Джон Макдональд - A Key to the Suite

“Technically? What the hell, Cory! What is this?”

“Oh, you’re sort of the gift certificate type. I shouldn’t tell you, but I don’t expect it matters much one way or the other. You’re the guest of Frick and Mulaney, dear. So enjoy. It’s such a special deal, lasting so long, dear Alma clipped them for seven and a half, but only four hundred to me.”

He stood up and paced to the terrace door. “But why?”

“Is that so hard? I’m going to make a big ugly public scene over you before this clambake is over. A horrid type named Amory has cautioned me to take it easy in the public rooms of the hotel when I go dramatic. You’re going to be hung as a sheep so you’ll ease off on Mr. Mulaney, obviously. And since you are going to be hung as a sheep anyway, dear, why don’t you come to bed like a lamb?”

“Those silly bastards!”

“I probably talked too much. You’re too easy to talk to, do you know that?”

“I’ve cultivated the talent.” He sat beside her again. “On my word of honor, Cory, scene or no scene, I still give Mulaney the business. I’ve committed myself. Now the only thing such a scene could do is hurt me with the people I work for. So how about giving it up?”

“Don’t be silly! I promised, and I was paid.”

“But it won’t do any good!”

“Lover, I couldn’t care less.”

“A heart of gold. Dear God!”

“You’ll never, never forget me, Floyd. Every time you mount your darling Jan, I’ll be riding your shoulders like a witch, jeering at you, boy.”

“It won’t be that way, believe me, but why the big boot out of punishing me? I didn’t buy you. I was a damn fool, thinking I was irresistible.”

“You cheated on your marriage, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but it was...”

“So you get a little more than you asked for. And the fee is paid, lover. So you might as well get the use of it. So go walk around if you have to. Go have a drink or two. Think of me. I’ll be right here in your bed, cozy and warm and ready, waiting for you.”

“Why don’t you get dressed and go home?”

“Why should I make it easy for you, you sanctimonious bastard? You’re crawling with guilt and you think you can lighten the burden by refusing a second chance. You can’t get clean that easy, not after yesterday. If the murderer lets his next victim walk away, does that turn him into a saint?”

“Maybe it’s just that all of a sudden the merchandise looks shopworn.”

“You tried the low blow, boy, and it doesn’t work.”

He dressed slowly. By the time he was finished, she was asleep. She had turned onto her side, and in the reflected light she looked small and girlish in the bed, innocent and uninvolved. Her perfume lay on the quiet air. So get out, he told himself. Pack and check out. The job here is done, so why stay? You know where the trip wire is, so back off. Your luck is still running good. Good? Let’s call it just fair. But a good knock is in order, for the steady nerves, the morale of the hatchetman. He went slowly to the end of the corridor and walked into the suite. Bobby Fayhouser put a magazine aside and stood up. “Hi, Floyd! They’ve all gone down to dinner. Almost all of them.”

Hubbard nodded and went to the bar. He made himself a heavy highball. “To conventions,” he said. “To jackasses.”

“That’s a toast to the whole human race, isn’t it?”

“Cynicism is a privilege of the very young, Robert. Now that I’m older, I’m becoming one of the boys, earnest and folksy.”

“Are you sore about something?”

“Nothing terribly specific, I guess. Keep it to yourself, Bobby, but I am departing. This large knock and the one to follow are in the nature of farewell toasts.”

“Are you figuring on getting smashed? I mean, it’s none of my business, but I thought you’d play it cool all the way, Mr. Hubbard. But I guess, if you’re going, you can chug-a-lug a few. I guess you wouldn’t have wanted to get too loose in front of everybody while you still... you still had work to do.”

“So good reports would go back?”

“I guess so.”

Hubbard finished the drink and dropped another cube in the glass and picked up the bottle. “Let’s just say that suddenly I’ve become highly nervous, Bobby. I’m so nervous I’m forgetting to be smart. I’ve got an unused gift certificate. Everybody reads my mail. I hit white-haired ladies between the eyes. My sunburn itches. I’m stronger than I would want to be, given the choice. I didn’t take a very good shower this evening. When the world is turning, you should be able to run fast enough to stay in the same place.”

Fayhouser looked slightly alarmed. “You lose me with no trouble, sir.”

“Losing myself comes next. Cheers.”

“Excuse me and all that, but you’re setting a pace. Thirty minutes you might last. Take it out of gear right now, Mr. Hubbard, and you could coast quite a way.”

Hubbard smiled at him. “You are so right, Bobby. I should coast, shouldn’t I? If I pass out, I can’t do the damage. I have to be able to keep walking and talking, or I’ll skip my chance to become a figure of fun. My God, you should have seen good old Floyd Hubbard at that convention!”

Fayhouser said, “Don’t get me wrong in the way I mean this, Floyd, but is there anything I can do?”

Hubbard put the empty glass down. The decorator colors were brighter. His lips felt rubbery. “You are a good man, Fayhouser. Keep your head down for a while. Keep the knees slightly bent, feet apart, open stance, slow backswing.”

“I don’t play. I’m only a caddy.”

“And I used to be on the house committee,” Hubbard said, and walked out of the suite. He went down to one of the hotel bars and drank the world a little mistier, right to the place where he could find his drinking grin, and his drinking uninvolvement, and walk slowly among the people, delighted by all things, but wary of the little edges of tears or panic or violence which, unless carefully watched, could move in and bust the holiday balloon in his chest. Time changed to bottle time, running raggedly, fast and slow, and the world became an inexpert hobby film, alternating vividness with blank frames, with a tilt to the camera and the focus unreliable.

After a time when the film was blank, he was in a corridor, edged into a corner, alone with Dave Daniels and being breathed upon by him.

“Get cute again, kiddo. Go ahead.”

“I’m terribly cute,” Hubbard said, and suddenly he had the corridor rug against his cheek, and he was articulating each suck of air. Daniels helped him up, and Hubbard felt a wild delight. “We could fight,” he said, still gasping. “Let’s find a place.”

“Shut up! I’m asking you again. Where’s that slut?”

“Have you been asking me?”

“Where’s Cory? Don’t horse with me, Hubbard.”

“Cory? Dave, boy, she doesn’t like you.”

“She likes me fine. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Aren’t we going to fight, Dave?”

“Later.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Yes.”

“If I tell you where she is, we’ll go someplace? And fight it out?”

“We sure will, Hubbard.”

He took keys out of his pocket. It took him a long time to sort them. After he gave Daniels the key to 847, the only key he had left was the one to 1102. It seemed a hell of a thing that it should take so long to sort out just two keys. He looked up to share this ludicrous joke with Daniels, but he found himself alone in the corridor. He shrugged. He listened. He heard laughter and music and the rumble of conversation from the rooms down the hall. He headed, smiling, toward the party sounds.

Again time took a tilt, a lurch, and when the image cleared he was in the crowded parlor of a smaller, unfamiliar suite, sitting in a straight chair pulled close to a corner couch, leaning forward, grinning, talking to one of the Honey-Bunny blondes, talking so intently about something so important that it slid out of his mind the moment this increase of awareness came upon him.