McGrave's Hotel (8 page)

Dinner for Two

If the prospect of dining with the beautiful daughter of Death was the most likely thing to make a boy’s knees wobble, the reality of being scrutinized by her bodyguard ran a close second. At least James did not have to deal directly with her father.

They stood in the foyer of McGrave’s luxury penthouse, the hotel’s lavish observation residence floating high in the night, famous for its panoramic view of New York City, with floor-to-ceiling glass in every room. Across the greatest skyline in the world, a million lights were gleaming.

The bodyguard did a slow walk around James.

“I am Mr. Wu,” he said. “May I ask what is in your pocket?”

James listed the contents: one brass master skeleton key, one compass, one magnifying glass, loose change adding to one dollar thirty-five, two sticks of chewing gum, and one jackknife.

“Very good,” said Mr. Wu. “Merely curious.”

Fawn’s guardian seemed to be gathering his thoughts.

“Master James,” he said at last. “Many nights, I am with Miss Fawn. Many, many nights. I can never be far from her side. If she were to be …
snatched—
the right word, yes? There are those who might believe kidnapping her would give them leverage with her father, that they could influence him to postpone the inevitable.

“Tonight, she wishes me to stay here, in this beautiful set of rooms, while she dines in your lovely restaurant. With you. It is a danger we seldom allow, my being so far from her. Yet, we consider the risk minimal. The restaurant seems secure, and you know all one might wish to know about the building. Mr. Nash has the highest confidence.

“So this we must ask. You must keep her safe. You must allow her to face no danger whatsoever. Take your time, do not rush. But immediately when dinner is concluded, you will return her here. Agreed?”

James bubbled over with assurances.

“Then, as I understand your chef is French, I say to you,
bon appétit
.”

Mr. Wu gestured toward the bedchambers, and that was Fawn’s cue.

Across the greatest skyline in the world, a million lights were gleaming.

Against the fairy-tale view, the girl seemed to walk in slow motion, and James would have sworn he heard music heralding her entrance. She wore black patent leather shoes and a dark blue dress with a bow on one shoulder. Her bangs stirred lightly against her forehead as she walked, and on her face she wore a confident smile. A clip shaped like a bejeweled spider clung to her hair just above a dreamy ear.

She paused briefly at the door. “Did you want to meet Dad?” she said.

James’s eyes bulged. His heart was in his throat even before she said that.

“Nope,” he barely whispered.

“They never do,” she said. “Later, Mr. Wu.”

And so the young couple stepped out on their own into the uncharted night.

In the restaurant, Maurice could not have been more attentive. James and Fawn occupied the best table, with an excellent view of Count Otis Monroe and his musicians, yet not so close that the music would interfere with conversation. From this viewpoint, James could see that attendance had revived to its usual all-night level. Miss Charles dispensed word of the future from table to table, and an occasional burst of light coincided with the silent Miss Hollingworth taking another souvenir photo. The Beaumonts had returned to the dance floor with renewed visibility, while across the room Mohammed Bey and his associates dined with two additional gentlemen. James hoped the museum plans were going well.

He removed his cap, placed it to the side on the black tablecloth, and gave Fawn his undivided attention. He could not remember having ever been happier. At a loss for a conversation starter, James asked the first thing he could think of that didn’t sound totally idiotic: how old are you?

Fawn owned up to being eleven.

“
Really
eleven? Or eleven
lately
?”

Fawn didn’t understand the question.

“We get certain guests, vampires for example, who might say they are eleven, but they may have been eleven for a hundred years. They are sort of stuck at eleven.”

Fawn laughed. “No,
really
eleven. Dad met Mom a dozen or so years ago, a romance developed, and now there is me. We’re your average all-American family.”

James pressed her about her mom.

“She’s a journalist,” Fawn said. “That’s how it happened. She was covering an earthquake that killed a lot of people, and she stumbled upon Dad when he wasn’t supposed to be seen. She was terrified at first, but they started talking, and one thing led to another. The romance surprised them both.”

How, James wanted to know, does it work? Lines were being crossed here.

“I’m afraid it’s been hard on Dad,” Fawn said. “A kink in his normal operation. He has to worry about me. He worries about Mom too. It wouldn’t do if word got around that we existed.”

“Your dad is scary,” James said.

“All dads are scary.”

Maurice arrived to take their order. After a brief study of the menu, Fawn requested the
salade de betterave au chèvre
, a beet salad with goat cheese, apples, and walnuts.

“Only a salad?” James said.

“I’m watching my figure,” Fawn said. “Well, I don’t
have
a figure yet, but some day.”

James could have shown off his knowledge of French cuisine, as he knew the menu inside out. Indeed, thanks to his early training in rapid memorization, he had learned it by heart at first glance, and over the course of the year had sampled most of its exotic delicacies. Nevertheless, he chose an all-American-boy order of a cheeseburger, French fries, and a milk shake. He didn’t want to seem pretentious. Besides, he loved cheeseburgers.

Before he moved on, Maurice looked through the napkins on his tray as if expecting to find something written on them. “Oh, sorry, Master James. No messages.”

“What was that about?” Fawn said as the waiter receded.

James could have brushed the question aside, but he liked this girl and did not wish to keep secrets from her, even very personal ones. He openly confessed his hope that his parents had left him a message before they died.

“My family was very keen on keeping each other informed,” he said. “We left notes everywhere in case any of us had to contact the other in an emergency, or in case one of us got into trouble. It’s basic spy craft. If nothing else, I think they would have wanted to say good-bye. We didn’t know it was the last time we would see each other. Things needed to be said.”

Fawn regarded him.

“I’m sorry about your mom and dad,” she said. “I’m sorry anyone dies. My dad doesn’t, you know,
kill
people. He simply wouldn’t. He’s more of an escort. He helps them get to their next destination.”

“Where is that?”

“Goodness, who knows? It probably has to do with ancient religious beliefs and modern physics and good and evil and afterlife population control and whatever. I’ve no idea. Dad and I never discuss it. Some people, it appears, never seem to go anywhere.”

She nodded toward the dance floor. The ghostly Beaumonts were dancing cheek to cheek, very lovey-dovey. Count Otis Monroe was singing “I Only Have Eyes for You.”

“Our favorite couple,” James said. “They give the room a cachet. That’s what Chef Anatole always says.”

Maurice arrived with the food, and the two diners poked at it distractedly. They discovered a shared fondness for movies.

“The theaters are dark,” the girl said. “Dad and I can slip in unnoticed.”

“I go on Saturday afternoons with Mr. Nash,” James said. “Or sometimes with Miss Charles. She’s the fortune teller.”

“Is that her over there at that table? I’ve been watching her. I hope I grow up that pretty.”

James followed Fawn’s gaze. From across the room, Miss Charles caught his eye as he did so, and she seemed to be flashing a card at him. He blushed, being quite certain that the tarot card she was holding up was The Lovers. That was all he needed—teasing.
James and Fawn, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

“Do you like Shirley Temple?” he asked suddenly. The child movie star was the current Big Thing in the movie world, despite James’s low opinion of her. They had even given her an Academy Award. Still, it was a handy change of subject.

“Oooh, no!” Fawn shrieked. “Ick. Don’t tell me
you
do!”

“Oh, please. Have you ever heard a song as sappy as ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’?”

“Then there’s those ringlets!”

Fawn reached across the table and helped herself to James’s fries.

“So, why?” James asked. That he could be sitting here with the exquisite daughter of the most dangerous father in history perplexed him.

“Why what?”

“Why this? Why did you ask me to dinner?”

She smiled and shrugged her slim shoulders.

“I guess I like a boy in uniform,” she said.

“There will be a lot of boys in uniform if this war happens,” said James. “It’s all anyone around here is talking about. The Germans seem to be itching for a fight.”

“I know,” Fawn said. For the first time during the meal, a dark look crossed her face. “I hate it. We’ll have to move back to Europe. Dad will be sooo busy.”

“I don’t understand how it works,” said James, worried that he might be treading on sacred ground. “With your dad. I mean, for
everyone
who dies, does he—”

“Like Santa Claus?” Fawn laughed. “Everyone in the world? He would be very busy indeed. No. He’s
quite
busy, of course. His job is mostly ceremonial. He appears for special cases. I don’t mean famous people, but people whose lives have been special, often in little ways, or who need extra help getting to where they are going. Still, a war, or a plague, those create special situations.”

The image of the black figure billowing across the Grand Lobby floor was still vivid in James’s mind. The image was still maddeningly familiar.

“And, ah, his look?” he said. “Does he always—”

“Everyone’s mom or dad is beautiful, don’t you think? But no, he doesn’t look like that all the time. When we are alone, way alone, he … alters. I’m not sure how to describe it. He becomes sort of normal, with a sweater and slacks and slippers. You might even think him handsome. But that’s only an hour or so a day, even on a good day. I see him so much the other way, in his ‘man in black’ guise, that I love him like that, even more than when he changes. It’s the look I am most used to. Of course, I tell him all the time that the dark spooky robe look is
so
old-fashioned.”

Over his left shoulder, James noticed that Abasi, the largest of Queen Siti’s guards, had entered the room and was hurrying over to Mohammed Bey’s table. He appeared agitated.

Meanwhile, someone was tapping him on his right shoulder.

It was Roderick, of all people. “Hey, sport.”

James gave him an incredulous look. Surely Roderick wasn’t here to tell him his dinner break was up. This dinner was more of an official assignment.

Roderick bent down and whispered in James’s ear. “You know that young lady I took up to Mr. Lesley’s suite? There seems to be some sort of problem. Mr. Nash is getting complaints that it’s too noisy in 3913. Like some sort of catfight going on in there.”

James was about to tell Roderick to take care of the problem himself when Roderick added, “I’d give it a look-see, sport, but Mr. Lesley gave me a
huge
tip to leave him alone. I wouldn’t want to queer a good thing.”

Walter Quinn, in his trench coat with his camera slung over a shoulder, bolted into the room and elbowed his way past Roderick. “Jimmy, me boy,” he said. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice that you was squiring a young lady. Greetings, miss. So, Jimmy. I get a call from my friend down at the fifth precinct, and he tells me a squad car of New York’s finest is on its way to this address on account of a body being found in what can only be construed as peculiar circumstances. Such as, the body is missing a head, and the head is nowhere to be found. I am here to ask your angle on this development.”

James was standing and already putting his cap back on as he noticed all the Egyptians running out of the room with Abasi in the lead. What in the world was going on?

“No comment,” he said to Mr. Quinn.

He turned to Fawn.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. We
have
to go. I wish you could finish the dinner. Chef Anatole’s desserts are incredible. The bee’s knees. But we have to get you back to your father. I don’t know what’s happening.”

She picked up James’s milk shake and took a sip on its only straw, then planted the shake firmly back onto the table.

“Oh, no, James Alexander Elliott,” she said, rising from the table. “Oh, no. You aren’t taking me back to my room just as things are getting interesting. I’m coming
with
you. Think you can stop me?”

James considered the consequences. He desperately wanted to spend more time with the girl. But he also worried about what might happen if he kept her out too late. If Fawn’s father looked terrifying checking in to a hotel, what would his wrath look like?

“Okay,” James said. “Only until we meet with Mr. Nash. Only until we find out what’s going on.”