Джон Макдональд - A Key to the Suite

It was ten minutes before six. On impulse he phoned Alma. He let it ring twelve times before he hung up.

The suite was crowded and noisy by a few minutes after six. Hubbard stood by the open doors to the big terrace, nursing a tall drink and talking to Dave Daniels of the Chicago area and Stu Gallard of the Los Angeles district office about Cuba and Castro and foreign markets.

Gallard was saying, angrily, “Mitch brought back this half-horse motor he bought in Montevideo. Made in the USSR. The boys at Schenectady tore it down, and it was built damn good, I’m telling you. And for the price he paid for it, G.E. couldn’t even buy the materials. It’s a hit and run operation, and they figure on losing say a couple-hundred thousand to cripple a half-million dollar distribution system, and then they get the hell out. Just wait until they go to work on one of our...”

“Floyd! Floyd, boy,” Jesse Mulaney bellowed, moving through the crowd. He came up and pumped Hubbard’s hand and said, “Glad you could make it. Dave! Stu! How you boys? Both looking fine. Fine. Connie, honey? You know all three of these boys. Dave Daniels, Stu Gallard, Floyd Hubbard.”

“Of course I do. So nice to see you here, gentlemen.”

One of the road men came flurrying up with the Mulaneys’ order, and in handing the drinks to them, managed to step on Hubbard’s foot.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Geez, Mr. Hubbard, I’m terrible sorry.”

“No harm done,” Hubbard said.

“If you boys will excuse Connie and me, we’ve got to go shake every hand we can find before we settle down to any serious dissipation.”

When Mulaney moved off, Hubbard noticed that neither Daniels nor Gallard made the slightest comment about him, and it was a significant departure from the normal routine, wherein somebody would say casually, “A great guy,” or “Jesse is looking fine.” How beautifully the grapevine works, Hubbard thought acidly. The CIA should check into how it’s done. A national organization, and it gossips more than the Podunk sewing circle. Fourteen members here of the big happy AGM family, and every single one of them, even to the road men, know I’m Hubbard the Hangman. Beware. Step easy or he may finger you too. And I’ve always wanted to be loved.

He made the small talk, and took the strategic sips of his drink, and was aware of trying to look and sound harmless and likable, and was ironically amused at himself.

About a half hour later, Charlie Gromer, one of the older road men, touched his elbow and said, “Excuse me. Mr. Mulaney wants to see you a minute in the next room.”

The direct approach? he thought. Can’t be. Not so soon.

He went into the bedroom Charlie indicated. Jesse was there, with Fred Frick of the local district and Cass Beatty of Advertising. An exceptionally lovely girl was talking to the three of them with considerable animation.

“There he is!” Jesse said. “Problems, Floyd. We figured maybe you could contribute a high-level policy point of view here. Miss Barlund, may I present Mr. Floyd Hubbard.”

“How do you do, Miss Barlund. Jesse, before you give the young lady the wrong slant on things, let me say I consort with the brass. Some of them even say good morning to me when it’s unavoidable.”

“Run through it again for Floyd, Miss Barlund,” Jesse suggested.

“It’s sort of an off-beat idea, Mr. Hubbard, but I did sell it to Mr. Stormlander. He publishes Tropical Life, and I’ve been doing little free-lance articles for him. Everybody knows about conventions, but nobody knows very much about them, really. There’s many misconceptions. And they’re really a terrific industry down here. My idea is to take a typical company group at a typical convention, and do a sort of... well, a human interest thing. American businessmen at a convention and how they really and truly act — what they do, and what they think of conventions.”

“Why us?” Hubbard asked. “Why AGM?”

“I guess I didn’t go at it very scientifically. The companies are listed in the back of the program and I just picked one. I couldn’t use the first one, because there’s only one man here from that company. And the second one was too big. And the third one turned out to be Canadian. This one seems just about right, actually.”

“Would you use actual names? And the name of the company?” Cass Beatty asked. “I didn’t get clear on that.”

“I’d like to,” she said. “It would make it more real.”

“It could get to be too real, couldn’t it?” Hubbard said. “I remember a book a woman did about how they made a movie of The Red Badge of Courage .”

She looked at him and the dark blue of her eyes seemed to change. He had the feeling she had noticed him for the first time and had found a reason for approval. He was surprised at how pleased he was.

“That was Picture by Lillian Ross,” she said. “Golly, it wouldn’t be that sort of thing. Tropical Life is more like... a sort of puff sheet. There’s no reason you people couldn’t approve the manuscript before I turn it in. You might even be able to use it in some of your company literature, if it turns out good enough. Really, all I want to do is just sort of mouse around, take a few pictures, ask people questions when they’re not too terribly busy. I won’t get in anybody’s way, I promise.”

“I don’t know,” Mulaney said. “I just don’t know.”

“Personally, I can’t see anything out of line in it,” Cass said. “It can’t hurt anything, and we might get something we can use, maybe tear sheets to put in our direct mail stuff.”

“How about credentials?” Frick asked.

“Tomorrow I could bring in a letter from Mr. Stormlander authorizing me to go ahead with it. I mean it wouldn’t be a commitment on his part to really use it, because I am doing it on spec. But it would show he’s interested.”

“Sounds good enough for me,” Frick said.

“Floyd? Cass? Any objections?”

“Hell, no!” Beatty said. Hubbard smiled and shook his head.

“You’re in business, Miss Barlund.”

“It’s Cory, Mr Mulaney.”

“Freddy, you go grab a ticket book for Cory so she can go to any of the events she feels like. Floyd, you go on back out there and tell Bobby Fayhouser to shoo our people in here about three at a time and we’ll brief them without busting up the party. Cory, we’ll tell our boys to level with you and leave it up to you what to put in and what to leave out.”

“Did many of the AGM men bring their wives, Mr. Mulaney?”

“You better call me Jesse. I brought Connie, and, Cass, you brought Sue. Anybody else?”

“That’s the works then.”

“I better get all the names down and the jobs,” Cory said.

“Bobby Fayhouser has a list. You can copy it off.”

Floyd found Bobby Fayhouser fixing drinks. He gave him the message.

“What?” Bobby said. “That girl is going to what?”

“Write a warm, heart-tugging story about how AGM goes to a convention.”

“To be cast in bronze. Oh hell, excuse me.”

“For what?”

“For the flip remark. They come out with no warning. I’m supposed to be eager and reverent.”

Hubbard realized Fayhouser was not the dull, earnest young man he had appeared to be. “Cheer up. I’ve learned to live with the same problem.”

“You, Mr. Hubbard! Doesn’t it make people... uneasy about you?”

“All the time. But the way to handle it, Bobby, once it’s said, don’t let it just hang there, stinking in the sunlight. Say something very sincere.”

“Something eager and reverent?”

“Then they’re sure they didn’t understand. Practice it.”