Nightmare Time

by Hugh Pentecost

  “You two must know these press people pretty well,” Hardy said.

  “I plan to send my kid through college from the tips I get from them,” Johnny Thacker said. “I’m to pass along any dirt I can pick up about famous guests.”

  Mike Maggio grinned. “You understand, we take the money, but we never happen to come up with any dirt.”

  “They’re going to start swarming in here presently,” Hardy said. “There may be some people who don’t belong.”

  “There are bound to be gate-crashers,” Mike said.

  “You spot any, just point them out to me,” Hardy said.

  “You don’t want us to give ’em the bum’s rush?”

  “I want to do that—after I’ve talked to them,” Hardy said.

  It was my job to report to Chambrun that we were about ready to roll. Johnny and Mike reported that the ballroom was set and waiting. I stopped in my apartment on the second floor on the way to Chambrun’s office. When I took a look at myself in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door, I was shocked. I needed a shave and I was wearing the same suit, shirt, and tie I’d started the evening with—was it a year ago? It felt like it. In a few minutes I would be appearing on national television, looking like the local rag-picker if I didn’t do something about it.

  My electric shaver does a quick job of it. I got myself a clean shirt and a different tie, and a freshly pressed suit out of the closet. I found myself weighted down with doubts as I went through the options of making myself into a new man. We were running out of time like water running through a sieve. How long could the enemy hold Major Willis and his wife—and Betsy—once a countrywide man-hunt was launched? They’d have plenty of time to make an escape move after they knew what the press conference had to offer. And they would know the minute the reward money was offered. Someone on their side might defect, someone may just possibly have seen something and the reward would revive their memory. Would they just sit and wait for us to stumble on something that would let us close in? Were we shortening the time that Betsy and the Willises had by staging a big public hoopla? Had we let ourselves be stampeded into a mistake?

  Chambrun had once made a joke about me that could still raise a laugh in a crowd. He said, “Mark falls in love forever every six months.” What he didn’t know—or did he?—was that I had only fallen in love forever once, and to a woman I couldn’t have. Her name was Betsy Ruysdale, and thinking about her was creating an intolerable knot of pain in my midsection. I wanted to be out there doing something heroic, and all I could do was try to make a press conference run smoothly. What must Chambrun, who loved her and was loved in return, be feeling? He’d said he would kill if Betsy was hurt, and I wanted to stand right beside him, swinging away on my own. When I got to Chambrun’s office I found a girl from the stenographic pool presiding at Betsy’s desk. She informed me that Chambrun wasn’t in his private office.

  “He’s gone up to his penthouse to get the Willis boy ready for the press conference,” she told me. “You think it will work, Mr. Haskell?”

  “It better,” I said. “We don’t have much else to play with.”

  “Boy, I wish I knew something! A half a million bucks!”

  I had the uncomfortable feeling that thousands of people were going to remember something that “just might be important.” We were going to be flooded, I guessed, with useless or made-up nothings. Still, I told myself, there could be a needle somewhere in the haystack.

  The ballroom was nearly ready to be filled with the ladies and gentlemen of the media when I got there. Cameras and special lights were being set up, focusing on what was normally the bandstand. That’s where Chambrun and the others who were to speak or answer questions would be stationed. They would be the stars of this performance.

  Rex Chandler seemed to be supervising the preparations, but a small army of nameless technicians were doing the actual work. Rex finally signaled to me, and I joined him.

  “Ready when you are,” he said. “We can’t wait for the late stragglers coming in. So produce The Man, the Willis kid, and whoever else is going to answer questions.”

  Hardy, Colonel Martin and Captain Zachary, and Jerry Dodd were already on the bandstand when Chambrun made his entrance. He was surrounded by so many uniformed cops that Guy Willis, walking beside him, was almost invisible to the waiting reporters.

  “Take away that gang of cops and somebody would have a clear shot at the kid,” Rex Chandler said.

  “One of your reporters?” I asked.

  “Who knows—at today’s prices,” Rex said.

  “They need the boy alive, not dead,” I said. “What we have to guard against is an abduction. It won’t happen here, with Hardy’s men everywhere.”

  “What’s old Mrs. Haven doing here?” Rex asked.

  For the first time I noticed Victoria Haven’s scarlet hairpiece—I think it is a hairpiece—in the center of the army of cops.

  “She’s been baby-sitting the kid,” I told Rex. “Chambrun probably thought young Willis would need someone he could call a friend during this ordeal.”

  Chambrun stepped forward to centerstage and held up his hands for silence. The babble subsided to a whisper.

  “I don’t have to introduce myself to most of you,” The Man said, “but in case there are a few out-of-town or foreign reporters present, I am Pierre Chambrun, manager of the Beaumont. Most of you are up to date on the situation here: the disappearance of Major Willis and his wife; the murder of an elevator operator, Tim Sullivan; the discovery of Sullivan’s body and Major Willis’s army uniform in a trash bin in the basement; the abduction of my secretary, Miss Ruysdale, intended to force me to let them have the Willis boy to use against his father; and finally, a bomb threat against the hotel, another threat intended to force me to turn this young boy over to his father’s enemies. Since all that, there has been one more move, a cassette tape sent to me by special messenger. I’m going to play it for you now. The woman’s voice, without any question, is Miss Ruysdale’s.” He signaled to someone in the wings, and they could all hear the scratching sound as the tape began to turn—hear it over the loudspeakers set up in the ballroom. Then Betsy’s voice:

  “Where is this place?”

  Then the comic Russian: “It doesn’t matter where you are, doll.”

  And then it went on, about why she was being held, to force Chambrun to release the boy; Betsy’s confidence that Chambrun wouldn’t knuckle under. And then the voice with the accent: “You are a smart lady, Miss Ruysdale. I can’t let you go, because you can identify me.”

  Then the sound of what Lieutenant Hardy had called “an erasure.” Betsy had named her captor, but we would never hear it. Then the man again: “So meanwhile we can have some fun and games, no?”

  Betsy: “Stop that! Take your filthy hands off me!”

  “We might as well enjoy ourselves while we’re at it.”

  “Stop it—damn you! No, I tell you! Oh God, please—no!”

  The scratching tape and then the final warning from the man with the accent. “The rest is left to your imagination, Mr. Chambrun. I suggest that if you want to make it painless for your lady, you do as you are told. Turn the boy loose!”

  Voices rose in a clamor of excitement. Questions were shouted at Chambrun. He held up his hands again for silence.

  “Questions in a moment,” he said. “As you can see, I have not knuckled under. I have not set the boy free. I want him to tell you why, so that you won’t come up with a thousand time-wasting questions later.” He turned to the boy. “Will you come forward, Guy, and tell them about the decision we made?”

  The boy was sitting next to Victoria Haven, clinging to her hand as though it was a life preserver. She bent down and gave him a light kiss on the side of his head. He stood up and came unsteadily downstage to Chambrun.

  Chambrun placed him behind the stage microphone. They’d obviously discussed this moment on their way to the conference, because young Guy didn’t look to anyone fo
r instruction. He took a deep breath and looked out toward the back of the room, as though he was speaking to someone special there. His voice was a little unsteady as he began.

  “Dad—in case they let you listen to this on television wherever you are, I—I hope you’re all right. They couldn’t do you too much harm if they expect you to be able to tell them things, could they? Mr. Chambrun’s right, isn’t he? They want to use me to get you to talk. I—I was willing to take that chance, because I didn’t think you’d want Betsy—Miss Ruysdale—or Mr. Chambrun to be hurt on our account. I was going to try to turn myself over to them, but Mr. Chambrun has arranged it so that I couldn’t leave the roof where they are holding me, and so that no one can get to me and force me to leave.

  “Then Mr. Chambrun made me see that the one chance I had to help you was not to play into their hands. I think he is right, Dad. However much I want to get to you and Rozzie, I now believe that the worst thing I could do would be to let myself be used to force you to do something you don’t want to do—mustn’t do. Please know how very, very much I love you, Dad. They’re going to offer a very big reward for help in a few minutes. I’ll be praying that it works, Dad. I promise.”

  The boy lowered his eyes and there was a little murmur of sympathy from the hard-boiled characters he was facing. Chambrun put his arm around the boy’s shoulder.

  “Guy will answer questions for you when the time comes,” he said. “Guy mentioned a reward to you. We are offering a half million dollars for information that will result in the rescue of Major Willis, his wife, and Miss Ruysdale, and/or the identification of the criminals responsible for taking them as hostages. We don’t want a million guesses tossed into the air, we want real hard facts that will lead us somewhere. Whatever you report to us will be held in the strictest confidence. There is a number you can call if you don’t want to come forward in person. It is 1-500-HOSTAGE. I’ll repeat that for you—1-500-HOSTAGE.”

  “Question!” someone shouted from the audience.

  “Two more statements, and then you can have at us,” Chambrun said. “I want to introduce Colonel Stephen Martin, Air Force Intelligence, and Major Willis’s commanding officer.”

  Colonel Martin came forward, looking grim and forbidding.

  “There are lives at stake here,” he said. “I refer to Major Willis, his wife, and Miss Ruysdale. They are precious to many people in their own worlds. We are doing everything we possibly can to find them—in time, hopefully unharmed.”

  “You heard that tape, Colonel!” someone in the audience shouted.

  “Yes, I heard that tape,” Martin said. “It made me sick at my stomach. But I have to tell you there is something else at stake which may be more important to you and millions of people who will learn about this case in the media. Major Willis has information that could endanger the safety of your country if it fell into the wrong hands. Major Willis is a brave man. The efforts made to get at his young son make us believe he has held out so far. But he could have a breaking point. Most of us do. The safety of the Willises and Miss Ruysdale may not be important to you, but the security of the United States has to matter to all of you.”

  “Question!”

  “One more statement for you,” Chambrun said, shouting down the cries of “Question.” “I want you to hear Lieutenant Walter Hardy, New York Police, Homicide Division. He is investigating Tim Sullivan’s murder.”

  Hardy approached the mike from upstage. He was not a stranger in dealing with the press.

  “Sullivan’s murder may seem incidental to you after listening to Colonel Martin. But Sullivan had a wife and two children and what happened to him matters to them and to many friends who worked with him here in the Beaumont. But there’s no use pretending that solving Sullivan’s murder isn’t a key part of this whole business. I want to tell you a few things we’re looking for that could lead to your earning a lot of bucks if you have answers. So, here they are. The Willises left their suite on seventeen to go down to the Blue Lagoon. Somebody was on the elevator with them who shot Sullivan and took them prisoner. Did anyone see who went on the elevator with the Willises? Next, they must have been in the basement area later. So far, no one has turned up who saw them there. Next, a man registered here at the Beaumont about eight o’clock last night. He called himself Henry Graves, and claimed to be a friend of the Willises. He got the room next to theirs on seventeen. The clerk describes him only as a man with a hat brim pulled down over his forehead and wearing dark glasses. A little after four in the morning, a man who fits that same description was seen carrying Miss Ruysdale out of her apartment and taking her off in a car. Did anyone else see that man at any other time, in any other place? Finally, we have a man in custody who is Frank Gary, proprietor of a limousine service, who has been identified positively as having posed as a Catholic priest who tried to lure the Willis boy out of the hotel before Chambrun arrived to protect him. That’s all we have, friends, but anything that would elaborate on any one of those leads would be invaluable.”

  “Question!”

  Rex Chandler had apparently been elected or appointed by his fellow reporters to handle the questioning.

  “I’ll recognize you one at a time,” he called out. “It would be a madhouse if you’re all shouting questions at once.” He smiled. “But I’m going to take advantage of my position by asking the first question. It’s to you, Lieutenant Hardy, while you’re still on deck. How do we know the Willises were ever on Sullivan’s elevator? How do we know that Sullivan’s murder has anything to do with the rest of this case?”

  It was a smart question, and it created a buzz of excitement.

  Hardy smiled at the reporter. “I asked myself that question hours ago, Mr. Chandler. I got an answer from Jerry Dodd, head of the hotel security. Jerry, you want to tell him?”

  Jerry appeared from the back of the hall. “Tim’s body and the Major’s uniform in the same trash bin made it look certain they’d been on the same elevator,” he said. “But Hardy asked me to make certain. There are no elevators on self-service at nine o’clock at night. Major Willis wasn’t a stranger to hotel help. The thing with Mr. Chambrun a couple of years back made him a kind of hero to most of us. He simply couldn’t have traveled on an elevator without being recognized by the operator, especially in uniform. He didn’t travel with anyone else, so he had to be on Sullivan’s car.”

  “Thanks, Jerry. And one more unpopular question while I still have the floor, this one to Colonel Martin.”

  The Air Force man stepped forward.

  “Is it possible that Major Willis arranged for his own disappearance?” Chandler asked. “That he sold out on you long ago? That while you’re searching for his abductors, he’s laughing all the way to the bank with a pocket full of Russian money?”

  Before the Colonel could answer, young Guy Willis came charging downstage, shouting at Chandler. “Not my dad! Don’t you dare say that about my dad!” He was clawing at Chandler, those dreaded tears streaking his cheeks again.

  Chandler handled him gently, even before Chambrun got to him. “Listen to me, boy,” he said, “I’m not accusing your father of anything. I’m just asking a question that must be asked and answered so we can get on with things. If we don’t ask, suspicions may be lurking around us forever.”

  “I would stake my life on Major Willis’s honesty and patriotism,” Colonel Martin said.

  Chambrun had reached the boy, and his protective arm was around him. “Why, if he is the villain, would Major Willis kill Tim Sullivan, Mr. Chandler?”

  “Sullivan wouldn’t do something Willis ordered him to do,” Chandler said.

  “Tim could only take him up or down,” Chambrun said. “He could not take him sideways or to the moon! He wouldn’t have objected to taking Willis to any floor level, penthouses or basement. Willis could have anything he asked for in this hotel. Let’s not play games with this man’s honor, Mr. Chandler. Let’s get to another line of questions.”

  “So I’ve ac
complished something by asking the questions,” Chandler said. He turned to the audience. A hundred hands were raised. Chandler smiled and pointed to a woman reporter in the front row. “Maureen Lewis, International Network.”

  “To Colonel Martin,” the lady said. “The classified information Major Willis is supposed to have—is it all just something that is stored in his head, or are there documents—written plans, technical designs, whatever? If there are such documents, you must have searched for them. Have you found them?”

  Martin looked uncomfortable. “Major Willis has sat in on a whole series of planning sessions over the last six months. He must have taken notes. If he did, we haven’t found them in his suite. He didn’t leave anything in the hotel safe.”

  “May I add to your answer, Colonel?” Chambrun asked. “Whether there are notes or documents doesn’t seem relevant to me, Ms. Lewis. The Major wasn’t carrying documents like that on the way to listen to a jazz piano player. And the attempts to kidnap the boy to use him to force his father to talk makes it clear the Major wasn’t carrying Star Wars secrets in his uniform pocket. If there are documents, the people who kidnapped the Major haven’t got them, or they wouldn’t be going to the lengths they are to force him to talk. You people are wasting valuable time trying to cast doubts on Major Willis.”

  Later on Chambrun and Hardy both agreed that asking those questions at the very start of the conference had been valuable. Intelligent reporters must all have had suspicions that Major Willis might have defected. Setting aside those suspicions at the very beginning had left them free to ask questions that might be important.

  But as I listened to question after question directed to Chambrun, Hardy, Jerry Dodd, and Colonel Martin, nothing that I didn’t already know came to light. Probably a million people who were listening to their radios and watching their TV sets were brought up to date on all the details we had, but no questions took us to anything new. I know now that while the conference was still being broadcast the HOSTAGE line was being bombarded with calls, most of them from crackpots, none of them providing us with anything new that mattered.