by Kilby Blades
Adam would sleep at the hotel that night given an early-morning call; Levi wasn’t meeting Hazel at his studio to organize camera equipment ’til eight. It left him with a quick hour to respond to Paul’s emails about the gallery and another two to meet up for a last-minute drink with Javi and Darius. Making his rounds that night went so well, Levi went to bed feeling optimistic that he could juggle it all: his new venture, his new friends, this massive PR job, and his and Adam’s last hurrah.
Part II
Chapter Eight: The Kerr
THE Kerr was a grand old beauty of a hotel, just off the south side of Market. It was the better side by nearly any account, and the block was kept pristine. This, no doubt, was due in no small part to the influence of the Kerr Group itself—not nearly the only business on the block but the most influential. Kerr Hospitality had built relationships in every globally important metropolis.
Even Adam couldn’t claim to have visited the Kerr Group’s every location. Within its portfolio were a variety of brands. Most major cities housed a Kerr Hotel, named for a variation of his father’s born surname, Kermansachi, which he had anglicized just before coming to America. Apart from urban properties, Kerr Hospitality held boutique hotels in regionally desirable locations. Unlike the Kerr, their names were not standardized but customized to their given regions. Near San Francisco, the Tannin was eighty miles north, in Sonoma County; down the coast, near Big Sur, was the Inn at Carmel Bay.
A final set of properties was known as “resort destinations”—though some were skiing or mountain properties, 80 percent of these were on tropical islands somewhere. Whereas Western brands focused on the classic postcolonized destinations well trodden by Americans and Europeans for years, the Kerr Group dominated in destinations important to Middle Eastern and Asian clientele.
Levi did two things every time he walked into any Kerr: he tipped obscenely and he got help from the porter, whether he needed it or not. Levi’s own father had been the head porter at the Central Park location of the Kerr, the group’s flagship property in the United States. That simple fact had created circumstances that led to Levi and Adam’s lifelong friendship. Some of Levi’s earliest memories were from the bowels of the Central Park hotel. When school was out in the summer, Levi had tagged along with his father to work. He was looked after by housekeepers, laundry ladies, and dishwashers while his papa worked the front of the house.
It was in that hotel that Levi had met Adam when they were eight. Both knew every nook and cranny and found great adventure in roaming its spaces. They’d played spy games, and people-watched, and undertaken massive games of hide-and-seek—including in secret passageways—during the elementary school ages. When they were tweens, they’d stolen master keys and broken into unused rooms to watch porn. They’d pinched liquor from the minibars of randomly opened rooms until they found out the housekeepers got in trouble for it. After that they’d taken to stealing half-drunk bottles of wine and abandoned beers from room service trays.
“Good morning, Mr. Cossio.” The doorman was the first one to greet Levi. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Scanning his face, then his name tag, Levi knew that he had not yet met this particular doorman. “Thank you, Jesús. Good morning,” Levi replied with a genuine smile and proceeded into the building.
Walking farther inside, Levi was met with a chorus of at least three more Good morning, Mr. Cossios, which he humbly returned with good mornings of his own. He hadn’t made it halfway to the center of the grand rotunda—a marvel of inset check-in stations with elaborate tile-designed keel arches lining its circumference—when the general manager, Elise, intercepted him.
She had headed this location for as long as Levi could remember. The Good morning, Levi she issued was familiar. All of it was familiar. Walking into the Kerr always felt like home.
“Adam is awake and we’ve taken him his breakfast.” Elise fell in step with Levi. “Shall I have a green tea smoothie and an egg white omelet sent up?”
Levi had ordered a smoothie and egg whites only on his most recent two stays at Kerr properties, and even then, they’d been halfway around the world. That San Francisco knew his most recent breakfast order was extraordinary. Levi never stopped being in awe of the Kerr’s attention to detail—of how well it knew its regular guests.
Then again, Levi was no run-of-the-mill guest. He wasn’t even a run-of-the-mill VIP. He was known, in the hotel vernacular, as family. Fewer than fifty people worldwide held this designation. Hundreds of Adam’s blood relatives were merely VIPs. Family had unfettered, worldwide, anytime access to the family apartments.
“Your key, Mr. Cossio,” an unfamiliar masculine voice interjected before he could answer. A new person had fallen in step with Levi and Elise. An older man pressed a specialized key card into Levi’s hand. “May I take your bags?”
“Thank you,” Levi said, handing the porter two shoulder bags full of camera equipment. “And, no, thank you,” he replied to Elise’s earlier question. “I’m sure Adam’s ordered enough for both of us.”
By then they had reached the hidden entrance—always Levi’s favorite feature, one insisted upon and painstakingly executed by Adam’s father globally. He’d been a hard man, but a creative one and, in many ways, ingenious. The entrance to the family quarters was always hidden in plain sight somewhere in the lobby of every Kerr Hotel.
Adam’s father had indulged a penchant for all manner of hidden things—secret passageways, fake walls, and the like. Among the few things Levi remembered Ben Kerr talking about with awe and reverence was palatial architecture and the history of royal families. Between regal pillars and elaborate spandrels and the perceived exoticism of Persian design, Kerr hotels always delivered the sense that one was entering a palace.
“Enjoy your stay, Levi,” Elise said at the exact same time that her counterpart said, “Enjoy your stay, Mr. Cossio.”
Levi stepped up to the far wall of the elevator bank. Beneath another keel arch, a recessed, cream-colored wall banked a foot high from the bottom was hung with an illuminated tapestry. To anyone, it looked like art. Only insiders knew that the tapestry hung upon a moving wall. A hidden key swipe would allow Levi to wave his card in front of a specific patch. When he did, the wall would recede.
One had to be careful with such things—you couldn’t do it with anyone else around. Behind each secure door was the private lobby for the private family elevators. Once inside, you couldn’t get anywhere without a key.
In a well-practiced motion, Levi found the hidden patch and swiped his card in front of the reader. When the wall receded, he stepped over the threshold and quickly walked in. Even this space was elegant—more elegant, perhaps, than the lobby itself. A blue fountain in the shape of a six-pointed star was inlaid with tiles in a blue-and-white concentric star design. The calming sound of running water and the precise temperature of the air—a bit cooler than that of the lobby—mixed with impeccably simulated light. It gave the distinct feeling of being in a mixed indoor-to-outdoor space. After stepping into the awaiting elevator—also accented with Persian styling—Levi was whisked to the top floor. The doors opened directly into the apartment. And there was Adam.
“What have local leaders said?” Adam asked the person on the other end of the phone calmly, the handle of a china cup of coffee threaded through his fingers and resting on his left palm. Adam stood in his bathrobe before an arched window that stretched all the way up to the open loft of the second floor. The bottom floor had its own office, but Adam had always preferred wide-open spaces. His face was in profile, furrowed brow absorbing morning light that was brightening into day. He had yet to see Levi come in.
Reaching instinctively to his hip, Levi one-hand grabbed his DSLR—the one that went with him everywhere, strategically outfitted with his 50mm shoot-nearly-anything lens. He slipped his lens cap in his pocket at the same instant the viewfinder touched his eye. He thumbed the camera on with his right thumb and manual focused with his
left, depressing the shutter release the second his focus hit its target.
“Then we need to slow down the project,” Adam continued. “We shouldn’t be there if we can’t do business the right way.”
Levi took frame after candid frame, knowing that the ever-perceptive Adam would notice him in moments. For now Levi would get what he could.
Adam nodded at whatever the person on the other end was saying, pursing his lips in a way that meant he wanted to get a word in. But Adam waited.
“I know what my father would have said….” Adam paused and nodded again, listening to the person on the other end. Levi got a shot at the exact second his dimple came out and he said, “Good thing I’m not my father.”
Adam brought his coffee cup to his lips then, tipping it back so far, he had to have been finishing the last of its contents. It wasn’t until he turned to replace it on the table behind him that he realized he wasn’t alone. His dimple deepened and his eyes warmed upon catching sight of Levi, who took a final shot of Adam regarding the camera head-on.
“Trust your instincts on this one,” Adam said to the person on the phone. “Check in with me in a few days.”
Levi lowered his camera at the same moment Adam pulled the AirPods out of his ears.
“Already hard at work, I see,” Adam remarked, tossing the tiny devices aside.
“What better place to capture the king than in his palace?” Levi quipped.
“Don’t let Elle hear you say that,” Adam muttered as they greeted one another with a hug. Levi snapped the cap onto his lens and returned his camera to his hip.
“Hungry?” Adam asked, making his way back to the open dining room table—one long enough to seat at least twelve. A notorious breakfast-lover, Adam seemed to have one of everything. Half the table was covered with everything from quiche, to berries, to juice, to coffee, to mini jars of Double Devon Cream next to a plate of scones. Levi’s answer was to pluck up a piece of bacon, which he was sure Adam had ordered for him. Adam wasn’t religious and didn’t keep kosher, but bacon was one food he just didn’t eat.
Adam refilled his coffee cup—he took his black—then picked one up for Levi, spooned in a bit of honey, and added what Levi and sane people knew was the correct amount of half-and-half but what Adam said was “too much cream.” Adam set Levi’s coffee cup down at the head and sat himself at one of the chairs on the side. The bathrobe and gorgeous suite made Adam look as if he were on vacation. But this was Adam’s office—each family apartment was as much a place of business as it was a home.
“We should open champagne,” Adam murmured, smirking a bit as he took a sip of coffee from his steaming cup. “The day you finally take my picture calls for celebration.”
Levi cocked his head playfully and chewed his bacon while he pretended to think. “Because only a narcissistic bastard like you would celebrate having more pictures of himself?”
“No…,” Adam drew out, his voice deep and low, the humor abandoning his tone. “Because the talented Levi Cossio has finally turned his lens on me.”
Adam’s compliments always caused Levi to falter for just a minute—Adam had a way of looking at people sometimes that made every word out of his mouth seem sincere.
“On the matter of your fee—” Adam began again, saving Levi from having to respond.
“Pro bono,” Levi cut in quickly.
The playful look drained from Adam’s face and determination came over his eyes. “I’m not letting you do this for free. Tell me—what’s your market rate?”
It was fifty thousand dollars a day—not that Adam couldn’t afford it, but it wasn’t about the money. All his life, Adam had shared generously, with Levi ill-equipped to give much in return. On top of that, he’d withheld his one talent from Adam. The way Levi figured it, the least he could do was grant Adam this favor, now.
“Pro bono,” Levi repeated with emphasis.
“Levi—” Adam interjected, heat beginning to light his eyes.
“Pro bono or not at all.” Levi stood his ground.
He watched as Adam considered arguing the point further. Levi had won the round.
“So, where do we start?” Adam had another sip of his coffee.
“With you learning to forget about the camera,” Levi said. “What’s the longest you’ve had a crew follow you?”
Adam shrugged. “A day or two, for a couple hours at a time.”
“All right. This is gonna get intense. For the staged shoots, they’re gonna be long days and you’re gonna get tired. And because we’re shooting for so many publications in quick succession, we have to consider how to vary your looks.”
“Vary how?”
“Facial hair strategy. Top hair style. The wider range of looks you have, the more intriguing you’ll be. If you look the same in every picture, readers who see you in more than one spread will get bored. If you change up your look as much as possible, every article will feel fresh and new. You have to decide how far you’re willing to go.”
Adam nodded, looking mildly impressed.
“Tomorrow we go to Perry, the stylist I brought on. Wednesday is interviews with two soft hitters. The bigger publications are all next week. The rest of this week, I’ll be getting shots of you around your hotels and around the city—a mix of candids and staged shots. We won’t have time to do Carmel, but we should definitely hit Sonoma and get a bunch of shots here.”
“For the shots here, what am I supposed to be doing?” Adam asked. “I can walk around, but I don’t really have a role at the hotel.”
Levi nodded, having thought of this. “I floated the idea by Elle this morning. You’re going to give Elise the day off.”
“So I get to be GM today?” Adam’s eyes lit up. Moments like this reminded Levi how much Adam loved the business. He wasn’t just blindly taking over the legacy. Adam loved—and always had loved—working in the hotels.
“Elise will get you up to speed, then you’ll take over. You don’t have to talk to me or walk me through what you’re doing. It’ll be awkward as hell and the early shots will suck, but it’ll set everything else up for success.”
“Let’s do this.” Adam held out his hand for a fist bump that Levi returned, then rose from his seat and made it only two steps before turning back around. “What do I wear?”
Levi smirked but stayed seated. “Not your robe.”
Adam moved his hands, looked down, and started to untie the sash. “Lemme just take it off.”
Levi shook his head. “Not that kind of photo shoot, smartass.”
Adam stopped the ruse just short of pulling his sash, turned on his white-slippered heel, and sauntered off toward the stairs. He tossed over his shoulder, “Whatever you say, boss.”
Chapter Nine: The Fitting
“THIS is elevator porn,” Adam murmured appreciatively as they stepped into the caged compartment, an Otis, according to the button console inside. The top of the cage was vaulted and open at the corners, all the better to see the belts and pulleys at work. The lower half of the compartment was walled and finished in white, with gold-painted moldings that flourished at the corners. The wrought iron of the original cage began waist-high, and had been fitted with a second safety cage that still gave a view of the chamber and its twin.
Adam had a thing for elevators. Adam had chosen his penthouse in New York—a gorgeous prewar beauty on the Upper West Side—on the basis of the private Westinghouse that traveled to his apartment alone. Perry’s studio was on the thirteenth floor of one of the older buildings on Geary. The Whittell had gone up just one year after the earthquake of 1906. At sixteen stories, it was shorter than other buildings that had sprung up afterward, but Perry’s windows opened and faced west, with a view of Union Square.
Even after they’d arrived at the correct floor and exited the elevator, Adam’s gaze stayed glued to the shaft. He craned his neck to watch the vessel keep ascending through the outer cage. Levi had often mused that if not for the family business, Adam might have be
en an architect. He had a mind for it: measured and calculating but fractal to a fault. From order and discipline, he made beauty.
Perry knew beauty—his as it related to the male form. A former tailor, he was the best gentlemen’s stylist in the city. In place of a name plate, outside the door of his suite was his simple logo etched in frosted glass: the chiseled torso of a suit maker’s dummy and the frames of Wayfarer glasses in the exact position they would have gone on, to frame a face.
“Come in!” Perry’s voice came from the other side of the door after Levi had rung the bell. Levi turned the knob and walked in.
Levi had been in this space several times—to photograph small fashion shows that Perry hosted for promising young designers, and to shoot looks on models for Perry’s private clients when he was in a pinch.
Though he also styled for the kinds of shoots Levi worked, Perry had clients all over. Most were men. Some were famous. All were ultra-rich. Some simply lacked the time to shop on their own. Others wanted the latest looks but needed a stylist with his finger on the pulse of couture to tell them what was trending. Men’s fashion required more custom fitting and had fewer ready-to-wear boutiques.
“You remodeled,” Levi remarked, striding in with Adam in tow.
The suite’s raised catwalk still took up half the room. The other half of the space was the part that had been rearranged. It now held racks that lined the inner exposed brick wall. And at the very end, poring over a drafting-style table, sat the man himself, deeply engrossed in something that required long pencil strokes.
“I expanded,” Perry clarified, still focused on what he was doing. Far be it from Levi to begrudge another artist delaying pleasantries to stay in the zone. “Something on three came up last month, so I took it. Moved all my sewing down there. That’s also Chad’s office now, thank God….” Perry stopped abruptly and threw his pencil down. He closed his eyes and removed his Wayfarers—tortoiseshell, today—and pinched his thumb and index finger to squeeze the bridge of his nose.
