3

When Christine Francis saw him, Sam Jakubiec, the stocky, balding credit manager, was standing at the Reception, making his daily check of the account of every guest in the hotel. There was almost nothing that the credit chief’s shrewd mind missed. In the past it had saved the hotel thousands of dollars in bad debts.

“Anything interesting this morning?”

Without pausing, Jakubiec nodded. “A few things. For example, Sanderson, room 1207. Disproportionate tipping.”

It showed two room-service charges – one for $1.50, the other for two dollars. In each case a two-dollar tip had been added and signed for.

“People who don’t intend to pay often write the biggest tips,” Jakubiec said. “Anyway, it’s one to check out.”

“Now,” he said, “what can I do?”

“We’ve hired a private duty nurse for 1410.” Briefly Christine reported the previous night’s crisis concerning Albert Wells. “I’m a little worried whether Mr. Wells can afford it,” she said, though she was more concerned for the little man himself than for the hotel.

They crossed the lobby to the credit manager’s office. A dumpy brunette secretary was working inside.

“Madge,” Sam Jakubiec said, “see what we have on Wells, Albert.”

Without answering, she opened a drawer and flipped over cards. Pausing, she said in a single breath, “Albuquerque, Coon Rapids, Montreal, take your pick.”

“It’s Montreal,” Christine said, and Jakubiec took the card the secretary offered him. Scanning it, he observed, “He looks all right. Stayed with us six times. Paid cash. One small query, which seems to have been settled.”

“It was our fault.”

The credit man nodded. “I’d say there’s nothing to worry about.” He handed the card back to the secretary.

“I’ll look into it, though. If he has a cash problem, we could maybe help out, give him a little time to pay.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

Back in her own office in the executive suite she decided first to complete the matter which had taken her downstairs. Lifting the telephone, she asked for room 1410.

“Mr. Wells passed a comfortable night,” the nurse informed her, “and his condition is improved.”

Wondering why some nurses felt they had to sound like official bulletins, Christine replied, “Please, tell Mr. Wells I called and that I’ll see him this afternoon.”

4

The inconclusive conference in the hotel owner’s suite left Peter McDermott in a mood of frustration. As he had on other occasions, he wished fervently that he could have six months and a free hand to manage the hotel himself.

Near the elevators he stopped to use a house phone, inquiring from Reception what accommodation had been reserved for Mr. Curtis O’Keefe’s party. There were two adjoining suites on the twelfth floor.

As he approached, he saw that all four doors to the suites were open and, from within, the whine of a vacuum cleaner was audible. Inside, two maids were working industriously under the critical eye of Mrs. Blanche du Quesnay, the St. Gregory’s sharp-tongued but highly competent housekeeper.

She turned as Peter came in, “I might have known that one of you men would be checking up to see if I’m capable of doing my own job.”

Peter grinned. “Relax, Mrs. Q. Mr. Trent asked me to drop in. If only he had known you were giving this your personal attention!” He then inquired, “Have flowers and a basket of fruit been ordered?”

“They’re on the way up. Have a look around. There’s no charge.”

Both suites, Peter saw as he walked through them, had been gone over thoroughly. The furnishings were dustless and orderly. In bedrooms and bathrooms the linen was spotless and correctly folded, hand basins and baths were dry and shining. Mirrors and windows gleamed. There was nothing else to be done, Peter thought, as he stood in the center of the second suite.

Then a thought struck him. Curtis O’Keefe was notably religious. The hotelier prayed frequently, sometimes in public. The thought prompted Peter to check the Gideon Bibles – one in each room.

He was glad he did.

As usually happened when they had been in use for any length of time, the Bibles’ front pages were dotted with call girls’ phone numbers, since a Gideon Bible – as experienced travelers knew – was the first place to seek that kind of information. Peter showed the books silently to Mrs. du Quesnay. “I’ll have new ones sent up. I suppose what Mr. O’Keefe likes or doesn’t is going to make a difference to people keeping their jobs around here.”

He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know, Mrs. Q. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Peter supposed that most of the younger and brighter staff members would have an opportunity to stay on. Older employees though had a good deal more to worry about.

As Peter McDermott approached the executive suite, the chief engineer, Doc Vickery, was leaving it. Stopping, Peter said, “Number four elevator was giving some trouble last night, chief. Is it really that bad?”

“If you mean shall we have a big accident, the answer’s no. But we’ve had small breakdowns and sometime there’ll be a bigger one.”

Peter inquired, “What is it you need?”

“A hundred thousand dollars to start. Good machinery’s a lovely thing. Most times it’ll do more work than you think it could, and after that you can patch it and coax it, and it’ll work for you some more. But somewhere along there’s a death point you’ll never get by, no matter how much you want to.”

Peter was still thinking about the chief’s words when he entered his own office. What was the death point, he wondered, for an entire hotel?

The telephone bell rang. It was Reception. “Mr. McDermott, Mr. Curtis O’Keefe has just checked in.”

5

Curtis O’Keefe marched into the busy lobby like an arrow piercing an apple’s core. And a slightly decayed apple, he thought critically. He headed for Reception not without grace. His athlete’s body had been his pride through most of the fifty-six years, in which he had manipulated himself upward from a lower-middleclass nonentity to become one of the nation’s richest men.

“My name is O’Keefe and I have reserved two suites, one for myself, the other in the name of Miss Dorothy Lash.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure your suites are ready, sir. One moment, please.”

O’Keefe stepped back a pace from the counter, allowing other arrivals to move in. Outside, in bright, warm sunshine, airport limousines and taxis were discharging passengers. He noticed a convention was assembling. A banner proclaimed ‘CONGRESS OF AMERICAN DENTISTRY’.

He could now see Dodo entering the lobby: all legs and breasts radiating sex. He had left her at the car to supervise the baggage. She enjoyed doing things like that occasionally. Anything requiring more cerebral strain was too difficult to her.

She joined him. Under the big hat, which failed to conceal the ash-blond hair, her baby blue eyes were wide as ever in the flawless childlike face.

“Curtie, they say there are a lot of dentists staying here.”

“I’m glad you told me. Otherwise I might never have known.”

“Geez, well maybe I should get that filling done.”

“They’re here to open their own mouths, not other people’s.”

Dodo looked puzzled, as she did so often. Some of O’Keefe’s acquaintances, he knew, wondered about his choice of Dodo as a traveling companion when, with his wealth and influence, he could have anyone he chose. But then, of course, they could only guess the savage sensuality, which Dodo could turn on, according to his own mood. Her stupidities, which seemed to bother others, he thought of as amusing. He supposed, though, he would part with Dodo soon. He would, of course, take care of her and arrange a supporting role or two in Hollywood. She had the body and the face. Others had risen high on those commodities alone. She could do it, too.

The room clerk returned to the front counter. “Everything is ready, sir.”

6

Shortly after Curtis O’Keefe and Dodo, Julius “Keycase” Milne obtained a single room.

It had started well.

He had arrived at Moisant Airport shortly before 7:30 a.m., driving from the cheap motel on Chef Menteur Highway where he had stayed the night before. He read on a plaque that the airport was named after John Moisant, an Orleanian who had been a world aviation pioneer, and he noted that the initials were the same as his own, which could be a favorable omen.

Strolling inconspicuously through the airport terminal, a trim, well-dressed figure, carrying a folded newspaper beneath his arm, Keycase stayed carefully alert. He gave the appearance of a well-to-do businessman, relaxed and confident. Only his eyes moved ceaselessly, following the movements of the early rising travelers, pouring into the terminal from limousines and taxis, which had delivered them from downtown hotels. Twice he saw the beginning of the kind of thing he was looking for. Two men, reaching into pockets for tickets or change, encountered a hotel room key, which they had carried away in error. The first took the trouble to locate a postal box and mail the key, as suggested on its plastic tag. The other handed his to an airline clerk who put it in a cash drawer, presumably for return to the hotel.

Both incidents were disappointing, but Keycase was a patient man. Ten minutes later his patience was rewarded.

A balding man stopped to choose a magazine on his way to the departure ramp. At the newsstand cash desk he discovered a hotel key and gave an exclamation of annoyance, “There isn’t time.” Keycase followed him closely. Good! As the man passed a trash can, he threw the key in.

For Keycase the rest was routine. Strolling past the trash can, he tossed in his own folded newspaper, then, as if abruptly changing his mind, turned back and recovered it. At the same time he looked down, observed the discarded key and palmed it unobtrusively. A few minutes later in the privacy of the men’s toilet he read that it was for room 641 of the St. Gregory Hotel.

Half an hour later a similar incident terminated with the same kind of success. The second key was also for the St. Gregory – a convenience, which prompted Keycase to telephone at once, confirming his own reservation there.

It was not without reason that a New York prosecuting attorney years before had observed in court, “Everything this man becomes involved in, your honor, is a key case. Frankly, I’ve come to think of him as ‘Keycase’ Milne.” The observation followed by a sentence of fifteen years had found its way into police records and the name stuck, so that even Keycase himself now used it with a certain pride. Given time, patience, and luck, the chances of securing a key to almost anything were extremely good.

Countless people left a hotel with their room keys forgotten in pocket or purse. The conscientious ones eventually dropped the keys in a mailbox, and a big hotel like the St. Gregory regularly paid out fifty dollars or more a week in postage due on keys returned. But there were other people who either kept the keys or discarded them indifferently.

This last group kept professional hotel thieves like Keycase steadily in business.

He entered the St. Gregory with a confident air, surrendering his bags to a doorman, and registered as B. W. Meader of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The room clerk treated the newcomer with respect and allocated room 830. Now, Keycase thought agreeably, there would be three St. Gregory keys in his possession: one the hotel knew about and two it didn’t.

Room 830, into which the bellboy ushered him a few moments later, turned out to be ideal. It was spacious and comfortable and the service stairway, Keycase observed as they came in, was only a few yards away.

When he was alone, he unpacked and decided he would have a sleep in preparation for the serious night’s work ahead.