Francis glided through the front doors without a glance at either of the doormen. Martin was pulled along in his brother’s wake, his fingers at the brim of his hat in a quick show of thanks.
The lobby was a blur of mosaic tile and gold-veined marble columns. They stopped briefly at the bronze-backed front desk, where in a bristling Scottish burr Francis requested, and was handed, the key to his room. As the doors to the elevator spread wide, Martin’s eyes darted to its operator, then to Francis. The operator’s uniform matched the doormen’s—gold braid, brass buttons, epaulets—but his hat wasn’t the mock sea captain’s topper that the outside men wore. The elevator man’s was a smaller affair, like one belonging to a bellhop in a movie, or an organ-grinder’s monkey. Poor sot, Martin thought.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” the operator said as the doors closed.
“Seventh floor, my good man.” Francis fixed his eyes on his reflection in the polished surface of the interior door.
The Scottish accent, the “my good man”—it was too much for Martin. “Christ, Franny. What’s this all about?”
Francis raised one eyebrow and with a slight upward tic of his chin indicated the elevator operator. “All in due time,” he said, pronounced it as “Aul en doo taim.”
“What you’re up to? New York. The Plaza. This can’t be real.”
Francis gave the operator a conspiratorial wink. “It’s quite simple,” he said. “His Lordship decided you were having too much fun in the Colonies. Hard liquor. Loose women. Fast horses—but not quite fast enough, eh, my boy?” He winked again at the operator, playing to his audience of one, before returning his attention to Martin. “As the hunting season had come to a close, I was dispatched to collect you and return you to the bosom of your family. And not a moment too soon, by the looks of you.” Francis reached for the lapel of Martin’s jacket, rubbed the cloth between his fingers, and smirked. “Yes,” he said, “a sea journey is just the thing to restore a man whose luck and good health have deserted him—don’t you agree, my good man?” he asked the operator.
The operator looked startled. “Well, sir, I’m not much for seafaring—”
“Yes, quite,” Francis said. “My sentiments exactly.”
“Is that your big surprise?” Martin said. “That you’ve escaped from the madhouse?”
“Fitzwilliam, please,” Francis said, “you know what the doctors have said about losing your temper.”
The operator announced their arrival and drew open the doors. Francis dug into his pocket and withdrew a coin, which he placed with some ceremony into the smaller man’s palm. “I trust I can be assured of your discretion concerning my brother’s condition,” he said. “I wouldn’t want loose talk to jeopardize his… prospects.”
“Of course, sir,” the elevator man said. “No loose talk, sir.”
“Splendid.” Francis took Martin by the arm and escorted him into the hallway. He waited for the doors to close, for the hum of the motor at the top of the shaft, before addressing his brother. “Look here,” he said. “If you’re not going to play along in front of the hired help, then you can at least keep your gob shut.”
MARTIN HAD SEEN plenty of hotels. During his early days in America, he had barnstormed with territory bands, playing grange halls, mountain resorts, beachside dance halls, and country clubs all across New England, the Catskills, the Poconos, and the Jersey Shore. The sleeping arrangements were like barracks—four men to a room, often two men to a bed. The musicians crashed from sheer exhaustion after a day on the road and a night of playing sweet, hot, and everything in between for a pack of sweating small-town jitterbugs. But even those crummy rooms were a treat: no bandleader would spring for a hotel unless they were booked for a two-or three-night stand. Mostly they played one-nighters, and that meant they finished their set, struck the bandstand, stowed the instruments, and got back on the bus for the long ride to the next town. Martin slept sitting up, head to the window, or else leaned forward with his head pressed to the back of the seat in front of him. He was stiff and sore all the time, and the only remedy for the ache of the long nights and the cramped quarters and the lousy road food was the short spell onstage giving the locals more than they could handle, sending them home more wiped out than the band.
Now Martin played nightly in the lounge of the Kensington Hotel, just a few blocks south and west of the Plaza. The Kensington was quality, but it wasn’t the Plaza. The walls here were as pale as the sand on a secret beach. The hallway carpets, pretzel-patterned in red and gold, gave a spring to a man’s step. The world outside might still be hanging on by its fingernails but inside the Plaza all was safe and serene, and that was a luxury.
Francis fit the key into the lock and paused. “Ready for your surprise?” he said.
“Just open it up.”
He turned the knob and stepped through, waving one arm like the ringmaster in a circus. Martin followed the sweep of his hand and there on the sofa was his brother Michael. He knew from Michael’s letters that he was no longer a boy—boys didn’t fill their typewritten correspondence with references to the Seven Sorrowful Mysteries—but this older version of Michael looked like he hadn’t grown so much as been stretched into a taller, ganglier version of the boy Martin had known. Michael’s attention was focused on a gaudy gold-and-white chair in one corner of the room. He seemed to be rehearsing a part in a play, running through a silent pantomime of hand gestures and cocked-head glances. Martin called out his brother’s name, but Michael ignored him. Martin repeated himself, louder this time, and clapped his hands together. “Michael!” he said. “Is it really you?”
Michael’s gaze remained fixed on the empty chair.
“You didn’t think I’d come all this way and leave him rotting in that poxy monastery?” Francis said.
“Michael,” Martin said again, and then turned to Francis. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He can’t hear a thing,” Francis said. “Deaf as a post, and all because—”
Michael suddenly wheeled around and, seeing Martin, shook himself like a man coming out of a dream. A look of confusion gave way to a smile that bloomed across his face. He leaped off the sofa and pulled his brother close.
After a moment’s hesitation, Martin returned the embrace. “It’s good to see you,” he said, then stepped out of the hug and took Michael’s face in his hands. He leveled his gaze at his brother and repeated, slowly: “It is so good to see you.”
Michael nodded, his eyes shining with tears, and slapped Martin on the back.
“Franny, what the hell?”
“I told you I’d explain it all in due time.”
“Will you stop it with the due time—what in hell happened to Michael?”
Francis crossed the room. On a silver tray, a decanter and an ice bucket flanked a huddle of highball glasses. “Care for a drink?” he said.