Hotel

Warren Trent's face reddened with anger. He slammed a clenched fist hard upon the surface of his desk. "Goddam, Emile! Don't play cat and mouse with me!"

"If I appeared to, I'm sorry."

"For God's sake! If you know the details already, why ask?"

"Frankly," Dumaire said, "I was hoping for the confirmation that you just gave me. Also, the offer I am authorized to make is somewhat better."

He had fallen, Warren Trent realized, for an ancient, elementary gambit.

But he was indignant that Dumaire should have seen fit to play it on him.

It was also obvious that Curtis O'Keefe had a defector in his own organization, possibly someone at O'Keefe headquarters who was privy to high-level policy. In a way, there was ironic justice in the fact that Curtis O'Keefe who used espionage as a business tool, should be spied upon himself.

"Just how are the terms better? And by whom are they offered?"

"To reply to the second question first - at present I am not at liberty to say."

Warren Trent snorted, "I do business with people I can see, not ghosts."

"I am no ghost," Dumaire reminded him. "Moreover you have the bank's assurance that the offer I am empowered to make is bona fide, and that the parties whom the bank represents have unimpeachable credentials."

Still irked by the stratagem of a few moments earlier, the hotel proprietor said, "Let's get to the point."

"I was about to do so." The banker shuffled his notes. "Basically, the valuation which my principals place upon this hotel is identical with that of the O'Keefe Corporation.

"That's hardly surprising, since you had O'Keefe's figures."

"In other respects, however, there are several significant differences."

For the first time since the beginning of the interview, Warren Trent was conscious of a mounting interest in what the banker had to say.

"First, my principals have no wish that you should sever your personal connection with the St. Gregory Hotel or divorce yourself from its financial structure. Second, it would be their intention - insofar as is commercially feasible - to maintain the hotel's independence and existing character, Warren Trent gripped the arms of his chair tightly. He glanced at a wall clock to his right. It showed a quarter to twelve.

"They would, however, insist on acquiring a majority of the outstanding common shares - a reasonable requirement in the circumstances - to provide effective management control. You yourself would thus revert to the status of largest minority stock holder. A further requirement would be your immediate resignation as president and managing director. Could I trouble you for a glass of water?"

Warren Trent filled a single glass from the Thermos jug on his desk.

"What do you have in mind - that I become a busboy? Or perhaps assistant doorman?"

"Scarcely that." Emile Dumaire sipped from the glass, then regarded it.

"It has always struck me as quite remarkable how our muddy Mississippi can become such pleasant tasting water."

"Get on with it!"

The banker smiled. "My principals propose that immediately following your resignation you be appointed chairman of the board, initially for a two-year term."

"A mere figurehead, I suppose!"

"Perhaps. But it would seem to me that there are worse things. Or perhaps you'd prefer the figurehead to be Mr. Curtis O'Keefe."

The hotel proprietor was silent,

"I am further instructed to inform you that my principals will match any offer of a personal nature concerning accommodation here which you may have received from the O'Keefe Corporation. Now, as to the question of stock transference and refinancing. I'd like to go into that in some detail."

As the banker talked on, closely consulting his notes, Warren Trent had a sense of weariness and unreality. Out of memory an incident came to him from long ago. Once, as a small boy, he had attended a country fair, clutching a few hoarded pennies to spend on the mechanical rides. There had been one that he had ventured on - a cake walk. It was a form of amusement, he supposed, which had long since passed into limbo. He remembered it as a platform with a multiple-hinged floor which moved continually now up, now down, now tilting forward, backward, forward ...

so that perspective was never level, and for the cost of a penny one had an imminent chance of falling before attaining the far end. Beforehand it had seemed exciting, but he remembered that nearing the finish of the cake walk he had wanted, more than anything else, merely to get off.

The past weeks had been like a cake walk too. At the beginning he had been confident, then abruptly the floor had canted away beneath him. It had risen, as hope revived, then slanted away again.

Near the end the Journeymen's Union held a promise of stability, then abruptly that too had collapsed on lunatic hinges.

Now, unexpectedly, the cake walk had stabilized once more and all he wanted to do was get off.