P A R T O N E
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PREFATORY MATTERS
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JOB INTERVIEW
Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.
Ullman stood five-five, and when he moved, it was with the prissy speed that
seems to be the exclusive domain of all small plump men. The part in his hair
was exact, and his dark suit was sober but comforting. I am a man you can bring
your problems to, that suit said to the paying customer. To the hired help it
spoke more curtly: This had better be good, you. There was a red carnation in
the lapel, perhaps so that no one on the street would mistake Stuart Ullman for
the local undertaker.
As he listened to Ullman speak, Jack admitted to himself that he probably
could not have liked any man on that side of the desk - under the circumstances.
Ullman had asked a question he hadn't caught. That was bad; Ullman was the
type of man who would file such lapses away in a mental Rolodex for later
consideration.
"I'm sorry?"
"I asked if your wife fully understood what you would be taking on here. And
there's your son, of course." He glanced down at the application in front of
him. "Daniel. Your wife isn't a bit intimidated by the idea?"
"Wendy is an extraordinary woman."
"And your son is also extraordinary?"
Jack smiled, a big wide PR smile. "We like to think so, I suppose. He's quite
self-reliant for a five-year-old."
No returning smile from Ullman. He slipped Jack's application back into the
file. The file went into a drawer. The desk top was now completely bare except
for a blotter, a telephone, a Tensor lamp, and an in/out basket. Both sides of
the in/out were empty, too.
Ullman stood up and went to the file cabinet in the corner. "Step around the
desk, if you will, Mr. Torrance. We'll look at the floor plans."
He brought back five large sheets and set them down on the glossy walnut plain
of the desk. Jack stood by his shoulder, very much aware of the scent of
Ullman's cologne. All my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all
came into his mind for no reason at all, and he had to clamp his tongue between
his teeth to keep in a bray of laughter. Beyond the wall, faintly, came the
sounds of the Overlook Hotel's kitchen, gearing down from lunch.
"Top floor," Ullman said briskly. "The attic. Absolutely nothing up there now
but bric-a-brac. The Overlook has changed hands several times since World War II
and it seems that each successive manager has put everything they don't want up
in the attic. I want rattraps and poison bait sowed around in it. Some of the
third-floor chambermaids say they have heard rustling noises. I don't believe
it, not for a moment, but there mustn't even be that one-in-a-hundred chance
that a single rat inhabits the Overlook Hotel."
Jack, who suspected that every hotel in the world had a rat or two, held his
tongue.
"Of course you wouldn't allow your son up in the attic under any
circumstances."
"No," Jack said, and flashed the big PR smile again. Humiliating situation.
Did this officious little prick actually think he would allow his son to goof
around in a rattrap attic full of junk furniture and God knew what else?
Ullman whisked away the attic floor plan and put it on the bottom of the pile.
"The Overlook has one hundred and ten guest quarters," he said in a scholarly
voice. "Thirty of them, all suites, are here on the third floor. Ten in the west
wing (including the Presidential Suite), ten in the center, ten more in the east
wing. All of them command magnificent views."
Could you at least spare the salestalk?
But he kept quiet. He needed the job.
Ullman put the third floor on the bottom of the pile and they studied the
second floor.
"Forty rooms," Ullman said, "thirty doubles and ten singles. And on the first
floor, twenty of each. Plus three linen closets on each floor, and a storeroom
which is at the extreme east end of the hotel on the second floor and the
extreme west end on the first. Questions?"
Jack shook his head. Ullman whisked the second and first floors away.
"Now. Lobby level: Here in the center is the registration desk. Behind it are
the offices. The lobby runs for eighty feet in either direction from the desk.
Over here in the west wing is the Overlook Dining Room and the Colorado Lounge.
The banquet and ballroom facility is in the east wing. Questions?"
"Only about the basement," Jack said. "For the winter caretaker, that's the
most important level of all. Where the action is, so to speak."