Forsyte's Retreat

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  FORSYTE'S RETREAT

  By Winston Marks

  Illustration by Kelly Freas

  [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of ScienceFiction May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  [Sidenote: _Sextus Rollo Forsyte had his trouble with the bottle, butnothing out of a bottle ever produced such a hotel as the Mahoney-Plaza:only 260 rooms ... only two guests to a room ... but accommodating 5200guests--all at the same time!... Floor please?_]

  At last he was second in line. He squared his shoulders and pulled atthe lower edges of his black double-breasted suitcoat to erase thetravel wrinkles. The applicant ahead of him exploded the words, "Nuts!I'll leave town first. I just _came_ from the Phony-Plaza. You can takethat squirrel-cage and--"

  "Next!" the employment agent called sadly. Sextus Rollo Forsyte moved upand sat in the oak chair before the oak desk and faced the oak-featuredman with the jobs.

  "Forsyte is the name," Sextus reminded. The man riffled through theapplication cards.

  "Yes. Indeed. Lucky you came back. I have a fine position for you, Mr.Forsyte. Right in your line." He held out a blue slip. "The generalmanager's position is open at the Mahoney-Plaza. Six hundred a month,board and room. Now if you will...."

  Sextus staggered from the employment office stunned.

  He could handle the job, all right. As he'd said on the applicationform, in his forty years he had managed half a dozen large hotels. Butthey were handing him this plum without comment on his failure to fillin the spaces marked: COMPLETE REFERENCES (names and addresses).

  He shrugged. They did a lot of things different in California. The mosthe had hoped for was a waiter's job or maybe a short order cook in a fryjoint. But if they wanted to ignore the hotel associations' black list,he wouldn't argue.

  Sextus Forsyte craved anonymity with the passion that most men seek fameand glory. Beneath his suave, mature exterior beat the shrinking heartof a perennial hermit whose delight was an adventure book and a bottleof whiskey.

  His recent employer had not objected to his fondness for reading norsolitude, but his appetite for liquor had revealed itself in a series ofunfortunate crises which plague the life of any hotel executive.

  Yes, Sextus Forsyte had sought his solitude in that remotest of allplaces, the large city hotel. His career of smiling at strange faces,welcoming famous people and snapping crisp commands to assistantmanagers had provided the near-perfect isolation from normal society. Tothe transient eye he was the poised, gregarious greeter. Actually helived in a deep well of introversion. Of course, this was no affair ofthe succession of boards of directors who had uttered the harsh chargesof "dipsomania" and fired him. But then boards of directors are nevernotable for their sympathy or understanding.

  And finally word got around the eastern seaboard about Sextus. "Acompetent man, yes. Drinks on the job. Wouldn't have him as a busboy."

  Worse than the mere prospect of unemployment was the notoriety. Coldlysober, Sextus had fled panic-stricken to the west coast, vaguelydetermined to become a beach-comber or an oyster-fisherman or whateverthey did out there.

  He stared now at the blue slip and turned in to a florist shop. He brokehis last five-dollar bill to buy a pink carnation for his buttonholethen headed down the sunny walk to the hotel. It was a fine Decembermorning in the little beach town, such as only Florida and Californiacan advertise. He breathed the salt air and turned an appreciative earto the gentle wash of the Pacific surf. He felt so good he might eventake a little breakfast before his first drink of whiskey of the day.

  * * * * *

  At the bus depot he traded his baggage checks for two old, but fineleather, two-suiters. Then he taxied the remaining two blocks to theMahoney-Plaza.

  He paused at the entrance, stepped from under the marquis and looked upmystified. The frontage indicated a rather small hostelry to pay suchmunificent salary to its general manager. Only five stories high, it wassqueezed in by low office buildings on either side like an ancient,narrow-chested old man.

  He handed his bags to a bell-hop and stepped into a spacious lobby. Itwas decorated with fine furniture, thick carpets and throngs ofexpensively undressed people.

  The boy put his bags down before a remarkably long room-desk manned bythree white-suited clerks, but Sextus touched his arm. "Just take themup to the manager's suite, please." The boy eyed him from carnation todusty shoes.

  "Right off a park bench. It figures, though." He got a key from the deskclerk, picked up the bags again and they started for the elevatoralcove.

  Sextus' practiced eye vacuumed details from the lobby, the well-sweptcarpets, freshly emptied sand-jars and the modern elevators. The placeseemed well-ordered and enjoying convention-magnitude business.

  He started into the first elevator, but the operator warned, "To Wing'A' only!" with such a question in his voice that Sextus looked back forhis bellman. That person, a sandy-haired stripling of somefive-feet-four, was trying to wave him on with his head.

  "Not that one," he said impatiently. "Over here. Wing 'H'." Then Sextusnoticed there were five elevators on either side of the alcove. Each wasplainly marked with a letter, running from "A" through "J". This was anew wrinkle. Elevators were a mode of strictly vertical transportation,meaning, as a safe generality, that they travelled in parallel routes.Why, then, differentiate for separate wings when they were all groupedtogether in the first place?

  And, incidentally, why _ten_ elevators for a 200 or so room hotel,anyway?

  They rode to the fourth floor in one-level leaps, stopping to unloadseveral guests on each floor. The upper floor hall was of modest length,running fore and aft of the long, narrow building, as he had first sizedit up. Where were all the _wings_--the wings with the separateelevators?

  The boy let him into the light, airy apartment, dropped his bags in themiddle of the floor and started out abruptly. Sextus called him back.

  "Yeah, what'll it be--Chief?" His voice was derisive.

  "How many rooms do we have here, fellow?"

  "Twenny-six hunnerd and all full for the season, so if you'll just leggoof me--"

  "Don't you enjoy your work here?"

  "I detest it. Go ahead, fire me, chum. I'm lookin' for an excuse toclear out."

  "Very well, you have one. Check out with the captain." Sextus couldn'ttolerate discourteous familiarity. Friendly familiarity was bad enough,but the "chum" did it.

  The boy banged the door behind him.

  Sextus opened his bag. From it he extracted a fifth of whiskey which hetook to the tiled bathroom. He stripped the cellophane from a drinkingglass, poured it half-full of the amber liquor and drained it.

  He was in the shower when the phone rang. He dripped to the night standwith the patience of one who has soaked many a rug and discovered thatthey don't stain. "Forsyte here!" he answered.

  "The new manager? Well, this is Jackson, bell-captain. Whadda you meancanning Jerry? I'm down to twelve skippers and you start out by firingone of my fastest boys!"

  "The boy was sarcastic and insolent. Take it up with the servicemanager. Anyway, how many bellmen do you need to run this cracker-box?Twelve is about eight too many."

  There was a brief silence, then: "In the first place _I am_ your servicemanager, or all you got at the present. In the second damned place, youtell me where I can lay my hands on ten more boys before you go canningany more. I'm rehiring Jerry as of now!" He banged the receiver inSextus' ear.

  Unperturbed, Sextus finished his shower, dressed i
n a lighter weightsuit and picked up the phone. The house switchboard apparently wasjammed. It took a full minute to get an operator. "Forsyte here. Yournew manager, that is. Instruct all department heads to be in my officein seven minutes. General conference."

  * * * * *

  Another short nip at the bottle served nicely to quiet a small hungerpang. He went in search of his office. He found it on the mezzanine,suitably lavish, clean and well-furnished.

  He adjusted the fragrant carnation on his lapel in the large wallmirror, not entirely displeased with what it reflected. Except for thesuitcase wrinkles in his morning coat, he should pass inspection. Histhinning hair, square jaw and wide-set eyes radiated a quiet dignity.The slight pink of his cheeks and nose was a bit more prominent than heliked. He should have had some