Bargain with Death

by Hugh Pentecost

  “He’d bought Johnny an expensive toy,” Chambrun said, his eyes narrowed. “I supposed he wanted to be on hand to see how Johnny handled it.”

  “That’s what he wanted you and everybody else to think,” Carlson said. “The real reason was far more devious. He is—was—involved in the biggest deal of his life.”

  “Gamayel’s oil deal?”

  Carlson nodded. “We’re living in strange times, Mr. Chambrun. There’s no such thing as secrecy any more. It’s a world of leaks. Look at the government, at Grand Juries, at the most secret kind of international diplomacy. Leaks—nothing kept hidden. Only a few people you trust know some fact, and tomorrow your enemies or your competitors have it. This deal with Gamayel’s government is so top secret any kind of leak would be fatal. It became apparent that there was leakage from our office, leakage from J.W.’s house. We couldn’t plug it up. We couldn’t put a finger on it. So J.W., having bought the hotel, found an excuse to move here—putting Johnny in charge. It removed J.W. from his household staff, his office staff. Whoever was betraying him no longer had access to what he was doing.”

  “Yet his room was bugged. Johnny’s office and his room were bugged,” Chambrun said.

  “God help us,” Carlson said. He took another swallow of his drink. His eyes were red with exhaustion. “He thought he was safe here—safe from eavesdropping or spying. Gamayel was here in the hotel, contact with him easy. Emory Clarke was here to advise him. And then—then there was Trudy.”

  “I don’t follow,” Chambrun said.

  “It was my suggestion, and I’ll never forgive myself for it,” Carlson said.

  “What suggestion?”

  “Who would ever spot Trudy as a spy?” Carlson said. “She was, apparently, just a sex-crazy kid with her number one man now located in the hotel—Johnny. No one would ever pay any attention to her, except as an exciting doll. Nobody would dream she was in J.W.’s confidence. But she took on the job—took it on eagerly. She watched all the comings and goings; she reported to us two or three times a day. Even Johnny didn’t know what she was up to. She thought it was fun, exciting. She was Mata Hari—in a mini skirt!” Carlson choked on his drink. “But shrewd and sharp-eyed.”

  “What had she learned? Anything important?”

  She was in my office, reporting, when we got word of J. W.’s death. She felt she had failed somehow. She said there was someone she suspected and she was going to ‘Nail him to the cross.’ Those were her words. I urged her to back off. It was out of her hands now. She just laughed at me. And now—now I’ll live with the sight of her in that tub forever. I should have stopped her. I didn’t.”

  “She struck me as a girl who made her own decisions,” Chambrun said. “She didn’t tell you who this man was she was going to ‘nail to the cross’?”

  Carlson shook his head. “We spent most of our time trying to guess who was responsible for leaks. We’d guessed everyone from the top down. I asked her—begged her to tell me who she suspected. ‘I’m through playing guessing games,’ she told me. ‘When I’m sure, I’ll tell you.’”

  Chambrun took time to light one of his flat Egyptian cigarettes. He lit it, took a deep drag on it, and let the smoke out in a pale blue cloud. “So Johnny may have been kidnapped to keep her silent,” he said, more to himself than Carlson. “She was designated to deliver the money so that they’d have the opportunity to warn her off. But somebody couldn’t wait. She’d gone one step too far, one step closer to exposing someone, and they couldn’t wait to warn her off.”

  Carlson looked up. “And Johnny?” he asked.

  “The ransom—if we’re guessing right—was just to make it look like a genuine kidnapping. Now that they know Trudy is dead—” Chambrun’s eyes were narrowed slits.

  “They won’t risk a contact? They don’t need the money?” Carlson’s voice shook. “They’ll just—?”

  “Remove him from the scene, if they hadn’t done so already. Trudy was the key to this. She would deliver the money, unprotected by us or the cops. Standard kidnapping routine. But they wanted her, not money—to silence her one way or another. It turned out they couldn’t wait. She was too close.”

  “So what do we do about Johnny?” Carlson asked.

  “We keep this line open—and hope that we’re wrong about what they’ve done to him,” Chambrun said.

  One of the phones on Chambrun’s desk blinked, not the private line. He picked up the phone and I knew he was listening to Ruysdale on the line. “Five minutes,” he said finally, and put down the phone.

  He faced Carlson, and he was suddenly quite businesslike. “You need to get some rest, and try to get it out of your mind that you’re responsible,” he said. “I’ll have Miss Ruysdale take you up to my penthouse. Get some sleep. She’ll provide you with some sleeping pills if you need them. If there is a call, we’ll wake you at once.”

  “I should go back to the office,” Carlson said vaguely. “They’ll be working there all night.”

  “You’re needed here—in case there should be a call,” Chambrun said. “Please do what I ask.”

  Carlson pulled himself up out of his chair and Chambrun took him out to Ruysdale. When he came back, he took over at his own desk. He handed me Carlson’s glass, which I took back to the sideboard.

  “One of our mystery men is about to pay us a call,” he said. “Mr. James Olin is on his way up from the lobby. Give Hardy a call, will you? I think he should be here for this.”

  I’ve done a lot of talking about Carlson’s state of shock. I have to admit here I was not much better off. Like Carlson, I couldn’t shake the picture of Trudy’s mutilated body. And while Johnny-baby had been a pain in the neck to me, the thought of him being done in by the same butchers was almost too much. Johnny had screwed up things at the hotel to an incredible degree while he tried to manage it, but he didn’t deserve this kind of retribution.

  I had a punishing need to get out of this whirlpool for a while. I thought I needed to get nicely, quietly, blind drunk and sleep it off, hopefully blotting out blood-red visions. Mr. James Olin didn’t matter to me. He was just someone J. W. Sassoon had arranged a room for in the hotel. He would explain how that had come about and that would be that.

  But I knew Chambrun wasn’t going to let me go. There was still an outside chance we might hear something from the kidnappers. There might still be errands to run, tabs to be kept on someone. I made myself a rather larger than normal drink at the sideboard, and before I could touch it, Chambrun asked me to wait in the outer office for Mr. James Olin. Ruysdale had gone up to the penthouse with Carlson. I took the drink with me.

  The floor maid had described Olin as being tall, sandy-haired, and wearing green-tinted glasses. She hadn’t mentioned that the tinted glasses were in gold wire frames. She hadn’t mentioned that he moved with the grace and balance of a well-trained athlete. She hadn’t mentioned that his mouth was a thin, straight slit that looked as if it had been cut into his face with a razor blade. She hadn’t mentioned that he looked like a man I wouldn’t care to meet up with in a dark alley.

  “I understand the manager wants to see me,” Olin said. His voice was level and cold. People come to the Beaumont from all over the world, and I boast that I have a very good ear for speech patterns. When I’m a little high, I’ll bet that I can tell what state a man comes from within one border. James Olin’s speech was precise, controlled, and I was reminded of a New England schoolmaster I’d hated when I was in prep school.

  “Mr. Chambrun wants to see you,” I said. I meant it as a rebuke. No one referred to Chambrun as “the manager,” even though that’s exactly what he was. I led Olin into the private office.

  Chambrun was sitting at his desk, sipping a demitasse of his Turkish coffee. No one spoke for a moment and I had the peculiar sensation of watching two opponents sizing each other up.

  “Good evening, Mr. Olin,” Chambrun said finally.

  “The desk clerk said you wanted to see me,” Olin sai
d.

  “We’ve been looking for you since early this morning,” Chambrun said.

  “I’ve been away from the hotel since early yesterday evening.”

  “May I ask where?” Chambrun said.

  The light from Chambrun’s desk lamp glittered against the green lenses. “You may ask, but I don’t believe I’m required to tell you,” Olin said.

  Chambrun’s demitasse cup made a little clicking sound as he put it down, rather firmly, in its saucer. “You are aware that J. W. Sassoon is dead?” Chambrun asked.

  “I became aware of it late this afternoon,” Olin said.

  “How did you become aware?”

  “I read it in an afternoon newspaper in Washington, D.C.—if that matters,” Olin said. The thin slit of a mouth grew even thinner. “Look here, Mr. Chambrun, I think I know why you want to talk to me. J. W. Sassoon reserved my room for me here and he was taking care of my account with the hotel personally. If you are concerned with who is to pay my bill—”

  “You paid your own bill with an American Express card,” Chambrun said.

  “A technicality. Sassoon paid my account with American Express. Since you seem to have been doing a rundown on me, I supposed you would know that.”

  “You worked for Sassoon?”

  “What is it you want of me, Chambrun? I don’t think I have to answer your questions. If you question my credit—”

  “I think you do have to answer questions, Mr. Olin,” a voice said from the doorway. Hardy had come in unannounced. He looked bushed. He was carrying some papers in his hand.

  “Lieutenant Hardy, Homicide Division of the New York police department,” Chambrun said.

  Sandy eyebrows rose behind the green lenses. “Homicide?” Olin said.

  “What you didn’t read in the newspaper, Mr. Olin, is that J. W. Sassoon was murdered,” Hardy said. “We haven’t let it out yet. I’m much too tired to play games with you.” He looked down at one of the papers he was carrying. “Your fingerprints were found in Sassoon’s room, all over his desk. The FBI has reported on those prints.” He read from the paper. “‘James Olin, age forty-six; former agent of the CIA, nineteen fifty-eight to nineteen sixty-eight, resigned with an excellent record. Went to work late in nineteen sixty-eight for J. W. Sassoon Enterprises. So far as is known, he is still employed by Sassoon. Expert marksman. During his CIA period he worked in Europe, the Middle East, and Russia. Speaks five languages in addition to English fluently—French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian.’”

  Hardy looked up from the paper. “There is more about your schooling—college, law school, your marriage which ended in divorce. And on and on, Mr. Olin, including a variety of skills in what might be called violent action. Since your prints were found in the room where Sassoon was murdered, you become a prime suspect. You can refuse to answer questions without having your lawyer present, but in that case you will be arrested on suspicion and the questioning can take place at headquarters. Your choice, Mr. Olin.”

  During this recital there hadn’t been the smallest flicker of change on Olin’s hard, set face. “I choose to answer—up to a point.”

  Hardy sat down in a green leather armchair and stretched his legs out in front of him, a tired man. He fumbled in his pocket for that charred briar pipe. He began to fill it from an oilskin pouch. He wasn’t a man in a hurry. I had the pleasant feeling that Olin underestimated him.

  “According to this report you have been working for J. W. Sassoon for approximately six years,” Hardy said.

  “That is correct,” Olin said. He clipped off his syllables.

  “How does it happen that Mr. Carlson, Sassoon’s lawyer, never heard of you?” Hardy asked, looking up with mild eyes.

  “The nature of my job.’ I worked undercover for Mr. Sassoon.”

  “We’ll come to the nature of your job in a moment,” Hardy said. “But first, who is Mark Zorich?”

  “There is no such person,” Olin said.

  “You mean you don’t know who he is?”

  “I mean what I said. There is no such person. ‘Mark Zorich’ is a name, a cover, an identity that was used to convey messages for and from J. W. Sassoon. When anyone in the labyrinth of companies Sassoon controls got a message or an order from ‘Mark Zorich,’ they knew it was authentic, authorized by Sassoon himself.”

  “The last message he delivered was to the effect that Sassoon was dead,” Hardy said. “That couldn’t have been an authentic message from Sassoon.”

  “Someone used it to make sure the message was believed,” Olin said.

  “You?”

  “No.”

  Hardy paused to light his pipe. “So now let’s get to your fingerprints on Sassoon’s desk, Mr. Olin,” he said.

  Nothing ruffled James Olin’s cool. The green lenses were fixed steadily on Hardy. “Sassoon sent for me to come to his room last night. It was just after eight o’clock. When I got there, he was just eating dinner which had been served him by Room Service. He told me he wanted me to go to Washington for him on a special mission. Facts relating to that mission were contained in papers that were spread out on his desk. He asked me to look at those documents while he finished eating. I sat down at the desk, I handled the papers, I could have left dozens of prints there. He’d finished eating by the time I’d gone through the papers. He gave me my instructions and I left. I got a plane for Washington a little after midnight.”

  “Taking the papers with you?”

  “What I took with me was in my head.”

  “And who did you go to see in Washington?”

  “Sorry,” Olin said. “That’s a question I won’t answer.”

  “You may need an alibi,” Hardy said.

  “If I do, I’ll find one,” Olin said.

  “There were no papers found in Sassoon’s room.”

  Olin shrugged. “J. W. wouldn’t have left them around for the chambermaid to read—or any guests he might have.”

  “We have reason to think there was a woman with him when he died,” Hardy said.

  “He enjoyed the company of women.”

  “In bed?” Hardy asked.

  “That kind of thing was far behind him,” Olin said.

  Hardy changed his tack. “With J. W. Sassoon dead, who are you working for, Mr. Olin?”

  “I would suppose Johnny Sassoon—if anyone.”

  “Did you know that Johnny Sassoon has been kidnapped?” Hardy asked, very casual.

  For the first time something happened to that green-tinted mask of Olin’s. A nerve twitched high up on his cheek. “I didn’t know. Ransom?”

  “Half a million,” Hardy said. “Only the person who was supposed to deliver it has also been murdered.”

  That really seemed to jar Olin. “Who?”

  “A girl named Trudy Woodson.”

  “Jesus!” Olin said, showing emotion for the first time.

  “You ever hear of a man named Michael Brent?”

  The mask was in place again. “Yes.”

  “He was shot and then mutilated two years ago. You were working for Sassoon then.”

  “I was. I tried to find Brent’s killer for Sassoon without any luck.”

  “So did I,” Hardy said.

  “I know,” Olin said. “I double-checked on you. There was no trail.”

  “Same thing happened to Trudy Woodson,” Hardy said. “Shot between the eyes, and then butchered.”

  “I’d like to lay my hands on that sonofabitch,” Olin said as calmly as though he was talking about someone who’d sold him a tough steak. “The Brent thing was the only job I ever failed on for J.W.”

  “It wasn’t your job to protect him?” Hardy asked.

  “No. At least not in the sense that I think you mean it. I wasn’t a bodyguard. I protected him by countering attempts at espionage by his competitors.”

  “When you left him to go to Washington—if you went to Washington—did you have any reason to think he was in danger?”

  “I went t
o Washington, and I had no reason to expect trouble.”

  “You know a man named Gamayel?” Hardy asked.

  Again the little nerve twitched. “I know who he is. J. W. was trying to deal with him.”

  “Does Gamayel know you?”

  “Not unless my foot has slipped somewhere.”

  “You were here in the hotel with Sassoon.”

  “Nobody knew that. I risked going to his room only once—last night. We talked on the phone when we needed to communicate.”

  “Did you know Sassoon’s phone was bugged, monitored?”

  That really seemed to floor Olin. For the first time he moved. He lifted a hand toward his left shoulder and then let it drop.

  “Not only was the phone bugged, it was a device that would pick up conversations in the room not on the phone. And Johnny’s office was rigged with the same kind of device, and Johnny’s room where the Woodson girl was murdered. Any conversation you had with Sassoon last night was heard by someone.”

  The fingers of Olin’s right hand flexed and unflexed.

  Hardy smiled at him. “You’re carrying a gun, Mr. Olin,” he said.

  “I have a permit for it. Care to see it?”

  “I think I need your Washington alibi,” Hardy said. “And I’ll need to check your weapon, just to be sure it isn’t the one that killed Trudy Woodson.”

  “Any time—about the gun,” Olin said.

  We were interrupted at that moment by the abrupt entrance of Jerry Dodd, the Beaumont’s security officer. Jerry was carrying a package wrapped in newspaper. He was about to blurt out something to us, but when he saw Olin, he cut it off.

  “Need to talk to you and Hardy,” Jerry said to Chambrun.

  Hardy seemed to be enjoying himself. “You got your lunch in that package, Jerry? This is James Olin. I suspect he knows as much about this case as we do. Though maybe I did have a surprise or two for him. What’s the excitement?”

  “If you say so,” Jerry said. He walked over to Chambrun’s desk, put down his package, and opened it.

  In the package was a gray wig—man’s wig—something that looked like a set of dentures, and a small gray mustache.