Chambrun smiled. “George can be irresistible when he starts talking money,” he said. “I know.”
Cobb nodded, “And I was lazy, and I like good food and good drink.” His eyes wandered toward the sideboard. Chambrun gave me an almost imperceptible signal and I went over and poured the doctor a slug. I remembered his taste was bourbon.
“Bless you,” Cobb said when I made delivery. He took a long swig. I kept thinking this old guy was hurrying the undertaker. “I stayed on with George a week—two weeks.”
“And your practice?”
“It wasn’t large enough for me to be badly missed.” Cobb’s smile was bitter. “I was the one they called when all the other doctors were too busy, or when they didn’t have money to pay. Long before George was back on his feet, he asked me how I’d like a permanent job taking care of him. There’s nothing basically the matter with him, you understand. His heart is good, blood pressure good, he’s always afraid of getting sick, but he never does. Unlike most hypochondriacs, he doesn’t have imaginary symptoms. He just wants to be prepared ‘in case.’ So because I like luxury, I agreed to stay.”
“Yet you were ready to prescribe sleeping pills, sedatives and that sort of thing,” Chambrun said.
Cobb raised his eyes to look at the boss. “Are you suggesting that George used me as a means of supporting a narcotics habit?” he asked.
“Does he have such a habit?”
“No” Cobb finished his drink in a second long swallow. He put the glass down on the table beside his chair. “I long ago gave up trying to get him to sleep in any kind of decent stretches. Some people don’t need eight—ten hours of sleep. George is one. He works twenty hours a day, taking catnaps along the way. I had a feeling that someday he would crack up. I came to understand that constant work is what keeps him going. When he dies, it will be because he has nothing to do.”
“Or somebody blows him up with a greeting card,” Hardy said. “After twenty years, Doctor, you must know a good deal about his private life, his friends, women.”
“Women?” Cobb laughed, and choked again. “To George women are like a handsome decoration might be to you.” He glanced up at the blue period Picasso on the wall. “Like that painting. He’s had a string of very lovely girls acting as secretaries in my time. Not a homely one in the lot. But”—and he looked at me and grinned—“cheer up, Mr. Haskell. They are simply decorative, pleasant to look at. George’s enormous energies are not channeled into sex. As for friends, Lieutenant, I have never heard George refer to anyone as a friend except Mr. Chambrun. Friends require an expenditure of time, social time. George hasn’t any to give. Perhaps that’s why he thinks of you as a friend, Chambrun, because you don’t require anything from him, and because you live three thousand miles away.”
Chambrun’s face was masklike. “Maybe I have something on him,” he said. “Because that’s the way he operates, isn’t it, Doctor? The people he trusts are people he’s got something on. What does he have on you, Dr. Cobb?”
The doctor choked and struggled for breath. “I find that an offensive suggestion,” he said.
“I’m trying to save a man’s life, Doctor.”
“You know we have reason to wonder about the people close to him,” Hardy said.
The doctor was leaning forward, gasping for air. “At last Allerton is beyond suspicion,” he said. “And unless I get back to my oxygen supply, you may be able to write me off, too.” He struggled to his feet. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I’m afraid this is an emergency.”
We watched him totter out of the room. He certainly wasn’t faking being a very sick man.
When he had gone, Hardy stood up. “We don’t seem to get anywhere fast,” he said. “I’d better find out if Carlson’s got anything new.”
“Ask yourself a couple of questions on the way up,” Chambrun said, squinting through the haze of his cigarette smoke. “Ask yourself why, when Stocking Mask missed Battle with that first shot, he didn’t fire again? And ask yourself why, if the letter bomb was designed by people on the inside—Cobb, Butler, Allerton, or Gaston—the wrong person was allowed to open it?”
I didn’t have time to think much about Chambrun’s two questions. As Hardy was leaving, Miss Ruysdale came in to say that Shelda had just called and asked if I could meet her for a drink in the Trapeze Bar. I didn’t want to meet her in the Trapeze Bar, which would be crowded with people for the cocktail hour, but I went there anyway, wondering why she’d chosen this place for a get-together. There was my apartment and her room. I figured maybe she’d gotten herself tied up with the movie people and wasn’t alone.
She was alone. Mr. Del Greco had put her at a little corner table. The bar was full, as I’d anticipated. Half a dozen people waved a greeting at me as I made my way between tables to Shelda The moment I was within a yard or two of her, I knew something was wrong. Her face was chalk white. She was gripping the edge of the table, not touching the drink Del Greco had brought her. She looked up at me and I knew she’d been crying.
“Darling, what’s wrong?” I asked as I slipped into the chair opposite her.
“I—I guess the whole thing has been a little too much for me, Mark,” she said. “I k-keep feeling I’m responsible for what happened to Allerton.”
“That’s nonsense, Shelda.”
“I—I’m going home,” she said. “I haven’t seen my family for more than a year.”
“When?” I asked, feeling empty.
She glanced at her watch. “My plane leaves LaGuardia in about an hour and twenty minutes. So we haven’t much time.”
“Why tonight? Why not tomorrow? We haven’t had a moment together. There’s so much I want to talk about, Shelda.”
“I can’t stick it here any longer,” she said, not looking at me. “Mr. Battle was very nice about it. He told me to take as long with my folks as I want to.”
“That’s swell,” I said. “If you can get time off, you could spend it with me. Your parents can wait a few days. We have a couple of lives to decide about.”
“I’m sorry, Mark. I’ve wired my mother. I can’t disappoint her.”
I don’t know why, but I was suddenly certain she wasn’t telling me the truth. Whatever, it was tearing her to pieces. Her lips were quivering and she was fighting back tears.
“What is this really all about?” I asked her.
“Just what I said, Mark.” She was bright and brittle. “I feel like a child not being able to take it like the rest of you. Allerton’s been part of my daily life for a year. Maybe that’s the reason. He was such a sweet old character.”
“That’s not it, Shelda. What is it? You don’t have to cry over me if you’ve changed your mind. I gave up hoping a long time ago. I can survive one day’s reversion to type.”
“Please, Mark, it’s not that. Will you take me to a taxi?”
“I’ll go to the airport with you.”
“No!” She stood up so abruptly she managed to knock over her untouched drink.
“Whatever you say.” I was beginning to feel adolescent again.
We walked down to the lobby. Mike Maggio, the bell captain, saw us and came over carrying Shelda’s two bags. She was certainly going somewhere. Mike chattered about ‘good flying weather’ and a lot of other crap. He opened the door of a waiting taxi. Shelda started to get in, and then she turned back to me and was suddenly clinging to me. Her whole body was shaking as if she had a chill.
“Mark, please, please!” she whispered.
“What is it, baby?”
“Take care of yourself,” she said. “Please take care of yourself.”
And then she was in the cab and it was disappearing down Fifth Avenue, I don’t mind saying I felt bewildered.
I remember I went upstairs to the second floor to my own office after Shelda had split down the Avenue, headed for her parents’ home in Kansas. I had their address and phone number stashed away in my office and I thought I’d copy it down so that I could call her later—mu
ch later.
I hadn’t been at my desk since noon the day before. My secretary had gone home, but she had left a stack of mail for me and some notations about urgent phone calls. The chairman for a political dinner was screaming for an interview with Mr. Amato, our banquet manager. A famous couturier wanted to know when they could have a full dress rehearsal, with models, for an exhibition of his new line which was supposed to take place in the ballroom next week. The P.R. man for a famous Hollywood star wanted to buy me lunch and talk about his client who was due to check in at the Beaumont next Thursday. My secretary had handled what she could, but there were a dozen personal calls I should have answered. They’d all have to wait till tomorrow, I told myself.
I heard the outer door of my office open and close. I’d neglected to lock it when I came in, and I looked up to see Maxie Zorn, the movie tycoon, standing in the inner office door.
“Thank God there’s somebody alive in this place,” he said. “Can I come in?”
I waved him to a chair beside my desk.
“I can’t get in touch with anyone,” he said. “Switchboard won’t put me through to Battle. What in Christ’s world is going on around here, Haskell?”
“Murder and attempted murder,” I said. “The cops get awfully touchy about that, and Mr. Chambrun is even worse when it happens in his hotel.”
“Can you tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Someone sent Battle an exploding letter,” I said. “It got the valet by mistake. The cops and the hotel have Battle covered like a tent. That’s why you can’t get to him.”
“Do you have any idea what’s going on in my life?” Maxie asked. He sounded anguished.
“You’re waiting for seven million bucks to get close enough for you to grab,” I said. “It must be nerve-racking.”
“I’m going to lose a star if I don’t get answers quick.” Maxie said. “David Loring always has more offers than he can handle. He’s waited for a final answer from me about as long as he can and will. If I lose him, the whole thing falls apart. A picture with David in it makes money even if it’s lousy. Without him—!” He made a helpless gesture with nervous hands.
“About the best I can do is offer you a drink,” I said. I wondered if it would be a kindness to tell him that I knew Battle was just playing games with him in order to prevent Cleaves’ novel from being filmed.
“I don’t drink,” Maxie said. “Can you get a message to Battle for me?”
“I could try,” I said.
“It’s simple enough,” he said. “Let him know that if I don’t nave an answer by after breakfast tomorrow, we’ll lose David. And what about your girl friend? Is she going to play ball or not?”
“She’s on her way to Kansas,” I said.
“I don’t care where she is,” Maxie said. “We wouldn’t get to film her sequence for months. But will she do it?”
I felt sorry for him. “I don’t think she will, Maxie, and I don’t think Battle cares. He was just trying to do her a favor, and if she doesn’t want it, that isn’t going to stand in your way. What he wants, I gather, is control of the script.”
“Why?” Maxie wailed. “He’s not a writer! He mentioned this to me a while back and I thought Cleaves was going to have apoplexy. It’s no secret Cleaves hates Battle’s guts. Something about his father got killed in the big war by friends of Battle’s. Cleaves has final say-so on the script. That’s in my contract with him.”
“Maybe what Battle wants wouldn’t be objectionable to Cleaves,” I said.
“Anything Battle wants would be objectionable to Cleaves. He’s tried to find other money for me because he didn’t want Battle involved—right from the beginning. Somehow or other Battle’s got other doors shut on us.”
“Maybe he can’t keep ’em shut forever,” I said.
“Long enough so I lose David,” Maxie said. “The people who put up money put it up for the star, not for the story. Try and get through to Battle for me, will you, Haskell? I know you better than to offer you bread. But I might be able to do you a return favor sometime. You might not want to spend the rest of your life in this hotel. You might make it big doing P.R. work in films.”
“I’ll try to get to him because I feel sorry for you. What’s going on around here shouldn’t happen to a dog,” I said.
My phone rang and I picked it up. It was Miss Ruysdale.
“Glad I found you, Mark,” she said. “Mr. Chambrun wants you.”
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Dr. Cobb,” she said.
“What about him?”
“He’s dead, Mark.”
“God. Less than an hour ago—! How did it happen?”
“He seems simply to have stopped breathing,” Ruysdale said.
Four
WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN surrounded by violence as we had been for the last twenty-four hours, a natural death seemed like adding insult to injury. George Battle put it in a rather apt way.
“Even God seems to be against me,” he said. “In the midst of all this hell I lose an old and trusted friend.”
There wasn’t much to the story I heard when I joined Chambrun up in 17B, Battle’s suite. Dr. Cobb, it seemed, had returned from his visit to Chambrun’s office in pretty bad shape. Doc Partridge, our house physician, had been there when he got back. Jerry Dodd had produced the doc to stand by Battle while Cobb was out of the suite. Doc is old, cantankerous, with bushy black eyebrows contrasting with his silvery hair.
“Damned old fool,” he said to Chambrun and the rest of us. Hardy was there, too. The Lieutenant had to be certain he didn’t have another homicide on his hands. “He had no business being up and around. Do an autopsy on him and you’ll find he doesn’t have anything but torn rags for lungs. But he went on smoking and drinking and trying to live a normal life.”
“Perhaps that was the best way to see it through,” Chambrun said.
“And shorten the process,” Doc Partridge said. “When he got back here, I didn’t think he’d make it to his room. Strangling, he was; gasping for breath. I figured if he didn’t get to his oxygen supply in a hurry, he’d had it. I helped him into his room and got him down on the bed and got the oxygen cylinder where he could use it, the mask over his nose and mouth. He waved a sort of thanks at me and I left him. Then he lifted the mask off his face and managed to say something about ‘sleeves.’ I didn’t get it, but I went back to him. He was sucking in oxygen from the tank. He knew how bad it was, he was a doctor.”
Chambrun was frowning. “What did he mean, ‘sleeves’?”
“I couldn’t figure it,” Doc said. “I’d helped him off with his suit jacket. I looked at his shirt sleeves. They were fairly tight around his wrists, so I unbuttoned them. They could have caused him some discomfort. He shook his head as if he was trying to tell me that wasn’t it, but he was too busy trying to breath to go any further with it.”
“Wasn’t there anything you could do to help him, Doc?”
“Oxygen was the only thing that would help him,” Doc said. “Best thing was to leave him quietly alone with it. So I came back out here and reported the state of things to Mr. Battle. Half an hour later I went back into the bedroom to see how he was doing. He was gone. Dead.”
“Shouldn’t you have stayed with him?” Chambrun asked.
“No reason to. He knew exactly how to handle things. Lie perfectly still and get some oxygen down into what was left of his lungs.”
“Why didn’t it work?”
Doc shrugged. “You come to the end of a dead-end street. There comes a last time when nothing works.”
Battle was huddled in a big armchair, looking woebegone. Butler, the bodyguard, and Gaston, the chef, were hovering in the background.
“I was wrong to come here, Pierre,” Battle said. “My impulse is to arrange to head back for home tonight, at once. But to go back to the villa without Allerton—without Cobb—”
“I’d like to have a look at him,” Chambrun said to Doc, as if he ha
dn’t heard Battle.
Partridge led the way into the bedroom. What was left of Dr. Cobb wasn’t a pleasant sight. He’d worn dentures and he’d taken them out and put them on the bedside table. His jaw, slack, hung open, revealing an ugly black hole. The oxygen tank and mask were on a chair several feet away from the bed. Partridge saw Chambrun looking at them.
“I put them there,” he said. “The mask was on his face and the cylinder lying beside him on the bed when I found him.”
Chambrun went over and picked up the cylinder. I saw his frown deepen.
“Poor bastard,” he said. “The damned thing is empty.”
“Impossible!” Doc said.
Chambrun turned. “What do you mean, ‘impossible’? See for yourself.” He held out the cylinder to Doc.
Partridge took it, examined it. “You’re right, but it’s still impossible.”
“Why?”
“It was brand-new,” Doc said. “I got it for him late this afternoon. You don’t carry extras around in your luggage. Too bulky. He called my office and asked me to get him a fresh one. There’s a regular supply service for them and I had this one delivered.”
“How do you know it was that one?”
“Tag on it. Name of the supplier on it. My supplier. I brought this up to him myself. He used it just before he went down to see you. It was full.”
“Maybe he forgot to turn it off.”
“When your life depends on something, you don’t forget simple routines,” Partridge said.
“Maybe the cylinder is faulty—has a leak in it.”
“Be a damn good idea to find out,” Doc said. “Because if it isn’t—”
Walking Dead Man Page 14
