Hotel

2

In his private six-room suite on the hotel's fifteenth floor, Warren Trent stepped down from the barber's chair in which Aloysius Royce had shaved him. A twinge of sciatica jabbed savagely in his left thigh like hot lancets - a warning that this would be another day during which his mercurial temper might need curbing. The private barber parlor was in an annex adjoining a capacious bathroom, the latter complete with steam cabinet, sunken Japanesestyle tub and built-in aquarium from which tropical fish watched, broody-eyed, through laminated glass. Warren Trent walked stiffly into the bathroom now, pausing before a wall-width mirror to inspect the shave. He could find no fault with it as he studied the reflection facing him.

It showed a deep-seamed, craggy face, a loose mouth which could be humorous on occasion, beaked nose and deep-set eyes with a hint of secretiveness. His hair, jetblack in youth, was now a distinguished white, thick and curly still. A wing collar and neatly tied cravat complemented the picture of an eminent southern gentleman.

At other times the carefully cultivated appearance would have given him pleasure. But today it failed to, the mood of depression which had grown upon him over the past few weeks eclipsing all else. So now it was Tuesday of the final week, he reminded himself. He calculated, as he had on so many other mornings. Including today, there were only four more days remaining: four days in which to prevent his lifetime's work from dissolving into nothingness.

Scowling at his own dismal thoughts, the hotel proprietor limped into the dining room where Aloysius Royce had laid a breakfast table. The oak refectory table, its starched napery and silverware gleaming, had a heated trolley beside it which had come from the hotel kitchen at top speed ~ few moments earlier. Warren Trent eased awkwardly into the chair which Royce held out, then gestured to the opposite side of the table.

At once the young Negro laid a second place, slipping into the vacant seat himself. There was a second breakfast on the trolley, available for such occasions when the old man's whim changed his usual custom of breakfasting alone.

Serving the two portions - shirred eggs with Canadian bacon and hominy grits - Royce remained silent, knowing his employer would speak when ready.

There had been no comment so far on Royce's bruised face or the two adhesive patches he had put on, covering the worst of the damage from last night's fracas. At length, pushing away his plate, Warren Trent observed,

"You'd better make the most of this. Neither of us maybe enjoying it much longer.

Royce said, "The trust people haven't changed their mind about renewing?"

"They haven't and they won't. Not now." Without warning the old man slammed his fist upon the table top. "By God! There was a time when I'd have called the tune, not danced a jig to theirs. Once they were lined upbanks, trust companies, all the rest - trying to lend their money, urging me to take it."

"Times change for all of us." Aloysius Royce poured coffee. "Some things get better, others worse."

Warren Trent said sourly, "It's easy for you. You're young. You haven't lived to see everything you've worked for fall apart."

And it had come to that, he reflected despondently. In four days from now - on Friday before the close of business - a twenty-year-old mortgage on the hotel property was due for redemption and the investment syndicate holding the mortgage had declined to renew. At first, on learning of the decision, his reaction had been surprise, though not concern. Plenty of other lenders, he assumed, would willingly take over - at a higher interest rate, no doubt but, on whatever terms, producing the two million dollars needed. It was only when he had been decisively turned down by everyone approached - banks, trusts, insurance companies, and private lenders - that his original confidence waned. One banker whom he knew well advised him frankly, "Hotels like yours are out of favor, Warren. A lot of people think the day of the big independents is over, and nowadays the chain hotels are the only ones which can show reasonable profit. Besides, look at your balance sheet.

You've been losing money steadily. How can you expect lending houses to go along with that kind of situation?"

His protestations that present losses were temporary and would reverse themselves when business improved, achieved nothing. He was simply not believed.

It was at this impasse that Curtis O'Keefe had telephoned suggesting their meeting in New Orleans this week. "Absolutely all I have in mind is a friendly chat, Warren," the hotel magnate had declared, his easy Texan drawl coming smoothly down the long-distance phone. "After all, we're a couple of aging innkeepers, you and me. We should see each other sometimes." But Warren Trent was not deceived by the smoothness; there had been overtures from the O'Keefe chain before. The vultures are hovering, he thought. Curtis O'Keefe would arrive today and there was not the slightest doubt that he was fully briefed on the St. Gregory's financial woes.

With an inward sigh, Warren Trent switched his thoughts to more immediate affairs. "You're on the night report," he told Aloysius Royce.

"I know," Royce said. "I read it." He had skimmed the report when it came in early as usual, observing the notation, Complaint of excessive noise in room 1126, and then, in Peter McDermott's handwriting, Dealt with by A. Royce and P. McD. Separate memo later.

"Next thing," Warren Trent growled, "I suppose you'll be reading my private mail."

Royce grinned. "I haven't yet. Would you like me to?"

The exchange was part of a private game they played without admitting it.

Royce was well aware that if he had failed to read the report the old man would have accused him of lack of interest in the hotel's affairs.

Now Warren Trent inquired sarcastically, "Since everyone else is aware of what went on, would it be taken amiss if I asked for a few details?"

"I shouldn't think so." Royce helped his employer to more coffee. "Miss Marsha Preyscott - daughter of the Mr. Preyscott - was almost raped. Do you want me to tell you about it?"

For a moment, as Trent's expression hardened, he wondered if he had gone too far. Their undefined, casual relationship was based for the most part upon precedents set by Aloysius Royce's father many years earlier. The elder Royce, who served Warren Trent first as body servant and later as companion and privileged friend, had always spoken out with a sprightly disregard of consequences which, in their early years together, drove Trent to white hot fury and later, as they traded insult for insult, had made the two inseparable. Aloysius was little more than a boy when his father had died over a decade ago, but he had never forgotten Warren Trent's face, grieving and tear stained, at the old Negro's funeral. They had walked away from Mount Olivet cemetery together, behind the Negro jazz band which was playing festively Oh, Didn't He Ramble, Aloysius with his hand in Warren Trent's, who told him gruffly, "You'll stay on with me at the hotel. Later we'll work something out." The boy agreed trustingly his father's death had left him entirely alone, his mother having died at his birth - and the "something" had turned out to be college followed by law school, from which he would graduate in a few weeks' time. In the meanwhile, as the boy became a man, he had taken over the running of the hotel owner's suite and, though most of the physical work was done by other hotel employees, Aloysius performed personal services which Warren Trent accepted, either without comment or quarrelsomely as the mood took him. At other times they argued heatedly, mostly when Aloysius rose - as he knew he was expected to - to conversational hooks which Warren Trent baited.

And yet, despite their intimacy and the knowledge that he could take liberties which Warren Trent would never tolerate in others, Aloysius Royce was conscious of a hairline border never to be crossed. Now he said, "The young lady called for help. I happened to hear." He described his own action without dramatizing, and Peter McDermott's intervention, which he neither commended nor criticized.

Warren Trent listened, and at the end said, "McDermott handled everything properly. Why don't you like him?"

Not for the first time Royce was surprised by the old man's perception.

He answered, "Maybe there's some chemistry between us doesn't mix. Or perhaps I don't like big white football players proving how kind they are by being nice to colored boys."

Warren Trent eyed Royce quizzically. "You're a complicated one. Have you thought you might be doing McDermott an injustice?"

"Just as I said, maybe it's chemical."

"Your father had an instinct for people. But he was a lot more tolerant than you."

"A dog likes people who pat him on the head. That's because his thinking isn't complicated by knowledge and education."

"Even if it were, I doubt he'd choose those particular words." Trent's eyes, appraising, met the younger man's and Royce was silent. The remembrance of his father always disturbed him. The elder Royce, born while his parents were still in slavery, had been, Aloysius supposed, what Negroes nowadays contemptuously called an "Uncle Tom nigger." The old man had always accepted cheerfully whatever life brought, without question or complaint. Knowledge of affairs beyond his own limited horizon rarely disturbed him. And yet he had possessed an independence of spirit, as witness his relationship with Warren Trent, and an insight into fellow human beings too deep to be dismissed as cotton-patch wisdom.

Aloysius had loved his father with a deep love which at moments like this transformed itself to yearning. He answered now, "Maybe I used wrong words, but it doesn't change the sense."

Warren Trent nodded without comment and took out his old-fashioned fob watch. "You'd better tell young McDermott to come and see me. Ask him to come here. I'm a little tired this morning."

The hotel proprietor mused, "Mark Preyscott's in Rome, eh? I suppose I ought to telephone him."

"His daughter was insistent that we shouldn't," Peter McDermott said.

The two were in the lavishly furnished living room of Warren Trent's suite, the older man relaxed in a deep, soft chair, his feet raised upon a footstool. Peter sat facing him.

Warren Trent said huffily, "I'll be the one to decide that. If she gets herself raped in my hotel she must accept the consequences."

"Actually we prevented the rape. Though I do want to find out just what happened earlier."

"Have you seen the girl this morning?"

"Miss Preyscott was sleeping when I checked. I left a message asking to see her before she leaves."

Warren Trent sighed and waved a hand in dismissal. "You deal with it all." His tone made clear that he was already tired of the subject. There would be no telephone call to Rome, Peter reasoned with relief.

"Something else I'd like to deal with concerns the room clerks." Peter described the Albert Wells incident and saw Warren Trent's face harden at the mention of the arbitrary room change.

The older man growled, "We should have closed off that room years ago.

Maybe we'd better do it now."

"I don't think it need be closed, providing it's understood we use it as a last resort and tell the guest what he's getting into."

Warren Trent nodded. "Attend to it."

Peter hesitated. "What I'd like to do is give some specific instructions on room changes generally. There have been other incidents and I think it needs pointing out that our guests aren't to be moved around like checkers on a board."

"Deal with the one thing. If I want general instructions I'll issue them."

The curt rejoinder, Peter thought resignedly, typified much that was wrong with the hotel's management. Mistakes were dealt with piecemeal after they happened, with little or no attempt to correct their root cause. Now he said, "I thought you should know about the Duke and Duchess of Croydon. The Duchess asked for you personally." He described the incident of the spilled shrimp Creole and the differing version of the waiter Sol Natchez.

Warren Trent grumbled, "I know that damn woman. She won't be satisfied unless the waiter's fired."

"I don't believe he should be fired."

"Then tell him to go fishing for a few days - with pay but to keep the hell out of the hotel. And warn him from me that next time he spills something, to be sure it's boiling and over the Duchess's head. I suppose she still has those damn dogs."

"Yes." Peter smiled.

A strictly enforced Louisiana law forbade animals in hotel rooms. In the Croydons' case, Warren Trent had conceded that the presence of the Bedlington terriers would not be noticed officially, provided they were smuggled in and out by a rear door. The Duchess, however, paraded the dogs defiantly each day through the main lobby. Already, two irate dog lovers were demanding to know why, when their own pets had been refused admittance.

"I had some trouble with Ogilvie last night." Peter reported the chief house officer's absence and their subsequent exchange.

Reaction was swift. "I've told you before to leave Ogilvie alone. He's responsible directly to me."

"It makes things difficult if there's something to be done . . ."

"You heard what I said. Forget Ogilvie!" Warren Trent's face was red, but less from anger, Peter suspected, than embarrassment. The hands-off-Ogilvie rule didn't make sense and the hotel proprietor knew it. What was the hold, Peter wondered, that the ex-policeman had over his employer?

Abruptly changing the subject, Warren Trent announced, "Curtis O'Keefe is checking in today. He wants two adjoining suites and I've sent down instructions. You'd better make sure that everything's in order, and I want to be informed as soon as he arrives."

"Will Mr. O'Keefe be staying long?"

"I don't know. It depends on a lot of things."

For a moment Peter felt a surge of sympathy for the older man. Whatever criticisms might be leveled nowadays at the way the St. Gregory was run, to Warren Trent it was more than a hotel; it had been his lifetime's work. He had seen it grow from insignificance to prominence, from a modest initial building to a towering edifice occupying most of a city block. The hotel's reputation, too, had for many years been high, its name ranking nationally with traditional hostelries like the Biltmore, or Chicago's Palmer House or the St. Francis in San Francisco. It must be hard to accept that the St. Gregory, for all the prestige and glamour it once enjoyed, had slipped behind the times. It was not that the slippage had been final or disastrous, Peter thought. New financing and a firm, controlling hand on management could work wonders, even, perhaps, restoring the hotel to its old competitive position. But as things were, both the capital and control would have to come from outside - he supposed through Curtis O'Keefe. Once more Peter was reminded that his own days here might well be numbered.

The hotel proprietor asked, "What's our convention situation?"

"About half the chemical engineers have checked out; the rest will be clear by today. Coming in - Gold Crown Cola is in and organized. They've taken three hundred and twenty rooms, which is better than we expected, and we've increased the lunch and banquet figures accordingly." As the older man nodded approval, Peter continued, "The Congress of American Dentistry begins tomorrow, though some of their people checked in yesterday and there'll be more today. They should take close to two hundred and eighty rooms."

Warren Trent gave a satisfied grunt. At least, he reflected, the news was not all bad. Conventions were the lifeblood of hotel business and two together were a help, though unfortunately not enough to offset other recent losses. All the same, the dentistry convention was an achievement. Young McDermott had acted promptly on a hot tip that earlier arrangements by the Dental Congress had fallen through, and had flown to New York, successfully selling New Orleans and the St. Gregory to the convention organizers.

"We had a full house last night," Warren Trent said. He added, "In this business it's either feast or famine. Can we handle today's arrivals?"

"I checked on the figures first thing this morning. There should be enough checkouts, though it'll be close. Our over-bookings are a little high."

Like all hotels, the St. Gregory regularly accepted more reservations than it had rooms available. But also like all hotels, it gambled on the certain foreknowledge that some people who made reservations would fail to show up, so the problem resolved itself into guessing the true percentage of non-arrivals. Most times, experience and luck allowed the hotel to come out evenly, with all rooms occupied - the ideal situation.

But once in a while an estimate went wrong, in which event the hotel was seriously in trouble.

The most miserable moment in any hotel manager's life was explaining to indignant would-be guests, who held confirmed reservations, that no accommodation was available. He was miserable both as a fellow human being and also because he was despondently aware that never again if they could help it - would the people he was turning away ever come back to his hotel.

In Peter's own experience the worst occasion was when a baker's convention, meeting in New York, decided to remain an extra day so that some of its members could take a moonlight cruise around Manhattan. Two hundred and fifty bakers and their wives stayed on, unfortunately without telling the hotel, which expected them to check out so an engineers'convention could move in. Recollection of the ensuing shambles, with hundreds of angry engineers and their women folk encamped in the lobby, some waving reservations made two years earlier, still caused Peter to shudder when he thought of it. In the end, the city's other hotels being already filled, the new arrivals were dispersed to motels in outlying New York until next day when the bakers went innocently away. But the monumental taxi bills of the engineers, plus a substantial cash settlement to avoid a lawsuit, were paid by the hotel - more than wiping out the profit on both conventions.

Warren Trent lit a cigar, motioning to McDermott to take a cigarette from a box beside him. When he had done! O, 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 Carre 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 faded. 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 stifily 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.