Weekend (4 page)

He had been smoking since he was eleven, not bothering to sneak most of the time because his parents were too busy arguing to take notice, so he already had a spare pack of matches in his pocket.

He lifted the can with the gas in it so casually that even if someone was watching, it would never occur to him that Grant was doing something wrong. Then he went to the back of the shed, found a place where the boards were loose, and stuffed in the soaked rags. A minute later he looked behind him, reassured himself there was no one around, and threw the rest of the gasoline over the area.

He tossed in a lighted match and was just able to get back fast enough to see it go up in a whoosh without singeing his hands and face. The colors were interesting enough, but the heat was more than he bargained for. He watched for a moment, then moved on as if nothing had happened.

By the time he reached the corner of his block, he heard the sirens. He waited for the fire trucks to pass, then went home as usual. His mother didn’t ask why he was late. Most of the time she wasn’t even there, preferring to spend her afternoons drinking late lunches with the girls, going to the hairdresser or shopping for the latest fashions. He didn’t even look for news of the fire in the local papers the next day. In fact, for a few days afterward, he nearly forgot about it altogether. That was before the supermarket.

“You’re going to have a great time at the Congress this weekend,” Melinda was saying. “I hear they have a new teen room filled with all sorts of pinball machines, ping-pong tables and …”

“Ginger peachy.”

“Well, Christ,” she said, taking her eyes off the road. “If you don’t give anything a chance, what the hell do you expect?” She had to swerve back as the car behind began to pass and the driver honked his horn. “Drop dead!” she screamed. “Son of a bitch has to ride right on top of you. Look at all those idiots crowding up.”

“You did cut him off, mom.”

“That’s right, Grant. Be critical. Ever since the last visit to that father of yours, you’ve been critical of everything I do. Look,” she added. “any other fifteen-year-old would be jumping for joy about going to a resort hotel for the July Fourth weekend.”

He started to jump up and down on the seat.

“Cut it out. I said, CUT IT OUT! I’m warning you, Grant, if you ruin this holiday for me. …”

He stopped jumping for joy on the front seat and looked out the window at the monotonous scenery off Route 17. The speed of the car tended to liquefy it and make it all a blur.

His thoughts began to wander. The supermarket. He remembered it with unabashed glee. Now that was a blaze! He had noticed the loading door in the back was opened one evening and thought … It was easy enough to pull off and the idea seemed amusing at the time, although the next day he was disillusioned with the dirty remains, the charred frame, the debris. He had started the incandescence at night, which was at least visually exciting. What made it most interesting was the incredible number of people the fire attracted. All those men, women and children out there, watching, talking, their eyes widened with amazement and all because of him, Grant because of what he had done. And to think the dean of students thought he lacked imagination!

“We’re getting close,” his mother announced, suddenly excited at the thought of all the sexual possibilities the next four days held in store. There was a lightness in her voice, a happy note Grant vaguely recalled from days of pre-adolescence when they were all together, when the world had a semblance, a logic, a pattern. “See that sign.”

He gazed at the billboard that read,

“I can hardly wait.”

She looked at him crossly, then stopped for a light.

The Congress hotel, Grant thought. The first time he had been there, right after the divorce, he had hated it: all those organized teen activities, the dumb children’s dining room with murals of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the walls, and going to sleep alone in the room every night because his mother was down at the bar planning to do who knew what with who knew whom. Everyone always on his back to participate, join in, be part of the group. Up there it was a sin to be a loner even if you were just a kid. And then, when he finally got up the courage to start up a conversation with a pretty girl the same age, she ignored him.

He didn’t want to think about that any more. They were approaching the entrance to the hotel and he concentrated on the tall, modern main building. He closed his eyes for a long moment and, as the car wheels droned on, he imagined the large edifice reflected against the night sky. It was all lit up, but not with candles and decorations. Coming out of the top was this giant flame, the tips of it licking at the stars. What a sight, he thought, and with all those people looking up… Some of them would probably think it was an extra thrown in as part of the July 4th entertainment. Unless they were stuck inside. He smiled at the thought.

“What’s so funny, Grant?”

“Huh?”

“You’re sitting there with an absolutely idiotic smile on your face.”

“Oh, that. I just remembered a joke someone told at school.”

“I’d like to hear it. I need some good ones for the dinner table. Nothing like a good joke to make a first impression.”

Her son thought fast. “How do you get a Jewish girl to stop fucking?”

“What kind of language is that?” Melinda asked, but she had to admit it was an interesting question. Something she hoped she’d never have to find the answer to. “I don’t know. I give up. How?”

“Marry her!”

“Grant, that’s disgusting. It sounds like something your father must have told you.” It was kind of funny though, she thought, especially since so many people came to the Congress especially for one or the other.

Grant didn’t bother to respond. He was looking down the highway and thinking about the hotel again, imagining the bright red and yellow flames reaching up as if to embrace the moon. It was really something to think about, In fact, he was almost looking forward to getting there.

“Good morning, ladies,” Moe Sandman said as he came out from behind the horseshoe-shaped counter at the center of the coffee shop. The clean white apron was tied snugly around his flabby widespread hips.

“How was it last night?” Ellen said.

“Fourteen dozen bagels, seven pounds of cream cheese, over ten pounds of lox,” he said, rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

“You’d think we didn’t feed them enough at dinner,” Magda chuckled.

“You worked the nightshift, Moe?” He nodded. “Since when are you doing double shift?”

“Since Jonathan Lawrence made me cut back. According to your general manager, we’re overstaffed down here. According to my feet, he should have his head examined.”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Ellen said.

“I don’t like to complain, but …”

“Let me look into it.”

They gave him their orders.

“What are you going to do about it?” Magda asked after he had left.

“I’m not sure. I suppose a general manager should be able to hire and fire but—I just wish I knew how much leeway Phil gave him.”

“It shouldn’t matter what Phil gave him. You’re going to have to establish your own relationship with Jonathan now and decide how much leeway you want to give him.” Ellen nodded, but not convincingly. “Whatever made Phil hire a man like that anyway?”

“He believed the hotel industry was going to go through major changes after the next two years when the sixties roll around and he wanted to be prepared. He felt the Congress would benefit from someone trained at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, someone who understood things like computerized reservations, convention sales, open bid purchasing.”

“But to choose such a cold fish.”

“He didn’t worry about that. He figured there’d always be someone from the family to supply the warmth. Besides,” she added, “deep down I think he really believed he’d live to be the proverbial hundred and twenty. But let’s put that aside. Tell me the problems you see coming up this weekend. I don’t want to sound like a total idiot when I talk to people around here.”

“For starters,” the hostess began, “we have almost three single women for every single man. You know what that means?”

“Phil would say the guys are going to get screwed to death,” she said with a laugh, “and there’ll be a lot of bitchy broads at checkout time.” Then she turned serious. “I wonder why the ratio is so off-balance.”

“To be honest, darling, I think it’s because other hotels offer more facilities that appeal to the male sex.”

“Phil used to say there’s only one facility that interests the male sex.” She caught herself. “Oh, God, I’ve done it again.”

“Done what?”

“Said ‘Phil used to say.’ I’ve got to stop thinking only in terms of what Phil would say.”

“You will,” Magda said gently. “In time.”

Ellen shrugged. “Under the circumstances, how is Mr. Pat going to handle the seating in the dining room?”

“With great care. And he’ll probably suggest that his single busboys and maybe even his not-so-single ones go down to the Flamingo Room after work and use whatever strength they have left to push some of the lonely ladies around the dance floor.”

“I never liked that suggestion coming from management,” Ellen mused, “but I guess it’s just one of those necessary evils. As Phil would say, it goes with the territory.”

They both ignored the repeated reference to her late husband, and Magda continued to give Ellen the rundown on the number of families, new guests, out-of-towners coming up, when she suddenly remembered. “Incidentally, Bob Halloran tells me one of the custodial people was checked into the hospital last night. I didn’t get any of the details.”

“One of our regulars?”

“No. Someone new.”

“I’ll check with him when I get back to the office,” she said. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

She was so grateful that, knock wood, she, Sandi, Magda, the people she loved and trusted, were in good health. Severe illness, especially so close to Phil’s death, was the last thing in the world she’d want to cope with now.

“They must be doing something right,” Bruce Solomon said, looking at the long line of cars backed up waiting to get through the main gate. Sid Bronstein just grunted. He had seen it all before.

“What the hell are they doing anyway?”

“Checking names. Making sure no one gets on the grounds without a reservation. It serves two purposes, actually. It eases the mob scene in the lobby when so many people arrive at the same time, and it caters to a certain sense of snobbishness, a confirmation that no outsider can get for free what they are paying for so dearly.”

“Good thinking.” Bruce ran his stubby fingers along the sides of his face, checking the closeness of his shave. He hadn’t had much time to pull himself together once he got Dr. Bronstein’s call early that morning. Twenty-eight and single, he had what many women tended to describe as a disarming sweetness, a camouflage if ever there was one for in action, he was neither sweet nor disarming. His eyes moved constantly with a penetrating gaze, scrutinizing, observing, analyzing, always questioning.

“Actually,” Sid said, staring at the fins of the Cadillac in front, “scenes like this are rare up here these days. Business has been dropping off radically. In fact, many of the smaller resorts have been forced to close down.”

“It’s hard to believe,” Bruce said, remembering all he had heard and read about the fabulous Congress.

“You can’t imagine the overhead in running a place like this. The Goldens are reputation rich and dollar poor.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they’re mortgaged to the hilt. Unions have thrown payroll expenses sky high. The property taxes are unbelievable. And to keep up with competition like Grossinger’s and the Concord, they’ve had to expand, refurbish, redecorate and make plans to do even more. The joke around here is that some day they’ll have to build an indoor mountain if they want to meet the competition. The problem is that every capital expenditure results in another mortgage. Some of the notes are owned by the banks, some by the builders themselves, and others by creditors. My father-in-law’s even involved. When they say everyone in the county’s wrapped up in the hotel industry in some way, they’re not kidding.”

“I don’t know much about it, I suppose,” Bruce answered, trying to suppress the wry smile on his face. “I’m probably the only Jewish boy from the Bronx who has never been to the Catskills, not even as a busboy. And just think, the first time I arrive, I’m a guest of the house!”

“Don’t kid yourself, buddy. You’re going to earn this stay, I promise.”

Bruce could see his cousin was anxious to get down to business. “Okay, Sid, tell me specifically what it is we’re up against.”

“As of now, I’ve got one man in the hospital who I’m almost positive has cholera. And I’m not sure, if that’s what he has, that it hasn’t spread.”

“Shit. How long do you think he might have had it before he came to you?”

“It’s hard to tell. First his boss thought he was drunk and that’s why he had the stomach pains. The guy himself speaks very little English and by the time someone felt it was serious enough to get him to me, the poor bastard was about to collapse. I’m going to park in the VIP lot around the corner,” he added, turning off the main drive.

“Considering that the incubation period for cholera is anywhere between a few hours and six days,” Bruce interrupted, “we should be able to zero in on this thing rather quickly, don’t you think? How much do you know about the guy?”

“Not much, though I suspect he snuck into the States on a cargo ship from the Far East. It could very well be a freak thing, an isolated case, but that’s one of the reasons I want you here.”

“Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

Sid agreed, concentrating on getting his car into the reserved space.

“Can you carry your bags in?”

“No problem.”

“We’ll meet with Jonathan Lawrence right away. He’s the general manager.”

“What’s he like?”

“Fiercely ambitious, more interested in the hotel as a financial institution and his position in it than how his decisions affect its people.”