The Bells of Hell

by Michael Kurland

  ‘But why would I claim to have a title if I did not? And, more to the point, why would they care? If we’d gone up to the desk and announced ourselves as Mr and Mrs Potifer Pinchpenny from Leeds we would have laid our money down, signed the ledger, received our key, and been off to our room without anyone asking to see some identification at all.’

  ‘Unless they thought that perhaps we weren’t actually married,’ Patricia commented. ‘They wouldn’t want you taking some floozy up to the room. Bad for the image of the hotel.’

  ‘You’re not just any floozy,’ Geoffrey told her, blowing her a kiss. He walked over to the window and looked out at the facade of Grand Central Station across the street. ‘What shall we do first?’ he asked. ‘Bearing in mind that we’re strictly interdicted from going upstairs to visit the fourth floor.’

  ‘We could chat up one of the celebrities supposedly staying here,’ Patricia suggested. ‘Until Jacob has something specific for us.’

  ‘Oh, it’s “Jacob” already, is it?’ Geoffrey asked with a mock frown. ‘Do keep your mind on business until this affair is over.’

  ‘Oh, I shall,’ Patricia agreed. ‘I have immense patience. As does Jacob, I might add.’

  ‘You’ve already had occasion to, ah, discuss this with Welker?’

  ‘We have exchanged knowing glances,’ Patricia told him.

  ‘Ah!’ said Geoffrey. He turned away from the window. ‘Which celebrities, exactly, did you have in mind?’

  ‘Well, there’s ex-President Hoover – he lives in a suite in the Tower. And then, according to the concierge who whispered it because, as he said, they like their anonymousness – although why whispering keeps them anonymous I don’t know – we have Charlie Chaplin and Marlene Dietrich. Not together, he assured me. But the stories he could tell … Luckily you returned from your phone call before he had a chance to do so.’

  ‘I met Mr Chaplin once,’ Geoffrey commented. ‘Extremely bright man.’

  ‘So, shall we knock him up, as you’re acquainted? As one Brit to another.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I doubt if he’d remember me. Besides, we may be needed at any time.’

  ‘Not likely,’ Patricia said. ‘Jacob didn’t want us coming here in the first place. I believe he’s going to take all the fun for himself.’

  ‘That would be most unkind,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I’m sure “Jacob” wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘You’re amused,’ Patricia said.

  ‘I am. I was in a war with the man, shot and shell and all that, and I still call him “Welker”, or even “Captain Welker”. You’ve met him – what? – three times, and it’s “Jacob”.’

  ‘You’re stuffy,’ she told him.

  ‘So I am,’ he agreed. ‘It goes with being the second son of a peer of the realm.’

  The room phone rang, and Geoffrey picked it up. ‘Yes? This is Lord Geoffrey. Yes. Put him on.’

  Patricia went in to explore the bathroom and Geoffrey was just hanging up when she returned. He grinned at her. ‘We’re going to get in on the action after all. We’re to meet “Jacob” in Peacock Alley, in,’ he glanced at his watch, ‘ten minutes. We’ll have lunch with him and discuss our course of action. So we don’t actually have time to do anything first.’

  Welker awaited them at a small table in the outer bar in Peacock Alley, one of the Waldorf’s more casually elegant restaurants. He nodded as they walked in and waved them to seats. ‘Sit down. The hotel’s security man is going to join us shortly. See if we can figure out anything.’

  As they sat down a short, rotund gentleman in a well-cut dark-blue suit strode toward them from the far corner of the bar, smiling as though he were greatly pleased to see Welker sitting there. Surely not the security man, Patricia thought, observing his well-shined black shoes under fawn-colored spats, large bright blue bow tie, and the bowler hat swinging jauntily from his left hand.

  ‘Mr Welker,’ the man said, extending a large hand as he reached them. ‘Mr Welker sir. A pleasure to see you. A pleasure. It has surely been a while. Quite a while.’

  Welker rose and took the man’s hand. ‘Baron. You’re looking prosperous.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the Baron agreed. ‘Life has its ups and downs. This is one of them.’

  ‘Let me introduce,’ Welker said, indicating his companions, ‘Lord and Lady Saboy. And this gentleman is known to his friends as the Baron.’

  ‘Any friend of Mr Welker’s,’ Geoffrey said, rising to his feet and extending his hand.

  ‘Enchanted,’ said Patricia, smiling up at him.

  The Baron gave Geoffrey’s hand a firm shake and bowed at Patricia. ‘Lord and Lady,’ he said. ‘And the real quill – I can always tell. A pleasure, a distinct pleasure. Well, I must be moving on.’ He paused to give Welker a quick pat on the shoulder. ‘We must talk over old times,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we could both learn something.’ And with that he headed for the door.

  They turned to watch him leave. ‘What a strange man,’ Patricia said. ‘He surely isn’t one of our miscreants?’

  ‘He is indeed a miscreant,’ Welker said. ‘I like that – “miscreant”. But he’s another sort. I became acquainted with him in my previous profession. He used to be involved in a big store operation up on, I think it was, 56th and Lexington. The stores themselves, of course, could spring up anywhere in town.’

  ‘Like a department store?’ Patricia asked.

  Welker laughed. ‘It’s what they call a “term of art”. The art in this case being crime, specifically confidence games. A “big store” is a room set up to emulate a particular business, say a stock broker’s office, a gambling den, or a horserace betting parlor. They will lure in gullible people, known in the trade as “marks”, or “pickles”, usually out-of-towners, separate them from their money by one ruse or another, and them blow them off – another term of art. By the time the mark realizes he’s been had and returns, with or without the police, the big store and all who were in it have completely disappeared.’

  ‘The ways of separating a fool from his money …’ Geoffrey began, then allowed the rest of the sentence to die away.

  ‘Indeed,’ Welker agreed.

  The waiter, in the well-starched white shirt and black trousers of the Waldorf restaurant staff, approached and hovered.

  Welker looked up. ‘We shall order lunch in a few minutes when the rest of our party arrives,’ he said. But while we wait, perhaps a small libation? Scotch and soda for me, I think. Glenlivet. And …’

  ‘Cognac,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Ah – Rémy. Neat.’

  The waiter looked expectantly at Patricia, who waved a finger. ‘A martini, please. Any old gin, any old vermouth.’

  ‘Very good, of course,’ the waiter said. And, after a beat, ‘Excuse me for asking but is the gentleman who just left a friend of yours?’

  ‘An acquaintance merely,’ Welker said. ‘But why?’

  ‘I have been instructed to inform customers who are approached by the gentleman that he is, ah, not what he seems.’

  ‘Really?’ Welker looked amused. ‘How so?’

  ‘We’re not exactly sure, sir. But he does seem to befriend our more prosperous-looking guests. It may be completely harmless, but the maître d’ thought it worth mentioning.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Welker said. ‘As it happens, I’ve known the gentleman for some years.’

  ‘I see. Then—’

  ‘Then your maître d’s warning is probably well placed.’

  ‘I see, sir. Thank you, sir.’ He went off.

  The Waldorf’s security manager, a thin, harassed-looking man in a gray double-breasted suit that somehow managed to look like a costume on him, joined them at the table a few minutes later. Welker introduced him as Mr Kearny.

  ‘Glad to meet you,’ Kearny said. ‘Although I have the feeling that you’re about to add to my daily chores.’

  ‘A busy day, is it?’ Welker asked.

  ‘It is raining hectic around here today,’ Kearny told them. ‘What
new anxieties are you going to add to my load?’

  ‘It might be that you have some guests, in room 416 I think, who are plotting some sort of trouble. And it could be that they have an explosive device.’

  ‘Shit!’ the security manager said. ‘What sort of device, and why do you think so?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Welker said.

  ‘So is my life these days,’ Kearny told him. ‘We’re about to have a distinguished guest. I hope these two events are not related.’

  ‘More distinguished than the guests you are already hosting?’

  ‘The President is due in later this evening.’

  There was a pause while Welker and his two companions thought that over. And then, ‘Merde!’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘Son of a … since when?’ Welker asked.

  ‘Since when what?’

  ‘When did you know he was coming here?’

  ‘Been scheduled for about a week now, I think. Not exactly a secret. He always stays here when he’s in town. Stays at Hyde Park when he can but it’s, what, eighty miles from the city. So for short trips he stays here. The Secret Service has already taken over the thirty-fifth floor, where the presidential suite is, and the basement area.’

  ‘The basement?’

  ‘Yeah. They search and secure the basement and the tracks coming in.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Patricia asked, ‘but what tracks?’

  ‘We have a private siding of the New York Central under the hotel,’ Kearny said, pointing down at the floor. ‘About, ah, three floors down from here.’

  ‘‘The President …’ Geoffrey began. ‘Damn! The President! Of course!’

  They turned to look at him.

  ‘Fall Bude,’ he said. ‘Operation Booth. Booth.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Patricia asked. ‘You look pale.’

  ‘Don’t you see it?’

  Kearny shook his head. ‘What is …’

  ‘That may be the name of the whatever-it-is that may be underway here,’ Welker told him, ‘and …’ He paused. ‘Shit,’ he said softly.

  ‘You see it?’ Geoffrey asked.

  ‘What?’ asked Patricia. ‘Why are we shitting this time?’

  ‘Operation Booth,’ Welker said slowly. ‘As in John Wilkes Booth.’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘But … it doesn’t make sense, does it?’

  ‘Why not?’ Geoffrey demanded.

  ‘Because …’ He turned to Kearny. ‘Have you got a room where we could talk this over, with a little privacy?’

  ‘We can use my office,’ Kearny told him. ‘Unless you’re excluding me from the talk. Then—’

  ‘No,’ Welker told him. ‘Of course not. We need you. And maybe the head of the Secret Service detail – as soon as we figure out what’s going on.’

  ‘OK,’ Kearny said.

  ‘And, a thought, can you put an unobtrusive watch on room 416?’

  ‘Is that the room they’re in? I can stick a guy in the linen closet down the hall,’ Kearny said. ‘And I could have housekeeping send a girl in to make up the room, if it hasn’t been made up yet, see if she sees anything.’

  ‘Tell her to be careful,’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘Of course,’ Kearny said. ‘I know just the girl for the job. Let’s order lunch and I’ll have it brought to the office.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Yesterday This Day’s Madness did prepare;

  To-morrow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair:

  Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:

  Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

  – Edward FitzGerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

  Weiss walked through the Waldorf lobby trying to look as though he were the sort of man who’d walk through the Waldorf lobby. But it felt uncomfortable. He was nervous. As himself – which he would be again in a few days – the Waldorf would feel like home. As would the Ritz or the Adlon, where perhaps he would stay next week when he reported back to Berlin. But the part he was playing, the man he had assumed the identity of, would not be here. Is that why he was so nervous?

  Was it because there’d be no Jews in the Adlon? Everyone he passed here in the Waldorf looked like a Jew. A rich Jew. Or a policeman. A Jewish policeman. A rich Jewish policeman? Were there such things? And they were all staring at him, were they not.

  Ridiculous!

  Why was he so nervous? It would not do for him to be noticed, but there were perhaps thirty people in the lobby and he was just one of them. An unnoticeable one of them. He was never nervous. Other men, weaker men, were nervous, upset, frightened; and he often had made them so. He had beaten men to death with his bare hands. He had made men, powerful men, scream for mercy before they told him what he wished to know. Before he killed them.

  It was perhaps that back in Berlin they were watching the unfolding of Fall Bude with lip-smacking interest and Weiss did not want to disappoint. He took the elevator to the fourth floor and knocked on the door of 416.

  ‘What is it?’ came Lehman’s voice.

  ‘There’s a question about the bill, Mr Booth,’ he yelled.

  A little muttering inside, and then the door opened and Lehman came out, closing it carefully behind him. ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Everything is in readiness.’

  ‘Come away from the door,’ Weiss said. ‘Let us talk.’

  They walked down to the far end of the hall and turned the corner, stopping by a window at the end of the hall.

  ‘You have the stuff?’ Lehman asked.

  Weiss took a paper bag from under his coat and removed from it an apparently unopened bottle of Casner Reserve, an inexpensive, unassuming local brandy. ‘Here.’

  ‘This will do it?’

  ‘Assuredly. More than a few sips and you’ll be unconscious for an hour. Longer.’

  ‘Good,’ Lehman said. ‘I have glasses in the room.’

  ‘You’re not going to give it to them in the room?’ Weiss said, sounding horrified.

  ‘No, no. I don’t want to have to carry them, and besides someone might see us. I will take them down to the third floor by the emergency stairs and we will enter the space. There we will complete the hole through to the shaft, and then we will celebrate. Have no fear.’

  ‘Do they all drink spirits?’

  ‘Yes. I made certain of that before I selected them. As I said, have no fear.’

  ‘I’m depending on you,’ Weiss said.

  ‘Yes. And I on you.’

  ‘I will await events in the lobby.’

  ‘I will have Mr Booth paged, and you will come up. Not to the room, but directly to the third-floor space.’

  ‘I will do so.’ Weiss lowered his voice to a whisper: ‘Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Heil Hitler!’ Lehman responded. ‘Someday soon we will not have to whisper.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  A man who carries a cat by the tail

  learns something he can learn in no other way.

  – Mark Twain

  Kearny’s office, behind a door labeled EQUIPMENT down a short hall from the registration desk, contained two desks, five chairs, a well-worn brown leather couch, and its own bathroom. On two of the light blue walls hung five colored prints of fishermen casting their lines into various bodies of water. On the third was a sort of draped fish net. On the wall behind Kearny’s desk– the slightly larger one on the left – was a large map of New York city, and a lacquered wooden plaque displaying a New York City detective’s badge and four service ribbons. On the desk was a framed photograph of Kearny in waders and a wide hat proudly holding up a fish about the size of his arm along with several smaller photographs of an attractive woman and several assorted children.

  ‘The “equipment” sign on the door,’ Kearny offered before they had a chance to ask, ‘is Mr Wexell the manager’s idea. He thinks a sign that says “Security” might make people think that we need security, which might then make them feel inse
cure.’

  ‘Plausible,’ Welker said.

  ‘Always thinking, he is,’ Kearny said. ‘We got here anything a guest might want, all in his own room: maids, barbers, manicurists, pedicurists, laundry, dry cleaning, typists, notaries, playpens, nannies, private nurses; heck, we’ve got a doctor on staff and a three-bed infirmary.’

  ‘Sounds like you never have to leave.’

  ‘We got a couple of guests in the Tower who, I swear, don’t go out more than once a week, if that.’ He sat down behind his desk and leaned back.

  ‘How long were you on the job?’ Welker asked, indicating the plaque behind the desk.

  Kearny turned to look at it, and then turned back. ‘Eight years,’ he said.

  ‘You got bored?’ Welker asked. ‘Not enough excitement for you?’

  ‘I took a bullet,’ Kearny told him.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’

  ‘Weird,’ Kearny said. ‘I came on this kid robbing a liquor store in Queens. Said something clever like, “Hold it right there – drop the gun!” and he turns around and shoots me. As I go down he starts screaming, drops the gun, and puts his hands up. Says he didn’t mean to and oh God he’s so sorry. But there I am shot. So now I’m out on disability and he’s up in Sing Sing.’

  ‘Where’d he get you?’

  ‘In the right shoulder. I was in rehab for a year – got most of the motion back.’ He flexed his shoulders, rotating his arms. ‘But can’t get my right arm over my head. So I had to give up fly fishing. Can’t cast properly nohow. Can’t get any range.’

  ‘A shame,’ Geoffrey said. ‘So what are you doing instead?’

  ‘I’m thinking of taking up taxidermy,’ Kearny told him. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘just what the, ah, heck is going on? Start at the beginning.’

  Patricia and Geoffrey turned expectantly toward Welker, who took a deep breath. ‘There’s a couple of different pieces to the puzzle,’ he said, ‘but I think they’ve all pretty much come together.’

  ‘You don’t have to give me the whole history,’ Kearny told him. ‘Start at the beginning of where the hotel is concerned. Just where we come in and how we got there. Which, I guess, will be pretty much all of it. And what the hell we’re going to do about it.’