Murder in High Places

by Hugh Pentecost

  ''He suggested we have some kind of rotten apple in our barrel?" Jerry asked.

  ''It could be, though I doubt it," Chambrun said. "Welch suggested to Mark and me that the man he's investigating had ties with the Middle Eastern world. Now you know, Jerry, that in the last ten years we've had literally hundreds of diplomats from the Arab world, from Israel, from Egypt occupying Penthouse Three. Every one of them would know exactly how our routine works, know the names of the car operators, everything they need to know. It doesn't have to be our rotten apple."

  "But we have to make sure."

  "And risk Ruysdale's safety by having him warned that we are doing something?" Chambrun put out his second cigarette, not half smoked. "This fellow knows at least as much as we know about Welch's plans. A number of important people will come to see him and to examine the evidence he has in that briefcase, which will incriminate someone in a 'high place' in our gov-emm«it. I gather that one of the experts Welch expects is not known to him personally. That man will be intercepted on his way here, and someone will take his place, take over his ID. When that someone gets to Welch he will examine the evidence and if he finds it's incriminating, he will take it, or destroy it, or—if it consists only of duplicates and photostats—force Welch to tell him where the real evidence is hidden. Ten to one, Welch will wind up dead and the murderer will walk out of the hotel without anyone paying the slightest attention to him."

  "And if you warn Welch, Ruysdale will wind up in the morgue!" Jerry said. His dark eyes were blazing with anger.

  "That appears to be the scenario," Chambrun said. "K Welch suddenly gets the wind up for some reason and decides to leave the Beaumont, I am to do everything I can do to persuade him that he is safe here and that it would be unwise for him to go somewhere else. If I fail—Ruysdale will pay for that failure."

  "And so what do we do?" Jerry asked.

  "Nothing," Chambrun said.

  "Oh, brother!"

  "Until I think of something," Chambrun said.

  The man in Penthouse 3 was a sitting duck unless Chambrun chose to sacrifice Betsy Ruysdale to save him. The choice for him was intolerable. Betsy Ruysdale was precious to him, perhaps even more precious than I really knew; and his hotel, his life, his pride, his world, was to be used as a death trap for a man sent to Chambrun for protection by a friend who had once saved his life. Let me say here, parenthetically, that if the threatened man had been the third assistant dishwasher, the choice would have been just as unthinkable to Chambrun. He is a man who, unHke a great part of our so-called civilized society, puts a real value on human life.

  Jerry Dodd went off to spread a lie among the people on the hotel staff. Ruysdale had been in touch, was okay, would be gone for a few days. I heard later that Eddie, the bartender in the Trapeze, when he heard the news, announced that the next round of drinks were ''on the house."

  I stayed with Chambrun in Penthouse 1 in case he thought of something and I could help. He was thinking of Ruysdale.

  ''She is very important to me, Mark," he said, as if I didn't know. "If anything happens to her, I will hunt down the man responsible and kill him, very slowly, very painfully."

  "I know."

  He gave me an odd look. "You know that's a dime-novel hero speaking and not an old gentleman who runs a sophisticated 1980s hotel."

  ''Not SO old." I said. I don't really know how old he is.

  "I was shooting down Nazi butchers in the back alleys of Paris forty years ago/' he said. ''I could have done it then without thinking twice. I was a brash idiot then, which was why I got in so much trouble I needed help. I got it—from Claude Perrault. I owe him. If I didn't, I'd have told Larry Welch to take his troubles to the Plaza or the Waldorf Astoria when he came here this morning."

  'Terrault probably knows who it is Welch has been investigating," I said. ''Would it help to know who that is?"

  For the first time that day he managed a frozen smile. "Bless you, Mark," he said. He went to his desk, took a small notebook out of one of the drawers, picked up the phone, and asked for Ora Veach, the chief operator on the switchboard. "I want to make a person-to-person call to Paris, France, Miss Veach, Mr. Claude Perrault." He gave her a number.

  Ten minutes later the phone rang. From the look on his face I saw he was disappointed. "You say Madame Perrault is on the wire, Miss Veach? I'll talk to her." He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "Claude is not there, but his wife—" Then: "Jeanette! C*est Pierre icW There followed a stream of conversation in French, not a word of which I understood. Eventually he put down the phone and sat stin for a moment. "Claude is out of Paris. Business, his wife tells me. He'll be gone for several days and she doesn't know how to reach him."

  "That's rather odd for an old gentleman your age, isn't it?" I said.

  He gave me a sour look. '*Not for Claude. He works for the Surete, the department of criminal investigation. He could be following up something for them in South America, for all she knows. When he gets in touch she will tell him I need to talk."

  "Madame Perrault couldn't answer your question?"

  ''She has met Welch, but she had no idea what he is involved in. Claude, she says, never tells her anything that could place her in danger, and she doesn't ask! Claude could be back tonight, tomorrow, next week. She has no idea. *I will be gone for a few days, cherie' And that could be anything from an hour to a month, she says."

  ''Well, it was a good idea," I said.

  "If Claude gets back in time," he said. He was at the French windows again, looking out across the roof, past Mrs. Haven and her tulips and her Japanese friend, to Penthouse 3.1 thought I knew what he was thinking.

  "Can't you tell Larry Welch what's happened, warn him?" I asked, after a moment.

  Chambrun spun around. "What else do you think I'm trying to figure out?" he asked in that flat, cold voice. ''I warn him, he's concerned only for his own hide, and he takes off. Curtains for Ruysdale."

  "'Would he run if he knew what's at stake?"

  ''What would you do?" Chambrun said. ''What would I do if I was in his shoes? He said there was dynamite in that briefcase, the makings of World War Three. If there's any truth in that, if it isn't just big talk from a swollen-headed journalist, what does he have to consider? Does he stay put, make himself a target so that he can save one life—Ruysdale's—or does he find a safer place and save perhaps thousands ofUves?"

  "You could protect him and his evidence," I said.

  "Then I would be sentencing Ruysdale to death," he said. "If that sonofabitch on the telephone knows what he says, he knows about our routines. If someone is sitting right here in the hotel watching, I couldn't add one guard to rooftop security without passing sentence on Ruysdale. I can't do it invisibly." He seemed to freeze. "Or can I?" he said very softly.

  I suppose any man who finds himself in big trouble begins searching, subconsciously perhaps, in his mind for where he can get help. Chambrun had more sources than the average man. To begin with, he had a highly efficient and professional security force headed by Jerry Dodd. He couldn't use them if he believed in the threat made by Ruysdale's abductors. He had friends among some of the most influential and important men in the country. He couldn't turn to one of them in case, by some freak of chance, he might 1 talking to someone involved in Larry Welch's inve tigation. But there was, apparently, someone he wj thinking of as a possible source of help.

  "Mark, you remember John Jericho, the artist?" h asked me.

  "Big guy, red beard, looks like he could take on tb Pittsburgh Steelers single-handed? He drops into tb Trapeze now and then."

  "He has also been painting pictures of terrorisn from one end of the earth to the other," Chambrui said. ''He's been sending a message to the rest of the world for some time. Unfortunately no one seems tc pay attention. He has a studio in Jefferson Mews down in the Village. I don't have a phone number for him and I hope to God he isn't unlisted. I want you to look him up, go to a public phone, and call him."

  ''Yo
u don't trust the switchboard?"

  "At the moment I don't trust anyone," Chambrun said, "except you and Jerry Dodd, and I'm about to trust Jericho." He turned toward the French windows. "And one other person. How to stay invisible in one easy lesson."

  "What do I tell Jericho if I reach him?"

  "Tell him I asked you to call. Tell him I said, 'Now is the time for all good men...'"

  "All good men to what?"

  "Just that. 'Now is the time for all good men...' Tell him I'll meet him in the Trapeze whenever he says—but it has got to appear casual, accidental. He mustn't ask for me."

  I called Jericho from a public phone booth in the )bby. He was listed. He answered in that deep, hearty oice that went with his size. He remembered me, ounded as if he was really glad to hear from me. I told lim I was calling for Chambrun.

  "He wants you to meet him in the Trapeze Bar as oon as it's convenient for you," I told him.

  ''This isn't a good day for me to take time off," he >aid.

  'Chambrun said to tell you 'Now is the time for all good men...'"

  Jericho's voice seemed to change. "Tell him I'll be there within an hour," he said.

  "It's to be casual, as though your meeting was accidental," I said.

  He laughed, "Tell him I'll be at the bar getting privately sozzled," he said.

  I had no idea what Chambrun had in mind. I didn't trust the house phone, so I went back up to his penthouse in the roof car. When I got there he was sitting on his terrace with Victoria Haven. Toto let me know I wasn't welcome.

  "In about an hour," I said to Chambrun.

  "Did Pierre tell you I'm about to become famous?" Mrs. Haven asked me.

  "Too late," I said. "You're already famous, or at least infamous."

  "'I adore flattery," Mrs. Haven said.

  "Mark, I'd appreciate it if you'd circulate in the lobby," Chambrun said. "Keep an eye on the roof car. If anyone heads up for Larry Welch, don't tell me on the house phone. Just say you've done what I asked you to do."

  I took off. On the way down I asked Dick Berger if there'd been any visitors for Penthouse 3.

  '*Not so far," Dick told me. "That guy's a writer, isn't he? I read an article on him in Atlantic on the kidnapping of that American general in Italy some time back. He knew his stuff about that."

  "Pretty high-class hotel where the elevator operators reads Xh^ Atlantic,'' I said.

  "I get my sex life somewhere else," Dick said.

  Which reminds me that I have said in some other account of doings at the Beaumont that I have a weakness. I fall in love forever about once every three months. That day I was in love forever for the second week with Hilda Harding, a gorgeous blond singer who was doing a stretch in the Beaumont's nightclub, the Blue Lagoon. I have told myself once or twice that I'm not sure whether it's Hilda or her music I'm in love with. I loathe modem rock. It's about as soothing and attractive to me as a buzz saw outside my window when I'm trying to sleep. Hilda sings old-time standards by Youmans, and Kern, and Berlin, and Rogers and Hammerstein, and Cole Porter, and other greats of the past. Her accompanist, a young guy named Billy Chard, makes magic on the piano, softly, while Hilda creates an equal magic with the old, fa-mihar lyrics. And she is so damned beautiful to look at, standing by the piano. She has the musical skills of Lena Horne, and a body that God must have created in a very good mood. She has an army of followers who don't want to let her out of sight and I didn't dream that first night I heard her that anything would come of my offer to buy her a drink. I got luckier than I could have hoped. She had breakfast with me the next morning in my apartment on the second floor! I was hooked forever—for at least a few months!

  Just as I stepped off the roof car at the lobby level I heard Hilda call out my name.

  "'Mark! You low-down, no-good—" And she was very close to me, gripping the lapels of my jacket. It took courage to resist bending down and kissing her on that lovely mouth in front of a group of gawking Hilda Harding fans plus the usual after-lunch traffic. People hate to go back to work after lunch at the Beaumont. They dawdle awhile before they reluctantly head back for the office. Watching a sort of celebrity like Hilda in action was an excuse for procrastination.

  What passed between Hilda and me was personal, intimate, and yet she managed to put on a performance for the rubberneckers. The tips of her fingers touched my jacket, even my cheek. There was an arch, almost flirtatious tilt to her head as she looked up at me. Her quite audible laughter was musical. Just looking at her, I felt stirrings that were not for two-thirty in the afternoon—not on this day, at any rate.

  "Have you forgotten that we had a date for luncheon at one o'clock?" Hilda demanded, mock reproach in her voice.

  "Oh, brother!" I said.

  "Sister' please," she said. ''Not that I feel very sisterly toward you, man."

  'Tm so damn sorry," I said. **A crisis of sorts. When my boss says 'fetch,' I fetch."

  "You could have called my room, or your room," she said. I knew, and I guess the maid on my floor knew, that there was an enticing black lace neghgee hanging in my closet. Forever, yet!

  ''You can make up for it by buying me an ice coffee in the Trapeze while you have a drink," she said. "Fm due for a rehearsal with Billy Chard in about forty-five minutes. We're putting some new numbers in the act for tonight's show." She slipped her arm through mine. "You have that much time to grovel, my friend."

  I couldn't say no. It's even possible I didn't remember that I was supposed to be watching the traffic to and from the roof car. We walked past the gawkers and up the short flight of stairs to the mezzanine and into the Trapeze Bar.

  The Trapeze had thinned out after the lunch crush. It's an attractive room. Some artist of the Calder school had decorated it with little mobiles of circus acrobats on trapezes. A faint stirring of air from the air conditioning kept them in constant, gentle motion.

  "An ice coffee and a white wine and soda with a twist of lemon," I told Eddie, the bartender, as we aimed for a corner table.

  ''I caught your show last night. Miss Harding," Eddie said. ''You are the greatest!"

  ''Thank you, sir," she said, and gave him a mock bow.

  We settled at the comer table. Her hand reached out under the red-checked tablecloth and covered mine.

  "Tell me what your boss told you to fetch," she said. "It must have been something exciting if you can have forgotten all about me. Or have I lost my appeal?"

  "You know the story about Adlai Stevenson," I said. "Someone asked him if he didn't think the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale was a modem Saint Paul. Stevenson is supposed to have said, 'I find Peale appalling, and Paul appealing."

  "Jokes will get you no place, man," Hilda said.

  "Darling, I'm really so sorry," I told her. "Some routines went wrong and I had to check them out. Time went by and I just didn't realize how late it had gotten." The tmth was I'd forgotten entirely about the lunch date, with kidnapping and potential murder on my mind. I couldn't tell her that. "When one thing goes wrong in a complex operation like this hotel it's hke the domino theory—a dozen other things go wrong. You have to check where the malfunction is, and in a hurry."

  She gave my hand a little squeeze. **A11 right, my love, you are forgiven," she said. '*If anything was going to interfere with my making a stage performance on time, I wouldn't remember a lovely lunch date either. I guess everyone's job or profession comes ahead of anything else." Then: *'Oh, my!" It was a little cry of amazement. ''Do you know what that is?"

  I turned to look where she was looking and saw a giant of a man with a bright red beard making for the bar. It was Jericho. He'd done somewhat better than an hour in getting here.

  ''He's John Jericho, an artist," I said.

  "You know him?"

  "He's a fairly regular customer. I know him in that way," I said.

  At that moment, having ordered his drink, Jericho turned to survey the room, saw me, and waved.

  "Fve got to meet him!" Hilda said. "He was
in my audience one night when I was filling an engagement in Cairo. Have you seen his paintings?"

  "Chambrun has one, but he hasn't found a place to hang it," I said. "It's a picture of an Israeli school bus, bombed by terrorists, children blown to pieces, shop windows blown out in the background, a man with his head lying a few yards away. It's not something you want to look at for breakfast—or lunch or dinner for that matter."

  "He's marvelous!" Hilda said. *'I saw a one-man show of his in Paris. He shows people what's going on in this miserable world. They ought to pass a law that his paintings be hung in every school. Kids would learn what they would have to grow up to stop. I want to meet him, Mark."

  Jericho saved me any embarrassment. He came toward our table, carrying a drink. He is, I'd guess, about six feet four and two hundred and forty pounds of suntanned, well-disciplined muscle. He moves with the grace of a dancer. Quite a sight.

  "Like some Viking warrior," Hilda said in an awed voice.

  Jericho reached us. "Hi, Mark," he said, but he was looking at Hilda, smiling.

  I stood up. "This young lady is anxious to meet you," I said. "Hilda Harding, the singer, John Jericho, the painter."

  "I don't bdieve it," Jericho said.

  "You heard me sing in Cairo, Mr. Jericho," Hilda said. "Don't you recognize me?"

  He shrugged his huge shoulders. "Stage makeup, lights," he said.

  "Fm not as pretty as you remember?"

  His smile widened. "Prettier," he said. "Now, if you'd sing me a bar or two of 'I Get a Kick Out of You'..."