Free Live Free

The Consort

It had been the function of the Hotel Consort to end poverty, and it did it very well. A cynic might have said that was the only thing it did well. An old Italian neighborhood had been demolished. The shops that had sold salami and crucifixes were gone. The cleaners who had offered invisible reweaving had disappeared. An ugly Walgreen drugstore had gathered its narrow aisles like skirts, wrapped itself in the perfume of its fine smells, and hastened off to oblivion. The funeral parlor, once almost smothered in carnations to the honor of a numbers baron, had withered in death. The people who had so often been janitors, nurses, and cops were gone too. No one could say where.

Certainly they were not at the Consort. Its guests were businessmen, almost to the last. Its maids were black when they were not Puerto Rican, its assistant managers collegebred hoteliers who had skimmed Melville and Mark Twain in the course of learning to bully cooks and pad bills, its manager a computer no guest ever saw. Poverty was ended, having vanished from sight.

The many elegant chambers of the Consort are almost too well known for description, since they are found in all major and many minor cities. There is the Gourmand Room, with false European furniture and plastic walnut paneling. The Gourmand Room is open for lunch and dinner. There is Top o’ the Consort, featuring live entertainment, potted plants, and a view that changes every hour. The Top o’ the Consort is open for dinner. There is the Quaint, on a floor not reached by most elevators; the Quaint is open for breakfast and lunch. There are the Apache, Sideburn, and Vermont rooms, all of which can be divided and provided with folding chairs. They are always open except when locked.

And there are those seldom considered rooms, the halls—long, narrow rooms opening into hundreds and thousands of “private” rooms, some of which open into each other. Perhaps the halls are so seldom considered because they are the best rooms of all, and do not command attention. Bad food is not eaten in them, and those who tell bad jokes there are not paid for it. They have the simplicity and dignity conferred by their carpets, which are already beginning to wear. For the most part, they are mercifully silent.

They held something of that silence despite the witch and her bellmen. She, striding along in four-inch heels, only emphasized the quiet with the soft froufrou of her nyloned thighs. The bellmen puffed, groaned, and grunted, so that a dozen such would have sounded like a herd of swine driven to market; but there were only three, and their sighs, their groans and grunts were so muted as to be scarcely audible. When they reached seven seventy-seven, the first set down the bags he carried with a thump; but it was a silent thump, a mere trembling of the structure of the Consort.

“This here’s a lucky room, Ma’am,” he said.

“I do not come to gamble. I endeavored to rent number thirteen-thirteen, but it was unavailable.”

The third bellman said, “There’s no thirteenth floor, Ma’am.”

The first bellman rattled the witch’s key in the lock. “Here you are, Ma‘am. Get those, will you, ’Cisco?” He swept in, leaving the bags he had carried in the hall.

“Closet here, bath over here, TV there. Here’s a remote control for your TV.” He switched it on, dialing down the sound. “Nice picture.”

The witch said, “I do not require two beds.”

“They come with the room, Ma’am.”

“Perhaps if I stay here, I could have one taken away. I would prefer a chaise longue, I think.”

“I’ll tell the assistant manager you’d like to talk to him about it, Ma’am. You can probably get a weekly rate too.”

“Thank you. You have been very kind.” She fumbled in her purse. The other bellmen were piling her luggage in the closet.

“This your first trip to America, Ma’am?”

The witch smiled. “Do I speak your English so badly?”

The second bellman wiped his forehead with a red bandanna. “Oh, no, Senora. Your English is beautiful.” He was Puerto Rican and the is was ees.

“Where you from, Ma’am?” the first bellman asked.

She drew a crisp bill between her fingers as though it were a handkerchief. “And from where do you think I am?”

“Greece?” guessed the first bellman.

“Argentina,” said the second, anxious for the honor of Hispanic nations.

“Belgium,” ventured the third, a devoted reader of Dame Agatha Christie.

“Ah, you are all such very, very intelligent men. Perhaps you are all correct. Perhaps you are none of you correct. I should give you something, no? So is it done here.” She spread the bill long enough for them to glimpse it, then ran it backward and forward between her fingers again. “In my country it is the other way—one gives something when one leaves.”

“You can tip us when you leave if you’d rather, Ma’am,” the first bellman said virtuously. “Only you’re right. Here, we usually get the tip when we take the guest to his room.”

“I have only this one hundred dollar bill,” the witch said. “It is too much, I think, even for three.”

“That’s okay, Ma’am. We’ll see you later.”

“Also I have some one dollar bills. They are too small, I think. Is it not so?”

The hundred flashed among the witch’s fingers. None of the bellmen spoke.

“So I will do this. I will give my one hundred dollar bill to you,” she looked into the eyes of the first bellman, “and you will take it somewhere where they will—how do you say? Make small ones.”

“Break it. Yes, Ma’am.”

“Then you will give yourself ten dollars, and to each of these other men who have helped me ten dollars. The rest you will return to me. Will you do that?”

The bellman smiled and came close to making a little bow. “Of course, Ma‘am. Thank you very much.” The others chimed in: “Gracias, Señora.” “Thank you, Ma’am.”

“It will not take you long? Half an hour, perhaps?”

“Less than that, Ma’am.”

“Good.” Suddenly, impulsively, the witch clasped his hand. “I trust you. You will bring seventy dollars back to me.”

The bellman nodded, glanced at the bill, and thrust it into his pocket. “Let us know if you want anything, Ma’am.”

“I will. Oh, I will!” The door had swung nearly shut. She pushed past them to open it. “Thank you again.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

When they were gone, she threw the night bolt and hung up her coat. “I like you, room,” she said softly. “I am going to stay with you at least a month. At least one month I shall stay here. Yes.” On the television, a beautifully colored man strangled a beautifully colored woman. She retrieved her purse from the desk and flipped the catch.

Stubb stepped from behind the drapes. “You really give them the hundred?”

She whirled on him, eyes blazing. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. You really give them the hundred? Professional interest.”

“I will call the desk. They will have you out at once!”

“Sure. But you’ll be cutting your own throat. A slick worker like you? I don’t think you’re going to do that.”

“And why not?”

“See? You’re not all that sure of yourself. If you were, you’d be on the phone right now. Okay, to start with, I’m on to you. Or anyway, I’ll say I am. I may not be working, and I may not have much money, but I’m still a private operative. You get hotel security up here, and I’ll tell them you’re a bunco artist.”

“I can pay for this room, Mr. Stubb.”

“Sure, but you don’t want to. And whatever it is you’re going to try here isn’t going to work if I tell them—they’ll be watching every move you make. You want to phone?”

The witch shrugged. “You are an old friend. Besides, I am curious.”

“Yeah, you and me both.”

“How did you get here, Mr. Stubb? You know nothing of magic, but that was like magic.”

“No trick at all.” Stubb sat on the bed. “When we dumped your luggage outside the hotel—you didn’t give us any hundred, but maybe we were lucky at that—you expected us to split. I didn’t. I waited and followed you in. You were at the desk, and I got on the other side of the big guy next to you. The clerk said your room number when he shoved the key at the bellhop. I got an elevator while he and his buddies were rounding up your computer and the bags you’d brought here earlier. That was bullshit, when you asked us about the closest hotel; you’d already picked this place and got most of your stuff here, but you didn’t want us to know you’d carried it yourself.

“Anyhow, the elevator got me here maybe two minutes before you came. It took me about fifteen seconds to open the spring lock with plastic slip. Your window there is recessed behind the curtain, so that’s where I stood, with my ass pushed up to the glass. I’m a little guy, as you’ve probably noticed, and sometimes that’s handy. Now, how about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me about the hundred.”

“I have already told you, and when you hid behind my drapes you must have heard. I gave them a one hundred dollar bill. They were to take ten dollars each and bring seventy to me. It was my emergency reserve.”

“And you trusted a bellhop with it and gave thirty bucks in tips? Sure you did. Was it queer?”

“I wish this hotel to believe I have a great deal of money. Thus I can stay a long time.”

“Sure.” Stubb patted his pocket. “I’m out of smokes. You got any?”

“I do not smoke.”

“You smoke; I’ve seen you. What you mean is, you don’t smoke much in public. Give me a cigarette, please.”

The witch said nothing, staring at Stubb.

“Okay, forget it—it’d probably be poisoned anyhow. When I jumped out of your curtains, you had your hand in your bag. Want to tell me what it was doing there?”

“Certainly. You are correct. I was reaching for a cigarette.” The witch picked up her purse and took out an oddly shaped box covered with Arabic script. “They are Turkish.” She extended the package to Stubb.

He selected one and lit it with a paper match. “A little dry,” he said, emitting a puff of smoke. “Maybe they were too long on the boat.”

“I am most terribly sorry. You may give it back to me if you do not like it.”

He chuckled. “That’s better. For a minute I was afraid you were going to go ladylike on me. You’re cute, aren’t you? You’re a cigarette psychologist.”

“I fear I do not know what you mean.”

“When I asked you for a cigarette, you said you didn’t have any, because you figured sooner or later I’d go out after some, and you could lock the door. Then when I started on the handbag, the cigarettes came out to take my mind off it. It won’t work, Madame S. If I ever wanted to smoke that bad, I’d quit.”

“So I was condemned for not giving you a cigarette, and now for giving you one. Such condemnations come cheaply. Very well, you wished for a cigarette and you have one, though you do not like it. What else do you wish?”

“I’ve already told you. I want to know your gimmick with the hundred.”

“And I have told you. I gave the porter one hundred dollars—a hundred dollar bill, not counterfeit as you seem to think. He is to return seventy to me.”

“Okay, I’ll guess. Will you let me see that handbag?”

“Certainly not!”

“Any way you want it. It would be better to have some verification, but here’s my guess. When I got my mug out of the curtains, you were at the bag. You might have been going for your lipstick, but if you had been you wouldn’t be so up-tight about it. So I say you were putting the hundred away for next time. Want to comment?”

“I say only that I am going to have you put out of this room.”

“Either you never really gave the bellhop the hundred—just let him see it and switched it at the last minute—or you got it back somehow. If I had to bet, that would be the way I’d go, because you keep insisting you gave it to him. Want to tell me what he did with it? No? When I’m flush, I usually tip bellhops about a dollar, and I’ve never yet seen one get out his wallet and put my buck in there—they don’t want you to see how much they’ve got. What most of them do is stick it in their front pants pocket. For somebody with magician’s fingers, it wouldn’t be much of a trick to get it out of there.”

The witch spit like a cat. “I do not do tricks!”

“Sure you do. We all do. What you mean is you don’t do them on stage or at parties to impress your friends, if you have any friends.”

“Not like you. You, I am certain, have many, many friends.”

Stubb pointed a finger. “Don’t sneer at me. I warn you, it’s the only thing I can’t take. You sneer at me, and sooner or later I’ll get you.”

“Yes, so many good friends, little man!”

He raised his fist, then let it drop. “You know, I’m glad you said that. It reminded me of something. Want to pass me that phone?”

“Hardly.”

“I think you’d better—”

The telephone rang. Stubb reached for it, but the witch was nearer and quicker. “Yes, this is she … . How did you discover … No, do not come; you will not be admitted.”

Stubb leaned toward the receiver and said loudly, “Come on up. I’ll let you in.”

“You fool! You damnable fool!”

“Don’t you think you should hang up before you call me names?”

The handset slammed down. “You are unendurable!”

“Sure. It’s part of my shtick to be unendurable when I want to be. I do bill collecting when I can’t get anything else. On the other hand, I can be as nice as pie when I’m on your side. Wasn’t I nice when I damn near broke my arm carrying your suitcase? Candy helped too. What’d you carry?”

The witch was calm again, but there was no blood in her dark face. “Are you such a fool as to think I cannot curse? I can, and though in the ordinary course of life I would not waste my efforts on such small prey, for you I will make an exception. Wait and see what I shall do!”

Stubb chuckled. “Going to curdle my milk? Madame S., I’m flat broke. I’m nearsighted, and there’s newspaper in these shoes, and I think I’m getting an ulcer. Anything you could do now would just put me in jail or the hospital, and either one would be a hell of a relief. Curse away, and meantime I’ll be cursing you, in my own inimitable fashion. Or would you rather have me working for you?”