“I was trying to be polite.” Henley’s eyes now floating, drifting away from Jamie.

“I wish you’d thought of that last night. Mr. Arthur Shipley of Schenectady New York. With wife, two teenage daughters and a younger boy. Arthur junior I believe. Two maids. Three rooms, two baths plus the maid’s lodging. The full month of July. This would be his third year in a row. He enjoys golf but stops here instead of the Maplewood because his wife likes the view off the back porches and the flower gardens. Set that tray down before you drop it. And stand here two minutes while I figure your time and I’ll have Stanley cash you out of the register.”

“Mister Pelham.”

Jamie reached and took the tray and placed it on the bar. Then placed his right index finger on the waiter’s breastbone. “If the man had stood on his table and pissed in your face I’d expect you to get off work and go home early and take a bath. Get a bottle of whiskey from Jake or Stanley for your troubles. And that’s all I’d expect. Now you wait here and then we’re done. He pulled his index finger back a couple of inches, curled it at the knuckle and rapped hard, once.

In the office he rewrote the schedule for the next two weeks and underlined the changes in the red crayon he knew to be an alert to his employees. Wrote a note to the hotel accountant diverting Henley’s back wages to the bar till. Rolled a pencil back and forth on the smooth blotter and silently said To hell with it and unlocked the bottom drawer of the desk and poured himself a drink. Dragged the tall standing telephone onto the blotter and took up the earpiece and leaned to speak into the mouthpiece, asked the girl at the switchboard to get him the Maplewood and waited, then asked the girl there for the casino and waited again. Then Gurnsey was on the line, his counterpart at the Maplewood. Each man chipped, inferior to the other. Gurnsey had the plum, the best hotel. Jamie had the liquor business, independence. And so odd equals. Intimacy of respect and isolation; each to the other what no other man was. This didn’t mean they liked each other.

“Eric, things slow down there for you tonight?” Over the rough oceanic quality of the line he could hear the fluid yammer of a crowd, the strains behind that of the orchestra. Pressed the earpiece hard to try and pick out a vocal, a woman in song.

“Shit yes like a cemetery. I stop to consider it’s the end of July already and I’m a dead man. Just doesn’t seem like there’ll be a season this year. I can’t even bring myself to look at the reservation book. And I got help quitting left and right.”

“Don’t hire a man called Henley, he comes looking.”