Chapter 48
The bellman was pushing a luggage cart loaded down with suitcases, a cooler, golf clubs, hanging garment bags, and a cat carrier containing a large cat who yowled its displeasure as the cart was wheeled past the guest relations desk and toward the front door.
Preceding it was Colonel McBee, and his long-suffering wife.
“Byeeeee,” Livvy whispered.
She slipped out from behind the desk to witness the McBees’ departure. A large champagne-colored Lincoln pulled beneath the porte cochere and the valet hopped out and ran around to help Mrs. McBee into the passenger seat. The bellman placed the cat carrier on the old woman’s lap and closed the door.
In the meantime, Colonel McBee stood beside the open trunk, directing the loading and reloading of his luggage and loudly berating the bellman. Finally, when the task was completed, the Colonel made a show of peeling off some bills, which he handed to the younger men.
The attendants walked back into the lobby, shaking their heads.
“Big tipper, huh?” Livvy casually asked.
The bellman held up two singles. “Huuuuge. I can clock out now because I finally have enough money to buy a pack of gum.”
Livvy looked at the time. It was after eleven. Checkout time was ten o’clock, but of course, the McBees regarded that more as a suggestion than a hard and fast hotel policy.
She stepped over to the reception desk where Carla, one of the clerks, was typing on her computer’s keyboard.
“Has housekeeping been notified about the McBees?”
“Yeah, and now they’ve got to turn that room double time.”
“Cool. Can you keep an eye on my desk? I’ve got a quick errand to run.”
“Make it fast, okay? That bankers’ conference starts today and the house is full.”
Livvy raced to the room the McBees had just vacated and was relieved to see the door open, with the housekeeper’s cart standing outside in the hallway.
She pushed the door open. “Hello? Sonja?”
The young housekeeper clutched her chest and gasped. “You almost gave me a heart attack. I was afraid they came back.”
“Nope. I just watched them drive away. Good riddance!”
Sonja gestured around the room. “Look what they leave me with!”
The room looked like it had been trashed by an octogenarian heavy metal band. Damp towels were piled on the hardwood floor, the trash cans were overflowing, a lamp was knocked over in the corner, and the carpet was strewn with something.
Livvy gasped. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Kitty litter. So nasty.”
“Pretty sure they didn’t pay extra to have a cat in here,” Livvy said, looking around.
“This isn’t even the worst. You don’t want to see the bathroom,” Sonja warned.
“How did it get this bad?”
“They wouldn’t let us in to clean for five days. We knock every day and they say just leave clean towels outside. Nothing we can do.”
Sonja turned and started stripping the bed.
Livvy stepped over and lifted the edge of the pad to examine the mattress. It was obviously new.
“Does this mattress look like all the other mattresses in the rest of the rooms?”
“I guess. I don’t really look except when we change out the mattress pad.” Sonja yanked the pad off the bed and added it to the pile of bed linens on the floor.
Livvy whipped out her phone and took a photo of the mattress label.
“Is it hot in here to you?” she asked, fanning her face.
“Always hot in this wing,” Sonja said, wiping her own dripping brow.
Livvy looked at the thermostat. It was set at sixty-eight degrees.
“Some of the guests complain to us, so we just tell them to pull the drapes shut and make sure the sliding glass doors are closed. But this room, the doors were closed already.”
“What does engineering say?” Livvy asked.
Sonja made a face. “Nothing they can do. Old building, right?”
“Not really. I’m told this wing was built to match the way the hotel originally looked. I think it’s only four years old.”
“If you say so.” Sonja bundled the soiled linens into a large laundry bag. “I gotta get this mess cleaned up. Big turn day and we already had one of our girls call in sick.”
“You have a phone, right?”
Sonja patted the pocket of her uniform.
“Could you take a photo of the mattress labels for the rest of the rooms you clean today? Tell me your number and I’ll give you mine so you can text the photos to me.”
Livvy was leaving when she spotted a short stack of change on the dresser. She leaned in to get a closer look. Four quarters. “Don’t forget your lavish tip,” she told the housekeeper, who crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue.
Charlie popped into Traci’s office shortly after noon.
“I have some sad news to share,” the general manager said.
“About Fred?”
“You heard already? I just got off the phone with Ric.”
“I was there when he passed,” Traci said.
“That must have been traumatic.”
“It was peaceful, but sad. He got what he wanted. Died at home, no heroic rescue attempts.”
Charlie sat back in the armchair opposite her desk. “It’s the end of an era.”
“How so?” Traci asked, annoyed. “Fred hadn’t really been actively involved in managing the company for several years, but I’m still running the hotel and Ric is running the real estate side. It’s still very much a family business.”
“Sorry, that isn’t what I meant. It’s just, the old man was such a presence. He’s always been synonymous with the Saint.”
“I understand. You worked side by side with him for decades. By the way, sorry I didn’t call you back earlier. I was sort of holding vigil at Fred’s bedside.”
“Ric wasn’t there?”
“No. Alberta tried to call to let him know things had taken a turn for the worse, but his assistant said he was at a meeting up in Savannah.”
“Probably for the best,” Charlie said. “Poor guy. Lost his daughter and now his dad, all in a week.”
“Uh-huh. So, about your call? What’s up?”
Charlie frowned. “It’s about that chef of yours, at the Verandah. I’ve been getting a lot of calls from our restaurant purveyors. She’s burning down some longtime relationships.”
“Like who?”
“Like Tommy Betz.”
“The shrimper?”
“Seafood vendor. Like his dad before him. Tommy’s been our seafood wholesaler for years and years. But this week, she up and fired him. Told him the Saint would take its business elsewhere.”
“Did you speak to Felice? Ask her why?”
“I know why. It’s this goddamn Gen Z. They think they know everything. She got a shipment of fish she deemed ‘not excellent’—that’s what she called it, and because maybe one fillet was off, she dumped the whole order and demanded that Tommy make good on it.”
“What about the shrimp for the Beach Bash? You smelled it, Charlie. It was rank.”
“It was one stinky piece of fish and she blew it all out of proportion, according to Tommy. And it’s not just that. This girl…” Charlie fumed.
“Okay, boomer,” Traci said, laughing. “She’s a young woman, not a girl.”
“Whatever. Now she’s squawking about the rest of our purveyors. Doesn’t like the quality of the beef, not happy with our produce wholesaler. Wants to use ‘organic’ veggies.” Charlie used finger quotes to emphasize the word “organic.” “Next thing you know, she’ll demand we grow all our own vegetables.”
“Lots of great restaurants already do that.”
“Not on the scale we’d need to do it. We do grow a few things. Anyway, we’re hoteliers, not goddamn dirt farmers. Buying produce the way we’ve always done it is much cheaper.”
“Charlie, cheaper isn’t always better. We didn’t get to be a five-star resort by cutting corners.”
He sat back in his chair and crossed and recrossed his legs again.
“It’s called cost containment, Traci. You’ve been worrying about all the red ink we’ve bled since Covid and the remodel. This is what I do. I keep my eye on the bottom line.”
Traci picked up her pen and scribbled notes in the margin of a printout she’d been reading.
“What’s that?” He craned his neck to get a look.
“Nothing.” She flipped the paper over. “Doodles. Charlie, do me a favor. Give Felice the benefit of the doubt. I know you want to do things the way we’ve always done them in the past…”
“It’s called tradition,” he said stiffly. “The Saint is about traditions. It’s about relationships.”
“But sometimes relationships and traditions no longer serve us in the ways they used to,” Traci pointed out. “I really like Felice’s cooking. It’s fresh, it’s inventive. The guests seem to like it too. I was looking at the Verandah transaction reports, and we’ve had a nice per-ticket bump, especially at lunch in the grill. That tells me it’s working.”
“It tells me it’s summertime and people are hungry and thirsty.”
Traci rolled her eyes. “Admit it. You don’t like it because I went around your back and hired her myself.”
“Hoke always let me handle all the hiring. That’s the way it’s always been done. Not only that, first you hired that waitress, that girl, and then you promoted her to guest relations, without even consulting me.”
“Okay, maybe I could have handled that differently,” Traci conceded. “But we were in a bind. And despite your misgivings about Olivia, who, by the way, is also not a ‘girl,’ I think she’s really settling into the job. She’s good at problem solving.”
“Oh really?” Charlie stood and pointed toward the lobby. “Where’s your problem solver right now? When I walked through the lobby just now, Carla, who is supposed to be working the front desk, was covering for Olivia.”
Traci walked to the office door, poked her head out, and observed Carla engaged in conversation with a mother with two young children in tow, while a line of guests waited at the registration desk.
“I’ll talk to her,” Traci promised.
He threw up his hands in protest. “This is what I’m talking about. You’ve completely blurred the chain-of-command lines here. That girl thinks she’s only accountable to you.”
“Huh. And yet, I don’t recall you getting your boxers in a bunch when Ric Eddings went around both of us and promised KJ’s father you’d give him a summer job here.”
“That was different. The Parkhursts are longtime members.”
“Which was KJ’s one and only qualification for getting that job,” Traci pointed out.
Her cell phone rang. She glanced down at the caller ID and tapped a message telling the caller she was in a meeting and would call back.
“Tell you what, Charlie. Speak to Olivia. Just promise me you won’t fire her.”
“And what about the chef?”
“Do not fire her either. Just have a friendly conversation. Can you do that? Offer constructive criticism?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. Let me know how it goes.”
As soon as the GM was gone, Traci tapped the call-back button.
Whelan answered immediately.
“Hey. Sorry to bother you, but I’ve got some news to share. Are you available for dinner tonight?”
“I’m not sure. There’s a lot going on today. My father-in-law died this morning, and we’ve got a big bankers’ convention checking in, and my GM wants to fire my new chef…”
“I know about your father-in-law. I saw the ambulance this morning and followed it to the house on Golfview. I saw the EMTs bringing out the gurney with the body.”
“Huh. You just missed me. That’s how I spent the rest of my morning. Holding his hand and watching him slip away.”
“I got the impression you didn’t care for the old guy.”
“It’s complicated. I can’t be a hypocrite and say I was fond of him, and he was awful to me, especially after Hoke died, but for better or worse, we’re family.”
“So. Dinner tonight?” Whelan asked.
She hesitated. “I don’t think we should be seen together in public, especially here on the property.”
“Why not?”
“Because you work for the Saint. Technically I’m your boss, and people could… misconstrue things. I’ll tell you what. I won’t have time to cook, but I’ll order dinner for us from the restaurant. It’ll have to be late, though. Can you come around eight?”
“See you then,” Whelan said. “I’ll bring the wine.”