His Fire Inside

I’m surprised by the pick on the top, Valentina Golden. Denise had high hopes for her when she hired her six years ago. While I approved the hire, I didn’t meet her until she started working. There were a few issues in the beginning. Valentina wasn’t able to work late as often as she was needed and she called in several times. Denise was embarrassed to admit maybe she made a mistake. I reviewed her file and saw the problem right away.

Valentina had a dependent listed, a three-year-old daughter. However, her in case of emergency was a neighbor, not a family member. I also saw Denise wasn’t paying what Valentina was worth. From the beginning I made it a primary rule that all my people are highly paid. It fosters loyalty, instead of resentment for needing to work two or even three jobs to make ends meet. From my maids to the front desk, everyone makes a comfortable living wage. I increased Valentina’s pay to where it should be, and within three months there weren’t any other issues. After that I made sure the wage was set by the position, not the manager who did the hiring.

I’m more than willing not to hold Valentina’s past against her. The issue is her age. Call me a fucker, I freely admit it. Her age would be an issue if she were sixty as much as it’s an issue she’s only thirty. Would the staff respect her? Could she hold her own against asshole guests without letting them get to her? Did she have enough experience to be responsible for a hotel that brought in an average of eight hundred thousand a day, during slow traffic time, but would bring in close to two million during festival season and other high traffic times?

Putting Valentina’s file to the side, I look through the next one, Kyle Tennison. Kyle isn’t a bad option: graduated Texas A&M top of his class, he’s hungry to move up and works hard, but he’s young too. He also doesn’t have the charisma, the easy way with people he needs to deal with both guests and staff. I’ve watched him lose his cool more than once.

Anthony Thomkins, him I like. He has the charisma, always smiling even when he’s getting reamed by an asshole guest, and both staff and guests like him. Except he hasn’t been with the hotel long enough for me to put him in charge all on his own—he started only three years ago. And at thirty-one he’s still a little younger than I would prefer him to be.

Russell Wells is the safety pick. He’s forty-two, with a degree from Rice with honors. He’s nice, he’s polite, he’s boring. Even though he’s gay, he’s vanilla in a city where we take so much pride in being weird it’s our unofficial motto, “Keeping Austin Weird.” There’s also the fact he’s been head of events since the place opened, and he likes what he does. He’s good at what he does because he likes the precision, the lists he can cross off which would make the people under him nuts. While he would accept the position, I don’t think he would be happy.

As I consider the files in front of me, the more resentful I grow of having to do this. From the face of it Franklin should have worked, he’s been at the hotel for six years, and worked as Denise’s number two for two years. Why isn’t he working out?

It’s only five. I call the front desk and Becky Santos picks up. Becky is a cute kid, she’s only twenty-two and she has a crush on me. It’s no big deal; I’m used to it. I’ve been dealing with it since I was in grade school. Some guys revel in their good looks. I did when I was young, dumb and full of come, but I grew out of it, more or less. I’m not going to say I don’t use it to my advantage, but never with employees. Employees are always off-limits, period. Becky knows that, she respects it. She’s also worked at the hotel for under a year, so she knows enough but is far more loyal to me than to anyone else at the hotel.

“Becky, it’s Rourke. I’m looking for information. Are you busy in the front right now?”

“We’re quiet, sir. Anything I can do to help, I’ll be happy to do.”

“Who else is working with you?”

“Scott.” Scott is the same as Becky. He has a crush on me too and has been at the hotel for two years. He worked his way up from a waiter in the restaurant and has only been at the front desk for a little over a year. I’m not worried about him hearing her side of the conversation.

“Becky, I was at the hotel until three a.m. this morning. Can you tell me why? What’s going with Franklin?”

“Well...sir, I don’t want to—”

“I want you to.”

Her sigh is audible and filled with relief. “Franklin is low-key sexist and tripping on power. He’s also been gossiping about the guests.”

Gossiping? No. For all our luxury amenities and décor, a distinction of our first-class service is complete discretion. What happens within the walls of each of my hotels stays there. Employees don’t talk about the stars who go from their room to a costar’s, or if a celebrity gets loaded on liquor or something else or runs through the hall naked on a dare. Employees don’t talk to their families about it, and they definitely don’t talk to the press; they aren’t even allowed to gossip among themselves. It’s a hard and fast rule for everyone from the maids to the top.

The only other rule of the hotel is the hotel staff are treated with the same respect the guests expect to be

treated with. I made sure to put it in the guest welcome packet: they’ll be completely catered to, but no guest is allowed to verbally or physically assault an employee. A single transgression will get them ejected from the hotel and they’ll be refused further service, even in the club and restaurant. It’s happened twice to people who were sure it wouldn’t happen to them; that was all it took for all guests to know I was serious. Even the reason they weren’t allowed back in the hotel wasn’t made public, simply that they weren’t.

“Sexist, how?”

“He talks down to all of the female employees. He’s giving them the worst schedules, over the guys. He hid it better from Denise because he had a crush on her. But since she left he’s been letting it all hang out; he’s even being rude to some of the female guests.”

I start writing the email to my human resources to terminate Franklin, effective immediately. “Tell me about Valentina.”

“She’s great. I love Valentina. She’s so nice and she doesn’t play favorites like Denise did. She understands I don’t have the most reliable daycare. She had the same problem, and she’s hooking me up with someone to help me out. The guests like her too.” I hear a smile as she says Valentina’s name.

“What about Anthony?”

“I like Anthony. He’s cool. He doesn’t look down at me, didn’t hit on me when he found out my baby’s daddy is black the way other black guys do. Anthony doesn’t let people get to him when they’re racist or try to do the racism on the down low. He also didn’t freak out when he realized Scott thinks he’s cute the way some guys do, like having a guy think they’re cute makes them gay too. We were kind of hoping Anthony would take over for Denise or Franklin when Franklin was saying he was going to go with Denise.” Her sincerity is clear.

“Thanks, Becky. I’ll talk to you later, keep up the good work.”

“You’re welcome, sir. Will do.”

I’ve gotten a reply from my head of human resources already about Franklin; I’m promised it will be done today. I respond telling them to put Anthony in his place and put Valentina in Denise’s position. My only hold off on Valentina is her age. If she were five years older, I wouldn’t have hesitated, I decide not to now.

My phone goes off, and I send it to voice mail. I’m not in the mood for Collette’s breathy little moans of how much she misses me. It never fails, no matter how often I say I’m not interested in anything more than a little fun for a few weeks, it never ends as easily as women promise it will. Collette laughed when I set my rules, claiming she was just looking for some fun.

I met her almost six weeks ago, she was in Monaco for a photo shoot for some makeup company. She found it amusing I wasn’t aware she was a model, as she made it clear she was almost a supermodel and was in the tabloids often. Her hint was I should know because I, of late, had been in the French tabloids and European press because of the women I fucked. Her presence in the tabloids should have warned me about the type of person she was. For me it’s the one part of my time overseas I hated, being followed around by paparazzi. I didn’t pick the women I fucked for their titles or who they were; I based it on if I thought they’d be good in bed.