Edward Lee - The Chosen

Ghosts, she thought.

Vera dismissed the book’s revelations as fantasy, but Donna, of late, wasn’t so sure. She hadn’t been sleeping well recently. Often she’d wake at night convinced someone was in the room, or standing just outside the door. Into the wee hours, she could hear the doors of the room-service elevators opening and closing downstairs, but it was strange that she’d never hear the elevators themselves traveling up and down from the RS kitchen to the upper suites. There were other sounds too, more distant sounds, like footsteps, faraway muttering, and something that sounded like a shriek. And tonight, when The Carriage House had closed, she came upstairs to shower before bed and had been absolutely irked by the impression that someone was watching her.

But what bothered her most of all was the dream.

It made little sense, and wasn’t particularly harrowing. Yet she’d had it every night now since they’d moved to The Inn.

She’d dream of herself walking dim, dank corridors, dressed only in her sheerest lingerie. She felt intoxicated and aroused, as if in a trance. As if someone were summoning her.

Someone, or something.

— | — | —

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Vera descended the stairs the next morning at ten, wearing a lightly flowered chartreuse jacket and white chiffon skirt. A bleached stone statue of Edward the Confessor smirked at her on the landing when she evened the jacket’s low-cut brim.

She’d slept in snatches, dragged in and out of sleep. The dream of The Hands had mauled her all night, plied her, twisted her into the lewdest positions. She’d waked just before dawn in a gloss of perspiration, having kicked off the bedcovers in her sleep. One pillowcase was torn, she’d noticed, by her teeth. I’m so horny I’m having sex- fits, she’d thought. Her sweat dampened the sheets beneath her. Hard as she tried, she couldn’t return to sleep, tossing and turning instead.

More and more now, The Inn’s resistance to light occurred to her. Little sunlight fell into the atrium this morning, leaving only quiet gloom. She went behind the reception desk and down the left hall, to the front office. Feldspar looked up from his desk and semi-smiled when she entered.

“Good morning, Ms. Abbot.”

“Hi, Mr. Feldspar,” she replied. “You’re a pretty hard guy to track down.”

“Indeed.” He set his Mont Blanc down on the blotter and stiffly rose. “I apologize for not being present for your opening night—I was horribly detained writing promotional copy for our new membership brochures. I understand your first night went well.”

No one had to go to the hospital with food poisoning, she thought, if that’s what you mean by well. “We only did fifteen dinners.”

“Ah, and you’re disappointed by that.” This was an observation, not a question.

“Well, I’m not jumping up and down with joy. I still think if we’d run some ads…”

Feldspar smiled more broadly this time. He idly stroked his goatee, looking at her. “You expected a deluge of business on opening night? Surely not. What you must understand, Ms. Abbot, is the real function of The Carriage House.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a sideline, a subordination. I don’t expect the restaurant, on its own, to ever operate in the black.”

This frustrated, even astonished, her. Then why the hell are you paying us all this money? she wanted to shout. Why do you have a restaurant at all if you don’t expect it to make a profit?

“Our priority is The Inn,” he stated. “Our business profits come from guest reservations. I thought I’d made that clear.”

“Well, you did,” she admitted, “sort of.” Then she decided to voice her query, even though it countered her best interests. “So why even have the restaurant at all? The food inventories, the payroll, and its construction costs must come to a tremendous sum.”

“The building cost of The Carriage House,” Feldspar finally revealed “totaled out at just under a million, and I’m figuring half a million per year for stock, salaries, and utilities, based on the restaurants from Magwyth Enterprises’ other inns.”

“What are your average gross receipts from the same restaurants?” she now felt obliged to ask.

Feldspar shrugged. “About a hundred thousand, a little more sometimes.”

Four hundred grand in the hole every year? she calculated.

“And you’re thinking it’s an affront to business logic to maintain a quality restaurant that will never show profits.”

“Yes,” Vera said. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“Quality,” Feldspar replied, “is the key word in the theorem. And long-term overall profit projections. Why does any hotel spend fifteen thousand dollars for a painting that few patrons even look at? Why does a broker spend more on office furniture than the average person earns in several years? La Belle Dame, in southern France, recently purchased a bottle of Medoc to display in their dining room. It cost one hundred twenty thousand dollars. Certainly no one’s going to order it with dinner.”

“So it’s all a show, in other words?” Vera reasoned.

“Yes, or in better words, it’s all a verification of impeccable quality standards. In our business, we amass such standards to a single, focused effect. Our select clientele want proof of such standards. They pay for it.”

The Carriage House is an expensive chair that no body’s even supposed to sit in, Vera thought. Just a pretty thing for patrons to notice out of the corner of their eye when they’re walking up to their high-priced suites. We’re just scenery.

“That’s why I hired you,” Feldspar continued. “That’s why I pay you a considerable salary. I don’t care if you only serve one dinner per night, Ms. Abbot. As long as you maintain a preeminent standard of quality at The Carriage House, you’re doing your job. And if you do your job, you’ll be rewarded. You can manage

The Carriage House for as long as you like, or you can even transfer to one of our other inns abroad. Thus far, I couldn’t be more pleased with your efforts.”

It’s your ball game, she thought. Why argue with him, or with the money he was paying? Vera knew that with time, and with some promotion, she could make the restaurant work on its own. But Feldspar didn’t even seem to want it to.

He stepped toward a dark teak cabinet, with his slight limp, and uncorked a bottle of Chateau de Pommard. “Volnay is my favorite vineyard,” he remarked. “Would you care for some?”

It’s a little early to be drinking expensive wine, she thought, but what the hell? “Sure,” she said. He passed her a glass, which she sniffed. A good bouquet. Its taste had an after-dazzle, a beautiful, bright dry edge.

Feldspar chugged his. What a bohemian, Vera thought.

“As the French say, boire un petit coup c’est agré- able.”

“What’s that mean?”

“A little drink is good.” He poured himself another glass and awkwardly retook his seat. He looked casual today, in that he wasn’t wearing a suit. Instead he wore suede J.P. Tod loafers, dark slacks, and a Yohji black silk sports jacket that must have cost a thousand dollars. His hair was pulled back in its usual short tail, and the rings glittered on his wide hands. Vera remembered the gun in his desk, and the unlocked cash box, but skipped mentioning it. Admitting that you’d been snooping in the boss’s desk drawer probably wouldn’t win her any stars. Instead, she said, “I’m out of company checks. I’ve got two suppliers coming in tomorrow, so I’ll need more.”