Winter at Death's Hotel (44 page)

“I got my own.” Nonetheless, Cleary held the door, and Grady went in. He followed his lieutenant along a corridor to the back of the house and into a sordid “den” that needed cleaning. “I've never been here before,” Grady said, as if he had just realized it.

“No reason to.” Cleary threw himself back into a chair. A mostly empty bottle and glass were at hand. “Drink your own. Whaddayou want?”

“Just thought we could both use some cheering up.”

“Christ on a crutch, you think we'd come to each other for cheer?” Cleary poured from the bottle into his own glass. As if reminded, he said, “Glasses in that tall thing against the wall.” He lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking. “Not as if we was pals, Grady.”

“Comrades in arms.”

Cleary gave a derisive sound that might have been a cough.

Grady had one hand in his overcoat pocket. He was sweating like a coal-heaver; any second now, Cleary would smell it on him. Cleary was no fool. Better to get it over with. “Well…” he said.

Cleary turned his head aside to tap cigarette ash into a dirty saucer. Grady pulled a revolver from his overcoat pocket. When he cocked the hammer, Cleary heard it and turned, an expression of astonishment on his face. But the chair was too deep for him to get out of quickly.

***

“I am very sorry, Mr. Carver, but if you do not call the police, I will.”

“
Please
, Mrs. Doyle! He's all right now; the doctor gave him—”

“I don't care what the doctor's done! Your father committed a horrible, a…a
despicable
act against me! Heaven knows how many other women he's done the same to or worse. Mr. Carver, your father is
wicked
!”

“No, no—”

“What would you call him, then?
He
ripped
open
my
robe!
”

“He's old, Mrs. Doyle. He's senile.” They were in young Carver's office. It was barely eight in the morning. Louisa, sleepless but determined to pull herself out of her funk by striking back, had put her loaded revolver in her rear pocket and marched down to beard Carver before she even had breakfast. Carver was almost in tears. “He's
harmless
.”

Louisa, who had spent the night in tears herself and was now beyond them, looked down at him—she was standing, he was sitting—as the statue of Athena might have looked down on a particularly worthless Athenian. “Harmless? Mr. Carver, your father may be the Bowery Butcher.”

“NO! Oh, dear God, don't say such a thing! They've caught the Butcher; it's in all the papers. My father isn't like that. He just wants to…
look
—do you understand? It's always been his…failing. He had to leave Pittsburgh because of it. When he came here, I thought he'd reform. He threw himself into building the hotel. I thought he'd turned over a new leaf.”

“And instead he was building a bespoke peep show for himself.”

His mouth actually fell open, but at once his eyes got shifty and she knew she'd said something she shouldn't have. Yet she went on. “And you knew, didn't you? About the passages and the ‘deluxe closets' that were really secret doors for him to go into rooms and—”

“He hasn't done it in years! Please, please, don't say it! It would ruin us. And I didn't know, not for years and years—!”

“What do I care about you? What about me? What about all the women he's spied on over the years?”

“But it's only
looking
.”

Louisa dropped her voice. “‘Only looking.' Or do you mean ‘Only women'?”

“I didn't mean that. I mean, looking is…is…it isn't physical harm.”

“It's a crime. It's an insult!”

“Not a serious one.”

“But it is a crime! And that's why I intend to telephone the police.”

“You can't!” He looked as if he would stop her physically, then softened, cringed. “You mustn't. Look, Mrs. Doyle, we'll come to an arrangement. I'll pay you for your, what, suffering, and your…your embarrassment, your—”

“Try terror, Mr. Carver.”

“Well, yes, I understand, of course. And you deserve compensation. Unquestionably. We can settle this between ourselves. Or between our lawyers; see? I'm entirely willing for you to bring in your lawyers.”

“I'm overcome by your generosity. Mr. Carver, I have been
harmed.
”

“Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, but—”

“In the manner of speaking of the law, Mr. Carver. That is the law's word, ‘harm.' And the law's response to harm is to make whole. I was stripped naked to the waist by your father in front of not only him but at least six other men. Including you. What will make me whole is going to the police and seeing your father put where he can never harm a woman again.”

“You can't.”

“Can and will.”

Tears started running down Carver's face. “Mrs. Doyle—he's my
father
.”

Astonishingly to her, she was moved. She was sure she despised Carver; he was a snake and a coward and, for all she knew, he shared his father's vice. But in the way he had said “father,” he had been sincere. She said, “I'll give you until noon to find a private asylum that will lock him away.”

“He's locked away already.”

“And look what happened! Where was Galt? Probably asleep—do you really think that one man could keep watch all the time? Your father is strong, Mr. Carver. And I'm not entirely persuaded that he's senile. I am absolutely certain, however, that he is dangerous.” She pushed her walking-stick into the carpet and straightened. “Twelve o'clock. If your father is not out of the hotel and locked up somewhere by then, I will call the police. Then I will go to my husband's lawyers and tell them to sue you for the value of the hotel.”

He was blubbering. “They'll put him in Ward's Island!” To his credit, he for once didn't mention the hotel.

“I don't know what that may be, nor do I care. I dare say you can afford some private asylum.”

He moaned. “We can't, we can't…” He actually wept. “We're broke.”

She went straight to the restaurant and tried to eat her table d'hôte breakfast. The false energy of her confrontation with Carver quickly faded, however; she found she had no appetite. Her back ached between her shoulder blades; her whole body seemed to have a poor grasp of how to move, how to balance. Her head ached.

She drank tea and ate part of a single piece of dry toast.

Minutes later, she was in her room. She had asked Reception to ring for Ethel. The truth was, she didn't
need
Ethel: she
wanted
another human being.

Without beating about the bush, she said, “What would you think, Ethel, of going back to England?”

“Oh, I'd be very pleased to, madame! But wouldn't Mr. Doyle, mmm…?”

“I would explain to Mr. Doyle. The truth is, I think I've had enough of New York.” By which she meant
of
this
hotel
.

“Yes, madame. But isn't it quite expensive?” This was Ethel's way of saying that she knew that Louisa was out of money.

“I've taken care of that.”

“Well, then. You'd like to see your little ones, I dare say.” Ethel was looking into the bureau drawers—doing her job, in fact. “I think if we're going anywhere, we should have our laundry done, madame.”

“Yes, that's a good idea.”

“And some pressing of our dresses. Should I tell them to bring the dresser trunk from the lumber room, madame?”

“Oh—it takes up so much space—still…” She thought that Ethel was rushing her fences a bit. “Is something wrong, Ethel?”

“Not at all, madame. I simply thought that if we're going, there's a great deal to do.” She was piling dresses on the bed and starting to go over them for repairs. “There is something I should tell you, I suppose.” She gave Louisa a quick look. “I've given Mr. Galt his walking papers.”

“Oh, dear, what happened?”

“He made advances.” She sniffed. “He tried to put his arm around me when we were walking out.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Ethel. But…” She thought of her own experience of the night. “Putting an arm around you doesn't seem so very bad.”

“It's the thin end of the wedge, if you take my meaning. I told him I didn't put up with that sort of thing and I had no intention of it being that kind of arrangement. He was quite sheepish about it.” She said that with a good deal of satisfaction. At that moment, Ethel reminded Louisa of the women who had taught her at the teachers' training college. “It would serve him right if I set sail for England.”

“Perhaps he'll apologize.”

“He already has. Very nicely, too. In writing.” She sounded more and more satisfied. Abruptly, she whisked some clothes off the bed. “I'll just take these upstairs and mend them, if you don't mind. All my sewing things are up there, and there's no room here.”

And
you
have
friends
up
there
and
human
companionship, you lucky woman.

“Of course. Off you go, then.”

Louisa wandered out into the lobby. She thought she might find Mrs. Simmons there, could say something sympathetic to the old woman about her nephew. She wasn't there, however. Manion was, sitting in his usual place; he gave her the look of a hurt cow; she tried the smallest smile she knew and turned away. She'd had enough of him and of men—especially men who exercised an attraction despite herself.

“Any messages for Doyle?”

“Nothing, sorry.”

One of the boys brought her the morning papers. Only a piece on an inside page cut through her funk:

Suicide
of
a
Disgraced
Policeman

Lieutenant John Cleary, recently of the Murder Squad of the Municipal Police, was found in his home last night, apparently dead by his own hand. With him was Sergeant Peter Grady, who found the body. “I had just stepped out of the room. I heard the shot, and when I ran in, there he was on the floor.”

Cleary and Grady were both under suspension for suspicion of corruption. “It must have been too much for him,” said Deputy Chief F. X. Halloran. “The newspapers have hounded this poor officer to his death.”

Investigating officers of the Brooklyn Municipal Police say there is no question of foul play…

Louisa didn't finish reading. Cleary and Grady seemed unreal to her now.

At nine, Marie Corelli came down and headed straight for the restaurant. Louisa hobbled after her and asked if she could sit with her.

“Of course, my dear! Sit, do sit, you look simply awful. I don't mean that; you look pretty, as always, but you look so
ravaged
. What has happened?”

She thought she would say, “Nothing,” but instead poured out the story of the night's horror. It came in a gush, Marie wide-eyed opposite her, nibbling little bites of toast and nodding her head and saying things like, “Ah, these men!” By the time she had finished, Louisa found that she, too, was eating toast. In fact, she was ravenous.

“He really said, ‘Show me your bosom'?”

“Well…he was more vulgar than that.”

“What did he say? Breasts?
Quel
horreur
.” Marie finished the last of the jam on her plate, licking the spoon afterward. “I, too, have had an adventure, as I hinted last night, though not one so
outré
as yours, poor thing.” She leaned across the table, whispered, “Almost a visitation from Azul!” And with great excitement, she told Louisa about hearing sounds from the corner of her room, then the bumping next to the fireplace. “It was he—Azul! But he did not quite break through the barrier.”

Louisa didn't have the heart to tell her it must have been old Carver. All she could say was, “This is a terrible place.”

“Not at all! It is a
unique
place.” Marie dusted her fingers together to get rid of the crumbs. “Come upstairs with me while I dress, why don't you? I will show you where it happened. You've had a fright; you need to talk. And do come to my summoning, won't you? I can feel that I'm very close now.”

Louisa still had more than two hours before her promise to Carver—an unwise one, she thought—ran out. Several men were standing at the desk; as she passed, she recognized two of them from the horror of the night before. She flushed and turned her head away: they had seen her breasts. She imagined jokes, nudges. But no, they were looking away from her.

“Do you like men?” she asked as they went up in the lift.

“Not a great deal.”

“But do you
like
them? As friends, I mean.”

“One cannot be friends with men.” Marie frowned at the boy who was piloting the lift. “I have to agree with Mrs. Woodhull on that score—for whom I perhaps owe you an apology, my dear. She was
very
harsh with you that day at lunch. I had hoped you would like each other.”

“I don't think it was a question of that.”

“Not that she and I ‘like' each other, either. I seldom see her; rather, we're epistolary friends. I think that one should have a
serious
correspondent or two, don't you? And she is serious! Perhaps too much so for you.” The lift stopped. “At last.”

Marie's sitting room was chaos. The oak table that Marie had told her about had been pulled away from the wall, and luggage and books and the remains of a meal were piled on it. Every lamp had a silk scarf either draped over it or lying next to it. Clothes were everywhere.

“The
bonne
hasn't cleaned yet,” Marie said. An understatement to Louisa, accustomed to Ethel's neatness. Marie turned on a lamp that had a scarf over it and said, “What d'you think? The right effect? For the summoning, you know. It is all for the participants, not for Azul—what would Azul care about lights? Azul
is
light!”