Arthur Hailey - Hotel

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."