A Key to the Suite (3 page)

“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.”

“You’ll see more than you can handle, pops,” Honey said.

“That’s all set,” Tommy said.

“And don’t you kids be standing around like you are right now, looking like you hated the whole deal.”

“When we’re on, we’ll be on, friend,” Bunny said. “You’ll have no complaint.”

Bobby Fayhouser came up behind Frick and said, “Fred, can I see you a minute?”

“You girls be back here at two o’clock sharp, ready to go,” Frick said. They nodded and walked away, side by side, in perfect
unison. Frick watched the synchronous clench and roll and swing of the plaid fannies and shook his head wonderingly and said, “Like seeing double, huh? Tommy, maybe there’s our little celebration when this damn thing is over.”

“I doubt the hell out of that,” Carmer said. “That Honey one has a two-year-old kid and is married to a musician, and the other one has a county cop for a boyfriend. That’ll be okay on this job, Freddy, but the reason they’re a little sour, it’s on account of they’ve been singing and dancing since they were three years old, and now they’re twenty-three, and I guess they think they should have made it a little better than being in a convention display.”

“It might be important, what I want to tell you, Fred,” Fayhouser said.

Frick moved off to one side with the younger man. “A delay on the suite?” he asked.

“You were worried about a man named Hubbard coming? Floyd Hubbard? And you asked me to tell you right away if …”

“Is he coming?”

“He’s already here. He’s in 847. He checked in before seven o’clock this morning.”

Frick looked beyond Fayhouser, looked toward the huge shadowy cave of the convention hall beyond the display ramp, and exposed his unlikely teeth in a mirthless grin. “Well, well, well! So he made it.”

“What’s the bit on him anyhow, Fred? I know you put him on the AGM list, but you seemed nervous about him. Is there anything I should know?”

Frick stared at Fayhouser with an odd indignant contempt. “You? What should you know about him? He’s home-office brass, isn’t he? So you treat him like home-office brass. What
does a kid like you have to worry about? They test all of you these days, don’t they? Your marks are on file in some goddam computer, aren’t they? You got papers like a pedigree dog.”

“But …”

“Don’t stand too close to this Hubbard, or you’ll hear all the little relays clicking and it might make you nervous.”

“Why get sore at me?”

“I’m not sore at you, Bobby. When do we get the suite?”

“Noon at the latest.”

“So go do something useful.”

Bobby Fayhouser walked away. He glanced back once and then quickened his pace. Frick walked slowly toward the main lobby, glancing at the exhibits. He phoned 847 from the lobby and was told there was no answer—which could mean that Hubbard was out or was blocking all incoming calls.

It was eleven o’clock, too late to get in touch with Jesse Mulaney and tip him off about Hubbard. Maybe Jesse knew it anyway. But, as the local representative, the man on the scene, it was his job to keep Mulaney advised. A rich territory, but he wished to God this convention was somewhere else this time, not in his back yard. Poor Jesse, too old-time for the new hot shots.

He walked out a side door and down an outside staircase to the pool area. The sun blazed down on the ranked battalions of sun cots, more than half of them occupied. By the cabanas the people who paid the fee for more privacy were sunning themselves. He walked to the thatched bar, sat on a shady stool, ordered a Screwdriver and felt his morale improve as he watched the bartender slice the fresh oranges. After his first deep swallow of the drink, he looked through an opening of the bamboo framework around the bar and watched a hard-faced blonde
with a lithe youthful body oil herself with most tender care, then stretch out and become another anonymous sun-stricken corpse amid the acres of browning, gleaming flesh.

Jesse, he decided, would have some operational plan. He wouldn’t tattoo a dotted line on his throat and then kneel down to make it handier for this Hubbard. Where it puts me, he thought, is right the hell in the middle. I ride with Mulaney, and I go out when he does, which could be a soon thing. If I should back off from it and Mulaney wins, then he would delight in throwing me out, because he would notice that kind of thing sooner than any man I’ve ever known. Mulaney will at least get pensioned. What the hell will I get?

Suddenly he thought of one safe move he could make, one that might look good to Mulaney, and wouldn’t be known to anyone else. Hell, he thought, Jesse might go for it and it might work, even. He finished his drink in a hurry and went into the hotel, to the pay booths on the lower level. He looked up an unlisted number in the back of his pocket notebook.

After the sixth ring, just as he was beginning to wonder if she was out of town, a woman answered, her voice sulky and blurred with sleep, asking an angry question which came out sounding like, “Wharrawah?”

“Alma? Alma, honey? This is Freddy. Freddy Frick.”

“Oh dear Jesus! ’S dawn, Freddy! Cold, gray dawn.”

“Alma, the reason I called …”

“Hol’ the phone a minute.”

He held the phone a long long time. “Now what?” she asked, and her voice was clear and almost precise.

“Jesse is coming down. To a convention. He’ll get here today.”

“This is a reason to wake me up, for God’s sake? He’s a
dear man, and we’ve had our laughs, Freddy, but sleep is important.”

“Alma, I always had the feeling you liked Jesse Mulaney.”

“I guess I do.”

“More than just … on a business basis.”

“What the hell are you getting at?”

“Alma, maybe he’s in trouble. He didn’t ask me to get in touch with you. It’s my idea entirely. I was just thinking … maybe you could help.”

“Keep talking.”

“There’s a lot of changes going on, in the company. There’s a man going to be at the convention, and he will maybe be making the final report that’ll tie the can to Jesse. I was just thinking that … if this man had a hell of a good time down here, and if it got to be … well, say a little bit obvious toward the end, he wouldn’t be so anxious to take the wrong kind of word back.”

“It isn’t exactly a new problem, Freddy dear. I suppose this man would have his guard up. I mean to say that if he’s bright, which I suppose he would have to be, he might be expecting this sort of thing, and so it wouldn’t work.”

“There’s that chance, Alma. So it would depend on the talent, I guess.”

“It would indeed. It would indeed.”

“On the other hand, maybe Jesse has a better plan worked out, and wouldn’t want to try anything like this. But I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to check it out before he gets here, so it could be lined up in case.”

“This man you want should have a fine time—young?”

“Early thirties.”

“That makes it a little rougher, you know. Married?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a small help, usually. There would have to be some good reason for having the girl there, you know. Have you thought of that?”

“Yes, as we’ve been talking I’ve thought of it, but it would have to be a cover story that would fit the girl, Alma.”

“You know, you’re always just a little sharper than I expect you to be, Freddy.”

“Should I say thanks?”

“While we’ve been talking, dear, I’ve been weeding out. I have a very lovely little friend who might work out just right. But it would depend on how she takes to it. She’s kind of complicated. She’s certainly not what you’d call obvious. Sometimes she’s more trouble than she’s worth. Now don’t get nervous, dear. I don’t mean she gets taken drunk or neurotic. I mean she’s too damn selective sometimes. And stubborn as can be. But let me put it this way, Freddy. For any truly high-level guy wanting to meet a nice little friend, I’d have every confidence in Cory. Her name, dear, is Corinna. But then, how many high-level guys are ever in need?”

“Jesse is in need.”

“In another way, of course. But when can you let me know for sure?”

“Before four o’clock this afternoon. Will that be okay?”

“That will be fine, Freddy dear. But this business about a favor for dear old Jesse has nothing to do with … your little token of gratitude for setting it up.”

“You know I wouldn’t try to short you, Alma.”

“I think you might try, but it wouldn’t work. I should warn you, dear, the whole thing might work out a little high.”

“A lot of little things can get buried in a convention tab.”

“If you tell me it’s a deal, we’ll set it up over the phone where Cory should meet you for the briefing. Okay?”

“That would seem to do it, Alma. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“I’m glad you did, really. You know, I ought to feel a little angry with you, Freddy. I haven’t heard from you in ever so long. Way last Christmas, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. I remember. It’s this way, Alma. There was this merger, over a year ago, and things have got pretty tightened up. They put in these damn control systems, and it clamps down on me, so I don’t get the chance to operate like in the old days. I mean it would have to come out of my pocket, and that sort of slows me down. Even that deal last Christmas, I could only swindle half the tab, so it was a calculated risk.”

“But weren’t they darling girls?”

“They sure were.”

“Weren’t the men some kind of politicians?”

“A special purchasing commission from Alabama. The deal was to get the low bid thrown out so we’d be the ones to get it.”