Installment 26: a chance encounter in the elevator. "As Reardon stepped in, he noticed the pretty older woman from the fourth floor. He had seen her before. Dark hair and flashing eyes, her name was Rachel, he thought. He nodded to her as he walked to the back of the elevator car. She wore a short black dress and high heels."
“Crossing Central Park West, they made a striking older couple. Faye in tight black pants, a well-fitting sweater the color of her hair, and walking shoes. Pincus in a pair of new-looking blue jeans, probably his first, that Faye had bought him, of course, and his plaid jacket and muffler.”
Installment 24: Fred turned on the TV. Ronald Reagan’s smiling face. He turned the TV off. “Fascist pig,” he mumbled. His eyes fixed on the wooden box in his bookcase, filled with red sticks of dynamite.
The sun had set over the Jersey skyline. From the roof, she could see the mighty Hudson River. Technicolor pinks, oranges, and periwinkle. Even if it was pollution, what a show. She took another hit.
Today, wheat feeds billions of people and animals around the world. It has ushered in major social changes and has been a vital part of civilization. A global wheat failure would be a disaster that few nations could survive, even for a year.
Installment 19: Pincus exhaled ecstatically. “You know what the German poet Heine said about cholent? ‘The heavenly food that our dear Lord God himself once taught Moses to cook at Mt. Sinai.’ ”
Saul could’ve bought the Last Hotel in 1972. Saul recalled that Otto Stern, the original owner, offered to sell it to him. “I can’t take the aggravation no more,” he had told him. He wanted $125,000 in cash. It was a steal.
In installment 12, Henry deals with the victim of a shooting in Suite 49, and with the help of Esther covers up the evidence. "Running his fingers over the smooth casing, he thought about when he’d last touched one of these things. Yes, he’d enlisted right after graduation. Got his high school degree like he promised his mother. First, he was in Texas for a few months, then France, and finally, Poland."
In this, the 11th installment of "The Last Hotel," there's a New Year's Eve party going on in Suite 49, when an unexpected visitor appears and is shot, just as midnight strikes and the decade of the 1980s is ushered in.
Installment 10, the Penthouse: Leah scrutinized her face in the mirror. She didn’t look like either of her parents. Maybe she was born to one of those relatives who got gassed by Hitler. A refugee changeling. It probably wasn’t true, but she never felt part of her own family.
For several minutes, they crawled on the carpet, feeling for the lens with their fingertips. Next to Lenny, Esther looked slight, feminine, even delicate. Once their heads met. They gazed at each other on all fours. Esther burst into a fit of giggles. “Will you look at us? I feel so stupid.”
Suite 42, Installment eight of Sonia Pilcer's 'The Last Hotel': "Henry sat down on a purple velvet armchair, leaning back comfortably. A midnight blue ostrich boa floated over him. He wrapped it around himself. 'So that’s what luxury feels like…' He sighed."
Installment 5: "Most hotels and boarding houses have a certain place where the habitués hang out, the professional tongue-waggers. Theirs was the turquoise vinyl couch near the elevator, chained to the wall so no one stole it."
