Murder in High Places

by Hugh Pentecost

  ''She hadn't taken off her clothes tonight when someone strangled her," Hardy said.

  ''Oh God! What does he say?" Billy pointed a shaking finger at me.

  "He's pretty well covered, Mr. Chard," Hardy said.

  "He would be!"

  "He wouldn't be sitting here if he wasn't," Hardy said. "Who else beside Haskell is currently in the lady's life?"

  "Whoever groped at her in an elevator," Chard said. His bitterness was painful. "I've told her over and over—someday—some psycho—"

  "She told Haskell she was afraid of the man she identified for the police yesterday afternoon. Was he someone she'd—picked up somewhere?"

  "No way," Chard said. "She talked about him to me during our show breaks tonight. She was really

  afraid that character was off his rocker, might come back for some kind of revenge/' His eyes widened. ''Could it be that way?"

  **I can't write it off because I don't have any sohd evidence yet," Hardy said. "Was there anyone else staying here in the hotel, or coming to her shows at night, who'd been close to her?"

  Chard blotted at his mouth with that handkerchief. It was as if he wanted to wipe away a smile that threatened to appear. *'She always talked about her exes—her ex-lovers. She'd come backstage after doing her thing and have a big smile on her face. 'I have three exes out there tonight, Billy,' she'd say."

  ''She name them?" Hardy asked.

  "No. In all the time I've known her she never mentioned a name. She had contempt for those old movie stars who write books about whom they slept with. 'The kiss-and-tell girls,' she called them. But she wasn't very careful either. Anyone working close to her, the way I did, didn't have to guess who the current guy was." He gave me an angry look. "Everyone in this hotel knows it's been Haskell for the last couple of weeks."

  "Did she mention there were any other 'exes' in her audience tonight?" Hardy asked.

  Chard gave me an odd look, like a scientist who sees something he doesn't understand on his microscope slide. "Haskell had something for her," he said. "One guy for a solid two weeks! That's not like our last stop,

  which was Washington. We went there for a two-week gig Blue Haven, a jazz spot. Engagement stietched into two months. They really loved Hilda down in our nation's capitol.'' He let go with his smile at last. ''Flying up here, we curded over Washington when we took off—give the sightseers a last look at the sights, I guess. Hilda looked down and gave me a kind of comic grin. 'I sure took that city by storm,' she said. 'Supreme Court, the State Etepartment, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the FBI. About the only place I didn't score, Billy,' she said to me, 'was the White House.' We laughed and I told her, 'If at first you don't succeed...'" His smile faded. "We never dreamed she'd never see Washington again."

  Jerry Dodd interrupted. "You say she never named names, but can you name some? Washington boyfriends?"

  I knew what was on Jerry's mind; Larry Welch's untold story, a fake Martin Steams who had gotten a message from Welch in Washington. A tie-in could be there.

  "I'm not much on names," Chard said. "Those senators and congressmen all look like they came out of the same mold. Me, I have to stop to think what the president's name is. Politics are not my thing."

  "She ever mentioned being scared of anyone before? Before this guy she identified for us?" Hardy asked.

  *'She played by a set of rules/* Chard said. **Ask Haskell. She didn't ask for secrets. She didn't get them and she didn't give them. A guy involved with Hilda didn't have to worry about being held up by her. Fun—and variety was all she cared about."

  Hardy looked at me. **You buy that, Mark?"

  *Tortunately or unfortunately, I don't have any secrets anyone can use against me," I said. "The lady never asked me anything about myself. She enjoyed what we had, and so did I. There wasn't any more to it than that. Fun and games."

  *'Never any talk about anyone who might have objected to being thrown away like a used candy wrapper?" Hardy asked.

  **Never any talk about anyone," I said.

  "Never any talk about anyone to me eithCT," Chard said, "and I've been with her for part of every day for the last five and a half years."

  "Jealous women? Angry wives?"

  "No one, until tonight and that guy she saw messing around on the tenth floor with that elevator operator, and he sure as hell wasn't one of her exes."

  So much for the gaudy, reckless, and—some people might think—the tawdry life of Hilda Harding.

  "Somebody must know if she has a family somewhere," Hardy said.

  "If anybody does, it would be Max," Chard said.

  "Max?"

  "Max Rosen, her agent."

  "I thought he was your agent."

  "He was Hilda's agent first. He launched her, made a star of her. He only took me on when I started to work with her. Whatever there is private about Hilda, Max will know it."

  '*His address and phone number, please," Hardy said.

  It ISN'T exactly flattering to know that you've been just one of a string of scalps hanging in some squaw's war tent. And yet she had been alive and electric and wonderful fun while it lasted. But now she was a police case. Her death, I convinced myself, had nothing to do with what we'd had together. My concerns and my responsibilities had to be for the living. I had to play my part in the game that might save Betsy Ruys-dale from something like what had happened to poor Hilda.

  Hardy didn't need me. There were acres of ground for him to cover before he could move positively in some hopeful direction—fingerprints, some so-far-overlooked clue, someone who had seen someone moving around the second floor and thought nothing of it at the time, a determination as to whether the lock on my apartment door had been picked by an expert. If the lock had been picked, Hardy had to look for someone with special skills, special hotel habits. If it hadn't been picked, then Hilda must have taken her

  killer into my apartment with her, or let him in after she'd arrived there alone.

  I keep saying '*he*' and **him" because Hardy had told us that the medical examiner's man reported Hilda must have been strangled by very large, very powerful hands—fingers that reached almost around her neck from front to back.

  At five o'clock in the morning, more than twenty hours since I'd had any sleep, I couldn't go back to my apartment for rest, or a change of clothes. Police technicians continued swarming over the place. Still wearing my dinner jacket, my nighttime uniform on my job, I got Lucky Lewis to take me up to the top in the roof car. I could at least bring Chambrun up to date.

  Dim lights showed at the living room windows of Penthouse L Off to the east the first faint signs of daylight were beginning to show. I have a key to Penthouse 1, a sign that Chambrun trusted me not to use it if there was any chance of my interrupting something private. I walked through the vestibule and into Chambrun's living room. For just an instant I felt something like shock. He was stretched out on the couch, his head turned to one side, so that, for a moment, I couldn't see his face. The phone, which had an extra-long cord, had been taken off his desk and put down on the floor right beside the couch. I moved quickly around the end of the couch so that I could get

  a look at him head-on. He was asleep. God knows he needed it, as did most of us.

  I undid my black tie and opened my dress shirt at the collar. I wandered over to the armchair by the French windows and sat down. I thought Fd let Chambrun go a little longer. I could imagine his state of mind, unable to do anything in a world that he normally controUed for fear of endang^jng Ruys-dale, waiting for a phone call that didn't come, which would give him some kind of instructions, make some new dffliands.

  My own eyelids were heavy. The sky in the east was a dark red. ''Red in the morning, sailor take warning.'' We didn't need warnings around bssr^ they were everywhere.

  I guess I must have gone off as if Fd been shot between the eyes. Someoi^ was shaking me by the shoulder.

  *'You haven't got anything bett^ to do than skepV Chambrun asked. Then, as
I started to stammer some reply, he gave me a weary little smile. ''I must have been at it myself when you came in, Mark. When did you come up?"

  "Around five." I glanced at my watch. It was just past seven-thirty. Fd picked up a little rest to go on.

  "Jerry just called—woke me—to say you could get back into your apartment. The cops are through there."

  "Right now I think of it as a chamber of horrors/' I said. **If you had seen her—"

  *'I know," he said. *'Jerry has brought me up to date.''

  "Which is where?" I asked him.

  "Nowhere—so far. Dozens of prints to match up, nothing in that department so far. No casuals went up to the second floor, according to Mike Maggio. He was being a little more watchful than usual. The people who have Ruysdale didn't say anything about not watching the second floor. The hotel was full of curious peepers, so Mike was extra careful. The girl went up a little after two. You went up a little after three.''

  "Has to be someone who came down from up above," I said. "Someone who used the fire stairs. Elevator wouldn't stop at two for them."

  Chambrun nodded. "No reason to keep a guard on that floor. Nothing but offices and your apartment, everything locked up. Cleaning people don't hit the offices on two till around four in the morning." He moved away from me. "I put some water through the coffee machine before I woke you. Caie for some?"

  "I'll get it," I said.

  "I'll get it. Don't try moving fast, Mark. You may find it's hell."

  He went into his kitchen. I tried stretching and found he was right. Every bone in my body ached. He came back with two mugs of coffee and we sat look-

  ^

  ing at each other, not talking for a moment or two. The coffee was nectar.

  **I don't quite know how to face this day, Mark,'' Chambrun said. His face had that hard, graven look to it. He brought his fist down on the arm of his chair. 'Tve fought all kinds of people in my time, from Nazis to street terrorists and psychos roaming around this place of mine—this hotel. I've dealt with punks, and pimps, and drug peddlers, and call girls. I've always faced them head-on, given them no quarter. Now I have to sit still, do nothing, or Ruysdale will have had it. And if I don't sit still, I may be helping someone do in Welch! How do you decide, with any decency or morality, to place one life above another?"

  '*Welch got into whatever danger he's in knowingly," I said. *'He asked you for help through your friend Claude Perrault, but he knew there was danger. He ran his own risks. He knows the situation you're in and he's ready to play ball. Ruysdale is a total victim, boss. She didn't get into anyone's way, she didn't knowingly run any risks. She's being used to bring pressure on you. You have to choose to do what you can for her and wish Larry Welch good luck. You've got Jericho looking out for anything that might explode up here on the roof. What more can you do for him?"

  **So I just sit here and let these bastards have their way with Welch? How do I know they'll let Ruysdale go after that? Will it be safe for them to let her go?

  Has she seen anyone she can identify for the police? Can she tell us who owns that slightly foreign-sounding voice on the phone? She was right there with him when I taped that call. What do I do, just sit here, go to eariy mass and pray?"

  ''It's tough," I said.

  "I just don't know how to do nothing/'' Cham-brun almost shouted.

  *'But do you know what to do, boss?"

  He made an almost hysterical gesture toward the roof. "Ten million people out there in that city and not a lead to anyone!"

  ''Larry Welch," I said.

  "Come again?"

  "He's got to tell you what it is he's into," I said.

  "And if he won't, and I tell him to get out of my hotel, what then?"

  "You and Jericho and I should be able to bring a little pressure on him," I said.

  Chambrun was on his feet. "You're right, Mark. It's our one chance."

  TWO

  A FIRST-TIME VISIT to Victoria Haven's penthouse is nothing less than an experience. At first glance you would think it was a hideout for the famous Collier brothers: stacks of yellowing newspapers, books overflowing the bookcases, total disorder, a place snowed under by litter. But a closer examination would show you that there isn't a speck of dust, the place spotlessly clean. And I guess there was a kind of order to the disorder.

  *'It is," Chambrun once said to me, ''a filing cabinet for all the memorable things in a long life. There is everything from a first doll, to love letters, to history as it appeared in the daily press. Ask her for an editorial from the New York Times on the day following the end of World War One and she has it. She not only has it, she knows exactly where it is. That place is like a computer, Mark, filled with all the facts about one person's life and everything that even touched the fringes of it."

  When Chambrun and I walked out onto his terrace we saw John Jericho sitting on the rim of the little fence that surrounded Victoria Haven's garden. Down below him, at ground level, staring up at him, was Toto.

  Jericho waved as we approached. '*He thinks he's got me up a tree," he said. 'Tve been trying to tell him that other people have made the same mistake." He glanced at me. "I see you're dressing for breakfast." He was referring to my rumpled dinner Jacket.

  ''I can't get into my apartment to change," I said. ''Cops."

  Jericho slid down off the wall. ''Scram, ham!" he said to the dog, and Toto, looking offended, shuffled away. "I don't know what to say to you, Mark. It must have been ghastly for you. Cops getting anywhere?"

  "Not so far. They're assuming the man Hilda identified on the tenth floor, the man from the Trapeze, came back to make sure she couldn't pick him out of a lineup if they caught him."

  "Nice, easy assumption, isn't it?" Jericho said. "They only have to look for one man for two murders. It could have been two different men, you know. It could have been someone else who did for your girl, Mark, who had nothing whatever to do with the Ballard murder."

  "You're the man who doesn't believe in coincidences, John," Chambrun said.

  "You're right, I don't," Jericho said. "I've also learned that what appears to be obvious is rarely the answer I'm looking for."

  "I've just been telling Mark I can't go through this day just sitting and waiting," Chambrun said. "Welch

  has to help us. There has to be some kind of lead in the story he's sitting on.'*

  *'And we'd better have it before somebody shts his throat," Jericho said.

  "Something Uke that," Chambrun said. *'You see, John, I can do exactly what the kidnappers have ordered me to do: I can leave Welch to defend himself, put nothing in the way of their getting to him. But thoa what? Ruysdale has been gone for more than twenty-four hours. Has she never seen anyone, talked to anyone? We know she was with their spokesman when he put her on the phone with me. Can they ever let her go?"

  "I haven't wanted to suggest that to you," Jericho said. **Betsy almost said that on the phone to you, didn't she? Don't worry about her, do what you have to do."

  *'You gentlemen have such wonderfully resonant voices," Victoria Haven said from the rear door of her penthouse. She stood there, straight and tall, a full-length apron hiding whatever she was wearing under it. She had a pot holder in one hand and a spatula in the other. **If you want to discuss secrets, just know that you can be heard a block away. I was about to put in eggs to go with the bacon. There's enough for all of you. If you're going to throw Betsy Ruysdale to the wolves, you'd better do it on full stomachs."

  **It's not a question of abandoning Ruysdale, Victoria," Chambrun said. *'It would seem she has no

  chance, no matter what we do. The only thing we can do is catch up with them and—and—"

  *'Sht their throats?" the old woman asked. ''Your phrase, Jericho."

  "Something like that," Jericho said.

  "So good-bye. Miss Betsy Ruysdale! It's the way the world is, my dear. Revenge is sweeter than victory." Old Mrs. Haven was pretty damned resonant herself.

  Chambrun's eye
s were dark and glittering in their deep pouches. "You know of some plan for victory, my dear?"

  "It seems to me you have to try, don't you? Pierre?"

  "How?"

  "We live in a world of plea bargaining," Mrs. Haven said. "So much for so much. Even a monster will make a trade for his own Hfe."

  "What do we offer to trade?"

  Mrs. Haven looked steadily at the Man. "A hfe for a hfe. Or are you too tenderhearted for that, Pierre?"

  Jericho leaned forward. "Look, luv, just say what you have on your mind."

  "Your instructions are to let people come and go to Penthouse Three without hindrance if you want to see Ruysdale ahve again," Mrs. Haven said. "So you do just that! Sooner or later the man will come to force Welch to part with his material, perhaps kill him. With Welch's cooperation you should be able to spot that man. Let him come up to the roof. Between the ele-

  vator and Penthouse Three Johnny boy here intercepts him.

  '*So, I've got him," Jericho said. He was smihng at Mrs. Haven ahnost patronizingly.

  *'If he's important enough, you have something to trade," the old lady said.

  **And if he doesn't want to be traded?"

  Mrs. Haven gave Jericho an impatient look. *'If you and Pierre can't persuade him you mean business, you're not the actors I think you are."

  **And if he still won't cooperate?" Chambrun asked.

  *'If it doesn't work, I know what I'd do if someone I cared about was going to be killed, one way or the other," the old lady said. She wasn't kidding, I thought.

  **What would you do, Victoria?" Chambrun asked.

  Her wide, generous mouth narrowed to a tight slit. '*rd kill him," she said. *'What is it, Pierre? Has your blood thinned out? There was once so much talk about the Nazis you killed in the back alleys of Paris."

  ''And go to jail for the rest of our lives for a lost cause?" Jericho asked.

  *'You two ought to be smarter than that," Mrs. Haven said. ''All kinds of accidents can happen from high places. But if you two are as good as I think you are, it won't come to that. I've always said, Pierre, that you could sell ice to the Eskimos. I think you can persuade this man, if you get him, to make some kind