Weekend (8 page)

“Well,” Charlotte went on philosophically. “I don’t think we can lose anything by trying. I’ve been here a couple of times before but never came away with anything worthwhile. But that was when I lived in the Bronx and was considered GU—Geographically Undesirable. Who knows, now that I’m in Manhattan …”

“Yet so many marriages and romances are supposed to get started in the mountains. I just read about it in
Coronet. Time
had a story on it, too.”

“I read an article also,” Charlotte laughed. “It was in
Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
With me it always ends up Not.” She gestured toward the bus driver with her eyes. “Who knows, we may have to settle for him on the way back.”

Fern hid her smile in her copy of the
Post.

“How come you’re still reading? We’re almost there. Aren’t you even a little bit excited? After all, it’s your first time.”

“I’m excited, I’m excited,” Fern pretended, actually not the least bit excited at the prospect of being typed as just another of a number of women that her friends at work liked to call “on the make.” Being aggressive was foreign to her personality and it certainly didn’t help when a girl at the next desk told her the day before, “The Congress is such a meat market. Everyone out to try before they buy, looking for the best piece.” It was definitely not Fern’s style. The not unattractive, but certainly not striking, blond preferred dealing with men on a one to one basis. To be just a face in a crowd, to have to be so competitive …

Charlotte pulled out her compact and took one last look before the bus pulled in. Not bad, she thought, not bad at all. A little more tan would have helped, but a few hours at the pool would rectify that in no time. She tipped the mirror slightly so her bosom was reflected. Her breasts protruded evenly, the Bali’s wireframe making her look bigger than she was. That’s fair play up here, she thought. She’d take all the help she could get.

Fern watched her girl friend inspect herself. Despite the act Charlotte put on, always the girl with the quip, a laugh a minute, Fern knew she was deadly serious about finding a man. It was the most important thing in her life.

“Watch your step, everybody, watch your step,” the driver sing-songed as he opened the exit door. “The bellhops will take your tagged luggage to the lobby so you can go directly to the registration desk and get your room assignments.”

Charlotte followed Fern down the steps. “I don’t see him,” she said.

“Who?”

“My Don Juan. I thought I’d step off the bus and fall right into his arms. My mother promised it would happen like that this time.”

“So much for mother always being right,” Fern said, feeling not a bit unlike Daniel getting ready to enter the lion’s den. “Well, here goes nothing!”

They headed through the main door and for a few minutes, simply stood in the lobby taking in the scene. At the top of the stairway to the right, large billboards featuring the faces of entertainers were hung just above the round double doors that led toward the nightclub. From their perspective, Charlotte and Fern could make out that Buddy Hackett and Alan King would be featured Saturday and Sunday nights.

Things had quieted down quite a bit at the reservations counter. What an hour ago had seemed an impossibility, that the right people would get their right keys and right luggage to their right room, had actually come to pass.

Early check-ins had already changed into their resort outfits—women dressed in colorful cotton blouses and pedal pushers and men strutting around in brightly designed shirts to match their plaid or striped bermuda shorts. Some of their kids ran around wearing polo shirts with the name “Congress” emblazoned across the chest.

A gust of cool air swept across their faces. Fern brushed back her bangs and looked around for the source. Air-conditioning came out through vents carefully hidden in the wall paneling. It was part of the hotel’s unique heating system that permitted cool air to circulate through the ducts in the summer and hot air in the winter. They were about to move forward when a bellhop turned his cart too sharply and spilled half a dozen pieces of luggage on the floor. A number of people began clapping and shouting
Mazel Tov
, all to the extreme embarrassment of the bellhop who worked frantically to right the cart and restack the luggage.

“Let’s get going,” Fern said, “before we get run down. It would be a heck of a way to start a holiday.”

“You’re right. We’ll check in, change and go straight to the pool. And don’t forget, if any strange men approach you, be grateful.”

“I’m a strange man,” Manny Goldberg said, overhearing her last words. He had just come out of the Flamingo Room and was headed for some fresh air. The ever present cigar twirled in his mouth as he rolled the end of it with his tongue. Saliva formed disgustingly at the corners of his lips. Charlotte moved away as he put his arm around her shoulder.

“Honey,” she said, “that strange we don’t want.” She took Fern’s elbow quickly and moved closer to the reservation desk.

“Independent bitch,” Manny mumbled. He knew the type. They’re all alike, he thought, play hard to get and then, when you spend some money on them, they spread their legs so fast you could fall right in. He looked about for a moment as if he had lost his way. Then he remembered he needed air and headed for the exit.

“What’s going on?” Jonathan asked. Bruce got up quickly and followed him into the basement corridor. “Why this panic over a chambermaid?”

“She hasn’t been located yet.”

“So?”

“Look,” Bruce said, lowering his voice some, “here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Tony’s only been on staff a week. If he did have cholera, he probably picked it up on the ship.”

“Then he didn’t get it here at the hotel?”

“It doesn’t look that way.”

“Well then,” he said, obviously starting to relax, “that pretty much lets us off the hook, doesn’t it?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I gather that when Tony got really sick the second night, his two roommates moved out. But the first night, when he might have been contagious, it’s possible they contracted a mild case and are carrying it themselves. More important, when they returned, the place was so filthy they refused to clean it up themselves.”

“And Margret Thomas was the one who cleaned it,” Jonathan said quietly.

“That’s right, probably handling all sorts of contaminated material in the process. We’ve got to be sure we know exactly where all the linen went and where she’s been with those soiled hands. If she touched any food—”

“Hey,” Halloran stuck his head out of his office. “I got Margret on the phone. We finally found her.”

“Is she on her way down?”

“Yeah, and she’s plenty pissed. Says we’re screwing up her whole day.”

“What exactly have you told the dishwashers?” Jonathan asked, turning back to Bruce.

“Nothing yet. Look, here’s what’s got to be done. They’ve got to get to a hospital for tests and observation. From what I’ve determined so far, they’re the only ones who might have picked it up. It’s a standard procedure to isolate possible carriers.”

“What hospital?” Jonathan’s eyes narrowed.

“Well, as Sid would be the first to admit, the hospital in town isn’t at all equipped to handle this. We need a place where cholera antisera are available. I would have brought some with me but we didn’t have any in the lab. I immediately put it on order.”

“In other words, you want to send them to Mt. Sinai.”

“I see no reason why not.”

“There’s a damn good reason why not. We need a place where we can control, as much as possible, anyone talking about it.” He scribbled something on his memo pad. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll call Ellen Golden’s New York physician and have him put them in University Hospital. I’m sure if they don’t have antisera, they can get it. We’ve called on this doctor for favors before. I trust him and he knows when to keep his mouth shut.”

“All right,” Bruce said reluctantly, “but if we had them in Mt. Sinai, I could ride closer herd on things.” Jonathan was not about to budge. “Okay, do it your way. You should also know, incidentally, that Sid sent one of Tony’s specimens to my lab for diagnosis last night.”

“So quickly?”

“There was no point in wasting time. We should get some results in a day or so and at least have his case diagnosed one way or the other. Now I’d like to be sure of the whereabouts of this Margret Thomas every minute since she left Tony’s room.”

“I’m sure security will get her here soon enough,” Jonathan said. “Once she gets here, why don’t you keep all three of them down here and I’ll get hold of my driver. He’ll bring the hotel car up to the basement entrance and will be ready to drive them to the city as soon as you’re through asking questions. Don’t bother explaining why you’re asking. I’ll take care of that.”

“They’re probably not going to like being whisked away like that.”

“Don’t worry, that’s my problem. I’ll make it worth their while. Just give me a few minutes alone with them before they leave. I’ll also take care of Halloran.”

Bruce nodded. For reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on, he was suspicious of all this cooperation. Then he went back into the room with the Puerto Ricans. Jonathan remained in the hall. He took out a cigarette and lit it, exhaling the smoke slowly.

Just lucky, he thought, that he had come down to Halloran’s office when he did. This medical hustler might’ve really fucked things up by making his own arrangements. New York hospitals, isolation, specimens, all this noise over nothing. No one else in the whole hotel was complaining of stomach ailments and here this Solomon was, panicking over a chambermaid and two Puerto Rican dishwashers. Even if the Chinaman did have cholera, and he strongly doubted it now, it was obviously a one-shot.

He’d send Margret and the two spics to New York, all right, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to be to any hospital. “I’ll give them each a hundred bucks,” he mumbled to himself, “and tell them to take a few days off … at least until after the weekend. By then this imaginary crisis will have ended and it won’t have made a damn difference. It’s the only way to handle it.”

He hurried on to speak to Halloran and give instructions to his driver.

He was proud of the way he took control of the situation. He could imagine what Ellen Golden might have done; probably burst into hysterics and then close the place for a week “just to be sure,” cost and reputation be damned. He smiled smugly, feeling quite justified in his drive to wrest control from her.

Nick Martin took a copy of the
Congressional Record
, the hotel’s daily gossip sheet, from the pile on the reservation desk and waited for the receptionist to get off the phone. Though he had checked in just after the crowd had peaked, he was impressed with how professional and efficient the office staff was. It came as a surprise because when his associates had investigated the business practices of other Catskill resorts, they discovered that the various pressures associated with the summer season resulted in a great deal of inefficiency and waste. Management overbooked, overserved, overspent and simply accepted the losses as an inevitable part of their overhead, practices his backers wouldn’t tolerate for a moment once they were in control.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said, “but Mr. Lawrence isn’t in his office right now. I left your name.”

“Thank you.” The receptionist smiled and eyed the diamond pinky ring on his right hand. He put the copy of the newsletter back neatly. She was fascinated by the deportment of this man. Missing was the frenzied, nervous anxiety that most guests projected when they first checked in. Despite the heat and humidity, he stood smooth and unruffled, looking for all intents and purposes as if he had just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. Light blue was an excellent color for him, contrasting as it did with his dark, Mediterranean features. He was obviously not a run-of-the-mill guest.

“Is that the bar over there?” he asked, gesturing toward the Pelican Lounge. Soft piano music drifted out from the long room with its subdued lighting.

“Yes, sir, the Pelican Lounge.”

“What’s the owner, a bird lover or something? I see in the newsletter they call two of the buildings the Robin’s Nest and the Cardinal Cottage.”

“I don’t know, sir,” she said, obviously considering the question for the first time. Nick smiled at her expression and walked across the lobby to the lounge. He hesitated in the doorway. Multicolored Japanese lanterns were spaced along the ceiling, casting a rainbow of colors and shadows over the long bar to the right. Much of the light was caught up in mirrors and reflected over the walls and small tables surrounding it. At the end of the room was a small tier with white railings where the tables were cloaked in even more shadows. Just off the end of the bar, a black piano player ran his fingers gently over the ivory keys, providing soft background music. There was a small platform beside him used later in the day when the room featured a three-man combo.

The bartenders worked quickly to satisfy the demands of the small group congregated at the bar while two bar waitresses, dressed in red and white form-fitting uniforms, moved cautiously about the small tables. An occasional peel of raucous laughter broke the mood.

What a great place to locate a line of slot machines, Nick thought as he walked to the bar. He ordered a Dewar’s, neat, and took out a Gauloise from his case. No sooner had he snapped his lighter than he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to look into the face of Melinda Kaplan.

“May I borrow some of your fire?” she asked softly. His right hand, holding the lighter, remained frozen in the air.

“Excuse me?”

“A light,” she said, sliding onto the stool beside him. “for my cigarette.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry.” He reached over, snapped the 24-karat gold lever, and touched the end of her cigarette with the tip of the small flame. Its glow danced in her eyes. He looked her over expeditiously. Though obviously a bit older, she could certainly give the chorus girls in Vegas a run for their money.

“Just got here, huh?” she said, blowing the smoke up toward the ceiling.