The Empty Trap Page 7

  In his greenness and in his eagerness to have a full house, he had taken several chances on mail reservations, trusting to his judgment and instinct, there being no time to check back. He approved a reservation for a one bedroom suite and a single on the same floor in the name of a Mr. Harry Danton of Detroit. Danton’s letter was on creamy thirty pound bond. The letterhead said A and D Enterprises, Incorporated, and gave a Detroit address, two phone numbers, a cable code. The accompanying check for two hundred and fifty dollars was imprinted with the name of the corporation, had been made out on a checkwriter, and was signed by Harry A. Danton. Lloyd remembered fingering the bond paper, running a fingertip over the engraved letterhead, and saying, after checking the occupancy board, “Okay. Confirm it.”

  He then forgot it until the morning of August fifteenth. He got down to the front at eight fifteen. He had had to attend one of the guest parties the night before, but had managed to slip out early enough to get in six hours. He knew that if he could get through the house routine, the office routine and the kitchen routine early enough, he could catch a nap in the three to five lull.

  Belter was the night man on the desk. He had twenty years of front experience and Lloyd respected his judgment.

  “Morning, Stu. Check-ins?”

  “A couple. The Durards. Old hands here. Two brat kids, but they tip the whole house. Another case where they’ll want a personal welcome from the new manager.”

  “Tell Smitty to let me know when they come down for breakfast.”

  “The other one, I think, is a problem. I don’t know how much, but a problem for sure.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Harry Danton from Detroit.”

  Lloyd frowned, then snapped his fingers. “Suite and a single. Right?”

  “Right. For about three weeks, he says.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You can smell money from here to there. He looks like maybe he runs a bank. I mean people might guess that about him. Not me. He’s got eyes on him like looking down a gun sight at you. He’s smartened up a lot, but the clothes are just a little bit wrong. And the way he talks is just a little bit wrong.”

  “You mean you know him?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have caught it from the name alone. But seeing him and adding the name to it, I ring me a far away bell, Lloyd. Mob stuff. Syndicate stuff. I’ve heard the name in that connection. Those people from the old days have gone very respectable, you know.”

  “If you’re right, he isn’t the type we’re after. But maybe you’re the only one who’ll be able to tell, Stu.”

  Belter grinned. “About him, yes. But the item in the single is going to churn this place. Here’s the sign-in. Miss Daintree West. About five nine. Really stacked. An accent right out of the five and dime. Blonde hair down to here. Black tight pants, green shirt, green shoes, green gloves to her elbows, mink stole. They came into Portland on a late flight and taxied out. While he registered, she stood right where you’re standing, yawning and combing her hair. Finally she said, ‘Jee-zuzz, Harry, snap it up! I’m pooped.’ She’s maybe twenty. He’s maybe fifty. She’s signed in as his secretary. If she can type, I’m old Dirty Thumb Gulick.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “One thing, Lloyd, you don’t do. You don’t push him around. For solid procedure, I’d recommend you close your eyes and hope they go away.”

  It wasn’t until late on the following afternoon that Lloyd had a chance to talk to Danton. He spotted them on the other side of the pool. Smitty had previously pointed them out in the dining room.

  Danton wore a white silk sport shirt, navy blue shorts. He sat in a deck chair wearing dark glasses, reading. His legs were pink from the sun. The girl lay beside him on the pool apron, face up, plastic cups on her eyes, body greased. She wore a bikini that looked as though it were made of white satin. Lloyd had already heard about the bikini. The comments were not exactly complaints.

  When Lloyd approached he saw that Danton was reading a racing form. When Lloyd said, “Mr. Danton?” Danton stuck the folded form under one hip and looked up.

  “I’m Lloyd Wescott, the manager here. I’m just getting around to welcoming you aboard.”

  Danton took his hand and shook it briefly, making no attempt to get up. “Sit down a minute, Wescott. I got a couple things I want to kick around with you. Pull that chair over.”

  Lloyd had not intended to sit down. But there was a definite force and authority about the man. He had a round face, thick white hair, black brows. He took the sun glasses off. His eyes were small and of a vivid blue and they slanted down at the outside corners. His nose was slightly flattened at the bridge. He had a curious build. He was too tall and too wide for the round undersized head. His body had width without thickness, except for the small hard pod, the size of a half watermelon. He held his back very straight, and later, when Lloyd watched him move around, the straightness seemed more an indication of stiffness and a wary fragility than of a military bearing.

  “How about a drink, Wescott?”

  “Not right now, thanks.”

  “I’m ready. Daintree!” She grunted in a sleepy way. “Go get me another bourbon on the rocks.”

  “Jee-zuzz, Harry! Can’tcha see I’m—”

  He interrupted her with such a hefty kick in the upper part of the thigh that it nearly rolled her over. When she popped up, gasping with outrage, he leaned toward her and said softly, “Go get the drink or go pack. And when I say move, get off your lazy butt next time.”

  “Okay, Harry. All right.”

  She got up meekly and went off, limping slightly, rubbing the bruised hip. Harry turned quickly and caught an expression on Lloyd’s face. “Ha! Shouldn’t kick ’em, eh?”

  “Only in private, Mr. Danton. Too many people watch for things like that.”

  “I get it. When I can get away I spend a lot of time in Miami. One time on the beach a friend of mine, name doesn’t matter, got sore by the hotel pool. Busted his girl in the nose and threw her in. Busted his girl friend’s girl friend in the nose and threw her in. Then busted his girl friend’s girl friend’s boy friend on the beak and heaved him in. You never see a busier lifeguard. Whole damn pool turned kinda pink. It cost him eighteen hundred bucks to get the three noses fixed. There was no beef.”

  “It’s a little different here.”

  “It’s a different crowd.”

  “Yes.”

  “Watching you last night. Saw you moving around like you were giving a hell of a big party. This place runs smooth.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Danton.”

  The girl brought the drink. He took it without thanks. She coiled languidly down onto the sun mattress, straightened the oiled and gleaming legs, recupped her eyes and sighed mightily to indicate her martyrdom.

  “It’s little things I guess. That little gal in the Dutch outfit coming around to the table all the time with that thing full of hot rolls. And on the breakfast tray this morning comes the Detroit paper. That shook me up.”

  “You’ll get it every morning you’re here. I have to be—”

  “Hold it just a couple of minutes, Wescott. How big a staff you got?”

  “Counting the gardeners, life guards and maintenance, a hundred and eleven.”

  “Runs a big nut then. Got any idea of the return on the investment?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Here’s what I want. I want to mouse around a little. Case the operation. I won’t get in anybody’s way.”

  “Why, Mr. Danton? This house isn’t on the market.”

  “I wouldn’t want this place. It’s beat. I think I want to build me one.”

  “It’s a quick easy way to go broke, they tell me.”

  “I’m in a lot of things. People can go broke in any one of them, Wescott. I don’t, on account of always I get top people and give them their head. Can I look around a little?”

  “Of course, Mr. Danton.”

  That was the beginning. Lloyd saw him after
that in all parts of the house. Once he stood in an out-of-the-way corner of the main kitchen throughout the dinner hour. He spent time with the bell captain, with the housekeeper, at the reservation desk. Miss West checked out at the end of the first week. Danton said, “I sent her back. That one was all slob. I ask a friend who he knows wants a vacation. The trouble is this friend is all slob too so I get one with no more conversation than a rabbit and she acts like she’s doing me a favor. Bet you’re awful sorry she’s gone.”

  The day Danton checked out, he asked Lloyd to come up and have a drink in the suite. He wasted no time. “How about coming in with me? One and a half times whatever you’re getting, and a piece of the profit at the end of the year?”

  “Where’s your hotel?”

  “In a lock box. Finish up here, then you go to work. Go look for a site and phone me when you find one. You pick the architects and work with them. Then you live on the job while we’re building, and then you open it up and run it. Only one catch. The site has got to be in Nevada. Think it over and phone me.”

  Lloyd talked it over with Stu Belter two days later. “It sounds too good to be true. What the hell does he know about me?”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Those boys use all the sources. I’ll bet he knows how old you were when you took your first step.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Don’t ask me. Some of the boys have landed on their feet out there. Others have had a lot of heartache. You got to face the fact it’s mostly mob money. And where there’s gambling you get people in the house acting like maniacs. They run a heavy entertainment nut and you have to put up with high level tantrums. Maybe you could do it. Nothing seems to ruffle your feathers. You’ve got a trick of making the job look easy. The way it looks to me, it’s rich out there and there’s a lot of gloss but all the same it’s a little shabby.”

  “If I take it, would you come out later on?”

  “Good God, no! When Rosie fastens herself to a slot machine, you can’t pry her off with a tire iron. Right now I’m trying to support a family and a horse room. She’s incurable.”

  A week later a gift arrived from New York, a slender dull silver cigarette case in good taste, with his initials L. T. W. engraved on one corner. Danton’s card was enclosed. Belter said it looked like platinum. Lloyd told him he was crazy. The next time he was in Portland he had a jeweler look at it. It was platinum, with an estimated retail value of four hundred dollars.

  That week he landed a winter job in New Orleans and wrote Danton, thanking him for the cigarette case and telling him he had decided against taking the job he had offered.

  He forgot all about Danton until March of 1964 when he got a call that a man wanted to see him in the men’s bar. The New Orleans job was a dog. The new owner, a small fussy irritable man, followed him every moment of the day, questioning decisions, countermanding orders, alienating the help—blaming Lloyd for every difficulty, taking full credit for every accomplishment. His favorite gambit was to taste a dish after preparation and demand that it be thrown out. They had run through four head chefs in six months.

  Harry Danton was at the bar. He carried his drink over to a table. Lloyd offered him a cigarette out of the case and said, “Recognize this?”

  Danton took it, looked at it and handed it back. “I told a friend to pick out something. Hell, that hasn’t got much flash. You don’t look so good, Wescott.”

  “This isn’t the best deal in the world.”

  “Sewed up for next summer?”

  “They want me back up there.”

  “We’re about ready to go. I took some guys in, but I got the big end so I got the say. For the land and the house we can go to five. Five million. It’ll be a corporation. I talked to a couple of clowns want the job, but I’m not high on them. It’s open if you want it.”

  Lloyd thought for a long time. “Wait right here.”

  He found the owner in the dining room criticizing the way the waiters were folding the luncheon napkins. Lloyd went up to him. “Mr. Dockerty, am I the manager here?”

  Dockerty peered at him. “Of course, Lloyd!”

  “Then I must insist that you stop interfering with the management of this hotel. If you have a complaint, speak to me. Stay out of the kitchens. I’m asking the staff to ignore any orders you may give them from now on.” The dining room staff was listening.

  Dockerty turned pale and then flushed dark red. “I know more about business methods than you ever will! You can’t talk to me this way. I own this hotel. I’m not going to stand by and watch you run it into the ground! I can manage my own hotel!”

  “There’s no such a thing as two managers.”

  “Then get out! Draw your pay and get out! Come on and I’ll make out the check right now. I want you packed and out of here in fifteen minutes. I won’t stand for insolence, Wescott.”

  With the check in his pocket, Lloyd went back to the men’s bar and sat down at the table. “Hello, boss,” he said.

  Danton nodded. He took out a packet of bills in a jeweled clip, separated five hundreds and one five-hundred and handed them to Lloyd. “Go on out and look around. Send a temporary address to the address on this card and they’ll mail you the poop to fill out to get on the payroll.”

  He drove out. He took a long look at the Reno area, and a longer look at Vegas. He saw the blight that over-expansion had brought to Vegas, and winced at the land prices. He checked roads, airlines, trains. And found the town of Oasis Springs, and found the place for the hotel and found out who owned it and found out what they could get it for. Harry Danton stared unbelievingly and said, “But this is nothing! This is from nowhere kid! Chrissake, who’ll ever find it when we put it up?”

  Lloyd counted the facts on his fingers. “A main highway. Rail, plane and bus transportation. Decent shops in town. Cheap land. Unlimited water supply. Probably a tax break from the county. Let them come to us, Harry.”

  “But, my God, I’d go nuts in this town in twenty minutes, kid!”

  “Harry?”

  He sighed. “Okay, okay, okay. It’s your baby.” Then he looked directly at Lloyd and said, very softly and dangerously, “But I think you better be right, kid.”

  The Hotel Green Oasis opened on schedule on Saturday, the sixteenth day of January, 1965. Despite fabulously expensive shipments of sod, there was a raw look to the grounds. Yet the hotel itself was enough to take the eye from the raw earth. It had none of the staccato flash of Collins Avenue or Vegas. It was hushed and tasteful, yet still dramatic. Guests, reacting to the special atmosphere, felt more handsome, more witty, more assured. Lloyd had remembered every bad service layout he had ever seen or heard about, and made certain not one of them existed in this hotel. By maximum use of automatic devices and intercom systems, the service was geared to a routine so sleek, so unobtrusive, that even during the first few days there were no major foulups.

  The architects who planned the hotel had nothing to do with the Copper Casino. Lloyd supervised the food and liquor setup over there, and Charlie Bliss handled the rest. It was a gaudy horror, full of the fever-flush of money, as perfectly suited to the job as a cash register.

  During the opening week the hotel was packed with free loaders from Hollywood, television, the sports world and the newspaper columns. Through Danton’s connections, the names were big. The opening splash made it the place to go. From then on a satirical, foul-mouthed little man named Hoppy Hopper kept the publicity wheels turning. He lived in a furnished room in the village because he hated hotels.

  Lloyd knew they were over the hump when the house stayed full in the dead season, and when nearby pieces of land were purchased for other hotels and ground was broken. In the summer the county enlarged the airport, and Oasis Springs began to get better scheduled service. New shops opened in the village. Harry Danton flew out often. Finally he decided to make it his headquarters. He wanted two suites, one for living quarters and one for office space. Lloyd objected violently. They made him run the
accommodations, food and liquor at the breakeven point. The whole hotel was a shill. The casino was the cream. He couldn’t afford to lose two of the best suites. With a crash priority, a separate structure was put up for Harry. It blended with the lines and colors of the hotel. Two bedrooms, two baths, living room, kitchen, large office, air conditioning, small outdoor pool, screen of shubbery. He brought three of his people from Detroit, a woman and two men. They kept apart from the hotel staff, and lived in the village.

  Harry said, “You know a funny thing? This is the first damn time in my life I’ve ever had a house to live in. I think I like it.”

  In October Lloyd was able to raise his head and look around and see that he had built a good thing, and that from here on in the running of it would get easier. Good lieutenants, after much shifting around, had been broken in. Now there could be some time off. He bought a new car.

  Danton went on a trip. Tulsa, in tones of wonder, told Lloyd he had heard Harry had gotten married. Tulsa and Benny both tried to laugh at such ridiculous news, but it was hollow laughter. “Maybe,” Lloyd said, “he liked living in a house well enough to put a wife in it. Who is the lucky, lucky girl?”

  “Sylvia Kennedy. She used to sing under that name. You remember, Tuls?”

  “Sure. That was after Frenchy took her out to the coast and he had a piece of that band that time.”

  “Say!” Benny said, “Dint Frenchy marry her?”

  “Some say yes and some say no, and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference to her on account of when he sort of got pushed out that window that time, he didn’t even have a pot left. Where’d she go after that, Benny? You know?”

  “I heard last year she was back in New York with Big Windy and singing in some little club like. Then they canceled out Big Windy’s citizenship. Jeez, Tuls. I don’t get it. Sure, people get married, but why marry Sylvia? And having Harry marry her!”

  Tulsa reproved Benny heavily. “Shut up and look at it this way. Maybe Harry figures he wants to get married. So what’s wrong with Sylvia? She’s good-looking. She never did time. You can’t count that time they held her four months in L. A. County. That was for questioning, no charges. And she didn’t widen an inch. So you can trust her, see? Harry can talk over business and it’s okay. And there’s a lot of mutual friends, see?”