In remote corners and alcoves and setbacks of the lobby area, work gangs were sweeping, polishing, cleaning, rearranging. He looked at the complex vistas of ramps and glass, pastels and plastics, at all the contrived decadence of crypto-modern, and remembered that a friend of his had once described the decor of a neighboring hotel as being Early Dental Plate. The huge hotel, now being brushed and polished by the maintenance crews, was like some bawdy, obese, degenerate old queen who, having endured prolonged orgy, was now being temporarily restored to a suitably regal condition by all the knaves and wenches who serve her.
The desk clerk had a varnished wave in his baby-pale hair, and adorably narrow little lapels, and a bruised and winsome little mouth to smile with, and the eyes of one of the larger lizards, unwinking, unforgiving.
“Mr. Hubbard?” he said. He caressed his Cardex. “Oh dear,” he said. “We have nothing reserved, no.”
“Try American General Machine.”
“Oh, yes!” the clerk cooed. “Yes indeed. Coming in today, with the convention. Lovely accommodations, sir. Eighth floor, north wing, with an ocean suite and other rooms. I have it all reserved under a Mr. Mulaney. Would that be correct? A party of ten?”
“That would be correct.”
“Would Mr. Mulaney be making the room assignments for the group?”
“He’ll be happy to have me pick my own. What’s reserved?”
The clerk drifted away and came back with a room chart sealed in plastic. “This is a standard floor plan, sir, for all our north wing floors, with the numbers the same except, of course, the floor designation digit missing. Let me see now. You have the master suite at the end, a three-bedroom suite and this smaller adjacent suite and this pair of interconnecting singles and the three singles along this side. Um, yes. That would be ten, wouldn’t it? Of course.”
“Any of these three singles will be fine.”
“But, sir, as long as you are the first one here, you could be on the ocean side. These are really the less desirable...”
“It’s what I’d like,” Hubbard said, and hoped the clerk wouldn’t break into tears. “Can you give me one now?”
“Oh gracious, that might be a problem. APETOD had their farewell banquet last night. We might have to move you later in the day, give you some other... Let me check with the housekeeper on eight north, sir.”
The clerk murmured into a phone, hung up and smiled in a sweet and happy way. “Eight forty-seven is available, sir. We won’t have to move you.”
“Fine, fine,” Hubbard said, and hoped the lad wouldn’t collapse with joy.
A soft chime summoned a bellhop who led Hubbard to the proper bank of elevators. They walked a long way down the total silence of the eighth floor. A housekeeping cart stood outside the open door of 847. A brawny monochromatic woman in white was stripping the twin beds. She looked at them with total hostility.
“This was supposed to be ready,” the bellhop said.
“So who says suppose? So who knows about ready? Do forty-seven she says, so I do it.”
“So do it,” the bellhop said.
“It’s all right,” Hubbard said. “It doesn’t matter.” He tipped the boy. The room smelled of stale cigar and a faint pungency of perfume. He took off his hat and jacket and loosened his tie. Sliding a glass door aside, he stepped out onto a tiny triangular terrace, just big enough for the chaise fashioned of aluminum and plastic webbing and one small metal table. The vertical sawtooth construction of the side of the building gave the terraces the illusion of privacy. A tall glass containing a collapsed straw, an inch of pale orange liquid, and a poisonous-looking cherry stood on the railing. He leaned on the railing and looked down at orderly arrangements of acres of sun cots, at two pools, one Olympic and the other larger and freeform, at a thatched bar and a pagoda bar, at the empty alignment of outdoor tables and chairs, and the lush calligraphy of the planting areas. The sun was behind him, shining on tall pale distant buildings, leaving the area below him in blue-gray shadow.
The woman came out and snatched the glass, looked around for other debris, snorted and went back into the room. “Now it’s done!” she bellowed a few minutes later. As he turned, the corridor door slammed shut.
He unpacked. Jan had done well. But there was no fond funny note, no silly present for him. Of course, he told himself, she had no time for such nonsense. Not this time. The room had the sterility of a place where no one had ever lived. The little stains and abrasions and scars had been cleverly added to make him believe he was not the last living man in the world. The machines did not want him to be too lonely, so they added these subliminal clues.
He ordered up juice, eggs, cocoa and a morning paper. After he finished, he pushed the cart out into the hall, closed the terrace door, pulled the draperies shut. He turned a bedlight on, showered, put on his pajamas, got into bed. By then it was late enough to place the call to Jan.
“Was it a good trip, dear?” she asked. Her voice was dimmed by the humming distance, flat and uninvolved.
“They tried to cut us off at the waterhole, but we fought our way out.”
“What? I couldn’t hear you, dear. Mike was bellering.”
“It was okay. I got some sleep.”
“That’s good. Mike wants to talk to you.”
“Daddy! Daddy! You know what, Daddy! I’m limping!”
“Now how about that!”
“When you come home I’ll be limping! Are you coming home now?”
“Pretty soon, boy.” When Jan came back on the line he said, “What’s with the limp?”
“It’s very convincing, when he doesn’t forget which leg it is. He turned his ankle and demanded a bandage. How’s the weather there?”
“Tropical. By the way, I’m in eight forty-seven.”
“Have a truly hilarious convention, dear.”
“Thanks so much. This won’t be a picnic. You know what I have to do.”
Her voice was inaudible for a moment. “... not many picnics for anybody any more. I miss them. Thanks for calling. Keep in touch, dear.”
“I will. I will indeed. Love you.”
“Also, of course. Rest up, if they give you the chance. ’Bye.”
After he hung up he had a premonition of what could happen. The district man, whichever one had been stuck with the mechanics of the arrangements for the AGM group, would be over to check everything out. And he would find Hubbard was already registered and in, and he would feel terribly anxious to make certain that Mr. Hubbard was ecstatically content with everything.
He picked up the phone again and said, “This is Floyd Hubbard in eight forty-seven. Put a no-call on this line, please, and take it off at noon.”
He set his travel alarm for noon, turned out the bedlamp, and nestled himself into the whispering chill. The new womb for the new man, he thought. No sounds intrude. This chilled washed air is the same in Boston, Houston and Washoe. And darkness is standard issue everywhere. Here you are, Hubbard, with your invisible hatchet and the ineradicable mark of the assassin. This hurts me as much as it does you, Jesse. He burrowed his grateful way down into sleep.
Two
Fred Frick, Assistant District Supervisor, arrived at the Sultana at ten A.M., accompanied by one of the road men, a mild round swarthy young man named Fayhouser. Frick was in his early forties, a lean sandy jittery man with pale restless blue eyes, a sharp, high-pitched voice, a rather ugly and feral mouth full of oversized yellowed teeth. He always gave the impression of being too sharply dressed, too dapper, yet taken item by item his clothing was always in good conservative taste. There was something about the shape of him and his manner which gave the casual observer the impression that his underwear, at least, had to be of lavender silk to match concealed sleeve garters.