Hotel

As with the other query, Christine knew the credit manager would feel his way warily. Part of his job - equally important with preventing fraud - was not offending honest guests. After years of experience a seasoned credit man could usually separate the sharks and sheep by instinct, but once in a while he might be wrong - to the hotel's detriment. Christine knew that was why credit managers occasionally risked extending credit or approved checks in slightly doubtful cases, walking a mental tightrope as they did. Most hotels - even the exalted ones - cared nothing about the morals of those who stayed within their walls, knowing that if they did a great deal of business would pass them by. Their concern - which a credit manager reflected - involved itself with a single basic question: Could a guest pay?

With a single, swift movement Sam Jakubiec flipped the ledger cards back in place and closed the file drawer containing them. "Now," he said,

"what can I do?"

"We've hired a private duty nurse for 1410." Briefly Christine reported the previous night's crisis concerning Albert Wells. "I'm a little worried whether Mr. Wells can afford it, and I'm not sure he realizes how much it will cost." She might have added, but didn't, that she was more concerned for the little man himself than for the hotel.

Jakubiec nodded. "That private nursing deal can run into big money."

Walking together, they moved away from Reception, crossing the now - bustling lobby to the credit manager's office, a small square room behind the concierge's counter. Inside, a dumpy brunette secretary was working against a wall which consisted solely of trays of file cards.

"Madge," Sam Jakubiec: said, "see what we have on Wells, Albert."

Without answering, she closed a drawer, opened another and flipped over cards. Pausing, she said in a single breath, "Albuquerque, Coon Rapids, Montreal, take your pick."

"It's Montreal," Christine said, and Jakubiec took the card the secretary offered him. Scanning it, he observed, "He looks all right. Stayed with us six times. Paid cash. One small query which seems to have been settled."

"I know about that," Christine said. "It was our fault."

The credit man nodded. "I'd say there's nothing to worry about. Honest people leave a pattern, same as the dishonest ones." He handed the card back and the secretary replaced it, along with the others which provided a record of every guest who had stayed in the hotel in recent years.

"I'll look into it, though; find out what the charge is going to be, then have a talk with Mr. Wells. If he has a cash problem we could maybe help out, give him a little time to pay."

"Thanks, Sam." Christine felt relieved, knowing that Jakubiec could be just as helpful and sympathetic with a genuine case, as he was tough with the bad ones.

As she reached the office doorway the credit manager called after her,

"Miss Francis, how are things going upstairs?"

Christine smiled. "They're raffling off the hotel, Sam. I didn't want to tell you, but you forced it out of me."

"If they pull my ticket," Jakubiec said, "have 'em draw again. I've troubles enough already."

Beneath the flippancy, Christine suspected, the credit manager was as worried about his job as a good many others. The hotel's financial affairs were supposed to be confidential, but seldom were, and it had been impossible to keep the news of recent difficulties from spreading like a contagion.

She recrossed the main lobby, acknowledging "good mornings" from bellboys, the hotel florist, and one of the assistant managers, seated self-importantly at his centrally located desk. Then, bypassing the elevators, she ran lightly up the curved central stairway to the main mezzanine.

The sight of the assistant manager was a reminder of his immediate superior, Peter McDermott. Since last night Christine had found herself thinking about Peter a good deal. She wondered if the time they had spent together had produced the same effect in him. At several moments she caught herself wishing that this was true, then checked herself with an inward warning against an involvement emotionally which might be premature. Over the years in which she had learned to live alone there had been men in Christine's life, but none she had taken seriously. At times, she sometimes thought, it seemed as if instinct were shielding her from renewing the kind of close relationship which five years ago had been snatched away so savagely. All the same, at this moment she wondered where Peter was and what he was doing. Well, she decided practically, sooner or later in the course of the day their ways would cross.