Джон Макдональд - A Key to the Suite

They walked to the Sultana from a large parking lot a block and a half away. Frick stopped and looked at the big banner just being fastened in place. “Welcome to the Joint Convention of COLUDA and NAPATAN.”

“Pair of belly dancers,” Fayhouser said.

Frick turned and fixed Fayhouser with a cold glare. “Bobby, that kind of crap is okay between you and me because I know your attitude is generally good. But don’t you start making any smart cracks in front of the wrong people.”

“Sure, Fred,” Fayhouser said uneasily.

“There’s a lot of guys, and we work for some of them, take the National Association maybe a little more serious than they do their daughter’s virginity, and you come out with any cute remarks, they mark you some kind of a Communist. This is your first convention, and about the whole thing, Bobby, your attitude is you got to be eager and reverent.”

“All right, Fred. I didn’t mean anything.”

“Let’s get some coffee and get organized.”

They went into the hotel and down to the lower level, past the shops of furs and jewels to the Persian Grill and sat in the swivel armchairs at the low counter.

Frick opened a small leather notebook and uncapped a gold pen.

“About the Hospitality Suite, Bobby, I am going to go over it one more time with you. I am in charge of all the arrangements for our team, and you are my deputy in charge of the suite. You know the other road men you’re going to have to work with. You keep them in line. Every man comes into the AGM suite, he gets a drink in his hand fast. You and the other boys can drink, but keep them weak. A mild buzz is okay, but nothing more. You all keep smiling. You introduce everybody to everybody, and you do more listening than talking, and you laugh at the jokes.”

“Eager and reverent,” Fayhouser said.

Frick looked at him narrowly. “Exactly. Keep the opened bottles out and the full ones in a bedroom closet. Spread cigarettes around. Keep the ashtrays clean. What’ll be a help, line up one bellhop and hit him pretty good to start, with a promise of more at the end if he takes care of you, which means checking all the time without being called to make sure we got ice and mix and so on. Do the same with a maid on eight, so she can come and hoe the place out whenever it isn’t busy.”

“Right!”

“You’re getting a hell of a break, Bobby, because this way you get to meet AGM brass that wouldn’t know you’re alive otherwise. I’ll be around a lot of the time, of course, but there can be special problems you got to watch. One is, of course, any of the boys we picked for this job getting out of line in any way. It could hurt me and it could hurt you. Once in Atlanta, at a NAPATAN regional convention, one of Federal’s road men helping out in the suite goosed the wife of the executive vice-president down from New York. Federal cleaned out that whole regional organization.”

“No goosing. Got ya!”

“Dammit, Bobby, if you’re not going to take this seriously...”

“I’m taking it seriously, honest, Fred.”

Frick sighed. “Okay. What I was saying, if one of our boys gets plotzed, we run him off the team fast before any damage is done. Another problem, the guy who has hit too many suites and is a drunk nuisance by the time he gets to ours. Check the badge. If he’s brass, all you can do is handle it the best way you know how. Maybe he’s a lousy road man from some other outfit. Then move him out, firm and fast. Send him along. Tell him they got broads at the Federal suite, or at United. Let the competition worry about him. Which brings up a new problem. Broads. I got a bedroom set aside for you boys working the suite, and there’s no real need for more than two of us to be in the suite at the same time. If you get something lined up, okay. So long as you handle it with good taste. Don’t bring broads into the suite. And don’t let anybody get so carried away, he can’t take his turn in the suite. This is a case of just using horse sense.”

“I understand.”

Frick studied his notebook intently for a few moments, then put it back in his pocket. “Now you go check when we can get the suite, and I’ll go see how Tommy’s coming with the exhibit.”

The Sultana had been planned and constructed as a resort-convention hotel, and the huge convention hall was a separate structure, joined to it by an umbilical corridor eighty feet wide and over two hundred feet long. This corridor was adjacent to the Arabian Room, the main dining room of the hotel. When no convention was in progress, or when the convention hall was being used as a sports arena, the corridor could be blocked off by an intricate accordion-door system. When a convention was in progress, the corridor formed an ideal place for exhibits. The lighting, electric outlets, floor covering — had all been planned with this use in mind.

Most of the exhibits were up, and a hundred people were adding the finishing touches. Many of them had a look of total exhaustion. The deadline for removal of the APETOD exhibits had been ten o’clock the previous evening, and many of the people had worked straight through.

Fred Frick walked swiftly through the noises and confusions to the AGM exhibit. Tommy Carmer was opening cartons of color press literature and stacking them on a narrow table just inside the blue velvet rope. A pair of pretty twin blondes in tight plaid pants and sheer blouses watched him with a marked lack of interest. A man in coveralls was sitting on the floor working on a small electric motor. Carmer was a sallow man with a hollow chest, a great naked dome of forehead, and very little chin.

“How’s it look to you, Freddy?”

“Goddam, it looks great! For once we don’t get stuck over in a corner someplace. What’s he doing?”

“Oh, that’s the motor that makes the parts move in the big cutaway display. It quit a minute after I turned it on.”

“Can he fix it?”

“He says so.”

Frick turned toward the blondes. “How are you today, girls? Ready to go?”

One shrugged. The other one said listlessly, “Any time.” They had show girl figures rather than model figures. They looked sulky and bored.

“Which is Honey and which is Bunny?” Frick asked.

“I’m Honey, with the mole,” one of them said, and touched her cheek.

“You going to dog it, girls, or you going to give it the paz-zazz?”

“You’ll get what you’re paying for,” Bunny said. “You got any beef, you call the agency, okay?”

“Let’s hear the spiel, girls.”

They shrugged simultaneously, moved into position. The sudden change in them was electrifying. They became alert, vivacious, with sparkling eyes, big media smiles, arched backs and thrust breasts. They took the alternate lines of the demonstration talk they had learned, and came in on the punch line in unison. Then they immediately lapsed back into sullen boredom.

“That’s great!” Frick cried. “It’s exciting!”

“You pay for pros, you get pros,” Bunny said.

“They all clear on the questions and answers, Tommy?” Frick asked.

“Check them if you want.”

He asked them the questions usually asked about AGM products and installations, and got the right answers. He threw them one he knew was beyond them, and got the proper referral to “our Mr. Carmer.”

“Yeah, Tommy, this ties in perfect with the promotion. Girls, you know the hours you’re going to work. You take your orders from Tommy. And I don’t want you spelling each other. You’re either both here or both gone. One of you has to go to the can, you both go. No drinking, and no dating the guys that’ll sure as hell make a try.”

“Any time we can’t brush off a bunch of crummy convention...”

“Okay. Now what’ll you wear? I want to see plenty of ba-zoom, kids.”