Time of Terror (26 page)

“His wife has been murdered, Miss Thomas.”

Shirley nodded. “Jim Kauffman has become a hopeless alcoholic,” she said. “A skid-row bum.”

“She left him without money?”

“Maybe. Maybe he wouldn’t take what she offered. I found him down in the Bowery. He sometimes sleeps and eats in a Salvation Army shelter down there. I—I tried to talk to him but he didn’t make much sense. It was too painful to pursue it, and I don’t use that kind of thing in my column. I felt sorry enough to want to help him, but he just turned his back on me and walked away. Staggered away would be nearer to the fact.”

“Did he speak with any bitterness about his wife?”

“He wouldn’t talk about her at all,” Shirley said, “which might be interpreted as a kind of bitterness, I suppose.”

The phone rang and Hardy answered it.

“Oh, hello, Miss Ruysdale,” he said. “No, it’s pretty sticky so far. Yes, Jerry told me about the Man. I put out an all-points bulletin on him. Yes, he’s here.” He held out the phone to me.

“Mark, if you’re not too involved, I could use you,” Ruysdale said.

“No news of the Man?”

“None,” she said. She sounded far away.

“I’m on my way,” I said.

I left Shirley with Lieutenant Hardy to whom she was giving details about the Salvation Army shelter. I told her I would meet her in my apartment on the second floor when I could. She had a key to my place. After all, she was forever.

When I reached Ruysdale’s office someone else was sitting at her desk. It was a girl from the secretarial pool named Charlotte something. I somehow couldn’t remember her last name. She is a pretty sensational-looking chick and I once had my eye on her. After ten minutes’ conversation with her over a drink in the Trapeze Bar one afternoon, I had stopped looking. Her measurements were sensational, but I discovered she was something less than half-witted when it came to casual conversation. Ever since then she had looked at me with sad spaniel eyes, as if she was wondering why the pass that had been obviously in the making had never come about.

“Miss Ruysdale is in Mr. Chambrun’s office,” Charlotte said. “You’re to go straight in.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Mark, is it serious about Mr. Chambrun?”

“Serious?”

“I mean, is he going to be fired?” Charlotte asked.

I was about to laugh at her when I realized she didn’t know what was going on.

“I mean, with Mr. Garrity here—?”

“Who is Mr. Garrity?” I asked.

“Why, Mark, he’s president of the syndicate that owns the hotel.”

It may sound absurd, but I had never paid any attention to the names of people in the ownership group. Mayberry was the only one I knew by sight—and sound. Chambrun was the only person I paid any attention to at the top. The owners were faceless nonentities to me.

“I think it’s unlikely Mr. Chambrun will get fired,” I said, and went through the door to the inner sanctum.

Ruysdale was sitting at Chambrun’s desk. I had never seen anyone but the Man sit there before. It jolted me some, yet if anyone was to stand in for him Ruysdale was it. She knew, I told myself, everything Chambrun knew about the operation of the Beaumont.

There were three men sitting in leather armchairs facing Ruysdale. Two of them I recognized as part of the film company outfit, though I didn’t have names to go with their faces. The third man, by a process of elimination, had to be Garrity.

He was something else again. He was a big man with shaggy gray hair, in his sixties, I guessed. His face was jowly, lined, but the lines suggested humor. He had bristling gray eyebrows and under them were almost intolerably bright blue eyes. He watched me cross the room and before I reached the desk I had the feeling he had come to very thorough conclusions about me. This one, I told myself, was a genuine powerhouse.

“Thanks for coming, Mark,” Ruysdale said. “This is Mr. Michael Garrity, president of the owners’ syndicate.”

Garrity raised a huge hand in a casual wave of greeting.

“This is Clark Herman, the producer of
Strategies,
the film that’s being shot in the hotel,” Ruysdale said.

Herman was a Hollywood type. Long, mod-styled dark hair, a gaudy blue and white sports jacket, a pink sports shirt, tieless, open at the throat, pale blue slacks, and sandals over pink and blue socks in a diamond pattern.

“Hello, Haskell,” he said. They’d evidently been briefed on me before I arrived because Ruysdale hadn’t mentioned my name.

I nodded and looked at the third man. He turned out to be one Chester Cole, public relations man for Herman Productions. He was more conventional as to clothes than his boss, wearing a dark gray business suit with a vest, white shirt and tie. A young man, slim, dark with the Hollywood touch of dark glasses in gold wire rims that hid his eyes and left him a sort of zero when it came to assessing him.

“There seem to be some problems in connection with the filming,” Ruysdale said.

“Before we go into that I think it would be helpful if Mr. Haskell could bring us up to date,” Garrity said. His voice was deep and strong.

“Jerry Dodd is doing everything possible to locate Chambrun,” I said. “So far, nothing.”

“That’s sort of skipping over things, isn’t it, Mr. Haskell?” Garrity said. “So far there is the Kauffman woman.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The police are trying to keep things quiet as long as possible—until they get some leads.”

Garrity gave me a disarming smile. “Have you and they forgotten about George Mayberry, Haskell? By now the whole goddamned world knows that Laura Kauffman has been murdered in the Beaumont.”

“That’s right,” I said. “He was going to the mayor and from there to the White House.”

Garrity laughed, and it was a deep rumbling sound. “I pity the mayor and the president,” he said.

“Mayberry has that much clout?” I asked.

“Mayberry has no clout at all,” the big man said. “Just an enormous capacity for noise making.”

“I thought perhaps you were here to haul Jerry Dodd up on the carpet,” I said.

“I’ll buy him a drink when he has time,” Garrity said. “I’d have given anything to see someone puncture George Mayberry’s pomposity. In fact, I’ve instructed Miss Ruysdale to keep that desk chair warm for Chambrun until we find him. I don’t want Mayberry sitting there, even if it’s just to have his picture taken. I am well aware, Haskell, that, while we own the real estate, the Hotel Beaumont is just another flophouse without Pierre Chambrun. So, about Mrs. Kauffman, please.”

There wasn’t really much to tell except the unpleasant clinical details of her murder. Hardy was on the trail of her absent husband. I supposed there would be a checkup of her Cancer Fund people to find out who had seen her last and when. There had been so much gossip about a rather sensational life that it was going to be hard to separate fact from fiction.

“Anyone who has been so delightfully scandalous in public usually has a private sector better hidden than most people’s,” I said. “There is probably a current boy friend who was about to get the gate. There may be one who had already gotten the gate and wanted to pay off Laura Kauffman.”

“People with money, and she is loaded, acquire enemies who do not necessarily share their beds,” Garrity said. “But the husband does look like a prime suspect, doesn’t he? Down and out, broke, asked for help and got turned down. Carved her up in a drunken frenzy. It was in the papers that she was taking a suite here for a few days to supervise preparations for tonight’s ball. Story handed out on purpose so people would know where to find her.”

“Right,” I said. “I released the story myself at the ball committee’s request.”

“You met Mrs. Kauffman?” Garrity asked, giving me a wise look.

“No. She was down on my calendar for a session before lunch.”

Carl Herman, the film producer, cleared his throat “We are very much concerned,” he said. “Our camera people were to be on hand along with the press and television to film the ball. Our stars, Janet Parker and Robert Randle, were to slip in and dance with the crowd. Part of the footage for
Strategies.”

“So what worries you?” I asked.

“It would cost us a fortune in extras and costumes to restage the ball if it were called off.”

“I don’t think it will be called off,” I said. “If it was a private party and not a charity ball, perhaps. But there are approximately a thousand people coming who have paid at least two hundred and fifty dollars a ticket in advance. Nobody is going to return that kind of money.”

“That’s a low estimate,” Garrity said. “I paid fifteen hundred dollars apiece for my tickets, and a hell of a lot of others spent over the minimum.”

“That makes me feel better,” Herman said. “I know Mr. Chambrun was very much against our using the hotel for filming. Mayberry thinks he may just have gone off somewhere to sulk.”

“Nonsense,” Miss Ruysdale said.

“He was opposed to the filming, wasn’t he?” Garrity asked.

“He was,” Ruysdale said. “And quite justifiably in my opinion.” She was a cool cookie.

“Why?” Herman asked. “Shooting a film as important as
Strategies
here would help promote the hotel.”

“The Beaumont doesn’t need that kind of promotion, Mr. Herman,” Ruysdale said. “The Beaumont promotes itself by being what its guests expect it to be. That means that not five minutes’ worth of service will be interrupted, that comings and goings will not be the food for your cameras—yours, Mr. Herman, or anyone else’s.”

“It would seem,” Chester Cole said, speaking for the first time, his eyes bidden behind the black glasses, “that Mrs. Kauffman’s privacy was invaded.”

“In private,” Ruysdale said.

“Why were we given permission if Chambrun was so opposed?” Cole asked.

“Because he was overruled by a stupid board of directors,” Garrity said. “It would seem that your star, Miss Parker, has George Mayberry breathing hard. He pounded at us and hammered at us to overrule Chambrun, and we finally gave in just to shut him up. I will grovel in front of Chambrun and apologize when he turns up.”

“You have a contract with us!” Herman said, his voice rising.

“Oh, I know, Mr. Herman. I’m just saying we should have listened to the man who knows. Mr. Haskell, keep me informed, will you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He pulled himself up out of his chair. It was like a lion rising from sleep. He was even bigger that I’d thought.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I think we’d better leave these people to the rather sticky business of keeping this hotel afloat until Chambrun comes back.”

There were murmurs of thanks and they all left. Ruysdale had risen, and when we were alone she suddenly covered her face with her hands and I saw her shoulders heave. I went to her and put my arms around her.

“He’ll show up, Betsy,” I said. “Nothing or anyone can keep him away from here very long.”

She was clinging to me then, crying softly. I held her until the storm passed. Then she looked up at me, dabbing at her face with a Kleenex. She gave me a crooked little smile.

“Well, hop to it, Haskell,” she said. “We’ve got a hotel to run!”

Chambrun had said the same thing hundreds of times.

Chester Cole was waiting for me in the outer office when I left Ruysdale. He had taken off the dark glasses and was polishing them with a white linen handkerchief. His eyes were gray, pale, and suggested a kind of cynical amusement with the world. He put his glasses back on and folded the handkerchief neatly into his breast pocket, tips showing.

“This would seem not to be an ideal time to involve you with my problems,” he said.

“It’s my job to be of service if I can,” I said.

“I get the feeling that the people who work for Chambrun really care for him,” Cole said.

“We care,” I said.

“I envy you,” Cole said. “You see, I don’t give a damn for the people I work for. Only the paycheck. That paycheck requires me to ask you to call on Claude Duval in his suite, Sixteen B, at your earliest convenience. In short, now.”

“What does he want? Do you know?”

Cole’s smile was sardonic. “That things run exactly his way tonight,” he said.

I didn’t have any taste for the filming of a movie at that moment. Cole knew that, I saw.

“Our Claude is a prime horse’s behind,” he said. “The great Duval is more important than anyone else on earth. He is a genius at what he does, but he is a sonofabitch. You’ll need to have your temper buttoned down.”

“Sonsofbitches are nothing new to me in this job,” I said. “There is no good time to see him with things the way they are, so give him a call and ask him if now will do.”

Claude Duval was something of a shock to me when I was ushered into his suite by a male secretary. He was a dead ringer for the actor Telly Savalas, shiny bald, fringe of hair shaved tight to his skull. He even smoked a thin, black cigarillo. The likeness dissipated when he spoke. A cultured British accent shattered it.

“I appreciate your promptness, Mr. Haskell,” he said. “I understand this is a troubled time.”

He was wearing a plum-colored robe with a fur collar, probably mink. He hadn’t risen from a throne-like armchair when I was presented. He waved to a small, straight-backed chair facing him. I chose to stand.

“Time is very precious at the moment,” I said.

“It is also precious to me,” he said, “and there are things to be rearranged. There are stipulations made by your missing manager which won’t do at all.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t change any arrangements Mr. Chambrun has made without an okay from him.”

“But you will have to, my friend,” Duval said. “If Chambrun was available, I would make it clear to him that he has no choice. Since he isn’t here, you will have to act for him.”

I was tempted to tell him to stuff it, but I played the role of polite hotel employee. “If you would care to tell me what you want changed,” I said.

“That is why I had you sent here,” he said.

The secretary, a bespectacled nonentity, was suddenly at Duval’s elbow with an ashtray. The genius flipped the ash off his cigarillo without looking.

“To begin with,” he said, “the script calls for my two stars, Miss Parker and Mr. Randle, to be dancing together at a charity ball. We will need closeups of them, which means cameras will have to be moved out onto the floor, to follow them, to take closeups. Mr. Chambrun has had the impertinence to tell us that no cameras will be allowed out on the floor, only in the gallery where the news media cameras are stationed. He has gone further, stating that his security people will remove my cameras from the floor by force if we attempt to overrule his decision.”