by Stephen King
The hotel had been closed for the rest of the decade. There was a single story about it, a Sunday feature headlined FORMER GRAND HOTEL SINKING INTO DECAY. The accompanying photos wrenched at Jack's heart: the paint on the front porch peeling, the lawn a bald and scabrous mess, windows broken by storms and stones. This would be a part of the book, if he actually wrote it, too--the phoenix going down into the ashes to be reborn. He promised himself he would take care of the place, very good care. It seemed that before today he had never really understood the breadth of his responsibility to the Overlook. It was almost like having a responsibility to history.
In 1961 four writers, two of them Pulitzer Prize winners, had leased the Overlook and reopened it as a writers' school. That had lasted one year. One of the students had gotten drunk in his third-floor room, crashed out of the window somehow, and fell to his death on the cement terrace below. The paper hinted that it might have been suicide.
Any big hotels have got scandals, Watson had said, just like every big hotel has got a ghost. Why? Hell, people come and go ...
Suddenly it seemed that he could almost feel the weight of the Overlook bearing down on him from above, one hundred and ten guest rooms, the storage rooms, kitchen, pantry, freezer, lounge, ballroom, dining room ...
(In the room the women come and go)
(... and the Red Death held sway over all.)
He rubbed his lips and turned to the next page in the scrapbook. He was in the last third of it now, and for the first time he wondered consciously whose book this was, left atop the highest pile of records in the cellar.
A new headline, this one dated April 10, 1963.
LAS VEGAS GROUP BUYS FAMED
COLORADO HOTEL
Scenic Overlook to Become Key Club
Robert T. Leffing, spokesman for a group of investors going under the name of High Country Investments, announced today in Las Vegas that High Country has negotiated a deal for the famous Overlook Hotel, a resort located high in the Rockies. Leffing declined to mention the names of specific investors, but said the hotel would be turned into an exclusive "key club." He said that the group he represents hopes to sell memberships to high-echelon executives in American and foreign companies.
High Country also owns hotels in Montana, Wyoming, and Utah.
The Overlook became world-known in the years 1946 to 1952 when it was owned by elusive mega-millionaire Horace Derwent, who ...
The item on the next page was a mere squib, dated four months later. The Overlook had opened under its new management. Apparently the paper hadn't been able to find out or wasn't interested in who the key holders were, because no name was mentioned but High Country Investments--the most anonymous-sounding company name Jack had ever heard except for a chain of bike and appliance shops in western New England that went under the name of Business, Inc.
He turned the page and blinked down at the clipping pasted there.
MILLIONAIRE DERWENT BACK IN
COLORADO VIA BACK DOOR?
High Country Exec Revealed to be Charles Grondin
By Rodney Conklin, Financial Editor
The Overlook Hotel, a scenic pleasure palace in the Colorado high country and once the private plaything of millionaire Horace Derwent, is at the center of a financial tangle which is only now beginning to come to light.
On April 10 of last year the hotel was purchased by a Las Vegas firm, High Country Investments, as a key club for wealthy executives of both foreign and domestic breeds. Now informed sources say that High Country is headed by Charles Grondin, 53, who was the head of California Land Development Corp. until 1959, when he resigned to take the position of executive veep in the Chicago home office of Derwent Enterprises.
This has led to speculation that High Country Investments may be controlled by Derwent, who may have acquired the Overlook for the second time and under decidedly peculiar circumstances.
Grondin, who was indicted and acquitted on charges of tax evasion in 1960, could not be reached for comment, and Horace Derwent, who guards his own privacy jealously, had no comment when reached by telephone. State Representative Dick Bows of Golden has called for a complete investigation into ...
That clipping was dated July 27, 1964. The next was a column from a Sunday paper that September. The byline belonged to Josh Brannigar, a muck-raking investigator of the Jack Anderson breed. Jack vaguely recalled that Brannigar had died in 1968 or '69.
MAFIA FREE-ZONE COLORADO?
By Josh Brannigar
It now seems possible that the newest r&r spot of Organization overlords in the U.S. is located at an out-of-the-way hotel nestled in the center of the Rockies. The Overlook Hotel, a white elephant that has been run lucklessly by almost a dozen different groups and individuals since it first opened its doors in 1910, is now being operated as a security-jacketed "key club," ostensibly for unwinding businessmen. The question is, what business are the Overlook's key holders really in?
The members present during the week of August 16-23 may give us an idea. The list below was obtained by a former employee of High Country Investments, a company first believed to be a dummy company owned by Derwent Enterprises. It now seems more likely that Derwent's interest in High Country (if any) is outweighed by those of several Las Vegas gambling barons. And these same gaming honchos have been linked in the past to both suspected and convicted underworld kingpins.
Present at the Overlook during that sunny week in August were:
Charles Grondin, President of High Country Investments. When it became known in July of this year that he was running the High Country ship it was announced--considerably after the fact--that he had resigned his position in Derwent Enterprises previously. The silver-maned Grondin, who refused to talk to me for this column, has been tried once and acquitted on tax evasion charges (1960).
Charles "Baby Charlie" Battaglia, a 60-year-old Vegas impresario (controlling interests in The Greenback and The Lucky Bones on the Strip). Battaglia is a close personal friend of Grondin. His arrest record stretches back to 1932, when he was tried and acquitted in the gangland-style murder of Jack "Dutchy" Morgan. Federal authorities suspect his involvement in the drug traffic, prostitution, and murder for hire, but "Baby Charlie" has only been behind bars once, for income tax evasion in 1955-56.
Richard Scarne, the principal stockholder of Fun Time Automatic Machines. Fun Time makes slot machines for the Nevada crowd, pinball machines and jukeboxes (Melody-Coin) for the rest of the country. He has done time for assault with a deadly weapon (1940), carrying a concealed weapon (1948), and conspiracy to commit tax fraud (1961).
Peter Zeiss, a Miami-based importer, now nearing 70. For the last five years Zeiss has been fighting deportation as an undesirable person. He has been convicted on charges of receiving and concealing stolen property (1958) and conspiracy to commit tax fraud (1954). Charming, distinguished, and courtly, Pete Zeiss is called "Poppa" by his intimates and has been tried on charges of murder and accessory to murder. A large stockholder in Scarne's Fun Time company, he also has known interests in four Las Vegas casinos.
Vittorio Gienelli, also known as "Vito the Chopper," tried twice for gangland-style murders, one of them the ax-murder of Boston vice overlord Frank Scoffy. Gienelli has been indicted twenty-three times, tried fourteen times, and convicted only once, for shoplifting in 1940. It has been said that in recent years Gienelli has become a power in the organization's western operation, which is centered in Las Vegas.
Carl "Jimmy-Ricks" Prashkin, a San Francisco investor, reputed to be the heir apparent of the power Gienelli now wields. Prashkin owns large blocks of stock in Derwent Enterprises, High Country Investments, Fun Time Automatic Machines, and three Vegas casinos. Prashkin is clean in America, but was indicted in Mexico on fraud charges that were dropped quickly three weeks after they were brought. It has been suggested that Prashkin may be in charge of laundering money skimmed from Vegas casino operations and funneling the big bucks back into the organization's legitimate western o
perations. And such operations may now include the Overlook Hotel in Colorado.
Other visitors during the current season include ...
There was more but Jack only skimmed it, constantly wiping his lips with his hand. A banker with Las Vegas connections. Men from New York who were apparently doing more in the Garment District than making clothes. Men reputed to be involved with drugs, vice, robbery, murder.
God, what a story! And they had all been here, right above him, in those empty rooms. Screwing expensive whores on the third floor, maybe. Drinking magnums of champagne. Making deals that would turn over millions of dollars, maybe in the very suite of rooms where Presidents had stayed. There was a story, all right. One hell of a story. A little frantically, he took out his notebook and jotted down another memo to check all of these people out at the library in Denver when the caretaking job was over. Every hotel has its ghost? The Overlook had a whole coven of them. First suicide, then the Mafia, what next?
The next clipping was an angry denial of Brannigar's charges by Charles Grondin. Jack smirked at it.
The clipping on the next page was so large that it had been folded. Jack unfolded it and gasped harshly. The picture there seemed to leap out at him: the wallpaper had been changed since June of 1966, but he knew that window and the view perfectly well. It was the western exposure of the Presidential Suite. Murder came next. The sitting room wall by the door leading into the bedroom was splashed with blood and what could only be white flecks of brain matter. A blank-faced cop was standing over a corpse hidden by a blanket. Jack stared, fascinated, and then his eyes moved up to the headline.
GANGLAND-STYLE SHOOTING AT
COLORADO HOTEL
Reputed Crime Overlord Shot at Mountain Key Club,
Two Others Dead
SIDEWINDER, COLO (UPI)--Forty miles from this sleepy Colorado town, a gangland-style execution has occurred in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. The Overlook Hotel, purchased three years ago as an exclusive key club by a Las Vegas firm, was the site of a triple shotgun slaying. Two of the men were either the companions or bodyguards of Vittorio Gienelli, also known as "The Chopper" for his reputed involvement in a Boston slaying twenty years ago.
Police were summoned by Robert Norman, manager of the Overlook, who said he heard shots and that some of the guests reported two men wearing stockings on their faces and carrying guns had fled down the fire escape and driven off in a late-model tan convertible.
State Trooper Benjamin Moorer discovered two dead men, later identified as Victor T. Boorman and Roger Macassi, both of Las Vegas, outside the door of the Presidential Suite where two American Presidents have stayed. Inside, Moorer found the body of Gienelli sprawled on the floor. Gienelli was apparently fleeing his attackers when he was cut down. Moorer said Gienelli had been shot with heavy-gauge shotguns at close range.
Charles Grondin, the representative of the company which now owns the Overlook, could not be reached for ...
Below the clipping, in heavy strokes of a ball-point pen, someone had written: They took his balls along with them. Jack stared at that for a long time, feeling cold. Whose book was this?
He turned the page at last, swallowing a click in his throat. Another column from Josh Brannigar, this one dated early 1967. He only read the headline: NOTORIOUS HOTEL SOLD FOLLOWING MURDER OF UNDERWORLD FIGURE.
The sheets following that clipping were blank.
(They took his balls along with them.)
He flipped back to the beginning, looking for a name or address. Even a room number. Because he felt quite sure that whoever had kept this little book of memories had stayed at the hotel. But there was nothing.
He was getting ready to go through all the clippings, more closely this time, when a voice called down the stairs: "Jack? Hon?"
Wendy.
He started, almost guiltily, as if he had been drinking secretly and she would smell the fumes on him. Ridiculous. He scrubbed his lips with his hand and called back, "Yeah, babe. Lookin for rats."
She was coming down. He heard her on the stairs, then crossing the boiler room. Quickly, without thinking why he might be doing it, he stuffed the scrapbook under a pile of bills and invoices. He stood up as she came through the arch.
"What in the world have you been doing down here? It's almost three o'clock!"
He smiled. "Is it that late? I got rooting around through all this stuff. Trying to find out where the bodies are buried, I guess."
The words clanged back viciously in his mind.
She came closer, looking at him, and he unconsciously retreated a step, unable to help himself. He knew what she was doing. She was trying to smell liquor on him. Probably she wasn't even aware of it herself, but he was, and it made him feel both guilty and angry.
"Your mouth is bleeding," she said in a curiously flat tone.
"Huh?" He put his hand to his lips and winced at the thin stinging. His index finger came away bloody. His guilt increased.
"You've been rubbing your mouth again," she said.
He looked down and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I have."
"It's been hell for you, hasn't it?"
"No, not so bad."
"Has it gotten any easier?"
He looked up at her and made his feet start moving. Once they were actually in motion it was easier. He crossed to his wife and slipped an arm around her waist. He brushed aside a sheaf of her blond hair and kissed her neck. "Yes," he said. "Where's Danny?"
"Oh, he's around somewhere. It's started to cloud up outside. Hungry?"
He slipped a hand over her taut, jeans-clad bottom with counterfeit lechery. "Like ze bear, madame."
"Watch out, slugger. Don't start something you can't finish."
"Fig-fig, madame?" he asked, still rubbing. "Dirty peectures? Unnatural positions?" As they went through the arch, he threw one glance back at the box where the scrapbook
(whose?)
was hidden. With the light out it was only a shadow. He was relieved that he had gotten Wendy away. His lust became less acted, more natural, as they approached the stairs.
"Maybe," she said. "After we get you a sandwich--yeek!" She twisted away from him, giggling. "That tickles!"
"It teekles nozzing like Jock Torrance would like to teekle you, madame."
"Lay off, Jock. How about a ham and cheese ... for the first course?"
They went up the stairs together, and Jack didn't look over his shoulder again. But he thought of Watson's words:
Every big hotel has got a ghost. Why? Hell, people come and go ...
Then Wendy shut the basement door behind them, closing it into darkness.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
OUTSIDE 217
Danny was remembering the words of someone else who had worked at the Overlook during the season:
Her saying she'd seen something in one of the rooms where ... a bad thing happened. That was in Room 217 and I want you to promise me you won't go in there, Danny ... steer right clear ...
It was a perfectly ordinary door, no different from any other door on the first two floors of the hotel. It was dark gray, halfway down a corridor that ran at right angles to the main second-floor hallway. The numbers on the door looked no different from the house numbers on the Boulder apartment building they had lived in. A 2, a 1, and a 7. Big deal. Just below them was a tiny glass circle, a peephole. Danny had tried several of them. From the inside you got a wide, fish-eye view of the corridor. From outside you could screw up your eye seven ways to Sunday and still not see a thing. A dirty gyp.
(Why are you here?)
After the walk behind the Overlook, he and Mommy had come back and she had fixed him his favorite lunch, a cheese and bologna sandwich plus Campbell's Bean Soup. They ate in Dick's kitchen and talked. The radio was on, getting thin and crackly music from the Estes Park station. The kitchen was his favorite place in the hotel, and he guessed that Mommy and Daddy must feel the same way, because after trying their meals in the dining room for three days or so, t
hey had begun eating in the kitchen by mutual consent, setting up chairs around Dick Hallorann's butcher block, which was almost as big as their dining room table back in Stovington, anyway. The dining room had been too depressing, even with the lights on and the music playing from the tape cassette system in the office. You were still just one of three people sitting at a table surrounded by dozens of other tables, all empty, all covered with those transparent plastic dustcloths. Mommy said it was like having dinner in the middle of a Horace Walpole novel, and Daddy had laughed and agreed. Danny had no idea who Horace Walpole was, but he did know that Mommy's cooking had begun to taste better as soon as they began to eat it in the kitchen. He kept discovering little flashes of Dick Hallorann's personality lying around, and they reassured him like a warm touch.
Mommy had eaten half a sandwich, no soup. She said Daddy must have gone out for a walk of his own since both the VW and the hotel truck were in the parking lot. She said she was tired and might lie down for an hour or so, if he thought he could amuse himself and not get into trouble. Danny told her around a mouthful of cheese and bologna that he thought he could.
"Why don't you go out into the playground?" she asked him. "I thought you'd love that place, with a sandbox for your trucks and all."
He swallowed and the food went down his throat in a lump that was dry and hard. "Maybe I will," he said, turning to the radio and fiddling with it.
"And all those neat hedge animals," she said, taking his empty plate. "Your father's got to get out and trim them pretty soon."
"Yeah," he said.
(Just nasty things ... once it had to do with those damn hedges clipped to look like animals ...)
"If you see your father before I do, tell him I'm lying down."
"Sure, Mom."
She put the dirty dishes in the sink and came back over to him. "Are you happy here, Danny?"
He looked at her guilelessly, a milk mustache on his lip. "Uh-huh."
"No more bad dreams?"
"No." Tony had come to him once, one night while he was lying in bed, calling his name faintly and from far away. Danny had squeezed his eyes tightly shut until Tony had gone.
