Hotel

excuse me, Christine. I'd like us to have dinner, you and me - a kind of thank you for what you did the other night. If you can bear an old man's company, I'd be glad to be a stand-in."

She answered, "I'd love to have dinner, but I promise you won't be any stand-in."

"Good!" The little man beamed. "We'd best make it here in the hotel, I reckon. I told that doctor I'd not go outdoors for a couple of days."

Briefly, Christine hesitated. She wondered if Albert Wells knew just how high were the evening prices in the St. Gregory's main dining room.

Though the nursing expense had ended, she had no wish to deplete still further whatever funds he had remaining. Suddenly she thought of a way to prevent that happening.

Putting the idea aside to be dealt with later, she assured him, "The hotel will be fine. It's a special occasion, though. You'll have to give me time to go home and change into something really glamorous. Let's make it eight o'clock tomorrow night."

On the fourteenth floor, after leaving Albert Wells, Christine noticed that number four elevator was out of service. Maintenance work, she observed, was being done both on the landing doors and the elevator cage.

She took another elevator to the main mezzanine.

10

The dentists' president, Dr. Ingram, glared at the visitor to his suite on the seventh floor. "McDermott, if you've come here with some idea of smoothing things over, I'll tell you right now you're wasting time. Is that why you came?"

"Yes," Peter admitted. "I'm afraid it is."

The older man said grudgingly, "At least you don't lie."

"There's no reason I should. I'm an employee of the hotel, Dr. Ingram.

While I work here I've an obligation to do the best I can for it."

"And what happened to Dr. Nicholas was the best you could do?"

"No, sir. I happen to believe it's the worst thing we could have done. The fact that I had no authority to change a hotel standing order doesn't make it any better."

The dentists' president snorted. "If you really felt that way, you'd have the guts to quit and get a job some other place. Maybe where the pay is poorer but the ethics higher."

Peter flushed, refraining from a quick retort. He reminded himself that this morning in the lobby he had admired the elderly dentist for his forthright stand. Nothing had changed since then.

- "Well?" The alert, unyielding eyes were focused on his own.

"Suppose I did quit," Peter said. "Whoever took my job might be perfectly satisfied with the way things are. At least I'm not. I intend to do what I can to change the ground rules here."

"Rules! Rationalization! Damned excuses!" The doctor's rubicund face grew redder. "In my time I've heard them all! They make me sick! Disgusted, ashamed, and sick of the human race!"

Between them there was a silence.

"All right." Dr. Ingram's voice dropped, his immediate anger spent. "I'll concede you're not as bigoted as some, McDermott. You've a problem yourself, and I guess my bawling you out doesn't solve anything. But don't you see, son? - half the time it's the damned reasonableness of people like you and me which adds up to the sort of treatment Jim Nicholas got today."

"I do see, Doctor. Though I think the whole business isn't quite so simple as you'd make it."

"Plenty of things aren't simple," the older man growled. "You heard what I told Nicholas. I said if he didn't get an apology and a room, I'd pull the entire convention out of this hotel."

Peter said guardedly, "In the ordinary way aren't there events at your convention - medical discussions, demonstrations, that kind of thing - that benefit a lot of people?"

"Naturally."

"Then would it help? I mean, if you wiped out everything, what could anyone gain? Not Dr. Nicholas . . ." He stopped, aware of renewed hostility as his words progressed.

Dr. Ingram snapped, "Don't give me a snow job, McDermott. And credit me with intelligence to have thought of that already."

"I'm sorry."

"There are always reasons for not doing something; plenty of times they're good reasons. That's why so few people ever take a stand for what they believe in, or say they do. In a couple of hours, when some of my well-meaning colleagues hear what I'm planning, I predict they'll offer the same kind of argument." Breathing heavily, the older man paused. He faced Peter squarely, "Let me ask you something. This morning you admitted you were ashamed of turning Jim Nicholas away. If you were me, here and now, what would you do?"

"Doctor, that's a hypothetical . . ."

"Never mind the horse-shit! I'm asking you a simple, direct question."

Peter considered. As far as the hotel was concerned, he supposed whatever he said now would make little difference to the outcome. Why not answer honestly?

He said, "I think I'd do exactly as you intended - cancel out."

"Well!" Stepping back a pace, the dentists' president regarded him appraisingly. "Beneath all that hotel crap lies an honest man."

"Who may shortly be unemployed."