been deputized by the coroner to issue death certificates. His nightly presence at McGrave’s made it easier to move any bodies along efficiently.

  Also seated nearby, attempting to hide behind an open newspaper whose headline had to do with Adolph Hitler, was Walter Quinn, the newspaperman. Mr. Quinn had an uncanny talent for sniffing out news stories, and he periodically promoted McGrave’s by printing stories with sensational headlines:

  NYC HOTEL REQUIRES POSITIVE ID TO CHECK IN—DEATH CERTIFICATE WILL SUFFICE

  SPOOKY MANOR KEEPS 24-HOUR HEARSE ON DUTY

  HORROR HOTEL DARES YOU TO SPEND A NIGHT—AND LIVE

  Although Mr. Quinn’s headlines were good for business, creating for some patrons the notion of a carnival fun house challenge, the hotel didn’t want them to be so intriguing as to attract the police. So it became a balancing act for James and his colleagues: how much do you let Mr. Quinn know?

  The most distinguishable presences in the lobby were those of the high society couple Blaine and Martha Beaumont, always beautifully attired with him in a tuxedo and top hat and her in a robin’s-egg blue designer gown. The Beaumonts were run over by a city bus six years earlier and never quite made it out of McGrave’s to wherever they were destined. Being ghosts, they were rather translucent, which was an endearing quality. Each night they seemed to visit McGrave’s as if for the first time.

  “We’ve heard the cocktails are the best in Manhattan,” Mr. Beaumont said to James.

  “Yes, sir,” said James, as he always did. “You should enjoy our orchestra as well.”

  “Dahling,” said Mrs. Beaumont, fading in and out as she spoke. “We’ll dance the night away.”

  All in all, James felt he was witnessing the usual crowd, nothing to be concerned about. Certainly nothing to have given Mr. Nash pause. Still, he couldn’t help wondering what was in the cards for the evening. Justice? Romance?
Death? A mystery VIP?

  As if to answer, Dr. Otto rose, walked a few paces, and then stopped to consult his pocket watch. “McGrave’s Hotel,” the doctor said to no one in particular. “People coming, going. Nothing ever happens.”

  At that instant, automobiles began to alight in the forecourt, and the great revolving door began to turn.

  Someone was coming.

  Chapter Three

  Count Dracula, I Presume

  The photographers came first, walking backward, snapping volleys of photos. The explosions—bam bam bam—illuminated the lobby as the flashbulbs lived and died in brilliant bursts, then clattered to the floor like shrapnel as they ejected. It might have been the Fourth of July. James marveled at the white-hot flashes of light, at the firecracker pops of burst glass, at the sharp odor of burned magnesium.

  Next came the man himself, the undisputed Toast of Broadway, twirling his walking stick like a baton and flanked by two attractive young ladies in short red dresses.

  Victor Lesley owned the Great White Way. He had played Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth to unprecedented audience acclaim. No one had made so much of Shakespeare before, every show a sellout. Critics questioned his acting skills, but none could dispute his mass appeal. “It’s supernatural!” they said.

  Now the great Victor Lesley had returned from a year in Hollywood to play Count Dracula on Broadway in a revival of the 1924 play. The 1931 movie starring Bela Lugosi had rekindled public interest in literature’s most famous vampire, and Broadway had gone gaga over word of the bat man’s return.

  A crush of reporters followed, and then still more photographers. Two of the bellhops retrieved the luggage from the black limousine while the rest, including James, became part of the mob encircling the actor and his lady friends in the lobby.

  Victor Lesley held his hand up to shield his eyes from the flashes, smiling his light-up-Broadway smile. He had Clark Gable good looks, with big shoulders, wavy black hair, and a movie-star mustache. He wore a black tuxedo, and his long black cape furled behind him.

  The ladies with him sported matching red dresses, and they each had blond hair like the actress Mae West. One was chewing gum.

  “Mr. Lesley,” one of the reporters shouted. “Do you plan to shave off your mustache for this role?”

  “Despite all the hearts it will break, I’m afraid the mustache must go,” the star answered. “It might interfere with biting pretty necks.”

  The crowd laughed.

  “How do you plan to make your Dracula different from Bela Lugosi’s?” another asked.

  “Mine will be younger and handsomer,” Mr. Lesley said to more laughs.

  “Will you make Count Dracula a sympathetic character?”

  “I hope to bring some humanity to a bloodsucking serial killer, to raise his popularity. I want the audience to both cheer and tremble when I’m on stage, to mourn when they drive a stake through my heart.”

  A few ladies in the lobby swooned at the mention of that handsome chest being staked.

  “New York is full of beautiful women. Do you plan to marry during your run in town?”

  The girls in the red dresses pouted at the thought.

  “Now that would be cruel. I couldn’t do that to my fans.”

  “Who are the dames?”

  There was a murmuring of consent. All the reporters seemed interested in that answer. The ladies in the red dresses were stunning.

  Mr. Lesley gave each of the girls an appreciative once-over.

  “This one is the president of my fan club, and this one is my agent,” he replied. “Or wait, is it the other way around?”

  The men laughed at the actor’s lack of familiarity with his companions.

  At this moment, it was time for Miss Charles to begin her evening fortune-telling stint in the Boneyard Club. She had joined James when the crowd gathered, one more pair of pretty eyes among the gawkers.

  “Time for me to scoot,” she whispered to James. “Too bad. He’s awfully handsome.”

  Miss Charles edged slowly around the outskirts of the crowd, but she failed to escape notice. Victor Lesley had a sharp eye for beautiful women.

  “Say now, who is this pretty creature?”

  All eyes turned toward her. Several cameras flashed in her direction.

  Miss Charles drew herself up and turned to him with a sly smile. She was ever a professional. “I am Miss Charles,” she said in her mysterious voice she used for clients. “The resident fortune teller. At your service.”

  This prompted a flurry of interest.

  “Say, honey,” one of the reporters said. “You think you could tell Mr. Lesley’s fortune?”

  Victor Lesley welcomed the notion and invited Miss Charles into the circle. Everyone’s interest perked up as she drew her deck of tarot cards from her handbag. Even the two young ladies seemed curious.

  The first card Victor Lesley selected was The Fool, which Miss Charles explained as the card indicating an actor, an entertainer. She explained his second card, The Wheel of Fortune, as indicating he would have a long and lucrative run. Mr. Lesley beamed at his prospects.

  His third card was the same as the one James had chosen, the skeleton astride a horse. Death! James knew its significance instantly, and he knew Miss Charles knew.

  “Amazing,” Mr. Lesley said, holding the card aloft. “Allow me to interpret. It’s a guy on a polo pony. I shall be playing myself this weekend, on Long Island with the screen star Spencer Tracy. I hope you newsmen will come watch the action. Bravo, young lady. I commend your powers.”

  Neither James nor Miss Charles challenged his interpretation.

  The question-and-answer session continued for a time, and then, with an apologetic nod to the great clock on the wall, Mr. Lesley dismissed both his audience and his female companions.

  “I am so pleased you all turned out to welcome me,” he said. Grasping his cape with both hands, he raised his arms to spread the cape like bat wings. “As we say in Transylvania, ‘fang’ you very much.”

  The caped thespian then delivered himself into the arms of the bellhops who attended him. The larger boys hefted the main luggage, passing a cube-shaped wooden box to James.

  “Here ya go, sport,” said Roderick, the oldest. Roderick was openly hostile to the special treatment James seemed to receive from Mr. Nash and Miss Charles. He routinely relished any opportunity to assign James the least desirable task.

  A hasp with a padlock through it locked the wooden box tight, and James couldn’t help wondering what was inside. Although the box was large enough to have held a bowling ball or, perhaps, a human head, it wasn’t very heavy, and nothing inside made any noise. Could the small holes in the top be air holes? Could something be alive in the box?

  James hoped it wasn’t spiders. He hated spiders. His earliest memory in life was from the year he and his family had lived in the jungles of the Belgian Congo. He was still sleeping in a crib, and one morning a tarantula the size of a pie dish had outwitted the mosquito net barrier and dropped into the crib with him. It had seemed malevolent, skittering this way and that to trap Baby James in one corner of his bed. It might have attacked, but James’s mom smashed it with a leather boot, fouling the bedsheet with blood and spider goop. Ever since, even the tiniest spider could paralyze James with fear.

  Like a parade with Mr. Lesley at the head and James at the tail, Mr. Lesley and the bellhops marched single file to the Front Desk. Mr. Nash offered Mr. Lesley the reception book, and the actor signed with a flourish.

  “Welcome to McGrave’s,” said Mr. Nash. “We hope you will be in town for a very long run. We’ve put you in the Broadway Suite, one of our most popular accommodations.”

  The gentlemen shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. Although Mr. Nash granted Victor Lesley a warmer than usual personal welcome, James grasped that this was merely the “Broadway celebrity” and not the VIP that had worried Mr. Nash earlier.

  “Th
at young fortune teller,” said Mr. Lesley, glancing toward the restaurant. “Very pretty girl. I shall be auditioning actresses for various roles in Dracula tonight. If there are any parts left over, I should love to give her a tryout. Very pretty girl.”

  “Quite!” said Mr. Nash. His cheeks turned red, and his hands clenched. “Enjoy your stay.”

  Miss Charles and Mr. Nash were close personal friends at the very least, and James knew Mr. Nash would not enjoy the actor foisting his attentions on her.

  “This way, please,” James said, directing the Broadway actor away from any unpleasantness. Holding the wooden box with both hands, he gestured toward the elevators and moved smartly in that direction.

  Chapter Four

  The Mystery Box

  At the six available elevators that serviced the hotel, the other bellhops and luggage consumed so much space in the first that there was little room for Victor Lesley and James.

  Mr. Lesley tapped James on the shoulder with his walking stick. “You, Ace, stick with me. We’ll take the next one.”

  A moment later, James and his box and Mr. Lesley and his walking stick entered the adjacent elevator. When the doors closed and they were alone in the carved oak interior, Mr. Lesley let out a sigh of relief, leaned against one of the walls, and closed his eyes.