Walking Dead Man

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Battle’s trying to make it up to you,” Jerry suggested. “What he helped do to your father back there.”

  Cleaves’ laugh was bitter. “He never tried to make anything up to anyone in his whole life. Nobody in the whole world matters to him except himself. Incidentally, I’ve never been able to get close to him except with an army of people around him. His villa in France is like a fortress. He never travels in any public way. I’ve never had him in the sights of a gun. If I had, I’d have had no trouble squeezing the trigger.”

  “Because he helped finance the Resistance that killed your father,” I said.

  “It was a cause with Chambrun,” Cleaves said. “With Battle it was a means for acquiring money and power. He placed his bets on the right horse—the Resistance.” He shook his head slowly. “He wouldn’t bother to try to make something up to me. He may be afraid of catching a heavy cold, but he’s not afraid of me. There’s something about my book, as a property, that concerns him. The hell of it is I wrote it, I invented it, and I don’t have the vaguest notion what it can be.”

  “Interesting parlor game,” Jerry, said, “but I’m looking for a missing man.” He started for the door again.

  “Ask Battle,” Cleaves said. “It’s a hundred-to-one he can tell you exactly where Chambrun is. He knows everything that goes on in this godforsaken world.”

  Two

  “WHEN YOU HATE SOMEONE, you can really build him into a monster,” Jerry said, as we walked along the corridor toward the elevators.

  I was thinking that the story I’d had from Potter went right along with what we’d heard from Cleaves. “Nothing you know about Battle or you hear about him, true or false, makes him very much like anyone you’ve heard about before,” I said.

  “Just remember something, Buster,” Jerry said, giving me an angry look. “Battle is the boss’s friend; he’s the boss’s boss. He can have two heads for all I care. Chambrun wants him safe and that’s the way we’re going to keep him.”

  From a house phone near the elevators Jerry checked with his people. No sign of Chambrun, alive or dead. No leads. Nobody had seen anything.

  “Let’s see how Hardy is doing,” Jerry said.

  Getting from the twenty-fourth floor to the roof was like trying to break into Fort Knox. The horse was gone, so to speak, but the cops really had the stable locked now. Finally word came down from Hardy that we were permitted to come up to the penthouse.

  The law was still stalled up there. Apparently no one had gotten to the bedroom yet, where they hoped to find fingerprints, to dig the bullet out of the headboard so it could be submitted to ballistics, to question the sleeping George Battle. Dr. Cobb had, so far, held the fort, it seemed. He was sitting on the couch in the living room, looking exhausted. A cigarette dangled between his flabby lips, and a little drool of saliva ran out of one corner of his mouth.

  A dark, intense young man in a nicely tailored blue suit was not letting the doctor relax. I guessed this was Kranepool, the assistant D.A.

  “There has to be something you can give him that will bring him to, Doctor,” he was saying as we came in. “We can’t stall any longer. Either he can be waked, or he’s so far gone we can work around him,”

  The doctor shook his head, mechanically, from side to side. Cigarette ash dribbled down the front of his dressing gown.’

  Kranepool was diverted by our arrival. “Anything?” he asked Jerry.

  “Not yet.”

  “You able to trace the call that was supposed to have come from me?”

  “Only that it was made on an outside phone.”

  “What do you mean? Outside the hotel?”

  “No. Just not a phone that connects directly with the switchboard; not a room phone, not a house phone. There are fifty pay phones scattered around the hotel. Most of the co-ops, like this, have their own lines in addition to a house phone.” He gestured. “That phone on the end table is an outside line. The one on the sideboard is a house phone.”

  “What are you doing to find Chambrun?” Kranepool asked.

  “Looking,” Jerry said, and turned away. I had a feeling he didn’t like bright young men in authority at that moment. “Where’s Lieutenant Hardy?”

  “Guest bedroom,” Kranepool said. “He’s questioning the help.” He turned back to Dr. Cobb. “Now, for the last time, Doctor—”

  Jerry and I went down the hall to the guest room. Hardy was not questioning “the help,” not now, at any rate. He was standing by the far window looking down at the lights on the East River. A young uniformed cop was sitting in front of a stenotype machine waiting for whatever was to come next.

  Hardy turned to us. He looked tired. “Nothing, I take it.”

  “That’s how it is,” Jerry said.

  “I understand there’s some coffee in the kitchen, Molloy,” Hardy said to the cop; “Get yourself some. I’ll call you when I need you.”

  “Bring you some, Lieutenant?”

  “No, thanks. You guys?”

  We didn’t want coffee. The young patrolman took off.

  “You’re searching the hotel?” Hardy asked.

  “Yes. It’s long, slow job unless we get lucky. And if we don’t find him in some public place, then we’re going to have to start waking up about seven hundred guests!”

  “Chambrun wouldn’t like that,” Hardy said.

  “Unfortunately he isn’t here to object,” Jerry said. “You have any luck with Battle’s people?”

  “It wouldn’t seem so—on the surface,” Hardy said. “Dr. Cobb was here in this room when the shot was fired. Battle went to bed early, as you know. Nine o’clock. Cobb came in here to snatch forty winks and get himself some oxygen.”

  “Oxygen?” I asked.

  “Emphysema,” Hardy said. He pointed to a brass cylinder that stood on the floor by the head of the bed. “He was pooped out from the trip and all the nonsense that went with it. He was breathing deeply when the shot was fired.”

  “He says,” Jerry said.

  Hardy nodded. “He says. He says he scrambled off the bed. That suggests speed, but with him I would think not. He got out into the hallway just in time to see Butler, the bodyguard, come running out of the bathroom waving his gun. He thought for a moment Butler had done the shooting. He waddled into Battle’s room and found him sitting up in bed, covers pulled up around him, in a state of shock. So much for Dr. Cobb.”

  “And the others?”

  “Gaston, the chef, was in the kitchen preparing a casserole of white fish in wine, Mr. Battle’s favorite breakfast dish. He heard the shot. He didn’t move at once because he thought it had come from somewhere out on the roof. Then he heard Butler shouting and he went along the hall to the bedroom. Allerton, the manservant, had taken the opportunity for a bath. He was soaking in a hot tub when he heard the shot. It took him a minute or two to get out, get dry, and into his bathrobe. He found everybody in the bedroom when he got there.”

  “None of them saw anyone in a stocking mask?”

  “Gone,” Hardy said. “Of course the key one is Butler, the bodyguard. He was sitting right outside the door of Battle’s room, gun in his lap. I tried to get him to admit he’d fallen asleep. No dice. It would be better for him if he’d admit it, you understand. How did Stocking Face get past him if he was awake?”

  “Easy,” Jerry said. “It could have been Allerton, or the chef, or Dr. Cobb coming from this end. They could go into the bathroom without passing Butler.”

  “Ten feet away with Butler having an unobstructed view? If Butler was awake, no one could have gotten into that room—except Butler.”

  “So it was Butler,” Jerry said.

  “Okay, then why isn’t he taking the obvious out?” Hardy asked. “He should be saying: ‘I goofed. It had been a long day. I fell asleep.’ Instead he keeps insisting that he was awake and that no one could have gotten in the room without his seeing. I have to remind you that the windows are out. They’re flush to the side of the building, barred,
a big drop if the bars were faulty. Take a human fly.”

  “So none of it happened,” Jerry said dryly.

  “I haven’t seen the bullet,” Hardy said. “We’ve been kept out of the room since we got here.”

  “But I saw the bullet before you were called,” Jerry said. “It’s there in the headboard. Naturally I left it for you to dig out.”

  “So it happened. So why doesn’t Butler lie himself out of trouble instead of into it?”

  “From what I’ve been hearing tonight, everything in this world is upside-down,” I said.

  Hardy looked at me. “What have you been hearing?”

  “That nothing in Battle’s world is ever what it seems to be,” I said.

  “Richard Cleaves?”

  “Richard Cleaves and Peter Potter, who worked for Battle some time ago. What seems to be happening isn’t happening.”

  “Potter hate him, too?” Hardy asked.

  I nodded.

  Hardy sighed and stood up. “I guess I won’t stand for any more delay,” he said. “I’m going into that bedroom.”

  We followed him back to the living room. Kranepool was on the phone to his office. Dr. Cobb had leaned his head against the back of the couch. His bluish eyelids were closed. Hardy walked over to him. He touched the doctor’s foot with his foot. The old man’s eyes flew open.

  “Oh, it’s you, Lieutenant,” he wheezed. He fumbled in the pocket of his robe for a cigarette.

  “I’m going in, Doctor,” Hardy said. “Want to stand by in case he comes to?”

  “I have to protest,” Cobb said. He struggled with his lighten and finally got his cigarette going.

  “You go right ahead and protest, Doctor. You want to do it in writing, that would be fine with me. Keep you out of my hair.” Hardy gestured to two plainclothes men who had been waiting in the corner of the room with cameras and other equipment He started for the door to the bedroom.

  That door opened before he reached it. George Battle, wearing a silk blue-and-white polka dot robe, stood there. I was surprised again by the extraordinary brightness of his blue eyes, the curious wreckage of what must have once been real male beauty. The eyes fastened on me.

  “Where is Pierre?” he asked.

  Behind me I heard Dr. Cobb whisper, “Christ, I gave him enough to knock him out for twelve hours!”

  “Where’s Allerton? I’d like some hot tea,” Battle said.

  He looked, I thought, like the disintegrated portrait of Dorian Grey. What had once been beauty of facial structure had become a kind of obscene caricature of what must have been a youthful elegance.

  Allerton appeared from the kitchen as though he’d had some kind of advance notice, carrying a tray. On it was a teapot and two cups. He put the tray down on a side table and proceeded to pour tea into both cups. Battle’s unnaturally bright eyes were fixed on him. Allerton picked up one of the cups and sipped from it. The king’s taster! A sip evidently wasn’t enough. Allerton looked apologetically at his employer and blew on the tea. Finally he was able to drink it. Only then did Battle step forward and pick up the second cup. His skin, very tight around his temples, seemed to glisten in the lamplight. He looked at Hardy.

  “You are—?”

  “Lieutenant Hardy, Homicide, in charge of this case. I’ve been waiting to examine your room, Mr. Battle.”

  “So examine,” Battle said, and sat down at the opposite end of the couch from Dr. Cobb, who kept looking at him with disbelief.

  Hardy signaled to his technical crew and they all went into the bedroom. The bright blue eyes now shifted to Jerry Dodd and me.

  “Where is Pierre?” Battle asked.

  “He left when he understood the Doctor had put you to sleep” Jerry said.

  Battle gave the doctor a contemptuous little smile. “Cobb and his magical herbs!” he said. “Tell Pierre I want him back here. I don’t like the way things have been handled.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Jerry said;

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know where he is,” Jerry said. I saw that he was watching Battle closely. If there was anything to Cleaves’ theory—

  Kranepool joined us. “Somebody called Mr. Chambrun on the phone,” he said, “pretending to be me. Mr. Chambrun started up here but he hasn’t arrived. At the moment we don’t know where he went.”

  “Who are you?” Battle asked.

  “Lester Kranepool, assistant D.A., in charge.”

  “I thought that policeman was in charge,” Battle said.

  “For Homicide. I represent the District Attorney,” Kranepool said,

  “The usual inefficiency of a bureaucracy,” Battle said. “Two men in charge.” He pointed a long, thin finger at Kranepool. “You damn well better come up with results, young man. It’s a miracle I wasn’t killed here tonight. What are you doing to protect this penthouse now?”

  “No one can get in here without an okay from us,” Kranepool said.

  “That’s what they told me when I went to bed last night,” Battle said. “How did that masked creature get in here?”

  “We’re not sure yet.”

  Battle glanced at his platinum wrist watch. His mouth curled down. “You’ve had over four hours. Would you or would you not call that incompetence?”

  “We’ve been handicapped,” Kranepool said, fighting outrage, “by not being able to talk to you.”

  “Why didn’t you have Cobb wake me?”

  “He said you were drugged out,” Kranepool said.

  “Faithful old Cobb,” Battle said. He made it sound like an insult. “So your handicap is removed, Mr. Kranepool. Talk to me.”

  “I want a detailed account of everything that happened to you here tonight,” Kranepool said.

  Battle looked at him as if he smelled bad. “I told the whole thing to this man,” and he jerked his head toward Jerry, “and to Pierre.”

  “Tell it to me,” Kranepool said.

  “My, my, authority does go to our head, doesn’t it?” Battle said.

  “Look, Mr. Battle, I don’t give a damn how rich or important you are, I’m investigating a crime here. If you don’t choose to cooperate, I’ll have you taken downtown where you can think it over in a jail cell.”

  Battle actually smiled. “It would be almost worth while to let you try, Mr. Kranepool,” he said. He turned to Jerry. “What are you doing to find Pierre?”

  “What do you suggest, sir?” Jerry asked softly.

  “A woman?” Battle asked.

  “He was on his way here to help you,” Jerry said. “Do you think he could be willingly sidetracked?”’

  Battle appeared to consider the possibility. “I suppose not,” he said. “Not Pierre.”

  “Will you be good enough, Mr. Battle, to begin at the beginning,” Kranepool said, his voice unsteady with anger.

  “‘In the beginning was the word,’” Battle said. His paper-thin eyelids closed. “Shortly after nine o’clock I went to bed. I was exhausted. However, before I turned in, this man Dodd showed me exactly what precautions were being taken to protect me.”

  “You were expecting some sort of attack?” Kranepool asked.

  Battle opened his eyes. “My dear young man, for the last thirty years I have expected an attack to be made on me, day and night. You are aware that I keep an armed guard by my side, a doctor in case I should be wounded, a chef who prepares my meals, and a servant who tastes them before I do in case poison should be the method used. Do you think that’s some kind of a parlor game?”

  Kranepool restrained himself. “Dodd showed you what precautions had been taken,” he said.

  “He did. There were three hotel security men patrolling the roof outside. Dodd showed them to me. I saw them. There was an operator and a security man assigned to the elevator which comes to the roof. No one except the tenants of the other two penthouses could get up to this level.”

  “And no one did,” Kranepool said.

  “That is a reasonabl
y comic remark, Mr. Kranepool,” Battle said. “You should look at the bullet in the headboard of my bed. I don’t propose to go on with this if you insist on nonsensical comments.”

  Kranepool was pale with anger, but he hung in there. “You were shown the sentries and the two men on the elevator,” he said.

  “I was shown them,” Battle said, “but unfortunately I am not sufficiently psychic to have been aware of their inefficiency. Here, in this apartment, my man Butler was stationed outside my door. No one could come in without passing him. No one could come in by way of the bathroom, the door to which was in plain sight from where Butler was stationed.”

  “And he swears no one got past him or into the bathroom,” Kranepool said.

  “He is, of course, lying,” Battle said. “He fell asleep.”

  “He says he didn’t.”

  Battle smiled his feline smile. “Ask Dr. Cobb why he is lying.”

  Cobb cleared his throat, coughed, gasped for breath, and then said: “There are unpleasant punishments for inefficiency in this world,” he said. “To have been asleep at his post could have most disastrous consequences for Butler.”

  “So you went to bed,” Kranepool said.

  “I went to my room. Allerton helped me prepare for bed. I normally need some sort of medication—seconal or the like—to sleep for any length of time, but I was so thoroughly exhausted from the trip that I thought sleep would come without help. It was a very, very lucky decision on my part, because if I’d taken my sleeping pills, I would have been in the deepest part of my slumber when he came.”