Giant by Edna Ferber Read Free Book Online Page B

like locusts. Royal-blue carpet in the vast lobby. Gold pillars. Masses of hothouse blue hydrangeas and yellow lilies. The distinguished guests were engulfed in a maelstrom of boots, spurs, ten-gallon hats, six-foot men; high shrill voices of women, soft drawling voices of sunburned men; deep-cushioned couches and chairs hidden under their burden of lolling figures staring slack-jawed at the milling throng, their aching feet wide-flung on the thick-piled carpet. An unavailing vacuum cleaner whined in a corner, an orchestra (in blue and gold) sawed discordantly against a cacophony of canned music which someone had senselessly turned on and which now streamed from outlets throughout the gigantic room and the corridors and shops that bounded it. The Conquistador was a city in itself, self-contained, self-complacent, almost majestically vulgar. Downstairs and upstairs, inside and out, on awnings carpets couches chairs desks rugs; towels linen; metal cloth wood china glass, the brand JR was stamped etched embroidered embossed woven painted inlaid.
    Later, over a soothing bourbon consumed in the privacy of the Snyth suite together with ten or twelve neighboring guests who had drifted in from this floor or that, Pinky incautiously observed, “Jett’s sure got his brand on everything. Prolly got his initials cut in the palmtrees out there. Puts me in mind of a little feist dog gets excited and leaves his mark on everything he can lift his leg against.”
    What with Bick Benedict’s familiarity with fiestas such as this, and Leslie Benedict’s clear orderly sense of situation, the members of their group had, for the most part, been safely disposed in their Conquistador quarters, each according to his importance as seen through the eyes of the Manager, the Assistant Manager and the Room Clerk, guided perhaps for this very special occasion by the bloodshot orb of Jett Rink himself. Protean couches could magically transform single sitting rooms into bedrooms. Good enough for an ex-Presidente, the hard-pressed Management instantly decided. Sitting room and bedroom in a nice spot for the heavyweight ex-champion. Nice little suite for Cal Otter the Cowboy Movie Star, where the crowd could get at him for autographs and so on. Snappy little balcony job for Lona Lane where the photographers could catch her for outside shots if the swimming pool section got too rough. Never could tell with a gang like this, liquored up and out with the bridle off. The Coronado penthouse suite for the Bick Benedicts and the Hernando de Soto apartment for the King and Queen, ex or not, the Management said in solemn discussion, they were a bona fide king and queen even if they had been cut out, you couldn’t laugh that off and it would look good in publicity. This festive opening of Hermoso’s airport, gift of the fabulous Jett Rink, had turned Jett Rink’s hotel (mortgaged or not, as gossip said, for something like thirty millions) into a vast and horrendous house party. There wasn’t a room or a closet or a cupboard to be had by an outsider. From lobby to roof the structure was crammed with guests each of whom had a precious pasteboard, named and numbered, which would identify and place him at Jett Rink’s gigantic airport banquet tonight.
    The contrast between the blazing white-hot atmosphere of Hermoso’s streets and the air-conditioned chill of every Conquistador room, restaurant, hall, was breath-taking, like encountering a glacier in the tropics. From every corridor, hurtling out through every room whether open-doored or closed, you heard the shrieks of high shrilllaughter, booming guffaws, the tinkle of glass, a babble of voices; and through and above it all the unceasing chatter of radios, the twang and throb of cheap music, the rumble of rolling tables laden with food or drink trundled along the halls by stiffly starched blue-and-gold waiters or tightly tailored blue-and-gold bellboys bearing themselves like the militia, discreet as secret