The Maitre D’
“IT’S A PLEASURE HAVING SOMEONE SO FAMOUS ON BOARD with us,” said the maitre d’ as he showed Jade and Spence to their table in Hermes s small but luxuriously decorated dining salon.
“Me?” Jade felt surprised. “I’m not famous. Not like Senator Meyers.”
The maitre d’ smiled patiently. He was a portly man, his hair receding from his forehead but still dark, as was his trim mustache and pointed Vandyke. Aside from the cooks, he was the only human working in the dining salon. The waiters were all utilitarian robots, their flat tops exactly the same height as the tables. They rolled noiselessly across the carpeting on tiny trunions.
“You are the producer of the Sam Gunn biography, aren’t you?” he asked in a deferential, sibilant near-whisper.
“Yes, that’s true,” Jade replied as she sat on the chair he was holding for her.
“I knew Sam,” the maitre d’ said. “And Senator Meyers, too, although she doesn’t recognize me. I looked somewhat different back in those days.”
Jade recognized a come-on. “You’ll have to tell me about it,” she said guardedly.
Glancing about at the salon’s six tables, all of them filled with passengers, the maitre d’ said, “Perhaps after dinner? You could linger over a cognac and after these other guests have left I could tell you about it.”
Jade glanced at Spence, who was scowling suspiciously.
“All right,” she said. “After dinner.”
The maitre d’ bowed politely and left their table.
“You trust him?” Spence asked, almost in a growl.
“You don’t?”
“He’s too oily for my taste.”
Jade laughed softly. “We’re not going to eat him, Spence. Just listen to what he has to say.”
Spence nodded, but he still did not seem happy about it.
Their dinner was excellent. Jill Meyers stopped at their table on her way out and for a few moments Jade was afraid that the former Senator would invite herself for an after-dinner drink. But she left soon enough and Jade saw that she and Spence were the only guests remaining in the salon.
The maitre d’ came to their table with a magnum of cognac in one hand and three snifters in the other. He had pulled his black tie loose and unbuttoned his collar.
“If I may?” he asked.
“Please do,” said Jade, gesturing to the empty chair he was standing by.
As the man put the bottle and glasses down on the table and pulled out the chair, Spence asked, “So when did you know Sam?”