Sextus cut off. Two lights on the intercom were blinking at him. One call was from the kitchen. The first chef had just heaved a cleaver at the steward, and the head salad girl was in hysterics.
Sextus said he'd be right down. The second call was from the chief house-detective. He had caught a bell-hop peddling marijuana to the waitresses. What was the manager's new policy? Sextus told him to hold the boy in the locker room for him. Then one of the room clerks rang to say that Gary Gable, the movie star, was raising hell in the lobby because he couldn't get the bridal suite and demanded to see the manager.
Sextus smiled. These things were the routine of running a large hotel. He stopped at the bar for a quick one and then started for the kitchen.
The day passed pleasantly enough, and he looked forward to retiring to his quiet rooms upstairs. He thought to get some intelligent answers from his assistant manager when he walked in promptly at five P. M., but he turned out to be a university student from Southern Cal, working days on his master's degree in business administration and nights at the hotel. No wonder he hadn't been promoted. Not that he wasn't bright – just not experienced.
Sextus formally offered his hand and introduced himself. The lad said, "I'm Horace Smith the phone is ringing excuse me." He snatched the phone with a harried look.
Somehow the phone never stopped ringing. Sextus gave up and retired to dress for dinner. He finished his fifth of whiskey and descended to the hotel's swank Oceania Room, where he made himself known to the maitre d'hotel. That frenzied little moustachioed person sniffed Sextus' breath and seated him behind a potted palm.
Discreetly avoiding the wine list, Sextus dined well, noting several movie stars and other vip's in the crowded dining room. He couldn't escape the illusion that he was dining at the Ambassador or the Waldorf Astoria – instead of in a five-story rat-trap. Where did they all come from?
As he awaited the elevator, he was approached by the bell-captain. "Mr. Forsyte?" Sextus nodded stiffly. "Here's an envelope Mr. Patterson left for you. He was the last G. M. Incidentally, sorry I was a little rough on the phone, but you can see our situation here. Understaffed and overcrowded. It gets thick, real thick, brother."
Sextus felt his belly muscles tighten. "Confusion is never improved by discourtesy or insubordination," he said coldly.
At that moment a bellman rushed up to the rebuffed captain who was regarding Sextus with a restrained loathing. "The guy in C332 keeps screaming for his beer, but the service elevator to 'C' vector keeps dumping me off in 'F'."
The captain said, "Try riding to fourth on 'C' and then walk down a deck and come out through the linen room."
"Can't I just ride up the guest elevator, Jack?"
The captain stared at Sextus. "Our Mr. Forsyte wouldn't approve. Now, move!"
He turned to Sextus and said acidly, "Just one of our little extra problems." He moved off with a disgusted shake of his carefully barbered head.
The nature of the bell-captain's special problem sounded interesting, but the details confused Sextus. Ride to four on "C", walk down to three and out by the linen closet. Sounded like three-dimensional chess.
His cage arrived and he returned to his suite. He removed his shoes, stripped to the waist and sank gratefully into the soft bed, nestling the last bottle of his suitcase reserve in the crook of his bare arm.
He considered the sealed envelope marked: TO MY SUCCESSOR. URGENT MATTERS.
First he opened a fresh bottle and then the envelope. He flipped through the papers. There were some tax reports ready for signature, two union contracts up for renegotiation and an estimate on re-doing 520 rooms in vectors "B" and "F". Vectors? Did they mean "Wings"?
The last paper was a personal letter, apparently addressed to him. Before he could begin it the phone at his bedside jangled. Operator said, "Would you take this, please, Mr. Forsyte? I dispatched a house man, but the guest is hysterical."
Without awaiting his permission she cut in the woman. "Hello, manager? There's a man in my bed!"
"What is your room number, madame?" Sextus asked with drowsy detachment.
"I'm in H-408," she said, and on the "8" her voice ran up the scale in a quivering crescendo that launched Sextus briskly from his bed. H-408 was his floor and his wing, luckily. He tore out of the suite and down the hall without shirt or shoes.
The door stood ajar, and he pushed it open. In the middle of the floor, still gabbling into the phone, stood a lumpy, pallid woman about his own age, naked except for a pillow which she hugged fiercely to her navel. Her bleached hair was a frayed bird's-nest.
In bed, decently clad in a pair of blue and white striped pajamas, was a rather distinguished, gray-haired gentleman of about fifty, leaning on one elbow and watching the woman with an expression of mild astonishment and interest. To Sextus' practiced eye, the man was guilty of nothing.
The house detective arrived at that moment, but Sextus dismissed him with a wave of his hand. He went in alone.
"I'm the manager, madam," he assured her. He noted that despite her excited wails, her eyes drooped half shut. A bottle of sleeping pills on the table was uncapped.
"Thizz man, thizz man, thizz man!" she kept repeating and pointing her elbow at the bed. The man in question raised his eyebrows and shook his head.