McGrave's Hotel (4 page)

The gentlemen shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. Although Mr. Nash granted Victor Lesley a warmer than usual personal welcome, James grasped that this was merely the “Broadway celebrity” and
not
the VIP that had worried Mr. Nash earlier.

“That young fortune teller,” said Mr. Lesley, glancing toward the restaurant. “Very pretty girl. I shall be auditioning actresses for various roles in
Dracula
tonight. If there are any parts left over, I should love to give her a tryout. Very pretty girl.”

“
Quite!
” said Mr. Nash. His cheeks turned red, and his hands clenched. “Enjoy your stay.”

Miss Charles and Mr. Nash were close personal friends at the very least, and James knew Mr. Nash would not enjoy the actor foisting his attentions on her.

“This way, please,” James said, directing the Broadway actor away from any unpleasantness. Holding the wooden box with both hands, he gestured toward the elevators and moved smartly in that direction.

The Mystery Box

At the six available elevators that serviced the hotel, the other bellhops and luggage consumed so much space in the first that there was little room for Victor Lesley and James.

Mr. Lesley tapped James on the shoulder with his walking stick. “You, Ace, stick with me. We’ll take the next one.”

A moment later, James and his box and Mr. Lesley and his walking stick entered the adjacent elevator. When the doors closed and they were alone in the carved oak interior, Mr. Lesley let out a sigh of relief, leaned against one of the walls, and closed his eyes.

James used the moment to steal a close look at the object in his hands. The box was the elephant in the room.

“Want to know what’s in there?” the actor said. He opened his eyes and tapped the box with his walking stick.

James nodded.

“My biggest secret. Thus it must remain. Room 3913, please.”

The floor buttons and indicator lights formed a matrix of four columns. James had to stretch to push the button for the thirty-ninth floor. Holding onto the box made it even more difficult.

“Aren’t you a little young for this line of work?” Mr. Lesley said.

“I’m almost twelve, sir.”

“Live here?”

“Yes, sir.”

James had a basement room, but it was large and well-ventilated, and Chef Anatole let him order anything off the spectacular menu. Mr. Morton, the accountant, tutored him in Arithmetic; Miss Frobish, the head of reservations, tutored him in Geography; and Mr. Clancy, the electrician, tutored him in Science. Anything else he wished to learn was available on the sixth floor, in the hotel library. The library originally belonged to Thaddeus McGrave himself, and the management since Mr. McGrave’s era had not only preserved the collection but had updated it regularly.

James was an avid reader and used the library often. His room was filled with borrowed books, and he discussed them at length with Mr. Nash and Miss Charles. He was particularly fond of books about ancient Egypt because they reminded him of the summer he and his parents spent in Cairo. He remembered laughing at the wobbly, lurching camel ride to the Great Pyramid of Cheops, at Giza. On the small bureau in his room, James kept his only souvenir of that excursion: a photograph of his mom, his dad, and himself. Their names—Blanche, Alex, and James—were inscribed on the back in his mother’s neat hand. His mom had long blond hair and looked quite beautiful in the khaki riding outfit she wore in the photo, and his dad always said she was the bee’s knees.

The elevator, which had been ascending, passed the twentieth floor.

“Did you like my gals tonight?” Mr. Lesley asked.

“The ladies in the red dresses? They seemed nice,” James said. “Were they really what you said? Your fan club? Your agent?”

“Never met them before,” Mr. Lesley said. “Look, Ace, it’s all the same. It doesn’t matter if you are a stage star, a screen star, or President Roosevelt. You have to make an entrance. In most towns, the limo comes from the local funeral home. Here in New York, you can get a real limo with all the trimmings. So tonight, the limo, the girls, even a couple of the guys asking questions, were all part of a package deal. You pay for it. It’s one of the expenses of being a star.”

As they passed the thirtieth floor, the elevator suddenly slowed. When it stopped prematurely, James stared anxiously at the button and light panel as the doors opened. All the lights were flashing. “Nuts!” he said at once. It was the wrong floor!

The opened doors revealed a corridor lit entirely by candles. The corridor seemed to drift off to infinity. From far down the hallway, something large and green was floating toward them fast. James recognized it as the ectoplasm of a lost, angry spirit. He had had trouble with this one before. Jockeying the wooden box into an arm hold with his right arm, James furiously pressed the Close Door button with his left hand. The doors sealed right before the green cloud was upon them.

The elevator jerked once and then resumed its ascent. The lights calmed down.

“Holy moly, what was
that
?” said Mr. Lesley.

“Oh, ah, it’s a special ward,” said James. “It’s … for foreigners. Everyone on it speaks French. Makes it easier for them to communicate.”

“Oh, well then.”

Upon arriving at 3913, James and Mr. Lesley found that the other bellhops had finished depositing the luggage and were standing in a line, discreetly waiting for a tip. As James learned quickly in his tenure at McGrave’s, Broadway stars tended to tip handsomely in the early days of a run—a fiver was not uncommon—but the well tended to dry as the reviews darkened and the audiences shriveled.

The actor himself could barely contain his surprise at the height of the suite’s vaulted sitting room. The dim light from the table lamps failed to reach the ceiling, so the upper limits lay in shadow.

“Good gravy,” he said. “How high does this thing go?”

“Three stories, I believe,” said James. “At least that’s our best estimate.”

The other bellhops nodded in agreement. As all the staff knew, some of the suites at McGrave’s were horizontal, some vertical.

The lower reaches of the chamber supported oversized posters advertising the most popular Broadway shows of the past few years. There was George and Ira Gershwin’s
Strike Up the Band
and
Girl Crazy
and
Porgy and Bess
. There was Rodgers and Hart’s
Jumbo
at the Hippodrome, starring Jimmy Durante and a live elephant. The Broadway Suite indeed.

Victor Lesley turned a full circle as he admired the display, no doubt envisioning a new poster featuring himself as Transylvanian royalty by day, bloodsucking fiend by night.

“Where do you want
this
, sir?” said James.

James was still carrying the Mystery Box and extremely curious as to its contents. He continued to wonder if it contained something alive. Why else would there be air holes? What was Victor Lesley’s “biggest secret”? If only James could have a few moments with it in private.

“Put it in there,” Mr. Lesley said, indicating the bedroom. He turned his attention to the other bellhops who awaited his gratitude.

As James entered the bedroom, where the rest of the luggage had been piled, he could hear Mr. Lesley conversing with the other boys, dropping the names of the other stars working in Broadway theater. “Ginger Rogers is such a dear friend” and “I recommended that new girl, Ethel Merman, for
Girl Crazy
.”

Alone in the bedroom, James’s thoughts returned to his training.

“You can learn a lot about a person, kiddo, going through his mail,” his mom had said. It was the week she had taught him how to steam open envelopes. “If the opportunity arises, don’t hesitate. You might never get another chance.”

James didn’t hesitate. Quickly, he sat the box on the bed and removed his jackknife. It had two blades: a large one for the heavy-duty slicing and a tiny one for such tasks as cleaning fingernails. James flipped this smaller one open and inserted it into the keyhole of the padlock. Applying pressure just so, as his mom had taught him the week she gave him his first set of lock picks, James negotiated the lock. The simple pin-and-tumbler design was a challenge of mere seconds for a boy of his expertise. The little blade rotated, the lock snapped open, and James removed it from its hasp. Keeping a wary eye on the door, he lifted the lid barely enough to slip his hand inside.

“Aargh!” he yelled. He had touched something hairy that, while clearly not a spider, could have been something worse: a rat. It seemed to have had
muscles
. He held his breath as his eyes flashed toward the door, and he wished he could stop his heart from thumping in his chest. All was well: Mr. Lesley had apparently not heard him scream. The actor was still enlightening the other bellhops as to his accomplishments and acquaintances.

James tried again, this time opening the lid wider. He grasped the hairy creature and lifted it for inspection.

He smiled as Mr. Lesley’s biggest secret revealed itself.

It wasn’t a rat. It was a toupee. Victor Lesley was bald!

James hurriedly stuffed the wig back into its box, snapped the lock back in place, and returned to the sitting room to find that things were wrapping up. The other bellhops left happily, each with his newfound five-spot. Finally, only James and Mr. Lesley remained.

“Something wrong in there?” Mr. Lesley said. The actor took a brief peek into the bedroom but apparently noticed nothing amiss.

“No, sir. I’ll be going now, sir.” He was anxious to leave. Secrets were a burden.

Mr. Lesley returned his attention to the sitting room, appraising its antique furniture and elegant appointments. A small wind-up music box rested on an end table next to the sofa. He gave the sofa a little push, took a hard look at the posters of all those Broadway stars staring down, and leaned backward in order to look up into the darkness. James could only imagine his thoughts. Perhaps he wondered what Bram Stoker, the author of
Dracula
in 1897, might have thought of this place.

“It’s not exactly Dracula’s lair, but I like it,” Mr. Lesley said at last. “I think it will do. The actresses will be here any minute. We’re on a tight schedule, and we have to cast the female parts right away—Lucy, Mina, and all of Dracula’s wives. He had
three
, you know? I’m expecting to audition the first before midnight and the rest throughout the night. Perhaps you’ll get the nod to escort them up. Treat them nice. Who knows? You might be arm in arm with Broadway’s next big star.”

Mr. Lesley punctuated his remark with a wink.

“Uh, yes, sir,” James said. He couldn’t help staring at Mr. Lesley’s hair, and he smiled at the notion of a bald Count Dracula.

“Here you go, Ace,” said Mr. Lesley, forcing a final five-dollar bill into James’s hand. “I think you might be a big help to me in the next twenty-four hours. Yessiree.”

Turning to admire himself in a mirror, he licked a fingertip and traced it across one of his handsome eyebrows.

“Casting beautiful young women is one of the little burdens we stars have to endure,” he said, continuing to gaze into the glass. “Ah, here comes one now,” he pretended.

James could almost imagine the actress in the mirror as Victor Lesley draped his cape across his forearm, peeked over it as menacingly as a villainous European vampire could, and uttered the famous line from the movie: “I am Drac-u-la. I bid you welcome.”

James closed the door to the sounds of a loud, hideous, bloodcurdling laugh.

The Beautiful One Who Sings

“This way, gentlemen,” said James as he led the four men in dark suits and red fezzes away from the Front Desk. When Mr. Nash told the visitors that James had once spent a summer in Cairo, they had shaken his hand enthusiastically and had gladly surrendered themselves to his care. They seemed to accept him as one of their own.

A blast of cold New York City-in-December air stung the cheeks of the party as they exited the back of the hotel, where a moving company tractor-trailer was parked and running at the hotel’s loading dock. The truck’s engine emitted a deep friendly rumble, and a plume of white vapor rose into the night like a ghost from the mammoth vehicle’s exhaust.