Джон Макдональд - A Key to the Suite

“Don’t look at him like that, Cory. It even scares me.”

Cory stood up. “Off to do battle. You’re right, of course. There’s no dreams, no heart of gold. Just a stone heart, and whore tricks, and some more lies, and what’s between the legs.”

“You’d be more content if you’d do less thinking.”

“Don’t you think I try to stop? I’ve got to go.”

“One thing, Cory. You made a bargain. You’ll go through with it all the way, not just half of it.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I wouldn’t want to have to send Ernie around to straighten you out again. I like you best of all, sweetie, and it hurt me to have to do that to you.”

“I said you don’t have to worry about it!”

“Don’t shout at me in my own home, darlin’. Now be off, and don’t do all that thinking.”

Cory paused in the doorway. “What about... if after this I decide to quit?”

“But you won’t.”

“I might, Alma. I really might.”

“Like you’ve done before? How many times? Six? Eight? Stop wasting your pretty breath, girl. You like things nice. You like them too well. And what other way is there to get them so easy? You’re lazy, girl. Whore lazy. Talking of quitting is just another dream. You’ll make your good living on your back until your looks are too far gone, and you’ll never stop thinking you’re a little too good for this kind of work. But just what the hell else are you good for? You better go now because at the moment I’m getting a little sick of you.”

“Bitch!” Cory whispered. “Fat mean bitch!”

Alma got up and lumbered toward her, and Cory fled. Alma went back to her coffee, smiling mildly. She wished she had the talent to write a book on the trade. Case histories, sort of. Cory would be Miss C—. The past four-year history would show that quite often a sensitive, intelligent girl who is determined to destroy herself can be made into a profitable property. The self-hate and the man-hate has to be put to work. They’re hard to handle; but they command a good price. And they seem to last a lot longer at top rates. The dim, placid, little sluts, they control easy, but they go downhill fast, and no matter how fresh and sweet they look when you start them out, they’re usually ready to be wholesaled off in no more than three years, that is, if you want to keep a class clientele.

At the Sultana the executive offices were located on the mezzanine floor and in an office area behind the registration section. However, the public relations director and his small staff were quartered in an office suite at ground level at the far end of the Convention Hall. There were three offices, a large workroom, a dark room, a printing and duplication room, and a private, luxurious bar-lounge setup. The offices and work areas looked out toward the pool and cabana area, and even, if one stood in exactly the right place in the largest office, toward the ocean, visible as a narrow vertical ribbon of blue.

The private bar was the invention of Alan Amory, the director of public relations for the Sultana. It was called the Hideaway Club. Drinks were on the house, but the service hours were limited — noon to one P.M., five to seven. All advance registrations and sudden checkins were scrupulously monitored by the PR staff and checked against Celebrity Service, Who’s Who and Dun and Bradstreet. A selected few were issued metallic membership cards. Amory had also done quite well by quietly delivering cards to extra-special celebrities who unfortunately happened to register at other hotels in the area. The name of the club, plus the “members only” designation, often awakened sufficient curiosity.

At eleven o’clock Alan Amory stood alone in his office in a mood of listless depression. He was a willowy man in rust-colored silk slacks, a pale yellow Italian sports shirt. He had a bland oval face, thinning mousy hair, and some rather precious mannerisms. Yet, over the years, all those female employees who had achieved a false sense of security by privately classifying him as queer had, sooner or later, become acquainted with the enormity of their error.

The sounds of business which came from the workroom did not hearten him. He knew it was all dog work, standard releases to hick papers regarding the local activities of one of their prominent citizens, heavily larded with Sultana promotion, and complete with the glossies taken by his staff photographer. The whippety-click of the high-speed mimeos seemed joyless also, signifying only that he was sending gimmicked copy to a thousand indifferent city desks on what he had analyzed to be a thirty-two to one chance of use. The hotel was jammed with nobodies. They’d cut the nut on entertainment in the public rooms of the hotel. There wasn’t even anybody worth a Hideaway card, and nobody due that was worth one for the next ten days. Lately, he thought, it’s like trying to puff a body and fender shop. Maybe turning down Vegas was the worst mistake of my life.

He had once been a radio tenor, of some small romantic vogue, and when the voice had started to go, he had begun managing a few people, starting with an ex-wife. In the early fifties he had learned that if he developed somebody hot he’d always be squeezed out by MCA or Morris, so he had moved over into the night club thing and then into hotels.

Rick DiLarra came bustling into Amory’s office. DiLarra was a swart, bursting, beetling man, full of a conviction and enthusiasm that was almost plausible. He was the convention director for the Sultana.

Amory turned slowly and looked at DiLarra with mild distaste. “Where were you, sweets?”

“Honest to God, no more than three minutes ago I heard you wanted to ask me something, Alan. I was trying to get the lighting straightened out for...”

“What the hell have you got over there, sweets? Buggy-whip dealers?” Amory drifted over to his flight-deck desk and sagged into a plum leather armchair.

DiLarra perched a chunky hip on a faraway curve of the desk and said earnestly, “No, this is one of the better ones, honest to God. A hell of a lot better than that last bunch. It’s a heavy industry crowd, and every cash drawer in the place is getting well. Is something wrong?”

“I got a call from a clown I know slightly. Stormlander his name is. He publishes a thing called Tropical Life. We make a due-bill deal on a small ad once in a while, I understand. He called just as a matter of courtesy, to say a broad will be in the house doing a spec coverage on one of the outfits in your convention. Something called AGM. That mean anything, sweets?”

“Honest to Christ, Alan, if I started worrying about what initials mean, I’d go nuts.”

“Stormlander says give her cooperation if she asks for it, and if it’s something he can use, we’ll get tear sheets in advance. I thought you’d maybe know something about it.”

“I haven’t heard a thing.”

“I wrote the girl’s name down here. Cory Barlund. That mean anything either?”

“Absolutely nothing, Alan.”

“I thought I’d better check it out with you before I waste time checking it a different way.”

“Some kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know. A small bell rings. I’ve got the idea she was lined up out of the Hideaway a couple or three times in the past couple of years. But I can’t remember who it was through. I think she’s a little high-style piece for the top dollar, and maybe part time rather than regular — that is if it’s the same kid. Rest easy a minute while I check.”

Alan Amory used his direct line, equipped with a mouthpiece which made it impossible for DiLarra to hear a word he said. After Amory got his party he talked for about a minute and a half and then hung up.

“I was right, but I’m not as worried as I was.”