The Resort (5 page)

If, now that Henry had reached fifty, people felt relaxed in his presence, it was because he had learned to relax himself. He was not an optimist or a pessimist, he thought, but a realist poised to consider whatever life would offer.

*

Now, whenever a moment of panic presented itself, Henry would think
There has to be a net
.

It came from passing a crowd in New York City some years ago, everyone staring upward to the lip of the roof of a six-story tenement, where a stout lady was hanging on perilously. A policeman on the roof was trying to talk her into giving him her hand.

Faced with the decision to accept or reject the helping hand, the woman suddenly let her grip go and started to tumble through the air. Henry didn’t want to believe what he was so clearly seeing, a fat lady on her way to momentary death.

But the firemen were below with their safety net. The six men holding it braced themselves for the impact. The fat lady bounced high, then bounced less, then stayed, safe from the concrete and herself.

*

“Let me try that,” Margaret said, turning the doorknob. She pulled on it. Nothing happened. “Some people,” she said, “would get angry about a practical joke like this.”

There has to be a net.
“Give me a moment,” Henry said, as Margaret stepped aside. He bent his knees to peer between the door and the jamb, separated only by a vertical hairline of light. He could see two locks.

I wish that were true, Henry thought. On his knees in front of the door, he seemed fascinated by the hardware. “The top lock is a deadbolt,” he said, “but Clete locked only the bottom. The bottom’s a spring latch. Watch me,” he said, turning to look up at her.

Of course, there was anxiety in Margaret’s face. She was unprepared by history. “Don’t be nervous,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”

Henry was good at fixing things around the house. She thought
This isn’t our house.

“Thank heaven for credit cards,” Henry said. He still had his from the Diners Club. It just fit between the door and the jamb. He moved it carefully until it was under the spring latch, then gently pushed upward, moving the latch back into the door. “That’s why deadbolt locks are safer,” he said over his shoulder to Margaret. “These can be opened by an amateur.”

As soon as the plastic card was up an inch, he said, “There,” and with his right hand turned the knob and opened the door.

Clete was standing three feet from the door, his arms folded. Henry felt the blood rise to his face.

“You’ve passed the first test,” Clete said gaily. “I’ll have to use the deadbolt also from now on, Mr. Brown.”

“What the hell kind of nonsense is this?” Margaret asked.

Clete ignored her question. “Dr. Brown,” he said, “you’re not Jewish, are you?”

*

Henry remembered when on his second date with Margaret the subject they had avoided on their first date came up.

“I have an impertinent question,” Margaret had said.

“Go ahead.”

“You’re not Jewish, are you?”

“Would it make a difference?” Henry asked.

“Not to me,” she said. “To others.”

“I’m Jewish.”

“You don’t look Jewish,” Margaret said.

“That’s okay,” Henry said. “You don’t look Methodist.”

“How’d you know I was a Methodist?”

“All Methodists have a certain look.”

It was then she realized he was kidding, and they both laughed.

“I looked you up,” Henry said. “Your father’s a
minister. Is he the one it would make a difference to?”

“Yes, but he’d like the idea. Reverend Kittredge’s Sunday sermons are about his private conversations with God. They got him transferred to the poorest church in Omaha, which had no choice but to take us. He’d say things like,
I’m going to open a clothing store. Why should the Jews make all the money?
He hated our poverty and couldn’t do anything about it. He’d be pleased we’re going together. He’d say,
Latch on to a Jew, they always know where the money is
.”

When she saw Henry’s face, Margaret added, “You have to think of it as half a joke. He’d never lift a hand against another human being.”

“It’s a joke that is not a joke,” Henry said. “The essence of Jewish humor.”

“My mother was the big proponent of brains in my family. She would adore you.”

By the time they made that first trip to Omaha, Henry remembered, her mother was dead.

*

“I’m not Jewish,” Margaret was saying to Clete. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“But you married a Jew, right?” Clete asked.

“Listen, young man,” Henry said. “You were polite when we arrived and now you’re being discourteous.”

“I’m sorry,” Clete said. “I was just getting some facts straight. We don’t like making mistakes.”

Damn,
thought Henry, as he went back into the room to pick up the phone. He was prepared for everything but this.

The girl at the other end sounded alarmed. “Isn’t Clete with you?”

“I want to talk to the manager,” Henry said, trying to calm his voice.

“Mr. Whittaker doesn’t talk to guests,” the girl said. “Isn’t Clete there?”

“We were locked in our room.”

“You’ll have to talk to Clete about that.”

“I’m afraid he’s been rude to my wife and to me.”

“Oh, sir, Clete’s very polite. I’m sure you must be mistaken.”

Henry put the phone back on the cradle. What kind of a place was this? He turned to see Clete standing in the doorway. And he remembered the room clerk at the Highgate.
Will you need a reservation at your next destination? May I recommend Cliffhaven in Big Sur?
And the way he watched him all the way to the elevator?

“Coming, Mr. Brown?”

Henry could see Margaret’s anxious face behind Clete.

“I’d like to go down to the reception desk,” Henry said.

“Sure,” Clete said. “Just follow me.”

Outside, Henry took Margaret by the arm. “I think we’d better get out of here,” he whispered.

“What about our bags, our clothes?” Margaret asked, starting back into the room.

Henry tightened his grip on her arm. “Don’t go in there.” Then, loud enough for Clete to hear, he said, “We’ll come back to get our things, with the police, if necessary.”

Clete stopped. Slowly, he turned to face them. “Oh Mr. Brown, you seemed so calm before. I wish you wouldn’t get yourself all worked up. It’s so un-California, if you know what I mean.” His face was expressionless. “Please cool it.”

“I don’t like jokes like this.”

“Mr. Brown, this isn’t a joke.”

“Do you have my car keys?”

“I told you they’d be at the reception desk,” Clete said. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Well, I’m going straight to the reception desk.” Henry took Margaret by the hand and went down the stairs, Clete right behind them.

“Don’t try to stop me, young man,” Henry said.

“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Brown. And I wish you’d call me Clete, not young man.”

Henry turned to look at him. Clete was serious. The name meant something to him.

“You wouldn’t want me to call you old man, would you?” Clete asked.

He led Henry and Margaret around to the front of the building. Three other blue-and-orange T-shirted young men, blond like Clete, were lolling in front of another building.

Where were the other guests?

Henry started walking at a fast pace toward the nearest of the staff members. They wouldn’t all be crazy. But the young man, seeing him coming, glanced over at Clete, then went into the building behind him. As if on signal, the other two did the same thing.

There wasn’t another human being in sight. Behind the building, encircling the distant perimeter of the built-up
area,
was redwood forest, the trees like stiff sentinels almost all the way up the mountains behind Cliffhaven. Turning toward the Pacific, Henry saw seemingly impenetrable foliage that went all the way down to the whitecapped surf sounding against the rocks. Between the brush and the roiling water there had to be the curving highway they had come on. They had to get back down there.

“I’ll be happy to show you where reception is,” Clete said.

Henry looked over at Margaret. “There are times,” she said, “when a good mind is of absolutely no use.”

“Nonsense,” Henry had replied, though Margaret, who on occasion had to release a patient to death, was demonstrably right.

“Take your time,” Clete said. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Well, I haven’t,” Henry said, motioning Clete on. He waited for Margaret, then followed Clete to the side of the next building. The young man leaped up the three steps onto the porch and held the glass door open for them, waiting.

The reception room was plain, just two couches at one end, with a coffee table in front of each, and some extra chairs. At the left as they entered was a large desk with a young lady seated behind it. She, too, was wearing one of the orange T-shirts with “Cliffhaven” stenciled on its front.

“Good evening,” she said cheerfully.

“I’m Henry Brown.”

“Yes, I know,” she said.

“I’d like my car keys, please.”

“Oh they’re locked up, Mr. Brown. I’m afraid I can’t give them to you without Clete’s permission.”

It is useless to lose one’s temper.

“Miss,” Henry said, “that Ford belongs to the Hertz people.”

The girl looked over at Clete. “Haven’t you briefed them?”

“I told him no keys. He’s just being stubborn the way some of them are.”

Henry turned. “Some of who?”

“Mr. Brown, don’t act naïve. You’re a very intelligent man. Come now, I’m going to take you and your wife for a real treat. The restaurant is three stars, you know.”

“Is that supposed to be the chief attraction of this place?” Henry asked, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

“It wasn’t at first,” Clete said. “We got lucky. One of our first guests was a restaurateur—did I get that word right?—you know what I mean, who used to be a gourmet chef, and Mr. Clifford, he’s the most intelligent man I ever met, he immediately saw the potential.”

“You mean he hired the guest as cook? Why would the man be willing to work here?”

Clete smiled. “Willing is irrelevant, Mr. Brown. Our guests never leave us.”

3

An hour earlier, while Henry and Margaret were taking a nap, Clete had decided on a siesta, too. Siesta meant one thing to him. He went to his room and buzzed Charlotte’s.

“Come on over,” he said.

“I thought you weren’t calling today.”

“Don’t get sore,” Clete said. “I got held up with some in-comers. You coming?”

Charlotte let his phrase hang in the air a second. Then she said, “Not yet,” and they both laughed.

*

Clete was lying on his bed when Charlotte knocked. She came in without waiting for his response, and locked the door behind her.

“Suppose I had someone in here?” Clete said.

“I’d kill her,” Charlotte said.

Charlotte was blonde, young and extraordinarily tall. Clete, who believed himself to be a connoisseur of female bodies, admired Charlotte’s proportions. Even her height pleased him, he just didn’t like
standing
next to her.

“There’s room,” he said, beckoning to the place beside him on the bed. “I like you better horizontal.”

“No finesse.” She lay down next to him as she had done so many afternoons before.

“No finesse, eh?” Clete said, touching the tip of her left breast through the orange T-shirt. He moved his finger in a small circle around the perimeter of the nipple, barely in contact with the nipple itself. As always, it aroused her, and when he saw that it had, he withdrew his finger. A little at a time, was his motto with women. Make them want it.

“Got myself some beauts,” he said. “Henry Brown. Wife’s a doctor.”

“Is she cute?” Charlotte asked.

“She’s old enough to be my mother, for Christ’s sake!” Clete said.

“So’s Mrs. Clifford.”

“You watch yourself.” He returned his finger to its circling motion, this time on Charlotte’s right nipple.

“You can’t always tell when people are Jewish,” Clete said. “They ought to wear signs.”

Charlotte pointed to her nose.

“Oh, some of them have nose jobs,” Clete said. “But some just in their natural looks, you can’t tell. This guy Brown doesn’t look it. If anything, his wife—that’s the doctor—she might look a little, but I’ll bet she’s not.”

Clete had moved his hand to Charlotte’s belly, expanding the circular motion.

“I’m glad you find me attractive,” Charlotte said.