Hotel

"If it has, I'm not aware of it." Then, more astringently: "In any case, we've scarcely time for sentimentality."

"Right!" As if his wife's words were a signal, the Duke downed his drink and poured another.

She observed scathingly, "I'd be obliged if you'd at least retain consciousness. I assume I shall have to deal with the bank, but there maybe papers they'll require you to sign.

7

Two self-imposed tasks faced Warren Trent, and neither was palatable.

The first was to confront Tom Earlshore with Curtis O'Keefe's accusation of the night before. "He's bleeding you white," O'Keefe had declared of the elderly head barman. And: "From the look of things it's been going on a long time."

As promised, O'Keefe had documented his charge. Shortly after ten a.m., a report - with specific details of observations, dates and times - was delivered to Warren Trent by a young man who introduced himself as Sean Hall of the O'Keefe Hotels Corporation. The young man, who had come directly to Warren Trent's fifteenth-floor suite, seemed embarrassed. The hotel proprietor thanked him and settled down to read the seven-page report.

He began grimly, a mood which deepened as he read on. Not only Tom Earlshore's, but other names of trusted employees appeared in the investigators' findings. It was distressingly apparent to Warren Trent that he was being cheated by the very men and women whom he had relied on most, including some who, like Tom Earlshore, he had considered personal friends. It was obvious, too, that throughout the hotel the depredation must be even more extensive than was documented here.

Folding the typewritten sheets carefully, he placed them in an inside pocket of his suit.

He knew that if he allowed himself, he could become enraged, and would expose and castigate, one by one, those who had betrayed his trust. There might even be a melancholy satisfaction in doing so.

But excessive anger was an emotion which nowadays left him drained. He would personally confront Tom Earlshore, he decided, but no one else.

The report, however, Warren Trent reflected, had had one useful effect.

It released him from an obligation.

Until last night a good deal of his thinking about the St. Gregory had been conditioned by a loyalty which he assumed he owed to the hotel's employees. Now, by the revealed disloyalty to himself, he was freed from this restraint.

The effect was to open up a possibility, which earlier he had shunned, for maintaining his own control of the hotel. Even now the prospect was still distasteful, which was why he decided to take the lesser of the two unpleasant steps and seek out Tom Earlshore first.

The Pontalba Lounge was on the hotel's main floor, accessible from the lobby through double swing doors ornamented in leather and bronze.

Inside, three carpeted steps led down to an L-shaped area containing tables and booths with comfortable, upholstered seating.

Unlike most cocktail lounges, the Pontalba was brightly lighted. This meant that patrons could observe each other as well as the bar itself, which extended across the junction of the L. In front of the bar were a half-dozen padded stools for unaccompanied drinkers who could, if they chose, pivot their seats around to survey the field.

it was twenty-five minutes before noon when Warren Trent entered from the lobby. The lounge was quiet, with only a youth and a girl in one of the booths and two men with lapel convention badges talking in low voices at a table nearby. The usual press of lunchtime drinkers would begin arriving in another fifteen minutes, after which the opportunity to speak quietly to anyone would be gone. But ten minutes, the hotel proprietor reasoned, should be sufficient for what he had come to do.

Observing him, a waiter hurried forward but was waved away. Tom Earlshore, Warren Trent observed, was behind the bar with his back to the room and intent upon a tabloid newspaper he had spread out on the cash register.

Warren Trent walked stiffly across and occupied one of the bar stools. He could see now that what the elderly bartender was studying was a Racing Form.

He said, "Is that the way you've been using my money?"

Earlshore wheeled, his expression startled. It changed to mild surprise, then apparent pleasure as he realized the identity of his visitor.

"Why, Mr. Trent, you sure give a fellow the jumps." Tom Earlshore deftly folded the Racing Form, stuffing it into a rear pants pocket. Beneath his domed bald head, with its Santa Claus fringe of white hair, the seamed leathery face creased into a smile. Warren Trent wondered why he had never before suspected it was an ingratiating smile.

"It's been a long time since we've seen you in here, Mr. Trent. Too long."

"You're not complaining, are you?"

Earlshore hesitated. "Well, no."

Or I should have thought that being left alone has given you a lot of opportunities."