The yellow dress he had admired, her hair, her limbs, were a mess of blood. The look of death was on her face.
In that instant, with searing, blinding insight, Curtis O’Keefe discovered the truth he had shielded from himself so long. He loved her. Dearly, ardently, with a devotion beyond human reckoning. Too late, he knew that in letting Dodo go, he had made the greatest single error of his life.
He reflected on it now, bitterly, surveying the accident-room doors. They opened briefly as a nurse came out. When he approached her, she shook her head and hurried on.
He had a sense of helplessness. There was so little he could do. But what he could, he would.
Turning away, he strode through the hospital. In busy lobbies and corridors, he breasted crowds, followed signboards and arrows to his objective. He opened doors marked PRIVATE, ignored protesting secretaries. He stopped before the Director’s desk.
The Director rose angrily from his chair. When Curtis O’Keefe identified himself, the anger lessened.
Fifteen minutes later the Director emerged from the accident room accompanied by a slight, quietly spoken man whom he introduced as Dr. Beauclaire. The doctor and O’Keefe shook hands.
“I understand that you are a friend of the young lady—I believe, Miss Lash.”
“How is she, Doctor?”
“Her condition is critical. We are doing everything we can. But I must tell you there is a strong possibility she may not live.”
O’Keefe stood silent, grieving.
The doctor continued, “She has a serious head wound which appears superficially to be a depressed skull fracture. There is a likelihood that fragments of bone may have entered the brain. We shall know better after X rays.”
The Director explained, “The patient is being resuscitated first.”
The doctor nodded. “We have transfusions going. She lost a good deal of blood. And treatment has begun for shock.”
“How long …”
“Resuscitation will be at least another hour. Then, if X rays confirm the diagnosis, it will be necessary to operate immediately. Is the next-of-kin in New Orleans?”
O’Keefe shook his head.
“It makes no difference, really. In this kind of emergency, the law permits us to proceed without permission.”
“May I see her?”
“Later, perhaps. Not yet.”
“Doctor, if there’s anything you need—a question of money, professional help …”
The Director interrupted quietly. “This is a free hospital, Mr. O’Keefe. It’s for indigents and emergencies. All the same, there are services here that money couldn’t buy. Two university medical schools are next door. Their staffs are on call. I should tell you that Dr. Beauclaire is one of the leading neurosurgeons in the country.”
O’Keefe said humbly, “I’m sorry.”
“Perhaps there is one thing,” the doctor said.
O’Keefe’s head came up.
“The patient is unconscious now, and under sedation. Earlier, there were some moments of lucidity. In one of them she asked for her mother. If it’s possible to get her mother here …”
“It’s possible.” It was a relief that at least there was something he could do.
From a corridor pay phone, Curtis O’Keefe placed a collect call to Akron, Ohio. It was to the O’Keefe-Cuyahoga Hotel. The manager, Harrison, was in his office.
O’Keefe instructed, “Whatever you are doing, leave it. Do nothing else until you have completed, with the utmost speed, what I am about to tell you.”
“Yes, sir.” Harrison’s alert voice came down the line.
“You are to contact a Mrs. Irene Lash of Exchange Street, Akron. I do not have the number of a house.” O’Keefe remembered the street from the day that he and Dodo had telegraphed the basket of fruit. Was it only last Tuesday?
He heard Harrison call to someone in his office, “A city directory—fast!”
O’Keefe continued, “See Mrs. Lash yourself. Break the news to her that her daughter, Dorothy, has been injured in an accident and may die. I want Mrs. Lash flown to New Orleans by the fastest possible means. Charter if necessary. Disregard expense.”
“Hold it, Mr. O’Keefe.” He could hear Harrison’s crisp commands. “Get Eastern Airlines—the sales department in Cleveland—on another line. After that, I want a limousine with a fast driver at the Market Street door.” The voice returned, more strongly. “Go ahead, Mr. O’Keefe.”
As soon as the arrangements were known, O’Keefe directed, he was to be contacted at Charity Hospital.
He hung up, confident that the instructions would be carried through. A good man, Harrison. Perhaps worthy of a more important hotel.
Ninety minutes later, X rays confirmed Dr. Beauclaire’s diagnosis. A twelfth-floor operating room was being readied. The neurosurgery, if continued to a conclusion, would take several hours.
Before Dodo was wheeled into the operating room, Curtis O’Keefe was permitted to see her briefly. She was pale and unconscious. It seemed to his imagination as if all her sweetness and vitality had flown.
Now the O.R. doors were closed.
Dodo’s mother was on her way. Harrison had notified him. McDermott of the St. Gregory, whom O’Keefe had telephoned a few minutes ago, was arranging for Mrs. Lash to be met and driven directly to the hospital.
For the moment there was nothing to do but wait.
Earlier, O’Keefe had declined an invitation to rest in the Director’s office. He would wait on the twelfth floor, he decided, no matter for how long.
Suddenly, he had a desire to pray.
A door close by was labeled LADIES COLORED. Next to it was another marked RECOVERY ROOM STORAGE. A glass panel showed that it was dark inside.
He opened the door and went in, groping his way past an oxygen tent and an iron lung. In the semidarkness he found a clear space where he knelt. The floor was a good deal harder on his knees than the broadloom he was used to. It seemed not to matter. He clasped his hands in supplication and lowered his head.
Strangely, for the first time in many years, he could find no words for what was in his heart.
18
Dusk, like an anodyne to the departing day, was settling over the city. Soon, Peter McDermott thought, the night would come, with sleep and, for a while, forgetfulness. Tomorrow, the immediacy of today’s events would begin receding. Already, the dusk marked a beginning to the process of time which, in the end, healed all things.
But it would be many dusks and nights and days before those who were closest to today’s events would be free from a sense of tragedy and terror. The waters of Lethe were still far distant.
Activity—while not a release—helped the mind a little.
Since early this afternoon, a good deal had occurred.
Alone, in his office on the main mezzanine, Peter took stock of what had been done and what remained.
The grim, sad process of identifying the dead and notifying families had been completed. Where the hotel was to aid with funerals, arrangements had begun.
The little that could be done for the injured, beyond hospital care, had been put in hand.
Emergency crews—fire, police—had long since left. In their place were elevator inspectors, examining every piece of elevator equipment the hotel possessed. They would work into tonight and through tomorrow. Meanwhile, elevator service had been partially restored.
Insurance investigators—gloomy men, already foreseeing massive claims—were intensively questioning, taking statements.
On Monday, a team of consultants would fly from New York to begin planning for replacement of all passenger elevator machinery with new. It would be the first major expenditure of the Albert Wells-Dempster-McDermott regime.
The resignation of the chief engineer was on Peter’s desk. He intended to accept it.
The chief, Doc Vickery, must be honorably retired, with the pension befitting his long years of service to the hotel. Peter would see to it that he was treate
d well.
M. Hèbrand, the chef de cuisine, would receive the same consideration. But the old chef’s retirement must be accomplished quickly, with Andre Lemieux promoted to his place.
On young André Lemieux—with his ideas for creation of specialty restaurants, intimate bars, an overhaul of the hotel’s entire catering system—much of the St. Gregory’s future would depend. A hotel did not live by renting rooms alone. It could fill its rooms each day, yet still go bankrupt. Special services—conventions, restaurants, bars—were where the mother lode of profit lay.
There must be other appointments, a reorganization of departments, a fresh defining of responsibilities. As executive vice-president, Peter would be involved much of the time with policy. He would need an assistant general manager to supervise the day-to-day running of the hotel. Whoever was appointed must be young, efficient, a disciplinarian when necessary, but able to get along with others older than himself. A graduate of the School of Hotel Administration might do well. On Monday, Peter decided, he would telephone Dean Robert Beck at Cornell. The dean kept in touch with many of his bright ex-students. He might know such a man, who was available now.
Despite today’s tragedy, it was necessary to think ahead.
There was his own future with Christine. The thought of it was inspiring and exciting. Nothing between them had been settled yet. But he knew it would be. Earlier, Christine had left for her Gentilly apartment. He would go to her soon.
Other—less palatable—unfinished business still remained. An hour ago, Captain Yolles of the New Orleans Police had dropped into Peter’s office. He had come from an interview with the Duchess of Croydon.
“When you’re with her,” Yolles said, “you sit there wondering what’s under all that solid ice. Is it a woman? Does she feel about the way her husband died? I saw his body. My God!—no one deserved that. For that matter, she saw him too. Not many women could have faced it. Yet, in her, there isn’t a crack. No warmth, no tears. Just her head tilted up, that way she has, and the haughty look she gives you. If I tell you the truth—as a man—I’m attracted to her. You get to feeling you’d like to know what she’s really like.” The detective stopped, considering.
Later, answering Peter’s question, Yolles said, “Yes, we’ll charge her as an accessory, and she’ll be arrested after the funeral. What happens beyond that—whether a jury will convict if the defense claims that her husband did the conniving, and he’s dead … Well, we’ll see.”
Ogilvie had already been charged, the policeman revealed. “He’s booked as an accessory. We may throw more at him later. The D.A. will decide. Either way, if you’re keeping his job open, don’t count on seeing him back in less than five years.”
“We’re not.” Reorganization of the hotel’s detective force was high on Peter’s list of things to do.
When Captain Yolles had gone, the office was quiet. By now, it was early evening. After a while, Peter heard the outer door open and close. A light tap sounded on his own. He called, “Come in!”
It was Aloysius Royce. The young Negro carried a tray with a martini pitcher and a single glass. He set the tray down.
“I thought maybe you could do with this.”
“Thanks,” Peter said. “But I never drink alone.”
“Had an idea you’d say that.” From his pocket, Royce produced a second glass.
They drank in silence. What they had lived through today was still too close for levity or toasts.
Peter asked, “Did you deliver Mrs. Lash?”
Royce nodded. “Drove her right to the hospital. We had to go in through separate doorways, but we met inside and I took her to Mr. O’Keefe.”
“Thank you.” After Curtis O’Keefe’s call, Peter had wanted someone at the airport on whom he could rely. It was the reason he had asked Royce to go.
“They’d finished operating when we got to the hospital. Barring complications, the young lady—Miss Lash—will be all right.”
“I’m glad.”
“Mr. O’Keefe told me they’re going to be married. As soon as she’s well enough. Her mother seemed to like the idea.”
Peter smiled fleetingly. “I suppose most mothers would.”
There was a silence, then Royce said, “I heard about the meeting this morning. The stand you took. The way things turned out.”
Peter nodded. “The hotel is desegregated. Entirely. As of now.”
“I suppose you expect me to thank you. For giving us what’s ours by right.”
“No,” Peter said. “And you’re being prickly again. I wonder, though, if you might decide now to stay with W. T. I know he’d like it, and you’d be entirely free. There’s legal work for the hotel. I could see that some of it came your way.”
“I’ll thank you for that,” Royce said. “But the answer’s no. I told Mr. Trent this afternoon—I’m leaving, right after graduation.” He refilled the martini glasses and contemplated his own. “We’re in a war, you and me—on opposite sides. It won’t be finished in our time, either. What I can do, with what I’ve learned about the law, I intend to do for my people. There’s a lot of infighting ahead—legal, some of the other kind too. It won’t always be fair, on our side as well as yours. But when we’re unjust, intolerant, unreasonable, remember—we learned it from you. There’ll be trouble for all of us. You’ll have your share here. You’ve desegregated, but that isn’t the end. There’ll be problems—with people who won’t like what you’ve done, with Negroes who won’t behave nicely, who’ll embarrass you because some are the way they are. What’ll you do with the Negro loudmouth, the Negro smart-aleck, the Negro half-drunk Romeo? We’ve got ’em, too. When it’s white people who behave like that, you swallow hard, you try to smile, and most times you excuse it. When they’re Negroes—what’ll you do then?”
“It may not be easy,” Peter said. “I’ll try to be objective.”
“You will. Others won’t. All the same, it’s the way the war will go. There’s just one good thing.”
“Yes?”
“Once in a while there’ll be truces.” Royce picked up the tray with the pitcher and the empty glasses. “I guess this was one.”
Now it was night.
Within the hotel, the cycle of another innkeeping day had run its course. This had differed from most, but beneath unprecedented events, routines had continued. Reservations, reception, administration, housekeeping, engineering, garage, treasury, kitchens … all had combined in a single, simple function. To welcome the traveler, sustain him, provide him with rest, and speed him on.
Soon, the cycle would begin again.
Wearily, Peter McDermott prepared to leave. He switched off the office lights and, from the executive suite, walked the length of the main mezzanine. Near the stairway to the lobby he saw himself in a mirror. For the first time, he realized that the suit he was wearing was rumpled and soiled. It became that way, he reflected, under the elevator debris where Billyboi died.
As best he could, he smoothed the jacket with his hand. A slight rustling made him reach into a pocket where his fingers encountered a folded paper. Taking it out, he remembered. It was the note which Christine had given him as he left the meeting this morning—the meeting where he had staked his career on a principle, and won.
He had forgotten the note until now. He opened it curiously. It read: It will be a fine hotel because it will be like the man who is to run it.
At the bottom, in smaller lettering. Christine had written: P.S. I love you.
Smiling, the length of his stride increasing, he went down stairs to the lobby of his hotel.
About the Author
Arthur Hailey (1920–2004), the author of eleven novels, many of which became #1 New York Times bestsellers, was born in Luton, England. He served as a pilot and flight lieutenant in the British Royal Air Force during World War II and immigrated to Canada in 1947. While working for a transportation trade magazine, he scored his first writing success with a television drama, and began to write screenpl
ays full-time for various networks during the golden age of live television. His novel-writing career took off in 1959 with the publication of his first novel, The Final Diagnosis, and picked up velocity with Hotel and then Airport, which spent thirty weeks in the number-one spot on the New York Times bestseller list and became a blockbuster film. Hailey’s novels, many of which have been made into films, television series, and miniseries, have been translated into forty languages. They are notable for their suspenseful storylines and authentic depictions of various industries and commercial settings, which Hailey aggressively and meticulously researched.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1965, 2000 by Arthur Hailey
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-4804-9000-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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