Hotel

"He died," Peter said. "I'd tried to reach him several times, but we never seemed to make it. Then about a year ago I got a phone call from a lawyer - Herb didn't have any family, apparently. I went to the funeral.

And I found there were eight of us there - whom he'd all helped in the same kind of way. The funny thing was, with all his boasting he'd never told any of us about the others."

"I could cry," Christine said.

He nodded. "I know. I felt I wanted to then. I suppose it should have taught me something, though I've never been quite sure what. Maybe it's that some people raise a great big barrier, all the while wishing you'd tear it down, and if you don't you never really know them."

Christine was quiet through coffee - by agreement they had both ruled out dessert. At length she asked, "Do any of us really know what we want for ourselves?"

Peter considered. "Not entirely, I suppose. Though I know one thing I want to achieve - or at least something like it." He beckoned a waiter for their bill.

"Tell me."

"I'll do better than that," he said. "I'll show you."

Outside Brennan's they paused, adjusting from interior coolness to the warm night air. The city seemed quieter than an hour earlier. A few lights around were darkening, the Quarter's night life moving on to other cantons. Taking Christine's arm, Peter piloted her diagonally across Royal Street. They stopped at the southwest corner of St. Louis, looking directly ahead. "That's what I'd like to create," he said. "Something at least as good, or maybe better."

Beneath graceful grilled balconies and fluted iron columns, flickering gas lanterns cast light and shadow on the white-gray classical facade of the Royal Orleans Hotel. Through arched and mullioned windows amber light streamed outward. On the promenade sidewalk a doorman paced, in rich gold uniform and visored pillbox cap. High above, in a sudden breeze, flags and halliards snapped upon their staffs. A taxi drew up. The doorman moved swiftly to open its door. Women's heels clicked and men's laughter echoed as they moved inside. A door slammed. The taxi pulled away.

"There are some people," Peter said, "who believe the Royal Orleans is the finest hotel in North America. Whether you agree or not doesn't much matter. The point is: it shows how good a hotel can be."

They crossed St. Louis, toward the site which had once been traditional hotel, a center of Creole society, then slave mart, Civil War hospital, state capitol, and now hotel again. Peter's voice took on enthusiasm.

"They've everything going for them - history, style, a modern plant and imagination. For the new building there were two firms of New Orleans architects - one tradition steeped, the other modern. They proved you can build freshly yet retain old character."

The doorman, who had ceased pacing, held the main door open as they strolled inside. Directly ahead two giant blackamoor statues guarded white marble stairs to the lobby promenade. "The funny thing is," Peter said, "that with all that's individual, the Royal Orleans is a chain hotel." He added tersely, "But not Curtis O'Keefe's kind."

"More like Peter McDermott's?"

"There's a long way to go for that. And I took a step backward. I guess you know."

"Yes," Christine said, "I know. But you'll still do it. I'd bet a thousand dollars that some day you will."

He squeezed her arm. "If you've that kind of money, better buy some O'Keefe Hotels stock."

They strolled the length of the Royal Orleans lobby white marbled with antique white, citron and persimmon tapestries - leaving by the Royal Street doors.

For an hour and a half they sauntered through the Quarter, stopping at Preservation Hall to endure its stifling heat and crowded benches for the joy of Dixieland jazz at its purest; enjoying the comparative coolness of Jackson Square, with coffee at the French market on the river side, inspecting critically some of the bad art with which New Orleans abounded; and later, at the Court of the Two Sisters, sipping cool mint juleps under stars, subdued lights and lacy trees.

"It's been wonderful," Christine said. "Now I'm ready to go home."

Strolling toward Iberville and the parked car, a small Negro boy, with cardboard box and brushes, accosted them.

"Shoe shine, mister?"

Peter shook his head. "Too late, son."

The boy, bright eyed, stood squarely in their path, surveying Peter's feet. "Ah bet yo' twenty-five cents ah kin tell you where you got those shoes. Ah kin tell you th' city and th' state; and if ah kin - you give me twenty-five cents. But if ah cain't, ah'll give yo' twenty-five cents."

A year ago Peter had bought the shoes in Tenafly, New Jersey. He hesitated, with a feeling of taking advantage, then nodded. "Okay."

The boy's bright eyes flicked upward. "Mister, yo' got those shoes on yo' feet on the concrete sidewalk of New Orleans, in th' State o' Louisiana.

Now remember - ah said ah'd tell yo, where yo, got those shoes, not where yo' bought them.

They laughed, and Christine slipped her arm through Peter's as he paid the quarter. They were still laughing during the drive northward to Christine's apartment.

13

In the dining room of Warren Trent's private suite, Curtis O'Keefe puffed appraisingly at a cigar. He had selected it from a cherry-wood humidor proffered him by Aloysius Royce, and its richness mingled agreeably on his palate with the Louis XIII cognac which had accompanied coffee. To O'Keefe's left, at the head of the oak refectory table at which Royce had deftly served their superb five-course dinner, Warren Trent presided with patriarchal benevolence. Directly across, Dodo, in a clinging black gown, inhaled agrecobly on a Turkish cigarette which Royce had also produced and lighted.

"Gee," Dodo said, "I feel like I ate a whole pig."

O'Keefe smiled indulgently. "A fine meal, Warren. Please compliment your chef."

The St. Gregory's proprietor inclined his head graciously. "He'll be gratified at the source of the compliment. By the way, you may like to know that precisely the same meal was available tonight in my main dining room.

O'Keefe nodded, though unimpressed. In his opinion a large elaborate menu was as out of place in a hotel dining room as pate de foie gras in a lunch pail. Even more to the point - earlier in the evening he had glanced into the St. Gregory's main restaurant at what should have been its peak service hour, to find the cavernous expanse barely a third occupied.

In the O'Keefe empire, dining was standard and simplified, with the choice of fare limited to a few popular pedestrian items. Behind this policy was Curtis O'Keefe's conviction - buttressed by experience - that public taste and preferences about eating were equal, and largely unimaginative. In any O'Keefe establishment, though food was precisely prepared and served with antiseptic cleanliness. There was seldom provision for gourmets, who were regarded as an unprofitable minority.

The hotel magnate observed, "There aren't many hotels nowadays offering that kind of cuisine. Most that did have had to change their ways."

"Most but not all. Why should everyone be as docile?"

"Because our entire business has changed, Warren, since you and I were young in it - whether we like the fact or not. The days of 'mine host' and personal service are over. Maybe people cared once about such things. They don't any more."

There was a directness in both men's voices, implying that with the meal's ending the time for mere politeness had gone. As each spoke, Dodo's baby blue eyes shifted curiously between them as if following some action, though barely understood, upon a stage. Aloysius Royce, his back turned, was busy at a sideboard.

Warren Trent said sharply, "There are some who'd disagree."

O'Keefe regarded his glowing cigar tip. "To any who do, the answer's in my balance sheets compared with others. For example, yours."

The other flushed, his lips tightening. "What's happening here is temporary: a phase. I've seen them before. This one will pass, the same as others."

"No. If you think that, you're fashioning a hangman's noose. And you deserve better, Warren - after all these years."

There was an obstinate pause before the growled reply. "I haven't spent my life building an institution to see it become a cheap-run joint."

"If you're referring to my houses, none of them are that." It was O'Keefe's turn to redden angrily. "Nor am I so sure about this one being an institution."

In the cold, ensuing silence Dodo asked, "Will it be a real fight or just a words one?"

Both men laughed, though Warren Trent less heartily. It was Curtis O'Keefe who raised his hands placatingly.

"She's right, Warren. It's pointless for us to quarrel. If we're to continue our separate ways, at least we should remain friends."

More tractably, Warren Trent nodded. In part, his acerbity of a moment earlier had been prompted by a twinge of sciatica which for the time being had passed. Though even allowing for this, he thought bitterly, it was hard not to be resentful of this smooth successful man whose financial conquests so greatly contrasted with his own.

"You can sum up in three words," Curtis O'Keefe declared, "what the public expects nowadays from a hotel: an 'efficient, economic package.'

But we can only provide it if we have effective cost accounting of every move - our guests' and our own; an efficient plant; and above all a minimum wage bill, which means automation, eliminating people and old-style hospitality wherever possible."

"And that's all? You'd discount everything else that used to make a fine hotel? You'd deny that a good innkeeper can stamp his personal imprint on any house?" The St. Gregory's proprietor snorted. "A visitor to your kind of hotel doesn't have a sense of belonging, of being someone significant to whom a little more is given - in feeling and hospitality - than is charged for on his bill."

"It's a delusion he doesn't need," O'Keefe said incisively. "If a hotel's hospitable it's because it's paid to be, so in the end it doesn't count.

People see through falseness in a way they didn't used to. But they respect fairness - a fair profit for the hotel; a fair price to the guest, which is what my houses give. Oh, I grant you there'll always be a few Tuscanys for those who want special treatment and are willing to pay. But they're small places and for the few. The big houses like yours - if they want to survive my kind of competition - have to think as I do."

Warren Trent growled, "You'll not object if I continue to think for myself for a while."

O'Keefe shook his head impatiently. "There was nothing personal. I was speaking of trends, not particulars."

"The devil with trends! I've an instinct tells me plenty of people still like to travel first class. They're the ones who expect something more than boxes with beds."

"You're misquoting me, but I won't complain." Curtis O'Keefe smiled coolly. "I'll challenge your simile, though. Except for the very few, first class is finished, dead."

"Why?"

"Because jet airplanes killed first-class travel, and an entire state of mind along with it. Before then, first class had an aura of distinction.

But jet travel showed everyone how silly and wasteful the old ways were.

Air journeys became swift and short, to the point where first class simply wasn't worth it. So people squeezed into their tourist seats and stopped worrying about status - the price was too high. Pretty soon there was a reverse kind of status in traveling tourist. The best people did it. First class, they told each other over their box lunches, was for fools and profligates. And what people realize they get from jets - the efficient, economic package - they require from the hotel business too. Unsuccessfully Dodo attempted to conceal a yawn behind her hand, then butted her Turkish cigarette. Instantly Aloysius Royce was beside her, proffering a fresh one and deftly lighting it. She smiled warmly, and the young Negro returned the smile, managing to convey a discreet but friendly sympathy. Unobtrusively he replaced used ash trays on the table with fresh, and refilled Dodo's coffee cup, then the others. As Royce slipped out quietly, O'Keefe observed, "A good man you have there, Warren."