Hotel

Once more he used the credit manager's office on the main floor and dialed the Preyscott number. Marsha answered on the first ring.

"Oh, Peter," she said, "I've been sitting by the telephone. I waited and waited, then called twice and left my name."

He remembered guiltily the pile of unacknowledged messages on his office desk.

"I'm genuinely sorry, and I can't explain, at least not yet. Except that all kinds of things have been happening."

"Tell me tomorrow."

"Marsha, I'm afraid tomorrow will be a very full day . . .

"At breakfast," Marsha said. "If it's going to be that kind of day, you need a New Orleans breakfast. They're famous. Have you ever had one?"

"I don't usually eat breakfast."

"Tomorrow you will. And Anna's are special. A lot better, I'll bet, than at your old hotel."

It was impossible not to be charmed by Marsha's enthusiasms. And he had, after all, deserted her this afternoon.

"It will have to be early."

"As early as you Re."

They agreed on 7:30 a.m.

A few minutes later he was in a taxi on his way to Christine's apartment in Gentilly.

He rang from downstairs. Christine was waiting with the apartment door open.

"Not a word," she said, "until after the second drink. I just can't take it all in."

"You'd better," he told her. "You haven't heard the half of it."

She had mixed daiquiris, which were chilling in the refrigerator. There was a heaped plate of chicken and ham sandwiches. The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the apartment.

Peter remembered suddenly that despite his sojourn in the hotel kitchens, and the talk of breakfast tomorrow, he had eaten nothing since lunch.

"That's what I imagined," Christine said when he told her. "Fall to!"

Obeying, he watched as she moved efficiently around the tiny kitchen. He had a feeling, sitting here, of being at ease and shielded from whatever might be happening outside. He thought: Christine had cared about him enough to do what she had done. More important, there was an empathy between them in which even their silences, as now, seemed shared and understood.

He pushed away the daiquiri glass and reached for a coffee cup which Christine had filled. "All right," he said, "where do we start?"

They talked continuously for almost two hours, all the time their closeness growing. At the end, all they could decide on definitely was that tomorrow would be an interesting day.

"I won't sleep," Christine said. "I couldn't possibly. I know I won't."

"I couldn't either," Peter said. "But not for the reason you mean."

He had no doubts; only a conviction that he wanted this moment to go on and on. He took her in his arms and kissed her.

Later, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that they should make love.

FRIDAY

1

It was understandable, Peter McDermott thought, that the Duke and Duchess of Croydon should be rolling the chief house officer, Ogilvie - trussed securely into a ball - toward the edge of the St. Gregory roof while, far below, a sea of faces stared fixedly upward. But it was strange, and somehow shocking, that a few yards farther on, Curtis O'Keefe and Warren Trent were exchanging savage cuts with bloodstained dueling swords. Why, Peter wondered, had Captain Yolles, standing by a stairway door, failed to intervene? Then Peter realized that the policeman was watching a giant bird's nest in which a single egg was cracking open. A moment later, from the egg's interior, emerged an outsize sparrow with the cheery face of Albert Wells. But now Peter's attention was diverted to the roofedge where a desperately struggling Christine had become entangled with Ogilvie, and Marsha Preyscott was helping the Croydons push the double burden nearer and nearer to the awful gulf below. The crowds continued to gape as Captain Yolles leaned against a doorpost, yawning.

If he hoped to save Christine, Peter realized, he must act himself. But when he attempted to move, his feet dragged heavily as if encased in glue, and while his body urged forward, his legs refused to follow. He tried to cry out, but his throat was blocked. His eyes met Christine's in dumb despair.

Suddenly, the Croydons, Marsha, O'Keefe, Warren Trent stopped and were listening. The sparrow that was Albert Wells cocked an ear. Now Ogilvie, Yolles, and Christine were doing the same. Listening to what?

Then Peter heard: a cacophony as if all the telephones on earth were ringing together. The sound came closer, swelled, until it seemed that it would engulf them all. Peter put his hands over his ears. The dissonance grew. He closed his eyes, then opened them.

He was in his apartment. His bedside alarm showed 6:30 a.m.

He lay for a few minutes, shaking his head free from the wild, hodge-podge dream. Then he padded to the bathroom for a shower, steeling himself to remain under the spray with the cold tap "on" for a final minute. He emerged from the shower fully awake. Slipping on a towel robe, he started coffee brewing in the kitchenette, then went to the telephone and dialed the hotel number.