A Key to the Suite Read Online Free

electrifying. They became alert, vivacious, with sparkling eyes, big media smiles, arched backs and thrust breasts. They took the alternate lines of the demonstrationtalk they had learned, and came in on the punch line in unison. Then they immediately lapsed back into sullen boredom.
    “That’s great!” Frick cried. “It’s exciting!”
    “You pay for pros, you get pros,” Bunny said.
    “They all clear on the questions and answers, Tommy?” Frick asked.
    “Check them if you want.”
    He asked them the questions usually asked about AGM products and installations, and got the right answers. He threw them one he knew was beyond them, and got the proper referral to “our Mr. Carmer.”
    “Yeah, Tommy, this ties in perfect with the promotion. Girls, you know the hours you’re going to work. You take your orders from Tommy. And I don’t want you spelling each other. You’re either both here or both gone. One of you has to go to the can, you both go. No drinking, and no dating the guys that’ll sure as hell make a try.”
    “Any time we can’t brush off a bunch of crummy convention …”
    “Okay. Now what’ll you wear? I want to see plenty of ba-zoom, kids.”
    “You’ll see more than you can handle, pops,” Honey said.
    “That’s all set,” Tommy said.
    “And don’t you kids be standing around like you are right now, looking like you hated the whole deal.”
    “When we’re on, we’ll be on, friend,” Bunny said. “You’ll have no complaint.”
    Bobby Fayhouser came up behind Frick and said, “Fred, can I see you a minute?”
    “You girls be back here at two o’clock sharp, ready to go,” Frick said. They nodded and walked away, side by side, in perfectunison. Frick watched the synchronous clench and roll and swing of the plaid fannies and shook his head wonderingly and said, “Like seeing double, huh? Tommy, maybe there’s our little celebration when this damn thing is over.”
    “I doubt the hell out of that,” Carmer said. “That Honey one has a two-year-old kid and is married to a musician, and the other one has a county cop for a boyfriend. That’ll be okay on this job, Freddy, but the reason they’re a little sour, it’s on account of they’ve been singing and dancing since they were three years old, and now they’re twenty-three, and I guess they think they should have made it a little better than being in a convention display.”
    “It might be important, what I want to tell you, Fred,” Fayhouser said.
    Frick moved off to one side with the younger man. “A delay on the suite?” he asked.
    “You were worried about a man named Hubbard coming? Floyd Hubbard? And you asked me to tell you right away if …”
    “Is he coming?”
    “He’s already here. He’s in 847. He checked in before seven o’clock this morning.”
    Frick looked beyond Fayhouser, looked toward the huge shadowy cave of the convention hall beyond the display ramp, and exposed his unlikely teeth in a mirthless grin. “Well, well, well! So he made it.”
    “What’s the bit on him anyhow, Fred? I know you put him on the AGM list, but you seemed nervous about him. Is there anything I should know?”
    Frick stared at Fayhouser with an odd indignant contempt. “You? What should you know about him? He’s home-office brass, isn’t he? So you treat him like home-office brass. Whatdoes a kid like you have to worry about? They test all of you these days, don’t they? Your marks are on file in some goddam computer, aren’t they? You got papers like a pedigree dog.”
    “But …”
    “Don’t stand too close to this Hubbard, or you’ll hear all the little relays clicking and it might make you nervous.”
    “Why get sore at me?”
    “I’m not sore at you, Bobby. When do we get the suite?”
    “Noon at the latest.”
    “So go do something useful.”
    Bobby Fayhouser walked away. He glanced back once and then quickened his pace. Frick walked slowly toward the main lobby, glancing at the exhibits. He