Deadly Joke

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Charlie made friends with some kind of sharpy who hung out at the poolhall place. He was one of those guys who has ‘inside connections.’ We followed his lead on a few bets, and we cleaned up. We were the real get-rich-quick kids. Then we started to have a run of bad luck. Before you knew it, we’d dropped everything we’d made during the winter, and we were scratching to find some cash so that we could recoup. Charlie had bought himself a car, and the finance company was down on him. It was a tragedy to us. I suppose an outsider would have laughed at us. We owed a few hundred dollars and my father was a very rich man. I didn’t want to go to my father. He’d have disapproved. He’d probably have bailed me out, but he’d have held it over my head like a club; he was a stern disciplinarian.”

  Maxwell shook his head, as though it was hard for him to believe even now. “That’s where our sharpy friend came into the picture. He came to us one day, all very secret and hush-hush. There was a horse going that day at long odds. It was, he told us, a fix. The syndicate that owned the horse was controlling the betting. If we wanted to come in for say five thousand bucks, we would be rolling in money. The horse would pay about fifteen dollars for two. It wasn’t too hard for Charlie and me to figure out that we stood to win something over thirty-five thousand dollars. Of course, it was dream-thinking, because we didn’t have five thousand dollars to put up.

  “‘Look, fellows,’ our sharpy told us, ‘I’ve been dealing with you long enough to know you’re straight shooters. You want to give me your I O U for five G’s, I’ll place the bet for you.’

  “‘And if we lose?’ I remember asking him. I was hooked; I was going to go along with it, but I was going to be prudent to the end. ‘What if we lose?’

  “‘This is a certainty,’ our sharpy said. ‘As certain as anything can be. The horse could break his leg—act of God. That’s the kind of risk you run every day just getting into your shower bath in the morning. You could slip and kill yourself. That doesn’t stop you from taking a bath, does it?’

  “Would you believe it sounded like logic to Charlie and me?” Maxwell brought his fist down on the arm of his chair. “I still had a moment when I should have backed out. When it came to signing the I O U, he just wanted me on the paper. ‘You’ve got places to get it, Doug,’ our sharpy said. ‘Charlie is a great guy, but he don’t have the sources for that kind of dough.’

  “Charlie was leaning on me. We could be out of trouble; we could be rich. And so I signed the damn thing.”

  “And the horse is still running,” Chambrun said.

  “He quit running long ago,” Maxwell said. “He quit running the minute he came out of the starting gate. He was bumped, our sharpy told us. He was fouled, but the stewards didn’t go for the complaint. Today I suspect the whole thing was aimed at me. There wasn’t any fix. Our money may have been the only money bet on that horse who was not bound to win, but bound to lose. I was a sucker who, under pressure, could get five thousand dollars from my father.”

  “But you didn’t,” Chambrun said.

  “You never knew my father, Pierre. He was the father-image of all time; he was God; he was grim. Given time to think up some rational reason to borrow five thousand dollars from him and he might have come through. But to pay a horse racing debt? Never. He would think I should take whatever was coming to me. It would be what he liked to call a ‘character builder.’

  “What was coming to me began to look pretty grim. Our sharpy turned up with a tough guy who was right out of a Warner Brothers’ movie. They would give me twenty-four hours to come up with the money.

  “‘And if I can’t get it you’ll go to my father?’” I asked.

  “That wasn’t the answer. They would make an example of me to all the guys in town who imagined they could welsh on a bet. They didn’t say it, but the suggestion was I’d be found in the river with my feet in a barrel of cement. I think they meant it, Pierre. I believed it, at any rate.

  “Charlie was sympathetic. He knew my father and how impossible it would be to get help from him. My father would never believe that kind of wild threat—not in time. Then Charlie reminded me that there was a class fund to which I had access. There was eight or nine thousand dollars in it. There wouldn’t be any kind of an audit for a couple of months. By that time I’d have found a way to get five thousand from my father and no one would be any the wiser.

  “It was a desperation moment, Pierre. I took the money and paid our sharpy. There was one hitch. Charlie wasn’t prepared to face the music if I was caught. He insisted that I write him a sort of confession that I was solely responsible for the theft. If I was caught, and anybody looked at him, he’d be safe. In the background was the Warner Brothers gangster with his barrel of cement.” Maxwell drew a deep breath. “So I signed the confession. Charlie was my friend, my blood cousin. He wouldn’t use it unless the theft was discovered and someone wondered about him.”

  “The theft was discovered?”

  “Never,” Maxwell said. “I dreamed up something for my father. I asked him for five thousand dollars so that I could have a year to make up my mind what I wanted to do with my life. He went for it. I replaced the money. I never had to account for the year to my father. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and I was promptly in the navy. My father died before I got out of the service, and I was suddenly a very rich young man.”

  “But Charlie Sewall still had the confession?”

  Maxwell nodded. “Oh, I asked him for it. He made a joke of it at first. He wanted it for his memory book, he said. In private he would needle me about it, always laughing. I was a modern Jimmy Valentine, he would say. I worried about it, but presently the world was turned upside-down by the war. I was in love with Grace. We were married just before I got my navy pilot’s wings. The time was so crowded, so tense, I forgot about Charlie and his piece of paper. But when I came back, and Grace and I moved into my father’s house and I was wealthy, good old Charlie came onstage. He needed some money. Could I help him?

  “I was almost too happy in those days, Pierre. I had come out of the hell of the war without a scratch, I had a wife whom I loved with all my heart, I had no financial worries. I’d been offered a job at Barstow College, a place I loved. I could see a flawless future stretching out in front of me. Sure I would help good old Charlie. How much? A hundred? Two hundred?

  “Charlie laughed at me. What he had in mind was something like fifteen thousand a year. He would accept it in quarterly payments. For a minute I thought it was one of Charlie’s endless jokes. He made it quite clear it wasn’t. He reminded me of the confession. How would Grace feel about a public exposure that would let the whole world know she had married a thief? Oh, she might stand by me, he conceded. But what about Barstow College? Would they want a thief on their administrative staff? What about my dream of becoming Barstow’s president, as my father and grandfather had been? Did I want to kiss that good-by?

  “I doubted they’d turn on me for a youthful indiscretion.

  “‘You want to try it on them for size?’ Charlie asked. ‘I’m willing if you are. I hate to do this to you, Doug, but I have my problems. You can afford it without even feeling it.’

  “He was right as far as the money was concerned. I could afford it without changing my way of life. I went a little pompous with him. I told him I was sorry he’d used a threat to get what he wanted. I told him all he’d had to do was ask for what he really needed.

  “He laughed at me. ‘That time may come,’ he said.

  “So I paid him his first installment. Grace and I didn’t see him anymore socially. That would have been too much. But every three months Charlie would turn up at my office to get his quarterly slice of my hide. Always laughing, always joking, but always collecting.” Maxwell raised a hand to his eyes for a moment. His voice was rough with fatigue. “Year after year it’s gone on, Pierre. He never threatened, he never asked for more, he never mentioned the incriminating document he had. He just collected. Would you believe that after a while I
almost forgot that he represented any kind of danger to me? He was just a kind of family pensioner. He was part of my life’s routine. Then—then this political thing came into my life a few months back. Charlie came to see me when it was announced. I had been paying him, automatically, for twenty-three years! Would you believe that?

  “‘If you’re going to become a bigger public figure on a bigger stage, Doug,’ Charlie said, ‘I think the insurance premiums will have to go up.’

  “‘How much?’ I asked him.

  “‘You’d think I was being greedy if I asked for double?’

  “I told him that was impossible.

  “‘It’s up to you,’ he told me. ‘You could pull out now, of course. That would be that. But if you go ahead, get in deeper and deeper, you can count on me to choose the perfect time to knock you off your phony pedestal.’”

  “And you gave in?” Chambrun asked.

  “Not then,” Maxwell said. “I seriously considered throwing in the towel. I don’t need to be a Senator, Pierre; not to satisfy my own ego or any personal ambitions. Do I sound like a pompous ass if I say that other people need me to run; that perhaps my country needs me to run?”

  “How much damage would Charlie’s revelation do you?” Chambrun said.

  “It’s hard to say. Once elected, I think it would be meaningless. I was a damn fool twenty-six years ago. My war record, my life since then, is without a blemish. There are other men in public office with more serious indiscretions on their records. But before election, used by the opposition as it would be, it could make the difference between winning and losing.”

  “So how did you handle it?”

  “I told Charlie I would make a decision after tonight. If this fund-raising dinner came off as we hoped—if we had enough money for the campaign to justify optimism—I would talk to him. I think he knew what I meant. You see, Pierre, the whole thing is unpredictable. Charlie could show that I had been a thief long, long ago. It might destroy me. But people are funny. That kind of a charge by someone with Charlie’s reputation might just boomerang against him. People just might flock to support me.”

  “Not at all improbable,” Chambrun said.

  “I think that’s why he chose tonight for that insane joke. He wanted to remind me that he was waiting for an answer. And there would be people who would never hear the explanation. It wasn’t I who appeared without my trousers on, but many people would never hear the explanation. A thief who would appear in public without his pants would have a lot of trouble persuading a lot of voters that he was stable enough to sit in the United States Senate.”

  “Did you have any reason to suspect he would pull some kind of joke tonight?”

  “God, no!”

  Chambrun glanced at me. Grace Maxwell had known. Diana had known. For some reason I believed Maxwell. He hadn’t known.

  Maxwell leaned forward in his chair. “There is a woman who has lived with Charlie for a number of years. Some kind of a chorus girl or actress, I believe. Is she the one who tipped you to this blackmail story, Pierre?”

  “The lady is a very old friend of mine, Doug. She came to me and not the police,” Chambrun said.

  I was sorry he’d admitted it. I had a picture of Melody calling out to me from the cab. “Keep your fingers crossed, Buster.”

  Maxwell’s face was grim. “So the blackmailing will go on just the same,” he said.

  “It may,” Chambrun said. “But not by the lady. I promise you that.” He paused to light a cigarette. “The blackmailer’s method of operation is pretty standard, Doug. That confession of yours is in somebody’s hands—not the lady’s. It could be a banker who has access to the safety deposit box; it could be a lawyer; it could be some friend. There will be instructions to make the confession public if Charlie suffers a violence. If the person who holds it is an honest banker or an honest lawyer, he will go to the police with it. If he is a friend of Charlie’s, one of Charlie’s kind, he may suggest that your quarterly payments now go to him.”

  “Oh, God!” Maxwell said.

  “The most important thing, Doug, is to establish the fact that you couldn’t have been on that balcony with a handgun, waiting to shoot Charlie down. We can’t destroy your motive if this story becomes public, but I hope we can make it clear that, motive or not, you couldn’t have been the killer.”

  “The itinerary was simple enough, Pierre. Watty Clarke made the arrangements. Because of parking problems he engaged Limousine Service to have a car at my house shortly before seven. Watty had stopped to pick up Grace and take her on ahead. I was to make my entrance after everyone had arrived. Poor Stew Shaw must have been psychic. He was worried about trouble from the kids—violent trouble. He persuaded me to leave the house about seven, which was a good fifteen minutes too early.

  “‘I want to look over the scene before you go in, Mr. Maxwell,’ Stew said. ‘A block from the hotel I’ll get out and go have a look-see. The driver’ll take you around the block and pick me up again. I’d feel safer if I saw just how things are arranged.’

  “It seemed supercautious to me,” Maxwell said, “but I let him have his way. We left the house about five minutes of seven. We came to the corner of Madison Avenue and Stew got out. ‘Give me fifteen minutes,’ he said to the driver. He headed for the hotel, and the driver took me over to Park and down a few blocks and then back up Madison. Stew hadn’t come back when we got to the corner, so we did another loop around the block. Stew was there when we came to the appointed place a second time. He got in. We came into the lobby and found that all hell had broken loose.”

  Chambrun’s eyes were narrowed. “Could you say what time it was Shaw rejoined you?”

  Maxwell nodded. “We were just a block from the hotel. I remember looking at my watch and seeing that it was twenty-five after seven. The timing was perfect. We were supposed to make our entrance at exactly seven-thirty.”

  “Shaw left you about five after seven and went to the hotel. You drove around for a while. Shaw rejoined you at seven-twenty-five. Give him three minutes to walk to the hotel and he’d have gotten here about eight minutes after seven. Three minutes to walk from the hotel to Madison again. That would mean he left here about twenty-two minutes after seven.”

  “I suppose.”

  Chambrun leaned back in his chair. “Weren’t you pretty disturbed about going on to the hotel when you knew there’d been a shooting?” he said.

  “We didn’t know till we got there,” Maxwell said.

  Chambrun’s eyes seemed to glitter in their pouches. “Charles Sewall was shot at exactly seven-fifteen. Presumably Shaw was in the hotel taking a ‘look-see.’ He didn’t tell you what had happened?”

  Maxwell raised his head. “He must not have known or he would certainly have told me.”

  “Where was he, do you suppose?”

  “I don’t know, Pierre! Maybe he was outside looking over the pickets and the black militants.”

  “So he missed the action.”

  “He must have.”

  Chambrun was silent for a moment and then he stood up abruptly. “We’ll come up with that limousine driver before too long, Doug,” he said. “He should put you in the clear. I suggest you go back to your quarters and get as much rest as you can. When Lieutenant Hardy comes down on you, it’s going to be a long, hard session.”

  Maxwell pushed himself up out of his chair. “There are two questions I’d like to ask you, Pierre. Do you think the assassin was after Charlie and not me?”

  “It’s possible,” Chambrun said. “A blackmailer generally has more than one enemy. From the little I’ve heard, I’d guess Charles Sewall wasn’t limiting his bloodsucking to you, Doug. Second question?”

  “Does this—must this blackmailing story be made public?”

  “Public in terms of a statement to the press, certainly not. When your limousine driver has cleared you, as I’m sure he will, I may have to tell Hardy what I know. I can’t stand by and watch him search for someone who me
ant to kill you if it turns out he should be looking for someone who meant to kill Charlie.”

  “Whatever you can do—”

  “I can ask you a question,” Chambrun said. “Watson Clarke is one of your oldest friends. He managed a dinner for you tonight. It’s rumored he will manage your campaign. Have you ever told him about Charlie’s blackmail routine?”

  Maxwell nodded slowly. “I had to tell Watty,” he said. “I couldn’t let him go out on a limb for me and then get hit in the face with Charlie’s story.” His eyes widened. “You’re not suggesting—”

  “Clarke didn’t shoot Charlie Sewall,” Chambrun said. “We know exactly where he was when it happened.”

  “Thank God for that,” Maxwell said.

  Chambrun went to the door with his friend and turned him over to the two guards who were waiting in Miss Ruysdale’s office. He came slowly back into the office, scowling. He went over to the sideboard and poured himself a demitasse of Turkish coffee.