Hotel

9

They walked together, skirting pools of water which the rain had left, to a tiered parking lot a block and a half from the hotel. Above, the sky was clearing after its interlude of storm, with a three-quarter moon beginning to break through, and around them the city center was settling down to silence, broken by an occasional late taxi and the sharp tattoo of their footsteps echoing hollowly through the canyon of darkened buildings.

A sleepy parking attendant brought down Christine's Volkswagen and they climbed in, Peter jackknifing his length into the right-hand seat. "This is the life! You don't mind if I spread out?" He draped his arm along the back of the driver's seat, not quite touching Christine's shoulders.

As they waited for the traffic lights at Canal Street, one of the new air-conditioned buses glided down the center mall in front of them.

She reminded him, "You were going to tell me what happened."

He frowned, bringing his thoughts back to the hotel, then in crisp short sentences related what he knew about the attempted rape of Marsha Preyscott. Christine listened in silence, heading the little car northeast as Peter talked, ending with his conversation with Herbie Chandler and the suspicion that the bell captain knew more than he had told.

"Herbie always knows more. That's why he's been around a long time."

Peter said shortly, "Being around isn't the answer to everything."

The comment, as both he and Christine knew, betrayed Peter's impatience with inefficiencies within the hotel which he lacked authority to change.

In a normally run establishment, with clearly defined lines of command, there would be no such problem. But in the St. Gregory, a good deal of organization was unwritten, with final judgments depending upon Warren Trent, and made by the hotel owner in his own capricious way.

In ordinary circumstances, Peter - an honors graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration would have made a decision months ago to seek more satisfying work elsewhere. But circumstances were not ordinary. He had arrived at the St. Gregory under a cloud, which was likely to remain - hampering his chance of other employment - for a long time to come.

Sometimes he reflected glumly on the botchery he had made of his career, for which no one - he admitted candidly - was to blame except himself.

At the Waldorf, where he had gone to work after graduation from Cornell, Peter McDermott had been the bright young man who appeared to hold the future in his hand. As a junior assistant manager, he had been selected for promotion when bad luck, plus indiscretion, intervened. At a time when he was supposedly on duty and required elsewhere in the hotel, he was discovered in flagrante in a bedroom with a woman guest.

Even then, he might have escaped retribution. Goodlooking young men who worked in hotels grew used to receiving overtures from lonely women, and most, at some point in their careers, succumbed. Managements, aware of this, were apt to punish a single transgression with a stem warning that a similar thing must never happen again. Two factors, however, conspired against Peter. The woman's husband, aided by private detectives, was involved in the discovery, and a messy divorce case resulted, with attendant publicity, which all hotels abhorred.

As if this was not enough, there was a personal retribution. Three years before the Waldorf debacle, Peter McDermott had married impulsively and the marriage, soon after, ended in separation. To an extent, his loneliness and disillusion had been a cause of the incident in the hotel.

Regardless of the cause, and utilizing the readymade evidence, Peter's estranged wife sued successfully for divorce.

The end result was ignominious dismissal and blacklisting by the major chain hotels.

The existence of a black list, of course, was not admitted. But at a long series of hotels, most with chain affiliations, Peter McDermott's applications for employment were peremptorily rejected. Only at the St. Gregory, an independent house, had he been able to obtain work, at a salary which Warren Trent shrewdly adjusted to Peter's own desperation.

Therefore when he had said a moment ago, Being around isn't the answer to everything, he had pretended an independence which did not exist. He suspected that Christine realized it too.

Peter watched as she maneuvered the little car expertly through the narrow width of Burgundy Street, skirting the French Quarter and paralleling the Mississippi a half mile to the south. Christine slowed momentarily, avoiding a group of unsteady wassailers who had wandered from the more populous and brightly lighted Bourbon Street, two blocks away. Then she said, "There's something I think you should know. Curtis O'Keefe is arriving in the morning.

It was the kind of news that he had feared, yet halfexpected.

Curtis O'Keefe was a name to conjure with. Head of the world-wide O'Keefe hotel chain, he bought hotels as other men chose ties and handkerchiefs.

Obviously, even to the sparsely informed, the appearance of Curtis O'Keefe in the St. Gregory could have only one implication: an interest in acquiring the hotel for the constantly expanding O'Keefe chain.

Peter asked, "Is it a buying trip?"

"It could be." Christine kept her eyes on the dimly lighted street ahead.

"W.T. doesn't want it that way. But it may turn out there isn't any choice." She was about to add that the last piece of information was confidential, but checked herself. Peter would realize that. And as for the presence of Curtis O'Keefe, that electrifying news would telegraph itself around the St. Gregory tomorrow morning within minutes of the great man's arrival.

"I suppose it had to come." Peter was aware, as were other executives in the hotel, that in recent months the St. Gregory had suffered severe financial losses. "All the same, I think it's a pity."

Christine reminded him, "It hasn't happened yet. I said W.T. doesn't want to sell."

Peter nodded without speaking.

They were leaving the French Quarter now, turning left on the boulevarded and tree-lined Esplanade Avenue, deserted except for the receding taillights of another car disappearing swiftly toward Bayou St. John.

Christine said, "There are problems about refinancing. W.T. has been trying to locate new capital. He still hopes he may."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then I expect we shall be seeing a lot more of Mr. Curtis O'Keefe."

And a whole lot less of Peter McDermott, Peter thought. He wondered if he had reached the point where a hotel chain, such as O'Keefe, might consider him rehabilitated and worth employing. He doubted it. Eventually it could happen if his record remained good. But not yet.

It seemed likely that he might soon have to search for other employment.

He decided to worry when it happened.

"The O'Keefe - St. Gregory," Peter ruminated. "When shall we know for sure?"

"One way or the other by the end of this week."

"That soon!"

There were compelling reasons, Christine knew, why it had to be that soon. For the moment she kept them to herself .

Peter said emphatically, "The old man won't find new financing."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because people with that kind of money want a sound investment. That means good management, and the St. Gregory hasn't got it. It could have, but it hasn't."

They were headed north on Elysian Fields, its wide dual lanes empty of other traffic, when abruptly a flashing white light, waving from side to side, loomed directly ahead. Christine braked and, as the car stopped, a uniformed traffic officer walked forward. Directing his flashlight onto the Volkswagen, he circled the car, inspecting it. While he did, they could see that the section of road immediately ahead was blocked off by a rope barrier. Beyond the barrier other uniformed men, and some in plain clothes, were examining the road surface with the aid of powerful lights.

Christine lowered her window as the officer came to her side of the car.

Apparently satisfied by his inspection, he told them, "You'll have to detour, folks. Drive slowly through the other lane, and the officer at the far end will wave you back into this one."

"What is it?" Peter said. "What's happened?"

"Hit and run. Happened earlier tonight."

Christine asked, "Was anyone killed?"

The policeman nodded. "Little girl of seven." Responding to their shocked expressions, he told them, "Walking with her mother. The mother's in the hospital. Kid was killed outright. Whoever was in the car must have known.

They drove right on. Beneath his breath he added, "Bastards!"

"Will you find out who it is?"

"We'll find out." The officer nodded grimly, indicating the activity behind the barrier. "The boys usually do, and this one's upset them. There's glass on the road, and the car that did it must be marked." More headlights were approaching from behind and he motioned them on.

They were silent as Christine drove slowly through the detour and, at the end of it, was waved back into the regular lane. Somewhere in Peter's mind was a nagging impression, an errant half-thought he could not define. He supposed the incident itself was bothering him, as sudden tragedy always did, but a vague uneasiness kept him preoccupied until, with surprise, he heard Christine say, "We're almost home."

They had left Elysian Fields for Prentiss Avenue. A moment later the little car swung right, then left, and stopped in the parking area of a modern, two-story apartment building.

"If all else fails," Peter called out cheerfully, "I can go back to bartending." He was mixing drinks in Christine's living room, with its soft tones of moss-green and blue, to the accompanying sound of breaking eggshells from the kitchen adjoining.

"Were you ever one?"

"For a while." He measured three ounces of rye whiskey, dividing it two ways, then reached for Angostura and Peychaud's bitters. "Sometime I'll tell you about it." As an afterthought he increased the proportion of rye, using a handkerchief to mop some extra drops which had fallen on the Wedgwood-blue rug.

Straightening up, he cast a glance around the living room, with its comfortable mixture of furnishings and color - a French provincial sofa with a leaf-design tapestry print in white, blue, and green; a pair of Hepplewhite chairs near a marble-topped chest, and the inlaid mahogany sideboard on which he was mixing drinks. The walls held some Louisiana French prints and a modern impressionist oil. The effect was of warmth and cheerfulness, much like Christine herself, he thought. Only a cumbrous mantel clock on the sideboard beside him provided an incongruous note.

The clock, ticking softly, was unmistakably Victorian, with brass curlicues and a moisture-stained, timeworn face. Peter looked at it curiously.

When he took the drinks to the kitchen, Christine was emptying beaten eggs from a mixing dish into a softly sizzling pan.

"Three minutes more," she said, "that's all."

He gave her the drink and they clinked glasses.

"Keep your mind on my omelet," Christine said. "It's ready now."

It proved to be everything she had promised - light, fluffy, and seasoned with herbs. "The way omelets should be," he assured her, "but seldom are."

"I can boil eggs too."

He waved a hand airily. "Some other breakfast."

Afterward they returned to the living room and Peter mixed a second drink. It was almost two A.M.

Sitting beside her on the sofa he pointed to the odd-appearing clock. "I get the feeling that thing is peering at me - announcing the time in a disapproving tone."

"Perhaps it is," Christine answered. "It was my father's. It used to be in his office where patients could see it. It's the only thing I saved."

There was a silence between them. Once before Christine had told him, matter-of-factly, about the airplane accident in Wisconsin. Now he said gently, "After it happened, you must have felt desperately alone."

She said simply, "I wanted to die. Though you get over that, of course - after a while."

"How long?"

She gave a short, swift smile. "The human spirit mends quickly. That part - wanting to die, I mean - took just a week or two."

"And - after?"

"When I came to New Orleans," Christine said, "I tried to concentrate on not thinking. It got harder, and I had less success as the days went by. I knew I had to do something but I wasn't sure what - or where."

She stopped and Peter said, "Go on."

"For a while I considered going back to university, then decided not.

Getting an arts degree just for the sake of it didn't seem important and besides, suddenly it seemed as if I'd grown away from it all."

"I can understand that."

Christine sipped her drink, her expression pensive. Observing the firm line of her features, he was conscious of a quality of quietude and self-possession about her.

"Anyway," Christine went on, "one day I was walking on Carondelet and saw a sign which said 'Secretarial School.' I thought - that's it! I'll learn what I need to, then get a job involving endless hours of work. In the end that's exactly what happened."

"How did the St. Gregory fit in?"

"I was staying there. I had since I came from Wisconsin. Then one morning the Times-Picayune arrived with breakfast, and I saw in the classifieds that the managing director of the hotel wanted a personal secretary. It was early, so I thought I'd be first, and wait. In those days W.T. arrived at work before everyone else. When he came, I was waiting in the executive suite."

"He hired you on the spot?"

"Not really. Actually, I don't believe I ever was hired. It was just that when W.T. found out why I was there he called me in and began dictating letters, then firing off instructions to be relayed to other people in the hotel. By the time more applicants arrived I'd been working for hours, and I took it on myself to tell them the job was filled."

Peter chuckled. "It sounds like the old man."

"Even then he might never have known who I was, except about three days later I left a note on his desk. I think it read 'My name is Christine Francis,' and I suggested a salary. I got the note back without comment - just initialed, and that's all there's ever been."

"It makes a good bedtime story." Peter rose from the sofa, stretching his big body. "That clock of yours is staring again. I guess I'd better go."

"It isn't fair," Christine objected. "All we've talked about is me." She was conscious of Peter's masculinity. And yet, she thought, there was a gentleness about him too. She had seen something of it tonight in the way that he had picked up Albert Wells and carried him to the other room. She found herself wondering what it would be like to be carried in his arms.

"I enjoyed it - a lovely antidote to a lousy day. Anyway, there'll be other times." He stopped, regarding her directly. "Won't there?"

As she nodded in answer, he leaned forward, kissing her lightly.

In the taxi for which he had telephoned from Christine's apartment, Peter McDermott relaxed in comforting weariness, reviewing the events of the past day, which had now spilled over into the next. The daytime hours had produced their usual quota of problems, culminating in the evening with several more: the brush with the Duke and Dutchess of Croydon, the near demise of Albert Wells, and the attempted rape of Marsha Preyscott. There were also unanswered questions concerning Ogilvie, Herbie Chandler, and now Curtis O'Keefe, whose advent could be the cause of Peter's own departure. Finally there was Christine, who had been there all the time, but whom he had not noticed before in quite the way he had tonight.

But he warned himself: women had been his undoing twice already.

Whatever, if anything, developed between Christine and himself should happen slowly, with caution on his own part.

On Elysian Fields, heading back toward the city, the taxi moved swiftly.

Passing the spot where he and Christine had been halted on the outward journey, he observed that the barrier across the road had disappeared and the police were gone. But the reminder produced once again the vague uneasiness he had experienced earlier, and it continued to trouble him all the way to his own apartment a block or two from the St. Gregory Hotel.