Hotel

When there was no answer, he began, "Mr. Mac, there's a lot of things go on in a place like this . . ."

"If you're telling me the facts of life - about call girls and all the other rackets - I doubt if there's much I don't know already. But there's something else I know, and so do you: at certain things managements draw the line. Supplying women to minors is one."

"Mr. Mac, couldn't you, maybe this time, not go to Mr. Trent? Couldn't you just keep this between you and me?"

"No."

The bell captain's gaze moved shiftily around the room, then returned to Peter. His eyes were calculating. "Mr. Mac, if some people was to live and let live. He stopped.

"Yes?"

"Well, sometimes it can be worth while."

Curiosity kept Peter silent.

Chandler hesitated, then deliberately unfastened the button of a tunic pocket. Reaching inside he removed a folded envelope which he placed on the desk.

Peter said, "Let me see that."

Chandler pushed the envelope nearer. It was unsealed and contained five one-hundred-dollar bills. Peter inspected them curiously.

"Are they real?"

Chandler smirked. "They're real all right."

"I was curious to know how high you thought my price came." Peter tossed the money back. "Take it and get out."

"Mr. Mac, if it's a question of a little more . . ."

"Get out!" Peter's voice was low. He half-rose in his chair. "Get out before I break your dirty little neck."

As he retrieved the money and left, Herbie Chandler's face was a mask of hatred.

When he was alone, Peter McDermott sat slumped, silently, behind his desk. The interviews with the policeman and Chandler had exhausted and depressed him. Of the two, he thought, the second had lowered his spirits most, probably because handling the proffered bribe had left him with a feeling of being unclean.

Or had it? He thought: be honest with yourself. There had been an instant, with the money in his hands, when he was tempted to take it. Five hundred dollars was a useful sum. Peter had no illusion about his own earnings compared with those of the bell captain, who undoubtedly raked in a good deal more. If it had been anyone other than Chandler, he might possibly have succumbed. Or would he? He wished he could be sure. Either way, he would not be the first hotel manager to accept a pay-off from his staff.

The irony, of course, was that despite Peter's insistence that the evidence against Herbie Chandler would be placed before Warren Trent, there was no guarantee that it would happen. If the hotel changed ownership abruptly, as seemed likely, Warren Trent would no longer be concerned. Nor might Peter himself be around. With the advent of new management, the records of senior staff would undoubtedly be examined and, in his own case, the old, unsavory Waldorf scandal disinterred. Had he yet, Peter wondered, lived that down? Well, there was every likelihood he would find out soon.

He returned his attention to the present.

On his desk was a printed form, which Flora had left, with a late-afternoon house count. For the first time since coming in, he studied the figures. They showed that the hotel was filling and tonight, it seemed, there was a certainty of another full house. If the St. Gregory was going down to defeat, at least it was doing so to the sound of trumpets.

As well as the house count and telephone messages, there was a fresh pile of mail and memos. Peter skimmed through them all, deciding that there was nothing which could not be left until tomorrow. Beneath the memos was a Manila folder which he opened. It was the proposed master catering plan which the sous-chef, Andre Lemieux, had given him yesterday. Peter had begun studying the plan this morning.

Glancing at his watch, he decided to continue his reading before making an evening tour of the hotel. He settled down, the precisely handwritten pages and carefully drawn charts spread out before him.

As he read on, his admiration for the young sous-chef grew. The presentation appeared masterly, revealing a broad grasp both of the hotel's problems and the potentialities of its restaurant business. It angered Peter that the chef de cuisine, M. Herbrand, had - according to Lemieux - dismissed the proposals entirely.

True, some conclusions were arguable, and Peter disagreed himself with a few of Lemieux's ideas. At first glance, too, a number of estimated costs seemed optimistic. But these were minor. The important thing was that a fresh and clearly competent brain had brooded over present deficiencies in food management and come up with suggested remedies.

Equally obvious was that unless the St. Gregory made better use of Andre Lemieux's considerable talents, he would soon take them elsewhere.

Peter returned the plan and charts to their folder with a sense of pleasure that someone in the hotel should possess the kind of enthusiasm for his work which Lemieux had shown. He decided that he would like to tell Andre Lemieux his impressions even though - with the hotel in its present uncertain state - there seemed nothing more that Peter could do.