Deadly Joke

by Hugh Pentecost

  “She’s still performing?”

  “Just for Charlie’s friends,” Tennant said. “She’s Charlie’s woman.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “I’ll tell Melody,” Tennant said. “What about you, baby?”

  “I think I’ll go home and see Mother,” Diana said. “I want her to make her pitch, not a messenger.”

  “She’s not at home,” I said. “She and your father are staying at the Beaumont. It seems safer. And the police will be busy with them.”

  “And you’ll tell them where to find us,” Diana said.

  “I gave my word,” I said.

  She gave a bitter little smile. “When Knighthood Was in Flower,” she said. “Oh, brother!”

  “I’ll be you-know-where after I’ve seen Melody,” Tennant said to Diana. “Just in case Haskell is a phony.”

  He turned and ran down the long hallway to the front door. I heard the door open and close and his feet on the steep stairway. Diana still sat on the high stool, a little-girl frown of concentration on her lovely face. She looked at me suddenly.

  “Are you married, Haskell?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “This doesn’t seem an ideal time for my life story.”

  “Why not?” she insisted. “You must be thirty-five—forty?”

  “Out of your world? What are you, nineteen—twenty?”

  “I’m of age,” she said, “if that’s what’s bothering you.”

  “Why should it bother me?”

  “You were thinking I would be fun in bed, weren’t you?”

  “No such thing!” I protested.

  “Why not? Don’t you find me attractive?”

  “Now look, Diana—”

  “I was just trying to make a point,” she said.

  “Oh.” By God, she would be fun in bed, I thought. “What point?”

  “Suppose I were to take time out to make love with you now. Barry would guess. He’d know the next time he touched me. He wouldn’t take it out on me. He’d dash off to do Father some harm, because he knows, in spite of everything, I’m fond of Father. Barry would do that to hurt me, but it would also hurt Mother, it would get some other stinking conservative elected to the Senate. The point is you can’t do anything just for yourself. It spreads out and touches people you never even heard of.”

  “The House That Jack Built,” I said.

  “Like Charlie’s joke,” she said. “He just meant to get a laugh. But he set a murderer in motion, which may get Father elected, which will result in Mother’s living in terror, which has the police force and your hotel moved into action, and which will destroy Melody’s life. It spreads like a forest fire, and it was only supposed to be a belly-laugh.”

  This was some kind of a girl, I thought. “You’re thinking what might happen if you use whatever it is you have on your father. You’re thinking it could do much more than just damage him.”

  “That’s the point I was trying to make,” she said. “You can’t do anything that just affects yourself.” She slid down off the stool, revealing a disturbing amount of leg. “I think I’d better go see Mother.”

  We went down the dirty staircase to the street. Standing by the nearest lamppost were my two tails. I guessed what they were thinking. They’d seen Tennant run off. I was the fuzz taking Diana in. When we reached them, Diana smiled at them.

  “Keep your cool, kids,” she said. “He’s a friend.”

  One of them waved at her and we went on. I hailed an on-duty cab.

  “Those two characters would have jumped me if I’d been a cop, wouldn’t they?” I asked when we were under way.

  Diana laughed. “They eat cops for breakfast,” she said.

  We rode for a while in silence, the cab cutting east to Park Avenue and heading uptown.

  “How is Father taking it?” she asked me suddenly.

  “He’s got guts,” I said. “Whatever else you think of him, he’s got guts.”

  “He framed Barry,” she said, her young voice hard.

  “How?”

  “Barry was one of the activist leaders at Barstow,” she said. “Father hated him for that, but he hated him more because I was living with him. So he framed him. When the cops broke into his apartment, they found some pot. There isn’t jail room to take care of all the pot-smokers in New York. But they also found a gun. Would you believe me if I told you that Barry never owned a gun in his life? Father had him framed. Barry spent a year in a lousy jail because of it. Father needs to be paid off for that.”

  “If he did it,” I said. “It seems out of character.”

  “When you put sex into a situation—Barry’s and my sex in this case—men stop playing by the rules. They turn primitive.”

  “Your father?”

  “My father!” She was silent for a moment. “If I show him what you call the cards I hold, he’ll really go berserk.”

  The Beaumont loomed up ahead of us.

  I brought Diana into the hotel through the side street entrance. There is a long corridor lined on each side with small specialty shops: women’s clothes and accessories, jewelry, furs, expensive gifts. Diana didn’t look right or left. I’d have sworn no woman could walk down that alley without a glance at the glittering displays.

  The alley opened into the main lobby. We were promptly confronted by two of Jerry Dodd’s men, who recognized me and made the “pass friend” sign. Mike Maggio, the night bell captain, gave me his gamin smile. It said “Nice-looking dame, pal.”

  “Banquet over?” I asked him.

  “The speeches are over,” he said. “They raised four million bucks, I understand, which ought to buy Maxwell his breakfast Wheaties. But while there’s still liquor being served, nothing ever ends. More than half the people are still there.”

  “This is Miss Maxwell,” I told him. “If she needs anything—”

  His grin broadened. “Any time, any place, lady,” he said. It sounded insolent, but he meant it as a compliment. She took it that way. “Your old man’s up in his suite, Miss Maxwell.”

  We started toward the elevators, but she stopped before we reached them. Her hand reached out and touched mine. It was cool and soft. Damn her and her hypothetical questions.

  “I don’t want to face Father,” she said.

  “There’s no way to get to your mother without it—not if he’s up in the suite,” I said.

  “Do you think—do you think you might buy me a little Dutch courage?” she asked.

  “A drink? Of course. Ever been in the Trapeze Bar?”

  She shook her head.

  The Trapeze Bar is on the mezzanine level, suspended in space like a bird cage over the foyer to the Grand Ballroom. Its walls are an elaborate Florentine grillwork. An artist of the Calder school has decorated it with mobiles of circus performers working on trapezes. They sway slightly in the draught from a concealed air freshening system. It’s rather a special gathering place because you don’t get to it by accident. No one sees it and walks in off the street. The patrons are people who come over and over again. They think of it, I imagine, as a kind of private club.

  Mr. Del Greco, the captain, greeted us with old-world courtesy and led us to a corner table. It seemed to be the only vacancy in the place. I knew Del Greco reserved it for special customers.

  “I—I’d like a stinger,” Diana said.

  I ordered my usual Scotch on the rocks. Diana leaned back in her chair and looked around, her eyes widened. We were the only people in the Trapeze not elegantly dressed. There’s a quality about the place that’s hard to put a finger on. We’ve all seen the new-rich in action. There was nothing self-conscious about anyone in the Trapeze; expensive clothes, expensive jewelry were everyday with the Trapeze’s patrons. Diana looked down at her simple print dress and then at my turtle-neck shirt.

  “We shouldn’t have come here,” she said.

  “There’s no rule about dressing here,” I said. “I suspect most of these people were d
olled up for your father’s banquet. The customer is always right at the Beaumont. There’s only one rule he has to obey.”

  “Oh?”

  “He isn’t allowed to throw up on the rug,” I said.

  I was trying to relax her and it worked. She giggled—and then seemed to freeze.

  “Oh, God!” she said.

  I turned my head to follow her look. Watson Clarke, in full dress, was bearing down on us. I noticed the table he’d left. There were three very important corporation executives watching his progress.

  “My dear Diana,” Clarke said, towering over us.

  “Hello, Watty,” she said, quite casual.

  “You’ve seen your parents?” Clarke asked.

  “I thought I’d have a drink first,” Diana said.

  Clarke’s heavy eyebrows were drawn together. I was obviously in his way. I stood up.

  “If you’ll excuse me—” I said.

  Diana’s cool hand closed over mine. “Please, Haskell, don’t go,” she said.

  I didn’t have any choice and Clarke saw that I didn’t. He gave me a pleasant smile. “Mind if I join you both for a minute?”

  Mr. Del Greco was already there with a chair, and a waiter had brought Clarke’s drink from the other table. At the same time a second waiter brought the stinger and my Scotch.

  “You two know each other from somewhere?” Clarke asked, when he was sitting.

  “From somewhere,” Diana said quickly. “Haskell saw me when I arrived and offered to buy me the drink I needed.” Watson Clarke was not to know how we’d gotten together.

  “Your father will be glad you came,” Clarke said.

  “I came to see Mother, not Father,” Diana said.

  “For God sake, Diana, can’t you forget your feud with him?” Clarke said. “It’s been a dreadful and a frightening night. He needs your sympathy and support.”

  “I needed his sympathy and support when I was in trouble and I didn’t get it,” she said.

  “My dear child, somebody tried to murder him!”

  “It was a kind of murder when he framed Barry and had him sent to jail.”

  Clarke looked at me unhappily. He didn’t want to discuss this in front of me. “Your father never framed anyone in his life,” he said. “Your young man lied to you about that gun, Diana. It’s possible he may lie to you about where he was tonight.”

  She gave him a bland smile. “He can’t lie to me about that, Watty. You see he was at home—in bed with me.”

  The color drained out of Clarke’s face. He stood up. “I’m sorry I barged in on you, Diana,” he said. “You should know by now that you can’t shock me with that kind of deliberate scatology.” He gave me a courteous little bow, turned, and walked back to his table. A waiter with his drink and Mr. Del Greco made it a procession.

  Diana drank her stinger thirstily.

  “You were rough on him,” I said.

  “That old goat!” she said, her eyes blazing. “He can’t keep his hands off me when I’m alone with him!”

  “I thought he was your father’s best friend.”

  “He’s been pawing me ever since I can remember,” Diana said.

  A hundred pairs of eyes watched Diana and me as we left our table and walked out of the Trapeze Bar. These were polite people, so they didn’t gawk. We had created an interest. Watson Clarke’s apparently friendly interim with us indicated that we were not nonentities. Diana was the real object of interest. Quite a few of the regulars undoubtedly recognized me as a member of the hotel staff.

  I stopped at the door to ask Mr. Del Greco to phone the house suite and tell whoever answered that Miss Maxwell and I were on the way up. I thought Grace Maxwell might need to be prepared.

  Jerry Dodd’s two men were outside the door of 14B. I asked who was inside.

  “Most everyone,” one of the men told me. “Jerry, the boss, the Maxwell family, Lieutenant Hardy, the nigger kid.”

  “Who?”

  “Cloud—whatever his name is.”

  Diana looked at me, her eyes wide. “Claude Cloud?” she asked.

  “You know him?”

  “Of course I know him. He’s my friend. What’s he doing here?”

  “I guess I didn’t tell you,” I said. “I didn’t make the connection with you. He tried to break into the banquet and one of the cops shot him. Minor shoulder wound. I heard your father say he wanted to talk to him, so I guess that’s what’s happening.”

  Diana’s finger was instantly on the door buzzer. Jerry Dodd opened it.

  “Miss Maxwell,” I told him.

  He stood aside and let us in. Mrs. Maxwell and Miss Ruysdale were missing. Claude Cloud, his arm in a black silk sling that Dr. Partridge had provided for him, was sitting on the lounge. Maxwell was in the chair facing him. Hardy was standing behind him. Chambrun was over by the windows, looking down at the river. When Maxwell saw his daughter, he stood up. His face was stony. I couldn’t tell if he was pleased or angry.

  “I found your daughter in the lobby, Mr. Maxwell,” I said, fast. I wanted to play it Diana’s way. “I brought her up.”

  Chambrun had turned and he gave me a faintly amused smile.

  Diana ignored her father. “What are you doing here, Claude?” she asked.

  Cloud, in his fringed vest and Afro hair-do, was nine million miles out of place in this elegant sitting room.

  “I could ask you the same, baby,” he said.

  “Are you under arrest?” Diana asked.

  “The whole goddamned police force took me, baby,” Cloud said.

  “Where’s your lawyer?” Diana asked. “They can’t make you talk without your lawyer.” She looked at Hardy. He might as well have had COP painted on his shirt front.

  “Oh, this is just friendly, baby,” Cloud said. “Just friendly.” He gave Maxwell a kind of insolent grin.

  “This is not a police questioning, Miss Maxwell,” Hardy said. “Your father wanted to talk to him. Cloud was willing.”

  “But you’re holding him?” Diana asked.

  “He tried to break into the banquet, Miss Maxwell,” Hardy said patiently. “When he was ordered to stop, he disobeyed. Things were pretty tense downstairs, and one of my men shot at him to make him stop. It’s just a flesh wound.”

  “What are you holding him for?”

  “Disobeying a police order, trespassing, maybe we can make conspiracy to commit a homicide stick,” Hardy said.

  Maxwell tried to take charge. “Mark’s told you what happened here tonight?” he asked Diana.

  She looked at me. “Your first name is Mark? You didn’t tell me.”

  “We didn’t get that far,” I said.

  “Yes, I know what happened to Charlie,” Diana said to her father.

  “You know that bullet was meant for me, Kitten?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Do you think we’re not justified in trying to find out who shot at me?”

  “What has that got to do with Claude?” Diana asked.

  You could see the struggle Maxwell was putting up to keep his angry frustration in control. “Your friend Mr. Cloud has threatened me in public, Kitten; he has threatened me in the middle of the night with obscene phone calls; tonight he broke through police lines in an effort to disrupt a private dinner held on my behalf—and God knows what else he intended to do when he got in. It’s a war, Kitten. Do you blame me for trying to find out what the rules are?”

  “Oh, man!” Cloud said. “Rules! That’s all they think about is rules! They make ’em. We don’t.” He laughed. “Poor old Charlie knew how absurd the rules are. Why should there be a rule that says you can’t appear in public without your pants? Anybody could forget his pants—if he was in a hurry, or he was thinking about something else. But Charlie knew the rules. If the great Douglas Maxwell appeared without his pants, he couldn’t get elected to the United States Senate. No matter how good he was, you understand, how honest, how well-equipped. No pants, no Senate.”

  �
��You knew my cousin Charles?” Maxwell said.

  “Sure I knew him. A great guy, Charlie.”

  “You knew what he planned to do tonight?”

  “Sure I knew. Man, he needed an audience ready to laugh.”

  “You know the two men who arrived at the hotel with him?” Hardy asked.

  Cloud wagged a finger at him. “‘Heah come de fuzz!’” he said. “Remember, Daddio, no lawyer, no questions from the fuzz.”

  Maxwell drew a deep breath. “Political warfare is one thing, Cloud. Murder is something else again. We can’t live with anarchy.”

  “Man, who says so?” Cloud said, grinning. “Anarchy would be a lot better than living in a world with your no-pants rules. Anyhow, you didn’t get murdered, man. It was Charlie who got it.”

  “Meant for me,” Maxwell said. “It was the sheerest luck that I didn’t get it ten minutes later. If Charlie hadn’t—”

  “Man, you sound like you were proud it was meant for you,” Cloud interrupted. “Did you ever think it might not have been meant for you at all? Did you ever think it might have all been part of Charlie’s joke? He didn’t have too much to live for. Maybe he thought the biggest joke of all would be for people to think you killed him, or had him killed, for making a joke of you. Was it that way, man? I mean, was it?”

  The color drained from Maxwell’s face. The muscles were knotted along his jaw lines. “I don’t think there’s any purpose in continuing this, Lieutenant,” he said.

  “I second the motion,” Hardy said. “Come on, Cloud.”

  “Sure, man,” Cloud said. “Which way to the Bastille?”

  “I’ll call your lawyer for you, Claude,” Diana said.

  Cloud waved at her. “I guess maybe the time has come, baby. Thanks.” He started for the door and turned back. “I’m not against murder, Maxwell, if it helps to get rid of pollution. But I’m not, personally, an executioner, man. I’m scared of guns—and firecrackers. Not that that would matter any. Barry Tennant didn’t like guns and he didn’t own one. But you fixed him, man. You know, I was real surprised you didn’t find a bomb in my pocket when you arrested me. The name of the game is frame.”