“I gave him the key,” Hubbard said in a hopeless voice.
“So what? So maybe he used it. Maybe he didn’t. The thing is, she borrowed your room to get cleaned up, right? Twenty thousand people a year fall and kill themselves in bathrooms. It isn’t an unusual thing. And it’s all figured out that he couldn’t have landed where he did if he came off the terrace of 847.”
“What?” Hubbard asked. “What was that?”
“You don’t come into it in any way, Mister,” Farrier said.
“But I...”
“Shut up,” the blonde girl said. “Leave it alone. Honest to God, Floyd, for hours and hours you’ve been trying to put your ass in a sling. You want trouble? I sure don’t. I don’t want any part of anything. I want to go home. So kindly keep your fat mouth shut.”
“That’s a smart girl talking,” Fred said. “We all should leave it just the way it is. Right, Jesse?”
“Absolutely,” Jesse Mulaney said.
“Now all of you get one thing squared away,” Farrier said. “And this includes you, Fred. Anybody asks questions about this, you three men have been questioned on account of being with the same company as Daniels. Beyond that, you know nothing.”
“So what am I doing here?” the girl demanded. “I was with Floyd, that’s all. And I won’t make a mistake like that again in a hurry.” She stood up, gave a hitch to her pink dress and said, “I’m walking right out of here right now.”
“Go ahead, darling,” Farrier said.
She looked at him blankly. “Huh?”
“Goodnight and good luck.”
She hesitated one more moment and then walked out.
When they went out into the larger office, DiLarra was there, waiting for Hubbard. They went together to the main desk. DiLarra apologized for any inconvenience, told him his things had been moved to a new room, and gave him a key to 609, in the south wing.
Floyd Hubbard went to his new room. It was one-fifteen in the morning. His possessions were in good order. He had a headache. His eyes felt sandy, and his mouth tasted vile. He sat on the bed. He felt too dispirited to make the first effort toward undressing and going to bed.
After a long time there was a knock on the door. He let Jesse Mulaney in. Jesse looked big and ancient and dog tired.
“We better go over this some,” Jesse said.
“Sit down.”
Jessie sat in the armchair. Hubbard sat on the bed, facing him. They did not look directly at each other, except in fleeting glances, and never at the same instant.
“I talked to Fred,” Jesse said. “And Cass Beatty and Connie. It won’t look good to keep on being jolly for the two days left. I gave orders to close the suite. We’ll keep the exhibit going, without the twins. Dave was a pretty good boy. It wouldn’t look right to keep on with it, not this year. We’ll go to New York tomorrow, and I’ll go to the funeral in Chicago.”
“Do you want me to tell you it’s a good plan?”
“I just thought you’d like to know how things are.”
“It would be nice to find out how things are. I wish I could find out.”
Jesse stirred in the chair, recrossed his legs. “I can understand how this hit you hard, Floyd boy. I guess you got pretty close to that pretty little girl in a short time. Hard to imagine her dead all of a sudden.”
Hubbard looked listlessly at the older man, feeling no animosity. “She told me you and Fred hired her to make a damn fool of me. It would have worked, Jesse, up to a point. I mean, she would have pulled something obvious enough in some place where enough people would have seen it. But it wouldn’t have made any difference in the recommendation I’ll make on you.”
He watched Mulaney, expecting protestations of innocence. Mulaney sighed and loosened the knot of his vivid tie and said, “It was a lousy idea, I guess.”
“It certainly was.”
“When things start to go wrong, I guess your ideas get worse and worse. Funny she told you, though.”
“She wasn’t well. She wasn’t reliable.”
“I’m not trying to duck it, Floyd boy, but it was Fred’s idea to start with. And ever since I told him to go ahead with it, I’ve felt ashamed. But I wasn’t going to call it off. I have to tell you that. I fired Fred tonight. He’s always been like a part of me walking around, the part I don’t like very much. That’s why I’ve been nicer to him all these years than I would have been — if I couldn’t see part of me in him. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“He cried like a little kid. He said it wouldn’t save my job for me, by firing him. I said I didn’t mean for it to. I said I wanted to fire him before they take away my authority to fire anybody. I told him I wanted that chance. But I guess I was punishing myself.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Connie told me what you said about me. You didn’t have to say that to her. You could have said it to me.”
“I’m ashamed I said it to her, Jesse. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think you told her anything she didn’t know. But I think she knows some things you don’t know. They aren’t the kind of things that you’d look for in a sales manager, but I have the idea they’re worth something.”
Hubbard stared down at the floor and said, “Did we kill her, Jesse? Did we kill Cory? You and me and Fred Frick?”
“She fell while she was taking a shower.”
“Daniels was after her.”
“And he beat it out of Fred, what the actual deal was. Funny how happy Connie was about me firing Fred. I can’t get it out of my mind. I knew she didn’t like him very much, but I didn’t know she felt that way.”
“Jesse, I keep wondering what would have happened if I’d refused to tell Daniels anything about Cory.”
“I guess he would have knocked you down, taken your room key and gone looking to see if she was in your room.”
“That’s the salesman’s knack, isn’t it? You tell people what they want most to hear.”
“You know what she was, boy. So she took Dave on and sent him on his way and then took a shower. What’s one more guy to one of those girls?”
“You’re a great salesman, Jesse.”
Jesse leaned forward. “One idea I wish I could sell you. But now you’ve got more reason than ever to throw me out. You’ve got a good personal reason now. I could stay out of the way for two years. I mean just hold the job and not get in anybody’s way. I’d even draw no pay, but nobody would have to know that. Just to keep the name, boy, until my time is up.”
“Isn’t there any threat to go with it?”
Jesse shrugged. “There’ll be rumors. I can’t stop them. Fred found you in the sack with one of the twins from our exhibit. You and Daniels were squabbling over a little whore before he fell off the hotel. You were walking around pretty tight tonight. A lot of people saw that.”
“You can’t stop them, but you could build them up a little.”
“I didn’t say that, now did I?”
Hubbard sat quietly and felt as if a hollow place in the middle of his chest was slowly filling up with molten metal, solidifying, turning at last to something so rigid and enduring it would last him all his life and serve him well. It would be there whenever he needed it. Jan would not have to know it was there. She needed no knowledge of the implacable, the merciless.
He stood up and said quietly, “What makes you think rumors like that could hurt me, you silly son of a bitch? You know how the rumors will level out. They’ll know all over the industry you tried to job me and got out-maneuvered. And they’ll have the idea I got to have my cake and eat it too. She was very good, Jesse. Very very good. Thanks for picking up the tab. The other one was nice too. I’m going to phone John Camplin. You can stay and listen, or you can leave now. It doesn’t matter to me what you do.”