Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  “Who is he?” asked Abel. “What does he want?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sammy, not bothering to look up. “I’m not in touch with the life history of the customers the way you are. Give them a good meal, make sure you get yourself a big tip and hope they come again. You may feel it’s a simple philosophy, but it’s sure good enough for me. Maybe they forgot to teach you the basics at Columbia. Now get your butt over there, Abel, and if it’s a tip be certain you bring the money straight back to me.”

  Abel smiled at Sammy’s bald head and went over to 17. There were two people seated at the table—a man in a colorful checked jacket, of which Abel did not approve, and an attractive young woman with a mop of blond, curly hair, which momentarily distracted Abel, who uncharitably assumed she was the checked jacket’s New York girlfriend. Abel put on his “sorry smile,” betting himself a silver dollar that the man was going to make a big fuss about the swinging doors and try to get his table changed to impress the stunning blonde. No one liked being near the smell of the kitchen and the continual banging of waiters through the doors. But it was impossible to avoid using the table when the hotel was packed with residents and many New Yorkers who used the restaurant as their regular eating place and looked upon visitors as nothing more than intruders. Why did Sammy always leave the tricky customers for him to deal with? Abel approached the checked jacket cautiously.

  “You asked to speak to me, sir?”

  “Sure did,” said a southern accent. “My name is Davis Leroy and this is my daughter, Melanie.”

  Abel’s eyes left Mr. Leroy momentarily and encountered a pair of eyes as green as any he had ever seen.

  “I have been watching you, Abel, for the last five days,” Mr. Leroy was saying in his southern drawl.

  If pressed, Abel would have had to admit that he had not taken a great deal of notice of Mr. Leroy until the last five minutes.

  “I have been very impressed by what I have seen, Abel, because you got class, real class, and I am always on the looking-out for that. Ellsworth Statler was a fool not to pick you up.”

  Abel began to take a closer look at Mr. Leroy. His purple cheeks and double chin left Abel in no doubt that he had not been told of Prohibition, and the empty plates in front of him accounted for his basketball belly, but neither the name nor the face meant anything to him. At a normal lunchtime, Abel was familiar with the background of anyone sitting at 37 of the 39 tables in the Edwardian Room. That day Mr. Leroy’s table was one of the unknown two.

  The southerner was still talking. “Now, I’m not one of those multimillionaires who have to sit at your corner tables when they stay at the Plaza.”

  Abel was impressed. The average customer wasn’t supposed to appreciate the relative merits of the various tables.

  “But I’m not doing so badly for myself. In fact, my best hotel may well grow to be as impressive as this one someday, Abel.”

  “I am sure it will be, sir,” said Abel, playing for time.

  Leroy, Leroy, Leroy. The name didn’t mean a thing.

  “Lemme git to the point, son. The number one hotel in my group needs a new assistant manager in charge of the restaurants. If you’re interested, join me in my room when you get off duty.”

  He handed Abel a large embossed card.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Abel, looking at it: “Davis Leroy. The Richmond Group of Hotels, Dallas.” Underneath was inscribed the motto: “One day a hotel in every state.” The name still meant nothing to Abel.

  “I look forward to seeing you,” said the friendly checkcoated Texan.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Abel. He smiled at Melanie, whose eyes were as coolly green as before, and returned to Sammy, still head down, counting his takings.

  “Ever heard of the Richmond Group of Hotels, Sammy?”

  “Yes, sure, my brother was a junior waiter in one once. Must be about eight or nine of them, all over the South, run by a mad Texan, but I can’t remember the guy’s name. Why you asking?” said Sammy, looking up suspiciously.

  “No particular reason,” said Abel.

  “There’s always a reason with you. What did table seventeen want?” said Sammy.

  “Grumbling about the noise from the kitchen. Can’t say I blame him.”

  “What does he expect me to do, put him out on the veranda? Who does the guy think he is, John D. Rockefeller?”

  Abel left Sammy to his counting and grumbling and cleared his own tables as quickly as possible. Then he went to his room and started to check out the Richmond Group. A few calls and he’d learned enough to satisfy his curiosity. The group turned out to be a private company, with eleven hotels in all, the most impressive one a 342-room deluxe establishment, in Chicago, the Richmond Continental. Abel decided he had nothing to lose by paying a call on Mr. Leroy and Melanie. He checked Mr. Leroy’s room number—85—one of the better smaller rooms. He arrived a little before four o’clock and was disappointed to discover that Melanie was not there.

  “Glad you could drop by, Abel. Take a seat.”

  It was the first time Abel had sat down as a guest in the more than four years he had worked at the Plaza.

  “What are you paid?” said Mr. Leroy.

  The suddenness of the question took Abel by surprise.

  “I take in around twenty-five dollars a week with tips.”

  “I’ll start you at thirty-five a week.”

  “Which hotel are you referring to?” asked Abel.

  “If I’m a judge of character, Abel, you got off table duty about three-thirty and took the next thirty minutes finding out which hotel, am I right?”

  Abel was beginning to like the man. “The Richmond Continental in Chicago?” he ventured.

  Davis Leroy laughed. “I was right—and right about you.”

  Abel’s mind was working fast. “How many people are over the assistant manager?”

  “Only the manager and me. The manager is slow, gentle, and near retirement and as I have ten other hotels to worry about, I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble. Although I must confess Chicago is my favorite, my first hotel in the North, and with Melanie at school there, I find I spend more time in the Windy City than I ought to. Don’t ever make the mistake New Yorkers do of underestimating Chicago. They think Chicago is only a postage stamp on a very large envelope, and they are the envelope.”

  Abel smiled.

  “The hotel is a little run-down at the moment,” Mr. Leroy continued, “as the last assistant manager walked out on me suddenly, so I need a good man to take his place and realize its full potential. Now listen, Abel, I’ve watched you carefully for the last five days and I know you’re that man. Do you think you would be interested in coming to Chicago?”

  “Forty dollars and ten percent of any increased profits and I’ll take the job.”

  “What?” said Davis Leroy, flabbergasted. “None of my managers are paid on a profit basis. The others would raise hell if they ever found out.”

  “I’m not going to tell them if you don’t,” said Abel.

  “Now I know I chose the right man, even if he bargains a damn sight better than a Yankee with six daughters.” He slapped the side of his chair. “I agree to your terms, Abel.”

  “Will you be requiring references, Mr. Leroy?”

  “References? I know your background and history since you left Europe right through to getting a degree in economics at Columbia. What do you think I’ve been doing the last few days? I wouldn’t put someone who needed references in as number two in my best hotel. When can you start?”

  “A month from today.”

  “Good. I look forward to seeing you then, Abel.”

  Abel rose from the hotel chair; he felt even happier standing. He shook hands with Mr. Davis Leroy, the man from table 17—the one that was strictly for unknowns.

  Leaving New York City and the Plaza Hotel, his first real home since the castle near Slonim, turned out to be more of a wrench than Abel had anticipated. Good-byes to George,