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

by Hugh Pentecost

  After a moment or two the door opened again and I was faced by a pleasant-looking middle-aged man with a white, toothpaste-ad smile.

  ‘Come in, Mr. Haskell. I know you by sight, you see. I am Luis Sanchez.’

  There were four other men in addition to the young fellow with the handgun sitting down on one side of a sort of board-of-directors table. Two girls sat facing them, apparently secretaries, each with a phone jacked in front of her.

  ‘Your friend surprised me,’ I said, nodding toward the young guy with the gun.

  ‘You know what it’s been like down here, Mr. Haskell?’ Sanchez asked. He spoke good colloquial English with a slight foreign lilt to it. ‘People barging in who have no business with us—just curious. With our head man held hostage upstairs, we’re not taking chances.’

  ‘Raul Ortiz?’

  Sanchez nodded. ‘I dream you may have something hopeful to tell us.’

  ‘We’re hopeful as long as we know our government and others are coming up with an answer,’ I said.

  ‘They are dealing with madmen,’ Sanchez said. ‘You had a particular reason for coming here?’

  ‘Your business here in New York, Mr. Sanchez?’

  His white smile widened. ‘Rather ironic, isn’t it? We are here on a peace mission. We find ourselves in the center of a terror game.’

  ‘Do you have any dealings with Sheldon Tranter?’ I asked.

  ‘Very close dealings,’ Sanchez said, ‘which is why he is being held hostage along with Ortiz and the others.’

  ‘You were quartered in the Annex Building next door earlier in the week?’

  ‘Yes. They had no space for us in this main building when we first came here. Your Mr. Chambrun allotted us space next door until we were able to take over this room.’

  ‘You’re living here in the hotel?’

  ‘I have a room up on the seventeenth floor,’ Sanchez said. ‘The rest of my staff are scattered around town. Are you able to tell me that your government and the others involved are planning to meet the demands that have been made, releasing the prisoners they are holding?’

  ‘I can only tell you that those prisoners are being assembled at an airport in Georgia. We still have some hours to complete that part of the demands that have been made.’

  ‘And they’ll be flown to safety?’

  ‘I can’t answer that question, Mr. Sanchez. The powers involved will obviously be prepared to do that if they believe the hostages will be released.’

  ‘You think they will be?’

  ‘I can tell you there are some doubts,’ I said.

  ‘Because they can identify their captors?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I have wondered,’ Sanchez said. The white smile was frozen. ‘Ortiz has to be saved! Without him the whole bid for peace could crumble.’

  I got to where I wanted to go. ‘You have dealings with Sheldon Tranter?’

  ‘But of course! He is our American contact.’

  ‘You know his daughter?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Sanchez said.

  ‘She grew up in Central America, lived with him there, is now his secretary.’

  Sanchez’s eyes brightened. ‘Very beautiful young woman? I didn’t realize she was his daughter. I’ve seen her only once, I think.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘A few days ago, when we were still in the Annex Building. She delivered some documents to us from Tranter.’ He glanced at the two rather plain girls sitting at the telephones and chuckled. ‘I remembered thinking, when I saw Tranter’s secretary, that you Americans have a genius for mixing business with pleasure.’

  ‘His daughter,’ I said.

  ‘Well, then some other man must be very lucky,’ Sanchez said.

  I felt better. There was nothing mysterious about Lois Tranter’s being seen by Eddie Walsh coming out of the Annex. It had been a normal business activity for Tranter’s secretary.

  ‘Can you keep us informed on how things are developing, Mr. Haskell?’ Sanchez asked.

  ‘When I know anything,’ I said. ‘And you, if you hear anything that can be helpful, call the hotel switchboard and tell them you have something for me. God knows where I’ll be, but the switchboard will know how to find me.’

  Sanchez’s smile was gone. ‘If, in the end, you plan to attempt a rescue, know that you can count on the meager manpower I have here.’ He gestured toward the other men in the room.

  ‘If it comes to that, Mr. Sanchez, we’ll have skilled professionals to handle it.’

  The ghost of his smile returned. ‘I and my men here are not strangers to violence,’ he said. ‘Our part of the world nourishes violence.’

  I was at the door when I realized I hadn’t asked him about Hilary Foster. ‘From all accounts Raul Ortiz was giving her quite a rush,’ I said, when I’d asked if he knew her.

  Sanchez seemed to hesitate. ‘I don’t think it is a new friendship,’ he said. ‘Miss Foster has appeared in Washington, where Raul has spent a lot of the last year. She has also toured South America and Raul first met her there. He was stationed in Brazil for a while.’

  ‘We couldn’t understand why she was chosen to be a hostage at first,’ I said. ‘We thought it could be because she was appearing here at the Beaumont and Pierre Chambrun would go pretty far to protect anyone working for him. Then we decided your Señor Ortiz was the villain in the piece, and had taken her hostage in order to satisfy his sexual appetites.’

  ‘What a bizarre notion!’ Sanchez said.

  ‘Then we thought she’d been taken to prevent Ortiz from trying anything reckless.’

  ‘That is possible,’ Sanchez said.

  ‘Can there be another reason?’ I asked. ‘Can she have gotten herself involved in the political mess in your part of the world?’

  Sanchez looked like a man who was asking himself a question. ‘God knows, anyone who spends time down there has an impulse to take sides,’ he said. ‘She might have been carrying messages for Raul.’

  ‘Sir George Brooks?’ I asked.

  ‘Sheldon Tranter’s opposite number in Great Britain,’ Sanchez said.

  ‘So all four hostages could be working on the same side of the fence,’ I said.

  ‘Certainly Raul and Sir George and Sheldon Tranter. Miss Foster, if she’s been working for Raul.’

  ‘One more question and I’ll be off,’ I said. ‘Do you know a man named Ricardo Avilla?’

  Sanchez gave me a bitter little laugh. ‘Everyone in my part of the world knows the name Avilla,’ he said. ‘They have been part of our history for the last fifty, sixty years.’

  ‘Did you know that this Ricardo Avilla is here, has been a customer in the Trapeze Bar for some time?’

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ Sanchez said.

  ‘And you haven’t told the police or security?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Sanchez said.

  ‘Doesn’t it occur to you that he’s working on the outside for the people who are holding the hostages?’

  Sanchez drew a deep breath, as though he was suddenly tired. ‘You don’t know my world or our history, do you, Mr. Haskell?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ I said.

  ‘Guatemala, El Salvador, the rest of us are all alike,’ he said. There was a sudden bitterness in his voice. ‘Governments of the rich and powerful take charge, they talk a great democratic ball game, but the peasants, the farmers, the people, are trampled on. There have been rebellions down through the years, governments overthrown. Then the new men in power become rich, control the resources, get financial and technical help from your government, and walk on the people all over again. Way back, the Avillas led revolutions, but they were never able to get honest governments in place when they won. Today the revolutions are financed and supported by the communist world. The communists want to win so that they will have a foothold in your backyard. If they win, the people will be no better off than they have been under their own villains.’

  ‘I
nteresting, but this man Ricardo Avilla, helping them, would be in a powerful position, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘You don’t know the Avillas,’ Sanchez said. ‘They have always really cared about the people. Ricardo Avilla hates the communists as much as he hates the very rich Americans who feed off us.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s involved with what’s happened here?’

  ‘If he is, then he’d be siding with the communists, and I would never believe that.’

  ‘You say you knew he was here and it hasn’t disturbed you?’ I asked. ‘Night before last, Tranter saw him in the Trapeze Bar and gave his daughter a rundown on him—terrorist, villain of the first order.’

  ‘That surprises me,’ Sanchez said. ‘Terrorist, yes. But his acts of terror have been aimed at the enemies of the people. I knew he was here, I thought because he was concerned with the peace negotiations we’re here to work on. I’ve seen him, I’ve talked with him briefly, I—I know where he’s living.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the Plaza Hotel at the south end of the park. He’s been seen here because so many people involved with the negotiations are here. You’re wasting your time if you think he’s involved with the hostage situation. He’s on the other side, always has been.’

  I found myself wondering if I was being sold a bill of goods or if Sanchez was leveling with me. How did I know which side he was really on? Who could be trusted from his cockeyed world?

  I suppose I would insist with my last breath that I have no racial or religious prejudices against any man, but I’m afraid I’m infected with a familiar American disease. I’m not sure I can trust foreigners. Luis Sanchez could be staunchly on our side, and yet his perpetual smile and the faintly alien sound of his speech left me uncertain about him. He could be trying to protect Ricardo Avilla, trying to persuade me to look somewhere else. Sheldon Tranter was one of ‘us,’ and he’d made it clear to his daughter that Avilla was ‘the enemy.’

  I went looking for Lois.

  She was where I’d last seen her, standing in a far corner of the lobby, watching, watching.

  ‘I’m certain Avilla hasn’t been here this afternoon,’ she said, as I joined her.

  I looked at her and thought we ought to keep her as a permanent decoration for the lobby. Concern for her father, what must be the kind of fatigue that was eating at so many of us, did nothing to reduce the kind of electric excitement her beauty created. I saw some people starting to bear down on me. I was supposed to be a source of information for anyone who wanted to know what was going on in the Beaumont. I guided Lois to the little office back of the front desk where we could talk without interruption.

  ‘Anything on Mr. Chambrun?’ she asked me.

  ‘A little,’ I said. ‘I want to pass it on to Jerry Dodd when I can find him.’ I told her that I now knew that Chambrun had stopped at our hospital facilities on the fourth floor to see Eddie Walsh, who’d been injured in the raid. Where he’d gone after he’d visited Eddie I didn’t yet know. ‘Something Eddie told him changed his plans.’

  ‘Do you know what it was?’

  I tried to make it sound casual. ‘Among other things, he says he saw you coming out of the Annex the other day.’

  She gave me a blank look. ‘The Annex?’

  ‘Building next door to the hotel we use for overflow of guests.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Luis Sanchez just told me you were there one day delivering some documents from your father. Sanchez and his staff were using the Annex for a couple of days.’

  ‘Oh, that building,’ she said.

  ‘You know Sanchez?’

  ‘I know who he is. He’s part of the peace delegation that’s working for the OAS. Important man in Central America.’

  ‘But you don’t know him personally? He obviously has dealings with your father.’

  ‘I knew about him, of course,’ Lois said, ‘but I’d never met him until that day I delivered a folder of papers to that building for Dad.’

  ‘So you don’t have a personal opinion about him?’

  ‘Mark, I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at.’

  ‘Sanchez has quite a different opinion about Ricardo Avilla than your father,’ I said. I told her what Sanchez’s rundown on ‘the man with the tin hand’ had been. ‘He doesn’t believe Avilla is involved with the hostage situation here. He even told me where Avilla is staying in town.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Plaza Hotel.’

  ‘Well, so he and Dad have different opinions about Avilla. That happens, you know. Everything is so complex in that world, Mark. Different people get different stories, draw different conclusions. My father has no doubts about Avilla, and I don’t think anyone knows the story in Central America better than he does. He’s spent the last twenty years of his life there.’

  Then I played my ace. ‘Eddie Walsh says the night you say your father pointed out Avilla to you Avilla wasn’t there.’

  She was sitting in a Windsor armchair and I saw her grip the arms. ‘He’s mistaken, of course. Avilla was at the bar, Dad pointed him out to me and told me about him.’

  ‘Eddie has a reason for being sure Avilla wasn’t there,’ I said. ‘He remembers you and your father being there.’ I smiled at her, trying to relax her. ‘You lit quite a fire under Eddie. He saw you coming out of the Annex a couple of days before, saw you again. Decided you were your father’s girlfriend and threw in his towel.’

  ‘That’s not funny, Mark. Dad and I were there. He pointed out Avilla. I was able to describe him to that police artist. Mrs. Haven recognized him from the drawing. It was Avilla.’

  ‘Eddie had gotten to know him,’ I said. ‘He was a good tipper and Eddie paid special attention to him. That night he had a message for him. Avilla never turned up so he could deliver it to him.’

  ‘Your Eddie could have been busy, missed him for the few minutes he was there. And—and it could have been a different night and he’s confused about it.’

  ‘You said that was your first visit to the Trapeze. I tell you, love, Eddie would have remembered you if he’d seen you some other time. You are easily remembered!’

  ‘I can’t explain it, Mark. My father pointed out a man to me. I was able to describe him to the police artist. Mrs. Haven recognized him as Avilla.’

  ‘How well did your father know Avilla?’ I asked. ‘Could he have made a mistake?’

  ‘A double?’ She shook her head. ‘Has your man Eddie seen the drawing the police artist made? Has Luis Sanchez seen it? Inspector Brooks recognized it and pointed out the fact that he wouldn’t have been holding the drink in his crippled right hand. You trust your friend Eddie, but he’s mistaken. I don’t know how long Avilla was there in the bar—two or three minutes while my father talked about him. Your Eddie could have been involved with other customers, left the bar for a little while for some reason. Avilla was there!’

  ‘Your father couldn’t have been mistaken?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mark, we can’t ask him, can we?’

  On an ordinary day Chambrun’s office is the center of all activity. ‘When I don’t know what’s going on everywhere in my hotel, it will be time for me to retire,’ I’ve heard Chambrun say. Everyone reported to him anything unusual that might be happening from roof to basement. Today the Beaumont was like a great ocean liner, adrift at sea with no one at the helm. Jerry Dodd, the security chief, was off on his own. Security people were away from their regular posts, assigned to cover stairways and corridors, aided by cops, to keep strangers from filtering into places where they had no business. The threat of a bombing didn’t seem to discourage the curious. It was the old ‘it can’t happen to me’ theory. Famous last words, I thought.

  I had managed to gather some odds and ends of conflicting evidence from Eddie Walsh, Lois Tranter and Luis Sanchez. Jerry Dodd was the one person, with Chambrun missing, with whom I wanted to share what I had. Somehow Yardley, the CIA man, and Guardino, the cop, didn’t ins
pire my confidence. If Jerry wanted their help, it was his decision to make. I had to find him.

  He hadn’t checked back into the office when I went back there. Betsy Ruysdale was there with Guardino and Yardley, waiting for what? I noticed a stack of copies of the police artist’s drawing of the man we assumed was Ricardo Avilla on the table opposite Chambrun’s desk. I took one of them and headed out across the mezzanine to the Trapeze again. I showed the drawing to Eddie Walsh.

  ‘That’s Avilla,’ he said without hesitation.

  ‘Drawn from a description Lois Tranter gave the police artist,’ I said. ‘The man she saw here at the bar night before last when she was here with her father.’

  ‘Like I told you, Avilla wasn’t here that night,’ Eddie said. ‘She saw him somewhere, but not here.’

  ‘If he just stopped for one drink, you can have been busy,’ I said. ‘You could have gone to the john for a few minutes.’

  ‘I don’t have to go to the john when I’m on duty,’ Eddie said. He grinned at me. ‘I prepare in advance. And I’m never too busy to miss seeing a guy who might slip me a five-buck tip. Avilla wasn’t here that night, Mark. That’s for sure. Again, I had a message for him; I was looking for him to show. He didn’t show while Tranter and his daughter were here, nor any other time that night.’

  ‘You still don’t remember the telephone number you had to give him?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mark. I wrote it down, gave it to Chambrun. That’s that.’

  I went down to the lobby level and along the back corridor to the private room where Luis Sanchez and his staff were holed up. Once again I was confronted by the young man with the gun, and once again I felt a cramp in my stomach muscles. I hoped he didn’t have an itchy finger. But he summoned Sanchez and once again I was admitted. The same staff of people, as far as I could tell, were sitting around the directors’ table—waiting like the rest of us, for what?

  I showed Sanchez the drawing. ‘That’s Ricardo Avilla, without any question,’ he said. ‘He has a little scar near his left eye, but the Tranter girl wouldn’t have noticed that across a room.’

  ‘You still say you don’t think he’s part of what’s going on here?’ I asked.