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

by Hugh Pentecost

  ‘That’s fair. We understand,’ Jack said. They waited for me to dish it out.

  ‘We don’t know much more than you already know,’ I said. ‘The hostages are still in Twenty-two B. We have until midnight to make the payoff they’re demanding. We haven’t heard from them in the last couple of hours. They’re making out-calls which are being monitored but I haven’t heard them so I can’t tell you what they are.’

  ‘The political prisoners are being released?’ Jack Wilson asked.

  ‘As far as I know, they’re being assembled at an airport in Georgia,’ I said.

  ‘And will be flown to wherever they want to be taken?’ someone asked.

  ‘I assume so,’ I said. ‘But let me try to get you off my back by making something clear to you. No one connected with the Beaumont is making that decision. It will come from Washington and London and the Organization of American States. Our part in it, our instructions from the hostage takers, were to clear the twenty-second floor of guests, staff, the works—and keep anyone from invading that area. That we’re doing and will continue to do. We have no part in any other decisions.’

  ‘But you’re in cahoots with the police, the CIA, and God knows who else,’ Jack Wilson said. ‘You know what’s going on whether you make decisions or not.’

  ‘We have an assistant to the police commissioner and a CIA man down the hall,’ I said. ‘But they aren’t making decisions either. The decisions will come from much higher up.’

  ‘Is it possible the big shots will decide the hostages aren’t worth saving?’ one of the reporters asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ I said. ‘Obviously, someone on the outside is communicating with the people in Twenty-two B. They’re getting information from you by way of radio and TV. The big shots are going through the motions of carrying out their demands. The political prisoners are being assembled in Georgia. What the last-minute decision will be I can’t tell you. What Chambrun will do if we’re left holding the bag I can’t tell you. I don’t think he knows himself.’

  ‘What do the police and the CIA say about a man named Ricardo Avilla?’ Jack Wilson asked me.

  That one surprised me. ‘Say about him?’ I asked.

  ‘A known Latin American terrorist, seen in the hotel. We understand he is a relative of a man who kidnapped your Mrs. Haven many years ago. We understand Sheldon Tranter pointed him out to his daughter a couple of nights ago.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘From the daughter,’ Wilson said. ‘She’s been looking for him ever since the hostages were taken.’

  ‘So you know as much as I do,’ I said.

  ‘Are they trying to find him?’ Wilson asked. ‘Could he be the person on the outside who’s keeping the people in Twenty-two B informed?’

  ‘Yes, they’re trying to find him,’ I said. ‘Yes, he could be the person on the outside making reports to Twenty-two B.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Only a guess,’ I said. ‘Fancy radio equipment. No one’s making in-calls on the telephone. They won’t accept them.’

  ‘You have a description of him?’

  ‘They’re circulating a police artist’s sketch drawn from Miss Tranter’s information. A middle-aged Clark Gable with a tin hand.’

  ‘Will Chambrun try to rescue the hostages if the big shots foul out?’ Wilson asked.

  I wondered if he’d be able to do it.

  I was, thankfully, alone for a moment, but only for a moment. Johnny Thacker stuck his blond head in my door. The day bell captain was showing the strain, like most of us.

  ‘Two guys want to see you, Mark,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d want to see them.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Max London, Hilary Foster’s manager, and a young man named Roth who is Hilary’s boyfriend. I have a feeling they might try something foolish, so I thought you ought to talk to them.’

  Max London is not a total stranger to me. A dark, wiry little man with heavy horn-rimmed glasses, he is one of the top talent agents in the business. We’ve had dealings with him quite often over the years, hiring entertainers for the Blue Lagoon night club.

  ‘Thanks for seeing us, Mark,’ Max London said. ‘This is Bob Roth. He is engaged to be married to Hilary Foster.’

  Roth had close-cropped red hair and a face that looked like the map of Ireland. He had a look I was beginning to get used to around the Beaumont. He looked beat.

  ‘We’ve been trying to get to Chambrun,’ Max said, ‘but he seems to have shut himself away.’

  ‘He has to stay undisturbed in case the people upstairs call him,’ I said, hoping it sounded true.

  ‘Is there any news?’ Roth asked. ‘I mean, about the hostages?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We have to hope they’re all right, for the time being at least. There’s still quite a little time, and so far we’ve done everything the hostage-takers have asked for.’

  ‘Hope?’ Roth brought his fist down on the corner of my desk.

  ‘Why do you think they took Hilary?’ London asked.

  ‘It’s a guess,’ I said. ‘They wanted to be sure Chambrun did what they demanded of him. If you know Chambrun, you know that he would do anything to protect anyone who works for him.’

  ‘Bob doesn’t think that’s why they took her,’ London said.

  ‘Why else?’ I asked. ‘She’s famous, of course. The general public would be concerned for her. That could bring pressure on people who have to make decisions.’

  ‘Tell him, Bob,’ Max London said.

  ‘That bastard!’ Roth said, and brought his fist down on my desk once more. He didn’t seem to be able to talk, so London carried the ball.

  ‘You know how it is with beautiful and talented women who appear in public,’ he said. ‘All kinds of men fall in love with them. They get gifts from strangers—flowers, perfume, expensive wines. Hilary had a guy like that pursuing her during the two weeks she’s been playing here at the Beaumont. He came to the Blue Lagoon every night, brought her presents, tried to buy her drinks, make time with her.’

  ‘Bastard!’ Roth almost shouted again.

  ‘A girl in Hilary’s position has to play it cool,’ London said. ‘She doesn’t want to drive away a good customer from the place she’s working.’

  ‘I don’t know where this is getting us,’ I said.

  ‘The guy who has been rushing Hilary,’ London said, ‘is Raul Ortiz.’

  That almost jarred me out of my chair. ‘But he’s one of the hostages! Twenty-two B is his suite!’

  ‘One of the hostages, my foot!’ Roth said. ‘Everything we’ve heard says you don’t know who’s in charge up there. Well, think about it, Haskell! This Ortiz is no more a hostage than I am! His suite, everything prepared there for a big showdown. He never took Hilary to make an impression on Chambrun or the general public. He took her for himself. God knows what he’s putting her through up there! Twenty-four hours of sexual brutality? That’s what he wanted from her, wasn’t it? So he takes her into a situation where no one dares lift a finger to help her. So help me God, if I ever lay hands on him …!’

  ‘What do you know about Ortiz?’ London asked me.

  ‘What I know about all the guests in the hotel, which is almost nothing intimate,’ I said. ‘A guest registers and a card is filled out for him which we keep for reference purposes. Information like his home address, his credit rating, his business or political connection here in New York, his past record if he’s been a guest before—is he an alcoholic, a drug user, a woman chaser? If he—or she—is someone very much in the public eye, like a movie star, some kind of diplomatic hotshot, their wishes about the press are noted. Do they want it known they are here or do they want to stay quiet, undercover? I see those cards every morning of my life, at the regular meeting with Chambrun and his secretary.’

  ‘Raul Ortiz? What about him?’ Roth demanded.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, great!’

&
nbsp; ‘I don’t remember because obviously there wasn’t anything to remember,’ I said. ‘Good credit rating, no eccentricities worth noting. Nothing I needed to remember as public relations man for the hotel. Since last night I know a little more about him, but so do you. He’s been written about, talked about by the media round the clock. Member of the peace commission meeting at the United Nations on Central America.’

  ‘What we’ve told you could be important,’ Max London said. ‘Ortiz may be an enemy and not a victim.’

  It could be, I thought, and Sam Yardley and Guardino—and Chambrun if he was available—should know. If Ortiz was a villain, that explained why his suite had been chosen as the place to hold hostages. He could have had days to prepare, stocking the place with food and liquor. There would have been time for careful placement of the bomb or bombs that could blow us to pieces. Communications with someone on the outside could have been set up and carefully tested before the planned raid took place that would keep us too busy to get in the way of the hostage-taking.

  ‘If you think I’m going to sit around twiddling my thumbs while that bastard plays his slimy games with Hilary, you’ve got another think coming,’ Roth said. ‘I want to know what’s being planned, what’s being done. If I’m not satisfied—’

  ‘There are others in the same boat with you,’ I said. ‘Sir George Brooks’s brother, Sheldon Tranter’s daughter.’

  ‘And who’s worrying about Ortiz?’ Roth asked.

  I tried to give him a sensible answer, though I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. ‘He’s a foreign diplomat,’ I said. ‘People concerned for him could be making their inquiries direct to Washington, or to the police commissioner himself, or at the United Nations.’

  ‘Anyone who really cared for him would be here,’ Roth said. ‘I’m here, the Brooks man is here, the Tranter girl is here. You don’t just sit around and do nothing when someone you love is in the lion’s den.’

  ‘Maybe you do,’ I said. ‘Maybe you leave the rescue to a lion tamer. I’ll take you to a couple of them.’

  I led the two men down the hall to Chambrun’s offices. I left them in the outer room with the secretary and went into The Man’s private sanctum. It was much as I’d left it. Betsy was there, and Sam Yardley, and Guardino. They were waiting—for what? That was the name of the game, I guess—waiting. Guardino, who’d been up to the switchboard checking on the out-calls from Twenty-two B reported that the calls had been to the State Department in Washington and to Ten Downing Street in London, simply warnings that time was passing! If the prisoners were not on a plane flying out of Georgia by the deadline, the hostages would begin to get it, one by one. Inspector Brooks was gone.

  I told them that Max London and Roth were in the outer office. ‘I didn’t want to bring them in here for fear they’d guess that Chambrun was missing. Anything from Jerry Dodd?’

  There had been nothing. Yardley and Guardino agreed to talk to Roth and Max London in the outer office.

  Roth told his story, his voice unsteady with anger and anxiety. ‘You can only read what I’m telling you one way,’ he said. ‘Ortiz is running the show. Now you tell me what you’re going to do about it! I’m not going to wait eight hours while Hilary is being brutalized.’

  ‘So if we plan to wait for eight hours, what do you propose to do about it, Mr. Roth?’ Guardino asked.

  ‘If you haven’t got the guts to go up there and get Hilary out, I’m going!’ Roth said.

  Guardino looked almost sympathetic. ‘In the first place you can’t get there, Mr. Roth,’ he said. ‘Stairways, back and front, blocked by hotel security and police. No elevators will stop at the twenty-second floor. And if you found some way to get there, we’ve been warned that any attempt to do that will result in the first hostage going out a window. The chances are you, too, would be shot down.’

  ‘So get me up there,’ Roth said. ‘While they’re polishing me off in the front hall, you bring your people in the back way.’

  ‘You’d give up your life on the chance we’d succeed?’ Guardino asked.

  ‘You’re darn right I would!’

  I don’t know about the others, but I believed he meant it. But I could hear Chambrun, if he’d been there, making some sardonic remark about heroics.

  ‘Let me put in my two cents’ worth, Mr. Roth,’ Sam Yardley said. The CIA man had a reassuring sound. ‘I know Raul Ortiz. I know him personally and professionally. You think it helps prove your theory that no one is concerned about him—no one like you, or Inspector Brooks, or Lois Tranter. Let me assure you that there is great concern for Ortiz, most of it funneled to the CIA in Washington. At the top of my list of instructions is to do everything possible to get him out safely. You see, Ortiz is one of the Central Americans who is very much on our side down there. He has cooperated with us in a variety of covert activities. He would be a prime target for the people who are engineering this to get those prisoners free. We can’t afford to have anything happen to Ortiz and they know it.’

  ‘And so you ignore his interest in Hilary?’ Roth asked. ‘What good is she to them? They took her because this animal, Ortiz, wants her.’

  ‘He is a Latin. A beautiful and talented woman would get to him. He is also a man of great courage and daring. He would be tough to handle in a hostage situation. During twenty-four hours of waiting he might try your kind of heroics, Mr. Roth.’

  ‘So he promised to be a good boy if they’d provide him with Hilary?’

  ‘It could be,’ Yardley said. ‘That Ortiz really cares for your lady.’

  ‘Bastard!’ Roth exploded.

  ‘It could be they took her to make certain that Ortiz didn’t make any sort of move against them. He tries something and they destroy her, right in front of him. I think you should hope that he cares enough for her to stay quiet.’

  I thought I could see the courage and bravado draining away from Roth as though somebody had pulled the plug on it.

  ‘You—you think that’s the way it is?’ he asked.

  Yardley answered in his soft, level voice, ‘I think it could be that way. I think it’s as good an explanation as yours, and I have the advantage of knowing Ortiz, what he stands for, what this all adds up to for him.’

  ‘If you could have seen the way he went after Hilary,’ Roth said. ‘Flowers, gifts, even jewelry which she wouldn’t take from him.’

  ‘Didn’t she tell him about you?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course she did! He just laughed and said until the preacher spoke the magic words over us he was still in the running.’

  ‘He’s a man who plays to win,’ Yardley said.

  ‘Okay!’ Roth’s juices were beginning to flow again. ‘What are you people going to do?’

  ‘People in high places all round the world are trying to come up with an answer,’ Yardley said. ‘I’m waiting for orders from my department, Guardino’s waiting for orders from his.’ He glanced at me. ‘Chambrun’s doing exactly what he’s been told to do by the guys up in Twenty-two B. That’s the only thing he can do for the hostages just now. Make sure nothing happens so that they have to show us they mean what they say.’

  ‘You mean harm one of the hostages?’

  ‘That’s what I mean, Mr. Roth.’

  Roth turned away and then back at Yardley. ‘You know what I’d do if I had the decision to make?’ he asked.

  ‘Sensible advice is in short supply around here,’ Yardley said.

  ‘When I had those eight prisoners all assembled at that airport in Georgia, I’d take them all outside and stand them against a wall in front of a firing squad. In front of television cameras, so those bastards upstairs could see for themselves what’s happening. Then I’d give them five minutes to set the hostages free, unharmed.’

  ‘And if they didn’t?’

  ‘I’d mow down their eight friends, right on camera for them,’ Roth said.

  Yardley’s smile was thin and tight. ‘If it’s any comfort to you, Roth, that’s an option that has
been suggested to my people.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘One of the problems in the crises we face all around the world, Roth, is that the people of other nationalities and other political persuasions are not like us. Shoe on the other foot, and they could do exactly what you’re suggesting. They know how different we are, though. They know we would never slaughter eight prisoners, legally held, in cold blood. They’d know we were bluffing.’

  ‘So we aren’t bluffing!’

  ‘I’m afraid we would be, Mr. Roth. Nobody would ever give the order for a firing squad to kill.’

  ‘So we knuckle under and lose the hostages along the way?’

  ‘There must be some way to put the heat on them that they’ll know we will and can carry out.’ Yardley said.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘A lot of pretty good minds are working on that, Roth, and we still have some time in which to come up with an answer.’

  ‘But you don’t have the answer?’

  Yardley’s mouth narrowed to a tight slit. ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  Two hours had gone by since Chambrun had taken off for Mrs. Haven’s penthouse on the roof and never made it. There was simply no explanation for why he could have stayed out of touch for so long voluntarily. It would be out of character, against his own rigid rules. No matter what kind of crisis he’d encountered, he wouldn’t have left us hanging there, waiting to hear from him, if there was any way he could have avoided it.

  Yardley had, I thought, put the brakes to any notions Bob Roth had had for single-handed heroics. I had got the press off our backs for at least a little while. And I hadn’t the faintest idea of my next move.

  Max London and Roth took off to sweat it out somewhere else. Yardley and Guardino and I went back into The Man’s office where Betsy Ruysdale was holding the fort alone. I wondered what had happened to Mrs. Haven.

  According to Betsy, the old lady had gone back up to her penthouse to prepare for her regular afternoon visit to the Trapeze Bar. Five o’clock was close at hand. Betsy smiled. ‘Mrs. Haven promises that, in spite of her vanity, she will wear her glasses! If there is anything to see, she will see it. Or anyone, like Ricardo Avilla.’