Hotel

4

For several minutes after coming awake, shortly before eight a.m., Warren Trent was puzzled to know why his spirits were instinctively buoyant.

Then he remembered: this morning he would consummate the deal made yesterday with the Journeymen's Union. Defying pressures, glum predictions and sundry assorted obstacles, he had saved the St. Gregory - with only hours to spare - from engorgement by the O'Keefe hotel chain. It was a personal triumph. He pushed to the back of his mind a thought that the bizarre alliance between himself and the union might lead to even greater problems later on. If that happened, he would worry at the proper time; most important was removal of the immediate threat.

Getting out of bed, he looked down on the city from a window of his fifteenth-floor suite atop the hotel. Outside, it was another beautiful day, the sun - already highshining from a near cloudless sky.

He hummed softly to himself as he showered and afterward was shaved by Aloysius Royce. His employer's obvious cheerfulness was sufficiently unusual for Royce to raise his eyebrows in surprise, though Warren Trent - not yet far enough into the day for conversation - offered no enlightenment.

When he was dressed, on entering the living room he immediately telephoned Royall Edwards. The comptroller, whom a switchboard operator located at his home, managed to convey both that he had worked all night and that his employer's telephone call had brought him from a wellearned breakfast. Ignoring the undertone of grievance, Warren Trent sought to discover what reaction had come from the two visiting accountants during the night. According to the comptroller's report, the visitors, though briefed on the hotel's current financial crisis, had uncovered nothing else extraordinary and seemed satisfied by Edwards' responses to their queries.

Reassured, Warren Trent left the comptroller to his breakfast. Perhaps even at this moment, he reflected, a report confirming his own representation of the St. Gregory's position was being telephoned north to Washington. He supposed he would receive direct word soon.

Almost at once the telephone rang.

Royce was about to serve breakfast from the roomservice trolley which had arrived a few minutes earlier. Warren Trent motioned him to wait.

An operator's voice announced that the call was long distance. When he had identified himself, a second operator asked him to wait. At length the Journeymen's Union president came brusquely on the line.

"Trent?"

"Yes. Good morning!"

"I goddam well warned you yesterday not to hold back on information. You were stupid enough to try. Now I'm telling you: people who work trickery on me finish up wishing they hadn't been born. You're lucky this time that the whistle blew before a deal was closed. But this is a warning: don't ever try that game again!"

The unexpectedness, the harsh chilling voice, momentarily robbed Warren Trent of speech. Recovering, he protested, "In God's name, I've not the least idea what this is about."

"No idea, when there'd been a race riot in your goddamned hotel! When the story's spewed over every New York and Washington newspaper!"

It took several seconds to connect the angry harangue with Peter McDermott's report of the previous day.

"There was an incident yesterday morning, a small one. It was certainly not a race riot or anything near. At the time we talked I was unaware that it had happened. Even if I had known, it would not have occurred to me as important enough to mention. As to the New York newspapers, I haven't seen them."

"My members'll see them. If not those papers, then others across the country that'll carry the story by tonight. What's more, if I put money into a hotel that turns away nigs, they'd scream bloody murder along with every two-bit congressman who wants the colored vote."

"It's not the principle you care about, then. You don't mind what we do as long as it isn't noticed."

"What I care about is my business. So is where I invest union funds."

"Our transaction could be kept confidential."

"If you believe that, you're an even bigger fool than I thought."

It was true, Warren Trent conceded glumly: sooner or later news of an alliance would leak out. He tried another approach. "What occurred here yesterday is not unique. It's happened to Southern hotels before; it will happen again. A day or two afterward, attention moves on to something else."

"Maybe it does. But if your hotel got Journeymen's financing - after today - attention would damn soon switch back. And it's the kind I can do without."

"I'd like to be clear about this. Am I to understand that despite your accountants' inspection of our affairs last night, our arrangement of yesterday no longer stands?"

The voice from Washington said, "The trouble isn't with your books. The report my people made was affirmative. It's for the other reason all bets are off."

So after all, Warren Trent thought bitterly, through an incident which yesterday he had dismissed as trifling, the nectar of victory had been snatched away. Aware that whatever was said would make no difference now, he commented acidly, "You haven't always been so particular about using union funds."

There was a silence. Then the Journeymen's president said softly, "Someday you maybe sorry for that."

Slowly, Warren Trent replaced the telephone. On a table nearby Aloysius Royce had spread open the airmailed New York newspapers. He indicated the Herald Tribune. "It's mostly in here. I don't see anything in the Times."

"T'hey've later editions in Washington." Warren Trent skimmed the Herald Tribune headline and glanced briefly at the accompanying picture. It showed yesterday's scene in the St. Gregory lobby with Dr. Nicholas and Dr. Ingram as central figures. He supposed that later he would have to read the report in full. At the moment he had no stomach for it.

"Would you like me to serve breakfast now?"

Warren Trent shook his head. "I'm not hungry." His eyes flickered upward, meeting the young Negro's steady gaze. "I suppose you think I got what I deserved."

Royce considered. "Something like that, I guess. Mostly, I'd say, you don't accept the times we live in."

"If it's true, that needn't trouble you any more. From tomorrow I doubt if my opinion will count for much around here."

"I'm sorry for that part."

"What this means is that O'Keefe will take over." The older man walked to a window and stood looking out. He was silent, then said abruptly, "I imagine you heard the terms I was offered - among them that I'd continue to live here."

"Yes."

"Since its to be that way, I suppose that when you graduate from law school next month, I'll still have to put up with you around the place. Instead of booting you out the way I should."

Aloysius Royce hesitated. Ordinarily, he would have tossed back a quick, barbed rejoinder. But he knew that what he was hearing was the plea of a defeated, lonely man for him to stay.

The decision troubled Royce; all the same, it would have to be made soon.

For almost twelve years Warren Trent had treated him in many ways like a son. If he remained, he knew, his duties could become negligible outside of being a companion and confidant in the hours free from his own legal work.

The life would be far from unpleasant. And yet there were other, conflicting pressures affecting the choice to go or stay.

"I haven't thought about it much," he lied. "Maybe I'd better."

Warren Trent reflected: all things, large and small, were changing, most of them abruptly. In his mind he had not the least doubt that Royce would leave him soon, just as control of the St. Gregory had finally eluded him. His sense of aloneness, and now of exclusion from the mainstream of events, was probably typical of people who had lived too long.

He informed Royce, "You can go, Aloysius. I'd like to be alone for a while."

In a few minutes, he decided, he would call Curtis O'Keefe and officially surrender.