William F. Buckley Jr. (33 page)

Danny closed his eyes. His mind turned to the memorandum he had committed to memory the night before.

A B C D then E then F.

He had instructed himself what to do at every point. But he had not anticipated the working of his mind. Now he opened his eyes and stared at the young man with close-cut hair on the floor, bleeding to death. Maybe he was dead already. Quickly Danny closed his eyes. He held them tightly closed. He needed to do this before doing anything else. He would not look again at what
he had done. And it would help him to have a deep swallow. Turning his head away, he walked to the bathroom and brought out the bottle. Again he shut his eyes. He must go back now to the schedule, must go past F on to G. Everything depended on self-control. He was good at that, he remembered, he was always good in a crisis, whether sailing in a boat or finding just the moment to toss a grenade into a pillbox; he was good up against heavy weather in a casino, calm and steady when face to face with a grim judge-prosecutor like his godfather.…

He would need to test himself again, though he had not imagined how difficult it would be.… The next step. Ah. Yes.

He put his gloves back on, went into the bedroom, took off his clothes and put on his tuxedo. He reattached the beard. Now he needed to approach … the body, alongside which the briefcase lay. He opened it and surveyed the neatly indexed manila folders. He removed the two files marked “Hyde Park Capital Fund” and “Hyde Park Fund.” He replaced the other files and closed the briefcase. He felt inside the pockets of Huxley’s coat, brought out a little leather appointment book, examined the page with the afternoon’s notation, tore it out and put it in his pocket. He paused and thought better of it. He reached down and put the entire notebook into his pocket.

He picked up the saxophone case, went past the elevator to the staircase and walked down eight flights. At the bottom of the staircase he peered over to the main entrance. A guest with a raincoat slung over his shoulder was checking out. Danny turned left, leaving the hotel through the side entrance. He walked a block to the outdoor parking garage, got into the car, paid his parking bill at the checkout counter and set out for Greenwich. Nearing Putnam, he slid off his beard and took off the jacket to his tuxedo and the black tie. In the men’s room of a diner, he slipped off his black trousers and put on gray flannels. Back in the car, he put away the evening clothes and put on the jacket to his gray suit and the striped tie. He resumed driving. He’d be in Greenwich in plenty of time. At exactly 6:25 he would stop opposite the Greenwich Library. Cutter Malone would be waiting for him and would step into the car. They would park at the Pickwick
Arms Hotel and go into the bar, where they would order a drink and ask the bartender please to hurry, as they needed to catch the 7:05 express for New York.

When Danny got home he told Caroline he had had a most enticing offer and had agreed to meet with a French hotelier. “I’ll be flying to Paris tomorrow, then maybe Geneva, Nice, Zurich, Lyons—depending on how it goes. I’ll be checking on one, or more than one, of the chains.”

Caroline asked him if a week’s supply of clothes would be enough.

Danny nodded. “If I have to stay over, I’ll have my stuff washed. Yes, three suits should be plenty. Thanks, Caroline. I’ll go say goodbye to the kids.”

W
HEN HENRY RETURNED to
Time
from the Columbia School of Journalism, he was grateful to learn from Richard Clurman that he was not being reassigned to Saigon. “I think you had enough of Vietnam. Besides, I gather that if Barbara went there she’d root for Ho Chi Minh.”

“That’s a little exaggerated.” Henry had got used to being teased about his wife’s expressive political sympathies and thought maybe he should do something about the exaggerations before they calcified. “Barbara’s gradually pulling out of that whole scene. She still thinks we shouldn’t be in Vietnam. But she doesn’t pipe up anymore to defend what the Vietcong does, though she defends what they want—”

“Yeah, independence. Like the North Vietnamese have independence.
Never mind”—Clurman didn’t allow such matters to get in the way of business at hand—“we’re going to leave you here in New York. Meanwhile, we have an immediate assignment.” Clurman lifted a cable from Stockholm.

“The Nobel committee, our book people think, is going to give the prize to Georges Simenon. Otto’s pleased as punch because nobody can be more fun to write about than Simenon. He boasts—did you know this about the great novelist?—of having had ten thousand different women.”

“Ten thousand? I remember reading about him that in one year, back in the thirties I think it was, he managed to write forty-four novels in one calendar year. It’s hard to figure out how he had time to log in his yearly ration of women—he’s how old?”

“Sixty-something. Born 1903.”

“How can you have that many women and write that many books? Hell, forget the books. How can you have that many women and—read the morning paper? We doing a cover?”

“It’ll be a cover if he gets the Nobel. We’ll write it as a cover. If Nobel passes him by, we’ll run big inside. For your information, Georges Simenon is at this moment the world’s single best-selling author.”

“I am impressed. Where do I go?”

“Cannes. He rents a big place there. He knows English but doesn’t like to give interviews in English, so your French is critical.” Clurman was reading from the bio attached to the cable. “He lived in Connecticut for five years—hey, aren’t you from Lakeville, Connecticut?”

“Yup.”

“Well, Simenon lived there for five years in the fifties, it says here. His son, Marc, went to Hotchkiss. Kicked out.”

“Why? Procuring for the old man?”

“Doesn’t say. Anyway, he’s agreed to cooperate. He doesn’t much mind the idea of being on the cover of
Time.
Don’t tell him he won’t be if he misses out in Stockholm. Just the usual, you know—‘It’s-not-my-decision.…’ ”

•    •    •    •

Henry was surprised on reaching the Pan American counter to see Danny standing in line.

“Danny! Paris?”

“Yes.”

It was clear that Danny was less than overjoyed at the prospect of seven hours on a 707 seated next to his brother-in-law. “You too going to Paris? Traveling first class?”

“No,” Henry said. “The stockholders of Time Inc. don’t think first class is absolutely necessary for first-class work from their reporters. I suppose you
are
first?”

“What else?” Danny said, ostentatiously adjusting his tie and looking up in the general direction of the balconies. “I’ll cross the tracks somewhere along the line and have a drink with you. Now I got to get to the newsstand. Want anything?”

Henry shook his head. “I’ve got ten novels by Georges Simenon to read. That’s a week’s work for Simenon, twice that for me.”

Several hours later, Danny moved back to the tourist section. His face was flushed, his words a little garbled. He told Henry he’d be moving about a bit, Paris, Geneva, Nice—where would Henry be quartered? And for how long?

Henry gave him the name of the hotel at Cannes.

“Ah, Cannes/Nice. Reminds me of juvenile delinquency, that part of the world. As a matter of fact I’ll probably be going to Nice. There’s a succulent hotel there. And other succulent things. When I’m there, in Nice, I always stay at the Hotel Negresco, you know, next to the Casino Royale. You remember it?”

“Yes,” Henry said as Danny took down the name of the hotel in next-door Cannes where Henry would be staying. Danny promised to call in if he got to that part of the world during the next few days.

Henry stayed overnight at the Sofitel Hotel near the Paris airport and took the flight to Nice the next day. He checked into his hotel and was given the telegram: “
CALL IMMEDIATELY, NEVER MIND HOUR. URGENT. LOVE BARBARA
.”

He walked quickly to his room and went to the telephone. It was four in the morning in New York.

“Listen, Henny. Goddamnedest thing. This morning—yesterday morning—about the time you took off from JFK, the people at the Poughkeepsie Inn in Poughkeepsie found a corpse—a
corpse
—yes. His name was Max Huxley. He was shot. Shot in the stomach and shot in the head. No apparent motive, the police say. His wallet was untouched.

“Now listen, Henny, I spent
hours
with Max Huxley right up until yesterday.”

“You did?”

“Yes. A really nice guy, lovely guy, a scholar who digs like a good reporter and who has bright and funny ideas—serious, a little bit of romance there, he liked to sit at FDR’s desk—”

“You knew him all that well?”

“Henny darling, I
leaned
on him the moment I got here, four days ago. He went out of his way to help me in every way. Day before yesterday, we had a joint session with Lila. Henny, I got
close
to Max.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“He was a graduate student, doing a dissertation on Hyde Park. Two days ago he told me he had got hold of an interesting wrinkle … involving a hundred million dollars. A hot lead. You ever hear of the Hyde Park Capital Fund?”

“Isn’t that where Martino left the money? For the Library?”

“It’s where he left the money, yeah. Only the Hyde Park Capital Fund was owned seventy-five percent by—Danny. Daniel Tracey O’Hara. Max couldn’t figure out why the stock passed over after Martino’s death to the Hyde Park Capital Fund and then, after two years, suddenly was transferred to the Hyde Park Fund. So
for two years
Danny and his partner, Cutter Malone, who was the principal accountant for the Trafalgar chain, sopped up all the profits of the corporation. Did you know anything about that?”

No, Henry said. He knew nothing about the other Hyde Park fund.

“My point is, Henny, there
was
a motive for killing Max. He was onto a hot story.”

“Barbara. You’re not suggesting Danny—or the Malone guy—went to Poughkeepsie to bump off a graduate student?”

“No. All I’m saying is, there
was
a motive. So my question is: Do I go to the police with what I’ve just told you?”

“God, that’s a hell of a question. Funny …”

“What’s funny?”

“Danny was with me on the plane yesterday. Prospecting for hotel business. On the other business—your business—I don’t think it’s right for us to throw out a lead so obviously crazy that implicates my brother-in-law.”

“Darling?
Darling Henny.
In this situation I am not ‘us.’ I’m me. A reporter for the
New York Times.
There is a murder. The victim, a good person, was working side by side with me for the better part of three days. He was onto something he thought might be—might still be—a life-sized scandal. Forget you’re my husband, forget Danny’s your brother-in-law, the best man at our wedding. You are Professor Chafee and I’m Barbara Horowitz, a student at Columbia School of Journalism, and I give you this situation.
What do I do, Professor?
”

Henry breathed deeply, thought quickly and said, “Yes, you’re right. But listen. To the extent you can, Barbara, be ‘Miss
New York Times
’ in your dealing with the police—not a friend of the victim-friend of the family.”

“That will be easy. Remember my name, darling; I’m Barbara Horowitz, not Mrs. Henry Chafee.”

“I don’t know what time I’ll get back from seeing Simenon. Whatever time it is, I’ll call you. Will you be at the
Times
or back in Hyde Park?”

“I’ll be wherever the police tell me to be, is my guess. Call person-to-person for me at the Library. And don’t go through Lila. Goodbye, darling. Say hello to de Gaulle. Congratulate him for getting out of Algeria.”

The villa where Simenon lived and wrote was larger even than Somerset Maugham’s, only a few miles away, about which Henry
had written four years previously. Looking at the imposing villa, a reconstruction of a nineteenth-century château, Henry estimated from the driveway that there might be as many as fifteen or more bedrooms there. Enough for a moderate man’s purposes.

But then it was a complex household. One story about Simenon, one of the many Henry had perused in the past few days, published in
The New Yorker
, described the great author’s entourage at one point in the fifties. Henry had copied out, possibly to quote in his own story, the passage exactly: “
The ménage consisted of the Master; his first wife; his soon-to-be second wife; Boule, the faithful maid-companion-mistress who has lived with him for twenty years, and two children by the two wives.
”

Henry had decided there wouldn’t be any point in attempting to probe Simenon on family matters; no reporter had ever succeeded in getting Georges Simenon to talk about any aspect of his home life with the single exception of his mother, for whom he would take any opportunity to reiterate his loathing. His mother had wanted him to be a pastry cook and was terribly disappointed when, at age twenty-one, he went instead into writing. Almost there and then, it seemed, Simenon published not one dozen, but several dozen novels, all of them successful, gradually becoming the toast of the international literary set with his Inspector Maigret series. Simenon liked to talk about his books. Henry had been especially struck by one published interview. Simenon was asked how had he thought up such an extraordinary array of criminal situations around which to center his sixty-five Maigret books, to which Simenon had answered: “I have no imagination of my own. Everything I write is based on something that happened somewhere.”

He found Simenon in an agreeably talkative mood. The butler had led Henry into a wing of the palatial villa. The study was, as one would expect, book-lined. On one side of the desk reposed the famous typewriter—for the first decade or two, Simenon had written everything by hand. Now his typewriter was greatly fancied and admired by the legion of journalists and writers who
interviewed him. Uniformly they stared at it, wondering what was its talismanic secret.

Henry noted that notwithstanding that he sat in what amounted to a literary factory, there was no disorder. Well, perhaps that was why: In factories there can’t be disorder, or the flow of … sausages is interrupted. He knew, had read all about, Simenon’s famous working habits: up at six in the morning, six hours of uninterrupted writing, an hour or two in the afternoon to survey yesterday’s work or even to attack an entirely different book. Or short story. Or movie script. Or play. Simenon writing fiction was an undisturbable phenomenon, like the rising sun. No one who himself wrote—no one like Henry—could begin to understand how it was done. But all were curious about the physical arrangements of Simenon’s workshop. He was neat.