Remember to Kill Me (The Pierre Chambrun Mysteries, 19)

by Hugh Pentecost

  ‘My Dad pointed out this lady to me. “Extraordinary woman,” he said. “She could tell you a lot about terrorism. Many years ago she was kidnapped in Central America, held as a hostage until a revolutionary prisoner was released. Nobody was ever arrested for that crime, either.” “Your man at the bar?” I asked him. “Lord, no,” Dad said. “He’d hardly been born when that happened.”’ Lois gave Chambrun an unhappy look. ‘This isn’t much, after all, is it?’

  ‘If you saw the man at the bar again it might be,’ Chambrun said.

  ‘I’ll keep looking,’ Lois said. ‘But if he is involved with what’s happened to Dad, he won’t appear again, will he?’

  ‘He has no way of knowing what your father told you while you were watching him,’ Chambrun said.

  ‘With the hotel apparently bulging with people on the Central American scene,’ Yardley said, ‘Sheldon Tranter surely wasn’t the only person around who knew this man at the bar and what he stood for. There must be others who saw him hanging around the Trapeze. When the raid came and the hostages were taken, he’d make himself scarce, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Maybe Miss Tranter can give a police artist a good enough description of this man so that he could make a picture that could be circulated among the Central American people here,’ Guardino said. ‘We might be able to put a name to him. Would you do that, Miss Tranter?’

  ‘I don’t quite understand,’ she said.

  ‘Some of our police artists are amazing,’ Guardino said. ‘You start with a tall, dark man—he draws a sketch—you tell him broader shoulders—he fixes that—you tell him thicker eyebrows—he fixes that—you say wider mouth—and he fixes that. Eventually you say yes, he looked pretty much like that.’

  ‘Of course I would do that,’ Lois said.

  ‘Use your phone?’ Guardino asked Chambrun. ‘I’ll get one of our guys up here.’

  While Guardino called police headquarters for an artist, Chambrun, with Yardley joining in, went back to Lois Tranter.

  ‘If you are your father’s private secretary,’ Chambrun said, ‘you must know exactly what his mission is here in New York.’

  ‘What seems like an endless debate,’ Lois said. I had the feeling she was well informed. ‘Should we have battleships, and planes, and so-called “advisers” in the area, or should we let the people there settle their own problems? The OAS people think if we would withdraw, the chances for peace would be greater.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘Dad has to represent the State Department’s view, no matter what his own feelings may be,’ Lois said.

  ‘And the State Department’s view is?’

  ‘The President says that naval and military exercises in that area have been going on for a long time, long before his administration and the ones before it. Some native people have called it “gunboat diplomacy” for years. We decide one side is legitimate and we support it with money and weapons and technical help. When the side we’re supporting is thrown out of power by revolution, we tend to support the new power, though they have been our enemies before that. There are investments and property that are important to us. That kind of flip-flopping has been going on for generations, according to Dad.’

  ‘So he’s for playing it the way we’ve always played it?’ Yardley asked.

  ‘He thinks things are different now,’ Lois said. ‘It’s not just internal revolutions now. The Russians are in the picture, supporting the anti-government forces with money and arms and technology. It’s really a conflict between the two major world powers, with the Central American people just pawns in the game. He thinks all the political talk about conservatives and radicals among the Central American people is garbage. Will we let communist Russia take over Central America, as they have Cuba, and have our major enemy on our doorstep? All the pious talk about democracy versus communism is hogwash, Dad thinks. It’s power against power. We may be supporting evil governments who ignore human rights and democratic philosophies, but they are prepared to fight our major enemy and we have to stand by them.’

  ‘That’s commonly accepted as the State Department view and your father articulates it,’ Chambrun said. ‘Somebody has called it “the big stick approach.” But privately, how does your father feel?’

  Lois gave the boss a tight little smile. ‘We could spend all day on that, Mr. Chambrun. I guess you could say Dad thinks we talk a great game—morality, human rights, fair play, the whole bag of high principles, and covertly—Dad says our whole society is based on the word “covert,” secret, undercover—covertly we support profits for the already very rich, and to hell with the morality of how they get it.’ She leaned forward in her chair. ‘Enough of that. What are you going to do, Mr. Chambrun?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘About my father and the other hostages!’

  Chambrun glanced at his watch. ‘We still have time to come to a decision about that.’

  I knew, and so did Lois, that he was saying he hadn’t an idea about what he could do.

  ‘If something happens to my father,’ Lois said, and her soft voice had taken on a rough edge, ‘I want you to know that I’ll remember that you sat here doing absolutely nothing!’

  He gave her a steady look. ‘What would you do, Miss Tranter? Would you charge the citadel and let them drop your father out the window while we batter down the door?’

  The color faded from her face. ‘I’d make a deal, no matter what it cost,’ she said.

  ‘They’ve offered us a deal. Four hostages for eight prisoners flown to a safe place.’

  ‘So make it,’ she said.

  ‘That decision will be made by the president and Mrs. Thatcher and God knows who else,’ Chambrun said.

  ‘And suppose they agree,’ Yardley said, in his quiet voice. ‘Will they set your father free then to tell us who they are and put them under the gun?’

  ‘If you really want to help, Lois,’ Chambrun said, ‘perhaps you can come up with a suggestion that this exhausted mind hasn’t covered.’

  Lois lifted her hands to her face again, and this time I knew she was fighting tears.

  Chambrun had been showing the hanging-judge side of his personality since last night’s raid, but the other side of the coin, I knew, was a man of real compassion. He got up from his desk and walked around to where Lois was sitting covering her face. He put a hand gently on her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t give up on us entirely, Lois,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have lived as long as I have if I hadn’t been able to come up with answers in a crisis.’ He turned to face the rest of us. ‘I’m worried about Victoria Haven,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go up to her penthouse to see her. You people can hold the fort for half an hour, can’t you?’

  ‘I’m sure she’s all right,’ I said. ‘If you’d like me to check on her—’

  ‘It’s probably absurd,’ Chambrun said, ‘but somehow I can’t separate her from what’s going on here. “Remember to kill me” forty-five years ago—and then it comes up last night. Sheldon Tranter saw her the night before last and remembered about her. Maybe she can dredge up something she hasn’t thought was important.’

  ‘What if the guy in Twenty-two B calls you?’ I asked.

  ‘Have them switch the call to Victoria’s penthouse,’ he said. At the door he turned back to us. ‘I have a head full of rocks at the moment. Maybe moving around the hotel a little will help get rid of them.’

  Somehow I felt lost when the door closed behind him. He was the one chance we had for a sensible answer, and he admitted he was lost. Yardley had one set of facts and ideas and a special force behind him; Guardino had another set of facts and another kind of force. They didn’t have answers, though. Betsy Ruysdale knew The Man better than any of us, but if he had rocks in his head she must have rocks in hers.

  Johnny Thacker had been ordered to have the department chiefs here in half an hour. That was some time ago. Had Chambrun forgotten? I found myself obsessed by the little electric clock on The Man’s desk,
the second hand moving steadily round and round. Time wasn’t going to hold back for any of us.

  Guardino broke the heavy silence in the room. ‘A police artist is on his way, Miss Tranter,’ he said. ‘Do you mind waiting here for him?’

  Lois shook her head. She was still fighting tears.

  ‘I need a private phone where I can talk to Washington,’ Yardley said.

  Betsy beckoned to him. There was an extension in Chambrun’s dressing room and she took Yardley there.

  ‘The commissioner isn’t going to like our just waiting around, twiddling our thumbs and doing nothing,’ Guardino said. ‘He’s going to demand action.’

  ‘Let him suggest something that will work,’ I said. ‘It must be nice to sit downtown, blocks from here, in a big air-conditioned office, away from the noise and the turmoil and the smell of the fear of death, and demand action!’

  ‘I’m here to see for him, listen for him—smell for him, if you like,’ Guardino said. ‘I haven’t advised him to do anything—yet. I feel a little like Chambrun—rocks in my head. You freeze when you realize that anything you do may cost you more than you want to pay.’

  ‘Thanks for sounding like a human being,’ I said.

  Guardino gave me a wry smile. ‘It’s not easy,’ he said. ‘You think Chambrun will come up with something?’

  ‘He always has,’ I said.

  Doing nothing was the worst thing of all. I decided to go find Johnny Thacker and tell them not to sweat trying to get the people Chambrun wanted to see. The Boss had taken off and wouldn’t be back for at least another half hour.

  The lobby was, if anything, more of a madhouse than it had been earlier. The terrorists up in Twenty-two B had made the situation so public that we were drawing the curious like flies. I spotted Johnny Thacker on the fringes of the mob that was crowding around the checkout desk.

  ‘Most of the upper floors are emptying out,’ he told me. ‘I couldn’t get the people the boss wanted right now. Would you believe that, with all the cops and security people, we’ve got pickpockets, and three or four gals have had gold chains snatched off their necks? We need everyone we’ve got to keep kooks from filtering upstairs. Atterbury and the other people on checkout are going bananas.’

  ‘I’ll let you know when the boss gets back,’ I said.

  As I turned away from Johnny I saw Jerry Dodd trying to wigwag me from over by the elevators. I elbowed my way through reporters and rubberneckers to where our security chief stood. As I approached him I realized the tall, blond man standing next to him, was with him, not just part of the mob. Jerry must have explained to this guy who I was because he didn’t identify me.

  ‘Mark, this is Inspector Stanley Brooks, from Scotland Yard in London,’ Jerry said.

  ‘Brooks?’ I asked. I couldn’t hear myself and realized you had to shout to be heard over the roar of hundreds of excited voices.

  Inspector Brooks gave me the cold look of a state trooper asking to see your driver’s license. ‘My brother is one of the hostages being held upstairs,’ he said. ‘I’m here to get him free.’

  ‘Lucky you’re here in New York,’ I said.

  ‘Wasn’t when I got the news,’ Brooks said. ‘These bloody bastards who have George called Lord Huntingdon in London at five in the morning, our time. Huntingdon got in touch with me and I asked to be assigned.’

  ‘But you’re here! It isn’t noon yet!’

  ‘Modern miracles,’ Jerry said.

  Inspector Brooks, quite matter-of-fact, explained that the Concorde jet leaves London at 10:30 A.M., their time, and arrives here at 9:25 our time.

  ‘Gets here an hour before it started,’ Jerry said. ‘The inspector wants to see the boss, but someone’s been on the phone up there for the last fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Yardley calling Washington,’ I said. I told Brooks that Yardley was a CIA man. ‘Assistant to the police commissioner is up there, too. Mr. Chambrun isn’t, but he’ll be back shortly. You might as well come up there and wait, Inspector, out of this jungle.’

  ‘Where is the boss?’ Jerry asked.

  ‘Went up to the roof to talk to Mrs. Haven,’ I said.

  We went past the security men guarding the stairway and walked up to the second floor.

  ‘Mrs. Haven is the woman someone shot at?’ Brooks asked as we were climbing. He was up on everything—but wasn’t the whole damned world? ‘Lucky escape.’

  ‘Your brother may have saved her life,’ I said. ‘He responded so quickly to the outcry set up by Mrs. Haven’s little dog that the gunman didn’t have a second chance at the lady.’

  ‘Too bad he couldn’t have been as efficient at protecting himself,’ Brooks said. ‘Do we know when or where he was captured?’

  ‘Just a guess,’ Jerry Dodd answered. ‘After our people responded to his phone call and the doctor told us that Mrs. Haven wasn’t seriously hurt, you brother must have gone down to the lobby to see what was going on there. Natural curiosity.’

  ‘Damn foolishness,’ Inspector Brooks said. ‘Nobody saw him?’

  ‘You’ve seen what it’s like down there, Inspector. You couldn’t spot your own mother unless you tripped over her. Nobody was looking for him, nobody saw him. After we knew he was one of the hostages, I spoke to some of our responsible people who would have known him by sight. No luck. They’d been fighting off an army of goons, not looking for a familiar face. People were coming and going like a tidal wave, Inspector.’

  ‘George should have been able to take care of himself,’ the British cop said. ‘He’s a tough customer.’ He gave Jerry a grim look. ‘Well, so am I!’

  Chambrun wasn’t going to be happy with him, I thought; an angry brother trying to strong-arm his way to a rescue.

  Yardley and Betsy Ruysdale were still missing when we reached Chambrun’s office. Inspector Brooks looked around as though he thought he must be in the wrong place. The office, with its magnificent Oriental rug, the carved Florentine desk, the Picasso painting on the wall, looked more like an elegant living room than a place of business.

  Guardino and Lois Tranter were there with a young man I hadn’t seen before. He was obviously the police artist. He was working on a large sketch pad on Chambrun’s desk, with Guardino and the girl looking over his shoulder.

  Guardino broke away and introduced himself, expressed his surprise that the inspector could have gotten here so quickly, and explained what was going on.

  ‘Bill Pollard is a genius at this sort of thing,’ he said, nodding toward the artist and Lois. ‘I’d like not to interrupt the process if you don’t mind, Inspector.’

  ‘I’m a great deal more interested in what you’re planning to do about the situation upstairs,’ Brooks said.

  ‘The final decision will come from the heads of your government and ours,’ Guardino said.

  Inspector Brooks gave him a cold look. ‘They will decide whether or not to free the prisoners,’ he said. ‘After that, if they free them, we can keep our fingers crossed and hope they’ll let the hostages go, which I find unlikely. If they don’t free the revolutionaries, then what happens to my brother, and that girl’s father, will be a matter of luck, probably bad luck.’

  Guardino grinned. ‘You’re right, of course,’ he said.

  ‘You may care who wins a war in Central America, Guardino, but let me tell you that I don’t give a damn about anything but the safety of my brother!’ He brought a clenched fist down in the palm of his other hand. ‘With or without your help, Guardino, or the hotel’s help, or God’s help, I’m going to get George out of there!’ He took a deep breath. ‘If you people have a plan, I’ll listen to it. If I can’t go for it, I’ll handle things my own way.’

  Guardino was about to have back at him, I thought, when Pollard, the police artist, followed by Lois Tranter, came over to us from the desk.

  ‘This seems to be as close as we can come,’ Pollard said, holding out his sketch pad.

  He had drawn a picture of a tall, dark man standi
ng at a bar with a drink in his hand. It was a pleasant face with heavy black eyebrows and a wide, rather determined looking mouth with a small black mustache on the upper lip. It was familiar, but I couldn’t recall where I’d seen him. Then suddenly I realized I was being reminded of the late actor Clark Gable.

  ‘Clark Gable,’ Jerry Dodd said, echoing my reaction.

  ‘I remember thinking that when my father pointed him out to me,’ Lois Tranter said.

  ‘That made it easy,’ Pollard said.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re drawing pictures of this chap,’ Inspector Brooks said, ‘but I know him, and there is one detail wrong with the picture.’

  ‘You know him?’ Jerry said.

  Brooks nodded. ‘The King of Terror, he’s called. He’s had a hundred names since he’s been on our wanted files in London. I think his real name is Ricardo Avilla, though that may also be an alias.’

  I felt my muscles go tense. Avilla was the name of the man who had kidnapped Victoria Haven forty-five years ago. Not possibly this man, but the same last name!

  ‘What’s wrong with the drawing?’ Pollard, the artist, asked.

  ‘You have him holding that drink in his right hand,’ Brooks said.

  ‘He’s left-handed?’ Pollard asked, reaching for his drawing pencil.

  ‘He doesn’t have a right hand,’ Brooks said. ‘Lost it in some kind of a violence early on in his life. He wears a plastic hand, usually covered by a black glove—and usually hidden in his jacket pocket.’

  Pollard began fiddling with his drawing, erasing, redrawing.

  ‘It shouldn’t be hard to spot a man with an artificial hand,’ Jerry Dodd said.

  I explained to Brooks why we were interested; that Sheldon Tranter had pointed this character out to his daughter the night before the raid, drinking in the Trapeze.

  ‘I didn’t notice about the hand,’ Lois said. ‘My father didn’t mention it and I had no reason to notice which hand he used to hold his drink.’

  ‘I think we better get Chambrun back down here,’ I said. ‘The man who kidnapped Mrs. Haven forty-five years ago was named Avilla, Carlos Avilla. This drawing might revive something in Mrs. Haven’s memory.’