Hotel

18

Dusk, like an anodyne to the departing day, was settling over the city.

Soon, Peter McDermott thought, the night would come, with sleep and, for a while, forgetfulness. Tomorrow, the immediacy of today's events would begin receding. Already, the dusk marked a beginning to the process of time which, in the end, healed all things.

But it would be many dusks and nights and days before those who were closest to today's events would be free from a sense of tragedy and terror. The waters of Lethe were still far distant.

Activity - while not a release - helped the mind a little.

Since early this afternoon, a good deal had occurred.

Alone, in his office on the main mezzanine, Peter took stock of what had been done and what remained.

The grim, sad process of identifying the dead and notifying families had been completed. Where the hotel was to aid with funerals, arrangements had began.

The little that could be done for the injured, beyond hospital care, had been put in hand.

Emergency crews - fire, police - had long since left. In their place were elevator inspectors, examining every piece of elevator equipment the hotel possessed. They would work into tonight and through tomorrow.

Meanwhile, elevator service had been partially restored.

Insurance investigators - gloomy men, already foreseeing massive claims - were intensively questioning, collecting statements.

On Monday, a team of consultants would fly from New York to begin planning for replacement of all passenger elevator machinery with new.

It would be the first major expenditure of the Albert Wells-Dempster-McDermott regime.

The resignation of the chief engineer was on Peter's desk. He intended to accept it.

The chief, Doc Vickery, must be honorably retired, with the pension befitting his long years of service to the hotel. Peter would see to it that he was treated well.

M. Hebrand, the chef de cuisine, would receive the same consideration. But the old chefs retirement must be accomplished quickly, with Andre Lemieux promoted to his place.

On young Andre Lemieux - with his ideas for creation of specialty restaurants, intimate bars, an overhaul of the hotel's entire catering system - much of the St. Gregory's future would depend. A hotel did not live by renting rooms alone. It could fill its rooms each day, yet still go bankrupt. Special services - conventions, restaurants, bars were where the mother lode of profit lay.

There must be other appointments, a reorganization of departments, a fresh defining of responsibilities. As executive vice-president, Peter would be involved much of the time with policy. He would need an assistant general manager to supervise the day-to-day running of the hotel. Whoever was appointed must be young, efficient, a disciplinarian when necessary, but able to get along with others older than himself. A graduate of the School of Hotel Administration might do well. On Monday, Peter decided, he would telephone Dean Robert Beck at Cornell. The dean kept in touch with many of his bright ex-students. He might know such a man, who was available now.

Despite today's tragedy, it was necessary to think ahead.

There was his own future with Christine. The thought of it was inspiring and exciting. Nothing between them had been settled yet. But he knew it would be. Earlier, Christine had left for her Gentilly apartment. He would go to her soon.

Other - less palatable - unfinished business still remained. An hour ago, Captain Yolles of the New Orleans Police had dropped into Peter's office.

He had come from an interview with the Duchess of Croydon.

"When you're with her," Yolles said, "you sit there wondering what's under all that solid ice. Is it a woman? Does she feel about the way her husband died? I saw his body. My God! - no one deserved that. For that matter, she saw him too. Not many women could have faced it. Yet, in her, there isn't a crack. No warmth, no tears. Just her head tilted up, that way she has, and the haughty look she gives you. If I tell you the truth - as a man - I'm attracted to her. You get to feeling you'd like to know what she's really like." The detective stopped, considering. Later, answering Peter's question, Yolles said, "Yes, we'll charge her as an accessory, and she'll be arrested after the funeral. What happens beyond that - whether a jury will convict if the defense claims that her husband did the conniving, and he's dead . . . Well, well see."

Ogilvie had already been charged, the policeman revealed. "He's booked as an accessory. We may throw more at him later. The D.A. will decide. Either way, if you're keeping his job open, don't count on seeing him back in less than five years."

"We're not." Reorganization of the hotels detective force was high on Peter's list of things to do.

When Captain Yolles had gone, the office was quiet. By now, it was early evening. After a while, Peter heard the outer door open and close. A light tap sounded on his own. He called, "Come in!"

It was Aloysius Royce. The young Negro carried a tray with a martini pitcher and a single glass. He set the tray down.

"I thought maybe you could do with this."

"Thanks," Peter said. "But I never drink alone."

"Had an idea you'd say that." From his pocket, Royce produced a second glass.

They drank in silence. What they had lived through today was still too close for levity or toasts.

Peter asked, "Did you deliver Mrs. Lash?"

Royce nodded. "Drove her right to the hospital. We had to go in through separate doorways, but we met inside and I took her to Mr. O'Keefe."

"Thank you." After Curtis O'Keefe's call, Peter had wanted someone at the airport on whom he could rely. It was the reason he had asked Royce to go.

"They'd finished operating when we got to the hospital. Barring complications, the young lady - Miss Lash - will be all right."

"I'm glad."

"Mr. O'Keefe told me they're going to be married. As soon as she's well enough. Her mother seemed to like the idea."

Peter smiled fleetingly. "I suppose most mothers would."

There was a silence, then Royce said, "I heard about the meeting this morning. The stand you took. The way things turned out."

Peter nodded. "The hotel is desegregated. Entirely. As of now."

"I suppose you expect me to thank you. For giving us what's ours by right."

"No," Peter said. "And you're being prickly again. I wonder, though, if you might decide now to stay with W.T. I know he'd like it, and you'd be entirely free. There's legal work for the hotel. I could see that some of it came your way.

"I'll thank you for that," Royce said. "But the answer's no. I told Mr. Trent this afternoon - I'm leaving, right after graduation." He refilled the martini glasses and contemplated his own. "We're in a war, you and me - on opposite sides. It won't be finished in our time, either. What I can do, with what I've learned about the law, I intend to do for my people. There's a lot of in-fighting ahead - legal, some of the other kind too. It won't always be fair, on our side as well as yours. But when we're unjust, intolerant, unreasonable, remember - we learned it from you.

There'll be trouble for all of us. You'll have your share here. You've desegregated, but that isn't the end. There'll be problems - with our people who won't like what you've done, with Negroes who won't behave nicely, who'll embarrass you because some are the way they are. What'll you do with the Negro loudmouth, the Negro smart-aleck, the Negro half-drunk Romeo? We've got 'em, too. When it's white people who behave like that, you swallow hard, you try to smile, and most times you excuse it. When they're Negroes - what'll you do then?"

"It may not be easy," Peter said. "I'll try to be objective."

"You will. Others won't. All the same, it's the way the war will go.

There's just one good thing."

"Yes?"

"Once in a while there'll be truces." Royce picked up the tray with the pitcher and the empty glasses. "I guess this was one."

Now it was night.

Within the hotel, the cycle of another innkeeping day had run its course.

This had differed from most, but beneath unprecedented events, routines had continued. Reservations, reception, administration, housekeeping, engineering, garage, treasury, kitchens ... all had combined in a single, simple function. To welcome the traveler, sustain him, provide him with rest, and speed him on.

Soon, the cycle would begin again.

Wearily, Peter McDermott prepared to leave. He switched off the office lights and, from the executive suite, walked the length of the main mezzanine. Near the stairway to the lobby he saw himself in a mirror. For the first time, he realized that the suit he was wearing was rumpled and soiled. It became that way, he reflected, under the elevator debris where Billyboi died.

As best he could, he smoothed the jacket with his hand. A slight rustling made him reach into a pocket where his fingers encountered a folded paper.

Taking it out, he remembered. It was the note which Christine had given him as he left the meeting this morning - the meeting where he had staked his career on a principle, and won.

He had forgotten the note until now. He opened it curiously. It read: It will be a fine hotel because it will be like the man who is to run it.

At the bottom - in smaller lettering, Christine had written: P.S. I love you.

Smiling, the length of his stride increasing, he went downstairs to the lobby of his hotel.