Weekend

by Tania Grossinger

  “Then you know all about it,” Jonathan said.

  “Yes. Everything I need to know. Mrs. Golden’s speech was most enlightening.”

  “She’s handled the situation like an asshole. If it had been up to me, I could have worked it all out so that no real harm was done to the hotel’s image …”

  “But you’re leaving out one small point. It wasn’t up to you.” Nick moved further into the suite. He ran his hand over the soft material of the settee. “I’ll tell you what my problem is now, Jonathan. My people want to know why I wasn’t informed about this from the start. They want to know what’s going to become of the money they’ve already invested.” His face became hard. “And they want to know how they can trust my judgments in the future, seeing as I gave you such a buildup and all.”

  “This has nothing to do with my capability and you know that. It was a freak thing. An accident. It could have happened anyplace.”

  “Except that it didn’t. It happened here. And you knew about the Chinaman and the possibility of an outbreak before we met yesterday afternoon and I made an offer to buy the hotel. Before I reported back to my superiors that it looked like we probably had a deal.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “The reason I didn’t tell you was because the chances were so remote. The doc gets nervous easily, and I thought …”

  “We like to think that the people we’re dealing with are totally up front with us. When you brought Phil Golden to us for that loan, we were open, receptive and gave you every cent you asked for. There were no mysteries, no secrets.”

  Jonathan felt a chill run down his spine. “Wait a minute. I think I know what you’re getting at, but I’m not a Golden, remember that. I don’t have any legal responsibility for that loan.”

  “There are responsibilities and there are responsibilities,” Nick said. “As far as we’re concerned, the loan was extended because of you. We didn’t know Phil Golden from a hole in the wall. And if you aren’t going to be good for it, it looks like we’re going to have to write most of it off, something we don’t particularly enjoy doing.” He moved a few steps closer and though his face remained calm, Jonathan sensed a threat; he backed up instinctively.

  “So what do you want from me?” He abhorred the whine in his own voice. It made him indignant. “You’re not the only ones suffering some loss, damn it.”

  “We don’t care about your losses. We only care about our own.”

  Their eyes locked and Jonathan had less than a second’s warning, barely enough time to bring up his arms. Nick’s left hand sprang to his neck. His long forefinger and thumb caught him just under the jaw. He closed his fingers tightly. Lashing out, Jonathan seized Nick’s wrist, but because he was concentrating on pulling him down with the little strength he had left, he didn’t hear the small click.

  In his right hand, Nick held what looked like an ordinary fountain pen, but when he pressed its clip, a six-inch steel stiletto, the thickness of a knitting needle, popped from its top.

  With a quick movement, he drove it into Jonathan’s heart. Once it penetrated, he turned and twisted it, tearing across the aorta. Jonathan’s eyes widened with surprise and pain. He let go of Nick’s wrists, moved his mouth open and closed and then slid down the wall, landing in a sitting position on the floor. He died with his eyes wide open.

  Nick went into the bathroom, washed the stains of blood off his needle-knife, reinserted the blade in the pen case, and clipped it back on his suit jacket. A large round blood stain had formed on Jonathan’s white shirt. Nick looked around the suite. He took out his handerchief and wiped off the faucet handle in the bathroom. Then, wrapping the handkerchief around his hand, he opened the door and walked out into the empty corridor.

  He moved with the calmness and precision of a man who had been in this situation many times before. The only disgust or emotion he felt came from the fact that he had had to do his own dirty work. He had grown to think of himself as above that, but in this situation, he accepted the unwritten assumption of his associates that everyone was responsible for correcting his own mistakes.

  At the very least, he was satisfied that retribution was made and some face saved. There would still be disapproval and unhappiness with his judgment but he would have shown himself capable of evening things up. With patience, he would be given other opportunities.

  He stepped out of the elevator. The sight of blood, the power he had evoked, the Godlike decision of life and death he had made all conspired to stimulate his carnal lusts. He went back to his room to change. He longed to find Melinda and make love to her again and again, make love to her like she had never been loved before, until she begged him to have mercy and stop. His body strained with desire and he hurried to seek her out.

  When Ellen left her office to inspect the preparations for dinner, she spotted Bruce coming back from his talk with Charlotte. Although the events of the day had precluded their having any lengthy discussions, she had developed an instinctive liking for this young man. In fact, when she compared him to Sid or any of the other medical people now involved in the situation, she found herself automatically looking to him for guidance. She had particularly liked his indignation in the scene with Jonathan when all his deceptions were exposed. He had a moral sense, a clear view of responsibilities, and his suggestions seemed devoid of the usual compromises. She was glad he was there.

  “Where’s Sid?”

  “He had to go calm an elderly woman who refuses to eat. I was just on my way to check out the new food situation. Care to come along?”

  “Sure. I’m on my way to see Halloran. He was looking for me before but I guess I can reach his office just as easily through the kitchen. Besides, it will give me a chance to have a look at the cooking facilities. Might help me trace this thing faster.”

  “All right, then, I’ll make it a guided tour.”

  They entered the dining room through the front door. She stopped at Mr. Pat’s desk and picked up a new menu. Despite the fact that so much had had to be reordered, it was basically as previously planned; a choice of fruits or juice, matzo ball soup, garden vegetable soup or clear broth en tasse, an appetizer of grilled sweet-breads on toast and a choice of several main dishes including prime ribs of beef, goulash Hungarienne, stuffed breast of veal, and the perennial favorite, chicken in the pot. Served with it, of course, were relishes, breads, salads and an assortment of vegetables topped off with six mouthwatering and highly caloric desserts.

  “Nice menu. Even your most cautious guests will be tempted,” Bruce said.

  They continued on through the dining room toward the kitchen. Busboys and waiters were making last minute preparations. Every station was spotless. Not a crumb, not a speck, not a piece of dull silverware or china would be tolerated. The water goblets glistened. The linen was starched and crisp. The carpets had been revacuumed and the wooden floors rewaxed. The captains and Mr. Pat were going from table to table checking things. It reminded Bruce of the barracks inspection at boot camp. The busboys and waiters waited eagerly for approval as they approached.

  “We’re making that extra effort tonight,” Ellen said. They walked through the swinging doors and entered the kitchen. For a moment all the clatter and rushing around stopped. Everyone looked Ellen’s way. Then it all started again.

  “You know,” Bruce said, “my problem here is I’ve never been what one might call a ‘practicing Jew.’ Exactly what does it mean when a Catskill hotel advertises that it’s ‘kosher?’”

  “The term we use is glatt kosher. Twice in Exodus and once in Deuteronomy it says that Jews are forbidden to boil a kid in its mother’s milk. This evolved into a prohibition against eating any milk product where meat is served. Since meat and dairy food can’t be prepared together, our kitchen, as you can see, is actually two kitchens, thirteen thousand square feet, each with its own dishwashing and silver-cleaning machines, steam tables, soup kettles, walk-in freezers and refrigerated storerooms. Two completely different china and silver serv
ices are used; one for the dairy breakfast and lunch meals, and the other for the evening meat meal.”

  “What time do they start preparing dinner?”

  “The chef and his assistants usually get started around noon.”

  “It’s as though you’re feeding an army.”

  “Well, our guests have a big appetite,” she said smiling.

  “I can’t believe some of the figures I saw on your desk! For one week two hundred seventy-five standing ribs of beef, nine hundred fifty pounds of poultry, five hundred pounds of Nova Scotia salmon.”

  “She’s not here at the moment,” Ellen interrupted, looking toward the far corner. “We buy 27,000 eggs a week and we have someone on staff who spends her entire day sitting in front of two barrels cracking them open. She deposits the whites and yolks in one barrel and the shells in another.”

  Bruce recited more statistics. “Over seventy cases of fresh oranges for breakfast juice and seven hundred pounds of coffee every seven days? I bet some coffee shops in New York don’t go through that in six months.”

  “If you’re counting, don’t forget our bakery. Every day we produce something like eight hundred portions of cake and pie, and there’s a minimum of three for each meal, so that’s four thousand eight hundred portions a day and nearly four thousand rolls and an equal number of Danish pastries. The only thing we buy locally is the bread.

  “Well, it looks like I’m learning something new every day.” They walked past the pantry. “Is this where you prepare the salads?”

  “No, they do that in the cellar below. I can show it to you if you wish, but first I have to have a few words with my chef. They’re all understandably upset. No professional likes the thought that a disease is suspected to be coming from his kitchen, no matter how little responsibility he has for it.”

  “Sure, sure. Look, the salad thing’s not important. I’d better go look for Halloran see what was on his mind. Then I want to get back to the office. Thanks for the tour.”

  No. It’s I who should be thanking you, Bruce. You don’t have the economic stake in this thing that so many others have, yet you’re pursuing the problem with more vigor than most.”

  “Maybe that lack of vested interest is exactly why I can,” he said.

  “I think I understand what you mean. I was somewhat disappointed in the way Sid handled things initially but. …” She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Onward,” Bruce said. He was happy to see her smile at him. He hadn’t spent that much time with her, but he had sensed her insecurity. He wanted to tell her she had no reason to feel it. She had handled herself better than most people would have and considering the family tragedy she had recently endured, she was holding together incredibly well. He wanted to say all these things, but said nothing. He merely squeezed her hand and left.

  There was no time now for dramatic statements. He had already gone out on a limb when he practically guaranteed the department heads that the possibility of their coming down with cholera now was nil. There was always the unaccountable and unexpected to contend with. He had to be ready for anything.

  The noise announced them long before they arrived. Grant opened the door and looked down the hall. They were singing by the elevator. “For she’s a jolly good fellow, for she’s a jolly good fellow. For she’s a jolly good fellow …” A half dozen men were jostling each other for position. The idea was to transport Melinda in style. Finally, two men lifted her up, balancing her on their shoulders. There was loud applause and cheering as they started toward her suite.

  Grant slammed the door and backed up. They were on the way here, to his own room. His mother was taking on the whole damn hotel now! He looked around in a panic. He didn’t want to open the door and run past them. He was afraid they would laugh. What was he going to do, hide under the bed and be an unwilling witness to it all? Escape, he needed a means of escape. His eyes fastened on the corridor fire escape. Of course. What more natural way?

  He rushed to the window, opened it and stepped out onto the iron grate landing. He stared out over the hotel grounds. Being outside and so high up was exhilarating. He stood there a moment, considered walking down, then looked up and changed his mind. Why not? He turned onto the stairs leading upward. He moved slowly, stopping at each landing and looking down.

  When he reached the seventeenth floor, he surveyed the scene. From this particular height, the highways in the distance were quite visible. The traffic was continuous, the Congress quarantine notwithstanding. The view gave him a good impression of the immediate area. Although there was some forest and undeveloped land around the hotel grounds, the Quickway, a strip of stores, gas stations and roadside taverns and restaurants, was really very close. In the distance, perhaps only a half dozen miles away, he could see the out-skirts of a small village.

  He turned to the penthouse window behind him. It wasn’t his intention to be a peeping tom because he really had little interest in what other people were doing, but something odd caught his glance just as he was going to start back down. A man was sitting up on the floor. He wasn’t moving at all and he seemed to be staring into space. Grant moved closer, pressing his face nearer to the window. Suddenly he saw the dark man his mother had been with in the shower. He came out of the penthouse bathroom and then went back in. He had what looked like a handkerchief in his hand.

  Grant looked at the seated man again. What was that on his chest, that big red blob? How come he hadn’t moved an inch all this time? He considered tapping on the window just to see what would happen and was about to do it when he heard someone yelling. Looking down through the grate floor of the fire escape landing, he saw a hotel security cop fifteen flights below, his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting up at him. He stood straight and moved to the stairway.

  “HEY YOU. KID. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? YOU DON’T BELONG THERE. GET DOWN FROM THERE IMMEDIATELY!”

  Grant walked down the metal steps, slowly at first, but when he reached his own landing on the twelfth floor, the noise, the music, the laughter, drove him down faster. The cop was waiting for him when he stepped off the bottom.

  “You weren’t supposed to be up there. What the hell were you doing?”

  “Takin’ a walk.”

  “I see. Takin’ a walk. What’s your name, son?”

  “Howdy Doody.”

  “A wise guy, huh?” He didn’t really feel like getting into a confrontation with the kid, not with all the other problems he had. “Okay, Mr. Doody, have it your way. I just don’t want to see you up on that fire escape again, hear?”

  “Sure. I never go the same way twice.”

  The security cop glared at him, shook his head and walked on. Grant watched him disappear around the building, his face still smarting from being called “Mr. Doody.” If the guy hadn’t been such a bigmouth, he might have told him about that man up there in the penthouse, the man with what was probably blood dripping down his shirt. But the hell with him. The hell with him and everyone else.

  He looked back up the fire escape and thought about his mother and all those men and all that noise. He wanted to get away. Now. But they wouldn’t let him go. They had locked him in with everyone else, locked him in with his mother and her orgies, with Alison Tits and her smirks, with grouchy security guards and their big mouths.

  He looked across the lawn at the old farmhouse and thought about Sandi Golden. She was the only thing that held out the slightest interest for him. He thought about going over to see her but then it occurred to him her house was probably guarded more than the dumb hotel. He’d wait to meet her in her hideaway. Maybe he’d tell her about that guy up there, sitting on the floor.

  He started to walk away, but thoughts about his mother kept flashing back at him. All those men, all those hands touching her, mauling her. How many men would have her before the night was over? He wanted to put his arms around the building and shake it until it fell apart, to rip it into little pieces. It was practically the only thing that would give him
any satisfaction. And he knew it couldn’t be done. He thought about heaving a rock at his mother’s window but he knew she wouldn’t even notice. What would she notice? Anything?

  He looked at the side door to the basement. All he wanted now was to be alone and not be hounded. He’d go down there, find a place to wait and think. Maybe he could force the lock to Sandi’s hideaway. Maybe he’d even discover his own place. He checked around to be sure no one was watching. Then he went to the basement door. In a moment, he disappeared into the bowels of the hotel.

  “Hear you’re looking for me,” Bruce said. Halloran looked up from his small desk, stood up quickly and went to the door. He closed it behind Bruce.

  “I don’t know if it means anything,” he said, “but I figured I better tell you about it anyway.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “There’s this guy, one of the salad men, see. He’s married to a cashier in the coffee shop. They got a couple kids and …”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Well, you asked about Margret Thomas at that meeting we had with Ellen.”

  “Yeah? Go on.” He sat on the edge of the desk.

  “I’m not trying to make excuses for anyone, but Margret was about as easy a piece of ass as you can imagine … a real piece of community property if you know what I mean.”

  “Are you saying that you …”

  “Hell, no. Not me. I wouldn’t touch her. It was this salad man. He came to me a few hours ago, lookin’ kinda mousey, like he had something to confess.” Bruce flipped open his notebook and took out his pen. “I promised him I’d keep his name out of it. Can we do that?”

  “There’s no way I can make any promises. It depends on what he has to say.” Halloran shook his head.

  “Okay, I’ll do what I can under the circumstances.”

  “Good enough. Now I’ll get to the point.” He brushed the hair away from his forehead. “Remember when we were first looking for Margret? When we rounded up the two Puerto Rican dishwashers? You were all excited about finding her after I told you she had cleaned up the mess in Tony Wong’s room. Well, it seems that at the time we were looking for her, she was having a ‘rendezvous,’ if you will, with the salad man in the cellar. He was down there soaking the dinner lettuce in the bathtubs.”