A Key to the Suite (7 page)

“Sounds good enough for me,” Frick said.

“Floyd? Cass? Any objections?”

“Hell, no!” Beatty said. Hubbard smiled and shook his head.

“You’re in business, Miss Barlund.”

“It’s Cory, Mr Mulaney.”

“Freddy, you go grab a ticket book for Cory so she can go to
any of the events she feels like. Floyd, you go on back out there and tell Bobby Fayhouser to shoo our people in here about three at a time and we’ll brief them without busting up the party. Cory, we’ll tell our boys to level with you and leave it up to you what to put in and what to leave out.”

“Did many of the AGM men bring their wives, Mr. Mulaney?”

“You better call me Jesse. I brought Connie, and, Cass, you brought Sue. Anybody else?”

“That’s the works then.”

“I better get all the names down and the jobs,” Cory said.

“Bobby Fayhouser has a list. You can copy it off.”

Floyd found Bobby Fayhouser fixing drinks. He gave him the message.

“What?” Bobby said. “That girl is going to what?”

“Write a warm, heart-tugging story about how AGM goes to a convention.”

“To be cast in bronze. Oh hell, excuse me.”

“For what?”

“For the flip remark. They come out with no warning. I’m supposed to be eager and reverent.”

Hubbard realized Fayhouser was not the dull, earnest young man he had appeared to be. “Cheer up. I’ve learned to live with the same problem.”

“You, Mr. Hubbard! Doesn’t it make people … uneasy about you?”

“All the time. But the way to handle it, Bobby, once it’s said, don’t let it just hang there, stinking in the sunlight. Say something very sincere.”

“Something eager and reverent?”

“Then they’re sure they didn’t understand. Practice it.”

“And one day I too can have a little stock option all my own? Uh. I have utmost confidence in the fairness with which every AGM employee is treated. Like that?”

“It could be smoother, but you’ve got the basic idea.” They grinned at each other. Bobby trotted off with the drinks. Hubbard made himself a light one and carried it out onto the relative privacy of the terrace. The sea breeze was damp and had a salty smell. He heard the blur of voices behind him, a roar of surf, distant music, traffic sounds. The sun was gone and the sea was gray. He looked for a star and found one and said the old rhyme, but did not know exactly what to wish for. The words did not fit what he wanted. Less confusion, more pattern, more meaning.

Jesse spoke at his elbow, saying, “Somehow I wish I was on that damn thing, going wherever it’s going.”

“On what?”

“Freighter out there, heading south.”

“Oh. I see it. I was wishing too.”

“Now what have you got to wish for, Floyd?”

“I don’t know how to say it. Better answers to better questions, I guess. The way I was when I was twenty and knew everything.”

“What about the Barlund girl? You seemed a little dubious.”

“Not really, I guess. I just had the feeling she’s a little over-specified for the operation. As if that much girl should have something better to do. So I got the feeling maybe there’s a gimmick in it someplace. But I guess not.”

“Cass will check her out tomorrow.” Mulaney chuckled.
“Freddy’s road men get short-winded when they get near her and their eyes bulge.”

“Had a few symptoms myself, Jesse.”

“Well, we’ll see what she can do with this bunch of scoundrels. Hope she knows a little judo, for when it gets damp around here. I understand you got in pretty early?”

“And sacked out. They’ve been pushing me pretty hard lately.”

Jesse clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, boy, there’s nobody here to load any work on you, so take this chance to unwind. It’ll do you a lot of good. Don’t think you have to show up for every damn thing. There’s nothing in the world duller than those clinics and morning workshops. You aren’t a regular member of
NAPATAN
, so you won’t get stuck on any committees.”

“I don’t know the first damn thing about selling anyway, Jesse.”

“Aren’t you supposed to know everything about everything?”

“What I actually know, and what they think I know, Jesse, is a pair of different shaped horses.”

In the suite, Frick was giving Cory Barlund her book of tickets. He explained the mechanics of it to her, and then said in a lower tone, “You did great!”

“How delicious of you to tell me!”

“Don’t needle me, huh? Is it a deal?”

“In the first three seconds, Frick, it was a capital Y Yes, and then it damned near turned into a no, but for a reason you couldn’t hope to understand.”

“I’m very stupid. Is it yes?”

“It’s yes. And a very foolish yes, possibly. But yes.”

“You think it’ll be easy?”

“All you have to know is I’ll give it a try.”

At a little after eight they went down to the Arabian Room where the larger banquets were staged. AGM had two adjoining tables, each set up for eight. Because Jesse Mulaney had to be at the speaker’s table, the addition of Cory Barlund created no problem. The table where she was seated also contained Cass and Sue Beatty, Connie Mulaney, Floyd Hubbard, Fred Frick, Dave Daniels and Stu Gallard. It was a round table near the platform. She sat directly across from Floyd. She was between Stu and Dave. Floyd was between Connie and Sue Beatty.

“That,” whispered Sue, caught between indignation and admiration, “is one hell of a doll indeed.”

“Yes indeed.”

“Makes me feel the way I did when I was a fat child with braces on my teeth.”

“You look fine, Sue.”

“I wasn’t fishing. You know, that girl comes on slow. She builds. The more you look, the more you see. Floyd, only a woman could know what kind of a total effort that takes, all the time and thought and care.”

Sue Beatty clucked and shook her head. Sue was a hearty dominant woman in her middle thirties, heavy in hip and bust, solid but not fat, fond of bright colors, spiced foods, sweet drinks and lusty laughter.

There was so much noise in the room and so much conversation on the other side of the table they could talk with relative privacy.

“How old is she, Floyd? What would you say?”

“Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”

“How she would love you for that! Look at the backs of her hands, dear man. And the base of her throat. Twenty-eight if a day. But doing very very well at looking twenty-two. Don’t look at me like that. I know whereof I speak.”

Floyd looked across at Cory in animated conversation with Stu Gallard. It was curiously disconcerting to think of Cory as being the same age as Jan. And his astonishment seemed a kind of disloyalty. It wasn’t fair to Jan, of course. This Barlund girl apparently had nothing to do except keep herself as attractive as possible, and play around at little projects like this magazine thing. She had the sound and look and manner of money. Give Jan the same opportunity, and she could …

“Dave Daniels is moving in for the kill,” Sue whispered. “Watch him.”

Daniels, Floyd knew, had done more than his share of drinking before they left the suite. He was a big man, with all the simple devices of total vanity. Jan had met him once, after a series of meetings in Houston, and had placidly remarked that Dave Daniels was what you might get if you could cross Marshal Dillon with a horse.

Dave had broken up the Barlund-Gallard dialogue, and he was leaning close to Cory, talking in a low, intent, private voice, a half smile on his hard mouth, his eyes half closed. She listened without expression. He leaned closer and said a few words directly into her ear, laying his fingertips on her forearm as he did so.

Cory did not move her arm. He moved his fingertips back and forth in a tentative caress. She turned to face him more directly, smiled, and spoke to him for perhaps fifteen seconds. His
mouth sagged open. He snatched his hand away. Cory turned back to Stu Gallard. Dave Daniels turned dark red, and the color faded to a curious sickly white. He pushed the food around on his plate for a few moments and then left the table abruptly.

Hubbard felt a warm delight. She glanced across at him, and he thought he saw one dusky eyelid shield one dark blue eye for a microsecond, but it happened so quickly he could not be certain he had not imagined it.

“Something tells me,” Sue said, “that was a brush-off that’ll have some kind of permanent effect. I guess she’s had some practice.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it could be done,” Hubbard said.

“Oh, it can be done,” Sue said. “Even to the likes of Dave. You decide what a man holds most dear, about himself. Some little illusion. And then you stomp it.”

Hubbard turned to Connie Mulaney on his right and said, “If friends don’t stop this table-hopping to come and talk to you, Mrs. Mulaney, I’ll never get the chance.”

“Just when I get Freddy’s shy little road men to start calling me Connie, you revert to formality, Floyd. Am I so darn imposing?”

“No. And I’m sorry. It’s a sort of reversion to type, I guess. Protocol in the academic world. I hung around Cal Tech too long. If you are an instructor, and Smith is an assistant professor, and if you are twenty-two and he is twenty-three, by God, his wife is Mrs. Smith.”

“I didn’t know you’d taught, Floyd.”

“I hated the teaching part, loved the chance to check out some of my wild ideas in those fine labs. Three years of it, then five years with an independent lab—research and testing with a
commercial slant. Then over to GAE. Result, I feel like an imposter.”

She tilted her head slightly, frowning, and said, “I guess everybody does, to a certain degree. There’s some exceptions. Freddy, Dave Daniels … but the rest of us feel slightly displaced.”

He realized once again that every time he was with this handsome and very human and very perceptive woman, he would marvel at her apparent love for and loyalty to a man like Jesse, who was such a big, loud, crude, mumbling extrovert. A lot of other people seemed to give Jesse love and loyalty, but so far Hubbard had been unable to discern any valid reason for it.

“I’ll keep it to Connie from now on,” he promised.

“Good.”

“You certainly seem to know a sizable chunk of this group. How many would you say are here? Seven hundred?”

“At least. But Jesse and I don’t know so many actually. We know the
NAPATAN
people better than the members of
COLUDA
. And, you know, there’s been a lot of conventions in our lives. Jesse never forgets a name or a face, but a lot of the time I have to just smile sort of blankly and mumble. When the kids were small I was housebound, but now I get taken here and there.”

“What will you do while this thing is going on?”

“Oh, shop and get some sun, and go to the more important things, and keep Jesse from getting too exhausted. Wifely work, Floyd.”

The toastmaster huffed into the microphone, and there was a stirring and shuffling as the conventioneers and their ladies hitched their chairs around to face the platform. There was a traditional welcome to all delegates, and a thanking of the joint chairmen of the arrangements committee for their splendid
work in setting the convention up so that it would run smoothly and effectively. There was an exhortation to all delegates to attend the workshops and panel discussions. The industry had had a successful year, all things considered. Of course there was dissension, but without irritation, oysters would never produce pearls. The exhibits this year were the finest ever. The program was the most exciting ever devised. And now there would be two addresses, one by Jerry Kipp, president of
COLUDA
, and the other by Jesse Mulaney, president of
NAPATAN
.

Kipp, a small, nervous, bespectacled man gave, with a total absence of humor, a speech apparently intended to create a great, selfless dedication and devotion to the industry, and its place in the great onward march of America.

Mulaney was introduced next. He stood at the lectern and after the applause had died down he let the silence grow. He looked out at the multitude with a slow owlish grin.

“I knew I’d have to do this. And I knew they’d fix me good. They put Bill and Jerry on first. By the time Bill was through, I’d crossed out half my speech. Jerry gave you the other half of my speech. So here I am standing up here like a nut.

“As you know, I’m the out-going president of
NAPATAN
, after the usual two years in this high office, where, according to honored precedent, I got the other fellows to do all the work.

“As I stand here, I see other ex-presidents out there. Fletch, Harry Mallory, Dix Weaver. They’re honorary directors of
NAPATAN
now, same as I’ll be. If there’s anybody does less work than the president, it’s an honorary director.

“During this convention,
NAPATAN
will elect a new president. Like the other officers and the members of the board, I have to go around pretending I don’t know who it will be. That, too, is part of our tradition.

“Sixteen years ago I was elected to the board. Twelve years ago I was made recording secretary in spite of everything I did to wiggle out of it. Eight years ago I was made treasurer. Four years ago I became vice president. Two years ago, at the convention in Atlanta, I made my speech of acceptance as president, and that night I told my wife Connie that finally I could relax and start taking the bows for all the work the other fellows were going to do.

“I suppose that right here is the place where I should point with pride. I don’t know. I’ve never had much trust in long lists of accomplishments. Oh, sure, we’ve got such a list. But to me,
NAPATAN
has been the way we can stand face to face … without agitating the anti-trust boys. And it has been these inter-company contacts which, over the twenty-four years since
NAPATAN
was founded, that have turned this industry from a cut-throat jungle into … into a respectable place to spend your life.

“Now don’t get the idea everybody has given up sharp-shooting, and this has turned into a great big Bible school. Every company in this industry is still rough and tough and eager, because they have to be to survive. But
NAPATAN
has at least given us an arena where the rules are posted and nobody hits you after the bell.