第 27 页

'Where?' said Abel.

'I have a little place of my own in the next block.'

She turned her head, indicating to Abel which direction she meant, and he could, for the first time, see her face clearly under the street light. She was not unattractive. Abel nodded his agreement, and she took his arm and started walking- 'If the police stop us,' she said, 'you're an old friend and my name's Joyce!'

They walked to the next block and into a squalid little apartment building, Abel was horrified by the dingy room she lived in, with its single bare light bulb, one chair, a wash basin and a crumpled double bed, which had obviously already been used several times that day.

'You live here?' he said incredulously.

'Good God, no, I only use this place for my work.'

'Why do you do this?' asked Abel, wondering if he now wanted to go through with his plan.

'I have two children to bring up and no husband. Can you think of a better reason? Now, do you want me or not.'

'Yes, but not the way you think' said Abel.

She eyed him warily. 'Not another of those whacky ones, a follower of the Marquis de Sade, are you?'

'Certainly not,' said Abel.

'You're not gonna burn me with cigarettes, then?'

'No, nothing like that,' said Abel, startled. 'I want to be taught properly. I want lessons!'

'Lessons, are you joking? What do you think this is darling, a fucking night school?'

'Something like that,' said Abel and he sat down on the corner of the bed and explained to her how Clara had reacted the night before. 'Do you think you can help?'

The lady of the night studied Abel carefully, wondering if it was April the First.

'Sure,' she said finally, 'but it's going to cost you five dollars a time for a thirty-minute session.'

'More expensive than a B.A. from Columbia,' said Abel. 'How many lessons will I need?'

'Depends how quick a learner you are, doesn't it?' she said.

'Well let's start right now,' said Abel, taking five dollars out of his inside pocket and handing the money over to her. She put the note in the top of her stocking, a sure sign she never took them off.

'Clothes off, darling,' she said. 'You won't learn much fully dressed!'

When he was stripped, she looked at him critically.

'You're not exactly Douglas Fairbanks, are you? Don't worry about it, it doesn't matter what you look like once the lights all out; it only matters what you can do.'

Abel sat on the edge of the bed while she started telling him about how to treat a lady. She was surprised that Abel really did not want her and was even more surprised when he continued to turn up every day for the next two weeks.

'When will I know I've made it?' Abel inquired.

'You'll know, baby,' replied Joyce. 'If you can make me come, you can make an Egyptian mummy come!'

She taught him first where the sensitive parts of a woman's body were, and then to be patient in his love-making and the signs by which he might know that what he was doing was pleasing. How to use his tongue and lips on every place other than a woman's mouth.

Abel listened carefully to all she said and followed her instructions scrupulously and to begin with, a little bit too mechanically. Despite her assurance that he was improving out of all recognition, he had no real idea if she was telling the truth, until about three weeks and one hundred and ten dollars later, when to his surprise and delight, Joyce suddenly -came alive in his arms for the first time. She held his head close to her as he gently licked her nipples. As he stroked her gently between the legs, he found she was wet -for the first time - and after he had entered her she moaned, a sound Abel had never heard before, and found intensely pleasing. She clawed at his back, commanding him not to stop. The moaning continued, sometimes loud, sometimes soft. Finally she cried out sharply, and the hands that had clutched him to her so fiercely relaxed.

When she had caught her breath, she said. 'Baby, you just graduated top of the class.'

Abel hadn't even come.

Abel celebrated the awarding of both his degrees by paying scalpers' price for ringside seats and taking George, Monika and a reluctant Clara to watch Gene Tunney fight Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight championship of the world. That night after the fight, Clara felt it was nothingless than her duty to go to bed with Abel as he had spent so much money on her. By the morning, she was begging him not to leave her.

Abel never asked her out again.

After he had graduated from Columbia, Abel became dissatisfied with his life at the Plaza Hotel, but could not figure out how to secure further advancement. Although he was surrounded by some of the most wealthy and successful men in America, he was unable to approach any of the customers directly, knowing that if he did so, it might well cost him his job and in any case, the customers could not take seriously the aspirations of a waiter. Abel had long ago decided that he wanted to be a head waiter.

One day, Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth Statler came to lunch at the Plaza's Edwardian Room, where Abel had been on relief duty for a week. He thought his chance had come. He did everything he could think of to impress the famous hotelier, and the meal went splendidly. As he left, Statler thanked Abel warmly and gave him ten dollars, but that was the end of their association. Abel watched him disappear through the revolving doors of the Plaza, wondering if he was ever going to get a break.

Sammy, the head waiter tapped him on the shoulder: 'What did you get from Mr. Statler?'

'Nothing,' said Abel.

'He didn't tip you?' asked Sammy in a disbelieving tone.

'Oh, yes, sure,' said Abel. 'Ten dollars.' He handed the money over to Sammy.

'That's more like it,' said Sammy. 'I was beginning to think you was double-dealing me, Abel. Ten dollars, that's good even for Mr. Statler. You must have impressed him.'

'No, I didn't.'

'What do you mean?' asked Sammy.

'It doesn't matter,' said Abel, as he started walking away.

'Wait a moment, Abel, I have a note here for you. The gentleman at table seventeen, a Mr. Leroy, wants to speak to you personally.'

'What about, Sammy?'

'How should I know? Probably lied your blue eyes?

Abel glanced over to number seventeen, strictly for the meek and the unknown, because the table was so badly placed near a swing door into the kitchen. Abel usually tried to avoid serving any of the tables at that end of the room.

'Who is he?' asked Abel. 'What does he want?'

'I don't know,' said Sammy, not bothering to look up. 'I'm not in touch with the life history of every customer the way you are. Give them a good meal, make sure you get yourself a big tip and hope they come again. You may feel it's a simple philosophy but it's sure good enough for me. Maybe they forgot to teach you the basics at Columbia. Now get your butt over there, Abel, and if its a tip be certain yod bring the money straight back to me.'

Abel smiled at Sammy's bald head and went over to seventeen. There were two people seated at the table, a man in a colourful checked jacket, of which Abel did not approve, and an attractive young woman with a mop of blonde, curly hair, which momentarily distracted Abel, who uncharitably assumed she was the checked jacket's New York girlfriend. Abel put on his 'sorry smile', betting himself a silver dollar that the man was going to make a big fuss about the swing doors and try to get his table changed to impress the stunning blonde. No one liked being near the smell of the kitchens and the continual banging of waiters through the doors, but it was impossible to avoid using the table, when the hotel was already packed with residents and many New Yorkers who used the restaurant as their local eating place, and looked upon visitors as little less than intruders, Why did Sammy always leave the tricky customers for him to deal with? Abel approached the checked jacket cautiously- 'You asked to speak to me, sir?'

'Sure did,' said a Southern accent. 'My name is Davis Leroy, and this is my daughter Melanie.'

Abel's eyes left Mr. Leroy momentarily and encountered a pair of eyes as green as any he had ever seen.

'I have been watching you, Abel, for the last five days,' Mr. Leroy was saying in his Southern drawl.

If pushed, Abel would have had to admit that he had not noticed Mr. Leroy until the last five minqtes.

'I have been very impressed by what I've seen, Abel, because you got class, real class, and I am always on the lookout for that. Ellsworth Statler was a fool not to pick you up right away.'

Abel began to take a closer look at Mr. Leroy. His purple checks and double chin left Abel in no doubt that he had not been told about Prohibition, and the empty plates in front of him accounted for his basketball belly, but neither the name nor the face meant anything to him. At a normal lunchtime, Abel was familiar with the background of anyone sitting at thirty-seven of the thirty-nine tables in the Edwardian Room. That day Mr. Leroy was one of the unknown two.

The Southerner was still talking. 'Now, I'm not one of those multi-millionaires who have to sit at your corner table when they stay at the Plaza.'

Abel was limpressed. The average customer wasn't supposed to appreciate the relative merits of the various tables.

'But I'm not doing so badly for myself. In fact, my best hotel may well grow to be as impressive as this one some day, Abel.'

'I am sure it will be, sir,l said Abel, playing for time.'

Leroy, Leroy, Leroy. The name didn't mean a thing.

'Lemme git to the point, son. The number one hotel in my group needs a new assistant manager, in charge of the restaurants. If you're interested, join me in my room when you come off duty.'

He handed Abel a large embossed card.

'Thank you, sir,' said Abel, looking at it: Davis Leroy. The Richmond Group of Hotels, Dallas. Underneath was inscribed the motto: 'One day a hotel in every state.' The name still meant nothing to Abel.

'I look forward to seeing you,' said the friendly, checkjacketed Texan.

'Thank you, sir,' said Abel. He smiled at Melanie, whose eyes were as coolly green as before and returned to Sammy, still head down, counting his takings.

'Ever heard of the Richmond Group of Hotels, Sammy?'

'Yes, sure, my brother was a junior waiter in one once. Must be about eight or nine of them, all over the South, run by a mad Texan, but I can't remember the guy's name. Why you asking?' said Sammy, looking up suspiciously.

'No particular reason,' said Abel.

'There's always a reason with you. Now what did table seventeen want?' said Sammy.

'Gn,unbling about the noise from the kitchen. Can't say I blame him.'

'What does he expect me to do, put him out on the veranda? Who does the guy think he is, John D. Rockefeller?'

Abel left Sammy to his counting and grumbling and cleared his own tables as quickly as possible. Then he went to his room and started to check out the Richmond Group. A few calls and he'd learned enough to satisfy his curiosity. The group turned out to be a private company, with eleven hotels in all, the most impressive one a three hundred and forty-two bedroom de luxe establishment in Chicago, the Richmond Continental. Abel decided he had nothing to lose by paying a call on Mr. Leroy and Melanie.

He checked Mr. Leroy's room number - 85 - one of the better smaller rooms. He arrived a little before four o'clock and was disappointed to discover Melanie was no longer with her father.

'Glad you could drop by, Abel. Take a seat.'

It was the first time Abel had sat down as a guest in the more than four years he had worked at the Plaza.

'What are you paid?' said Mr. Leroy.

The suddenness of the question took Abel by surprise. 'I take in around twenty-4five dollars a week with tips.'

'I'll start you at thirty-five a week.'

'Which hotel are you referring to?' asked Abel.

'If I'm a judge of character, Abel, you got off table duty about three-thirty and took the next thirty minutes finding out which hotel. Am I right?'

Abel was beginning to like the man. 'The Richmond Continental in Chicago?' he ventured.

Davis Leroy laughed. 'I was right, and right about you." Abel's mind was working fast. 'How many people are there over the assistant manager on the hotel staff ?'

'Only the manager and me. The manager is slow, gentle, and near retirement, and as I have ten other hotels to worry about, I don't think you'll have too much trouble - although I must confess Chicago is my favourite, my first hotel in the North, and with Melanie at school there, I find I spend more time in the Windy City than I ought to. Don't ever make the mistake New Yorkers do of underestimating Chicago. They think Chicago is only a postage stamp on a very large envelope, and they are the envelope.'

Abel smiled.

'The hotel is a little run down at the moment,' Mr. Leroy continued, 'and the last assistant manager walked out on me suddenly without an explanation, so I need a good man to take his place and to realise its full potential. Now listen, Abel, I've watched you carefully for the last five days and I know you're that man. Do you think you would be interested in coming to Chicago?'

'Forty dollars and ten per cent of any increased profits, and I'll take the job.'

'What?' said Davis Leroy, flabbergasted. 'None of my managers are paid on a profit basis. The others would raise hell if they ever found out.'

'I'm not going to tell them if you don't,' said Abel.

'Now I know I chose the right man, even if he bargains a damn sight better than a Yankee with six daughters.' He slapped the side of his chair. 'I agree to your terms, Abel.'

'Will you be requiring references, Mr. Leroy?'

'References. I know your background and history since you left Europe right through to you getting a degree in economics at Columbia. What do you think I've been doing the last few days? I wouldn't put someone who needed references in as number two in my best hotel. When can you start?'