“That you, Mr. O’Keefe?”
“Yes, it is.” Irrationally, Curtis O’Keefe wished that his West Coast representative had not found it necessary to telephone twice within twenty-four hours.
“Got some great news for you.”
“What kind of news?”
“I inked a deal for Dodo.”
“I thought I made it clear yesterday that I insist on something special for Miss Lash.”
“How special can you get, Mr. O’Keefe? This is the greatest; a real break. Dodo’s a lucky kid.”
“Tell me.”
“Walt Curzon’s shooting a remake of You Can’t Take It With You. Remember?—we put money in his pot.”
“I remember.”
“Yesterday I found out Walt needed a girl to play the old Ann Miller role. It’s a good supporting part. Fits Dodo like a tight brassiere.”
Curtis O’Keefe wished peevishly once again that Lemnitzer would be subtler in his choice of words.
“I assume there’ll be a screen test.”
“Sure will.”
“Then how do we know Curzon will agree to the casting?”
“Are you kidding? Don’t underrate your influence, Mr. O’Keefe. Dodo’s in. Besides, I’ve lined up Sandra Straughan to work with her. You know Sandra?”
“Yes.” O’Keefe was well aware of Sandra Straughan. She had a reputation as one of filmdom’s most accomplished dramatic coaches. Among other achievements, she possessed a remarkable record of accepting unknown girls with influential sponsors and shaping them into box office princesses.
“I’m real glad for Dodo,” Lemnitzer said. “She’s a kid I’ve always liked. Only thing is, we have to move fast.”
“How fast?”
“They need her yesterday, Mr. O’Keefe. It all fits, though, with the rest I’ve arranged.”
“The rest of what?”
“Jenny LaMarsh.” Hank Lemnitzer sounded puzzled. “You hadn’t forgotten?”
“No.” O’Keefe had certainly not forgotten the witty and beautiful Vassar brunette who had so impressed him a month or two ago. But after yesterday’s talk with Lemnitzer he had shelved thoughts of Jenny LaMarsh for the time being.
“Everything’s fixed, Mr. O’Keefe. Jenny flies to New York tonight; she’ll join you there tomorrow. We’ll switch Dodo’s Naples reservations to Jenny, then Dodo can fly here direct from New Orleans. Simple, eh?”
It was indeed simple. So simple, in fact, that O’Keefe could find no flaw in the plan. He wondered why he wanted to.
“You assure me positively that Miss Lash will get the part?”
“Mr. O’Keefe, I swear it on my mother’s grave.”
“Your mother isn’t dead.”
“Then my grandmother’s.” There was a pause, then, as if with sudden perception, Lemnitzer said, “If you’re worried about telling Dodo, why don’t I do it? You just go out for a couple of hours. I’ll call her, fix everything. That way—no fuss, no farewells.”
“Thank you. I’m quite capable of handling the matter personally.”
“Suit yourself, Mr. O’Keefe. Just trying to help.”
“Miss Lash will telegraph you the time of her arrival in Los Angeles. You’ll meet the flight?”
“Sure thing. It’ll be great to see Dodo. Well, Mr. O’Keefe, have a swell time in Naples. I envy you having Jenny.”
Without acknowledgment, O’Keefe hung up.
Dodo returned breathlessly, loaded with packages and followed by a grinning bellboy, similarly burdened.
“I have to go back, Curtie. There’s more.”
O’Keefe said gruffly, “You could have had all this delivered.”
“Oh, this is more exciting! Like Christmas.” She told the bellboy, “We’re going to Naples. That’s in Italy.”
O’Keefe gave the bellboy a dollar and waited until he had gone.
Disentangling herself from packages, Dodo flung her arms impulsively around O’Keefe’s neck. She kissed him on both cheeks. “Did you miss me? Gee, Curtie, I’m happy!”
O’Keefe disengaged her arms gently. “Let’s sit down. I want to tell you about some changes in plan. I also have some good news.”
“We’re going sooner!”
He shook his head. “It concerns you more than me. The fact is, my dear, you’re being given a movie role. It’s something I’ve been working on. I heard this morning—it’s all arranged.”
He was aware of Dodo’s innocent blue eyes regarding him.
“I’m assured it’s a very good part; in fact, I insisted that it should be. If things go well, as I expect them to, it could be the beginning of something very big for you.” Curtis O’Keefe stopped, conscious of a hollowness to his own words.
Dodo said slowly, “I guess it means … I have to go away.”
“Unfortunately, my dear, it does.”
“Soon?”
“I’m afraid—tomorrow morning. You’ll fly directly to Los Angeles. Hank Lemnitzer will meet you.”
Dodo moved her head slowly in assent. The slim fingers of one hand went absently to her face, brushing back a strand of ash-blond hair. It was a simple movement yet, like so many of Dodo’s, profoundly sensuous. Unreasonably, O’Keefe experienced a jealous twinge at the thought of Hank Lemnitzer with Dodo. Lemnitzer, who had managed the ground work for most of his employer’s liaisons in the past, would never dare to trifle with a chosen favorite in advance. But afterward … Afterward was something else again. He thrust the thought away.
“I want you to know, my dear, that losing you is a great blow to me. But we have to think of your future.”
“Curtie, it’s all right.” Dodo’s eyes were still upon him. Despite their innocence, he had an absurd notion they had penetrated to the truth. “It’s all right. You don’t have to worry.”
“I’d hoped—about the movie role—you might be more pleased.”
“I am, Curtie! Gee, I really am! I think it’s swell the way you always do the sweetest things.”
The reaction bolstered his own confidence. “It’s really a tremendous opportunity. I’m sure you’ll do well, and of course I shall follow your career closely.” He resolved to concentrate his thoughts on Jenny LaMarsh.
“I guess …” There was the slightest catch in Dodo’s voice. “I guess you’ll go tonight. Before me.”
Making an instantaneous decision, he answered, “No, I’ll cancel my flight and leave tomorrow morning. Tonight will be a special evening for us both.”
As Dodo looked up gratefully, the telephone rang. With a sense of relief for something else to do, he answered it.
“Mr. O’Keefe?” a pleasant woman’s voice inquired.
“Yes.”
“This is Christine Francis—Mr. Warren Trent’s assistant. Mr. Trent wondered if it would be convenient for him to come to see you now.”
O’Keefe glanced at his watch. It showed a few minutes before noon.
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “I’ll see Mr. Trent. Tell him to come.”
Replacing the telephone, he smiled at Dodo. “It seems, my dear, we each have something to celebrate—you a glittering future, and me, a new hotel.”
8
An hour or so earlier Warren Trent sat brooding behind the closed double doors of his office in the executive suite. Several times already this morning he had reached out for the telephone with the intention of calling Curtis O’Keefe, accepting the latter’s terms for take-over of the hotel. There no longer seemed any cause for delay. The Journeymen’s Union had been the final hope of alternate financing. The brusque rejection from that source had crumbled Warren Trent’s last resistance against absorption by the O’Keefe behemoth.
Yet on each occasion, after the initial motion of his hand, Warren Trent held back. He was like a prisoner, he mused, condemned to death at a specific hour but with the choice of suicide beforehand. He accepted the inevitable. He realized that he would end his own tenure because there was no alternative. Yet human nature urged him to cling to each remaining moment unti
l all were gone and the need for decision ended.
He had been closest to capitulation when the arrival of Peter McDermott forestalled him. McDermott reported the decision of the Congress of American Dentistry to continue its convention, a fact which did not surprise Warren Trent since he had predicted it the day before. But now the entire affair seemed remote and unimportant. He was glad when McDermott left.
Afterward, for a while, he fell into a reverie, remembering past triumphs and the satisfactions they had brought. That had been the time—not so long ago, really—when his house was sought by the great and near-great—presidents, crowned heads, nobility, resplendent women and distinguished men, the nabobs of power and wealth, famous and infamous—all with one distinction: they commanded attention and received it. And where these elite led, others followed, until the St. Gregory was both a mecca and a machine for making gold.
When memories were all one had—or seemed likely to have—it was wise to savor them. Warren Trent hoped that for the hour or so which remained of his proprietorship he would be undisturbed.
The hope proved vain.
Christine Francis came in quietly, as usual sensing his mood. “Mr. Emile Dumaire would like to speak with you. I wouldn’t have disturbed you, but he insisted it’s urgent.”
Trent grunted. The vultures were gathering, he thought. Though on second thoughts, perhaps the simile was hardly fair. A good deal of money from the Industrial Merchants Bank, of which Emile Dumaire was president, was tied up in the St. Gregory Hotel. It was also Industrial Merchants which, months earlier, had refused an extension of credit as well as a larger loan for refinancing. Well, Dumaire and his fellow directors had nothing to worry about now. With the impending deal their money would be forthcoming. Warren Trent supposed he should give that reassurance.
He reached for the telephone.
“No,” Christine said. “Mr. Dumaire is here, waiting outside.”
Warren Trent stopped, surprised. It was highly unusual for Emile Dumaire to leave the fastness of his bank to make a personal call on anyone.
A moment later Christine ushered the visitor in, closing the door as she left.
Emile Dumaire, short, portly and with a fringe of curly white hair, had an unbroken line of Creole ancestry. Yet he looked—perversely—as if he had stepped from the pages of Pickwick Papers. His manner had a pompous fussiness to match.
“I apologize, Warren, for the abrupt intrusion without an appointment. However, the nature of my business left little time for niceties.”
They shook hands perfunctorily. The hotel proprietor waved his visitor to a chair.
“What business?”
“If you don’t object, I’d prefer to take things in order. First, permit me to say how sorry I was that it was not feasible to accede to your loan request. Unfortunately, the sum and terms were far beyond our resources or established policy.”
Warren Trent nodded noncommittally. He had little liking for the banker, though he had never made the mistake of underrating him. Beneath the bumbling affectations—which lulled and deceived many—was a capable, shrewd mind.
“However, I am here today with a purpose which I hope may offset some of the unfortunate aspects of that earlier occasion.”
“That,” Warren Trent asserted, “is extremely unlikely.”
“We’ll see.” From a slim briefcase the banker extracted several sheets of ruled paper covered with penciled notes. “It is my understanding that you have received an offer for this hotel from the O’Keefe Corporation.”
“You don’t need the FBI to tell you that.”
The banker smiled. “You wouldn’t care to inform me of the terms?”
“Why should I?”
“Because,” Emile Dumaire said carefully, “I am here to make a counter-offer.”
“If that’s the case, I’d have even less reason to speak out. What I will tell you is that I’ve agreed to give the O’Keefe people an answer by noon today.”
“Quite so. My information was to that effect, which is the reason for my abrupt appearance here. Incidentally, I apologize for not being earlier, but my information and instructions have taken some time to assemble.”
The news of an eleventh-hour offer—at least, from the present source—did not excite Warren Trent. He supposed that a local group of investors, for whom Dumaire was spokesman, had combined in an attempt to buy in cheaply now and sell out later with a capital gain. Whatever the suggested terms, they could hardly match the offer of O’Keefe. Nor was Warren Trent’s own position likely to be improved.
The banker consulted his penciled notes. “It is my understanding that the terms offered by O’Keefe Corporation are a purchase price of four millions. Of this, two millions would be applied to renewal of the present mortgage, the balance to be a million cash and a million dollars in a new issue of O’Keefe stock. There’s an additional rumor that you personally would be given some kind of life tenancy of your quarters in the hotel.”
Warren Trent’s face reddened with anger. He slammed a clenched fist hard upon the surface of his desk. “Goddam, Emile! Don’t play cat and mouse with me!”
“If I appeared to, I’m sorry.”
“For God’s sake! If you know the details already, why ask?”
“Frankly,” Dumaire said, “I was hoping for the confirmation that you just gave me. Also, the offer I am authorized to make is somewhat better.”
He had fallen, Warren Trent realized, for an ancient, elementary gambit. But he was indignant that Dumaire should have seen fit to play it on him.
It was also obvious that Curtis O’Keefe had a defector in his own organization, possibly someone at O’Keefe headquarters who was privy to high-level policy. In a way, there was ironic justice in the fact that Curtis O’Keefe, who used espionage as a business tool, should be spied upon himself.
“Just how are the terms better? And by whom are they offered?”
“To reply to the second question first—at present I am not at liberty to say.”
Warren Trent snorted, “I do business with people I can see, not ghosts.”
“I am no ghost,” Dumaire reminded him. “Moreover you have the bank’s assurance that the offer I am empowered to make is bona fide, and that the parties whom the bank represents have unimpeachable credentials.”
Still irked by the stratagem of a few moments earlier, the hotel proprietor said, “Let’s get to the point.”
“I was about to do so.” The banker shuffled his notes. “Basically, the valuation which my principals place upon this hotel is identical with that of the O’Keefe Corporation.”
“That’s hardly surprising, since you had O’Keefe’s figures.”
“In other respects, however, there are several significant differences.”
For the first time since the beginning of the interview, Warren Trent was conscious of a mounting interest in what the banker had to say.
“First, my principals have no wish that you should sever your personal connection with the St. Gregory Hotel or divorce yourself from its financial structure. Second, it would be their intention—insofar as is commercially feasible—to maintain the hotel’s independence and existing character.”
Warren Trent gripped the arms of his chair tightly. He glanced at a wall clock to his right. It showed a quarter to twelve.
“They would, however, insist on acquiring a majority of the outstanding common shares—a reasonable requirement in the circumstances—to provide effective management control. You yourself would thus revert to the status of largest minority stock holder. A further requirement would be your immediate resignation as president and managing director. Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”
Warren Trent filled a single glass from the Thermos jug on his desk. “What do you have in mind—that I become a busboy? Or perhaps assistant doorman?”
“Scarcely that.” Emile Dumaire sipped from the glass, then regarded it. “It has always struck me as quite remarkable how our muddy Mississippi c
an become such pleasant tasting water.”
“Get on with it!”
The banker smiled. “My principals propose that immediately following your resignation you be appointed chairman of the board, initially for a two-year term.”
“A mere figurehead, I suppose!”
“Perhaps. But it would seem to me that there are worse things. Or perhaps you’d prefer the figurehead to be Mr. Curtis O’Keefe.”
The hotel proprietor was silent.
“I am further instructed to inform you that my principals will match any offer of a personal nature concerning accommodation here which you may have received from the O’Keefe Corporation. Now, as to the question of stock transference and refinancing. I’d like to go into that in some detail.”
As the banker talked on, closely consulting his notes, Warren Trent had a sense of weariness and unreality. Out of memory an incident came to him from long ago. Once, as a small boy, he had attended a country fair, clutching a few hoarded pennies to spend on the mechanical rides. There had been one that he had ventured on—a cake walk. It was a form of amusement, he supposed, which had long since passed into limbo. He remembered it as a platform with a multiple-hinged floor which moved continually—now up, now down, now tilting forward, backward, forward … so that perspective was never level, and for the cost of a penny one had an imminent chance of falling before attaining the far end. Beforehand it had seemed exciting, but he remembered that nearing the finish of the cake walk he had wanted, more than anything else, merely to get off.
The past weeks had been like a cake walk too. At the beginning he had been confident, then abruptly the floor had canted away beneath him. It had risen, as hope revived, then slanted away again. Near the end the Journeymen’s Union held a promise of stability, then abruptly that too had collapsed on lunatic hinges.
Now, unexpectedly, the cake walk had stabilized once more and all he wanted to do was get off.
Later on, Warren Trent knew, his feelings would change, his personal interest in the hotel reviving, as it always had. But for the moment he was conscious only of relief that, one way or another, the burden of responsibility was shifting on. Along with relief was curiosity.