Deadly Joke

by Hugh Pentecost

  “You think that’s the way it is?”

  “Wouldn’t you, if you were me, Pierre?”

  Chambrun exhaled a little cloud of blue smoke. “I’m not sure I want to know, but perhaps you’d better tell me, Melody, what it was Charlie had on Maxwell.”

  “He stole some money,” Melody said.

  “Maxwell?”

  “It was while they were in college. Douglas Maxwell hadn’t come into his money then. It was his father’s. He was in some kind of a jam—a bookmaker, I think. He and Charlie loved to bet on the races. Maxwell couldn’t go to his old man. So he stole a few thousand bucks from some college fund. Charlie knew about it, and he used it. He had some kind of proof that put Maxwell over a barrel. When Maxwell came into his old man’s dough, Charlie put the screws on him. When Maxwell decided to run for political office, Charlie really bore down on him.”

  “It’s just not believable,” Chambrun said. “Not Doug Maxwell.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Melody said.

  Chambrun stood up and began to prowl restlessly behind his desk. I knew this story had hit him where he lived. We both knew something that Melody didn’t know. Earlier that night, we’d been told, Maxwell had left his house on 69th Street with Stew Shaw to come to the hotel for the banquet, arranging it to arrive at exactly seven-thirty. They had arrived at seven-thirty. Presumably they had been together when Charlie Sewall had been shot. That was Maxwell’s iron-clad alibi. But with Stew Shaw dead, we only had Maxwell’s word for it. Maxwell’s alibi had evaporated.

  We knew something else that Melody didn’t know. Charlie’s plan had leaked right into the center of Maxwell’s family. Diana had known and she had told her mother. It wasn’t impossible that Maxwell had known what was in the air.

  Chambrun stopped his prowl in front of Melody’s chair. “Most blackmailers protect themselves against violent reactions from their victims,” he said. “If they didn’t they’d be knocked off like flies on a summer day. What was the proof Charlie had that would brand Maxwell a thief?”

  “I don’t know, Pierre.”

  “Whatever it was he’d keep it somewhere safe, with instructions for it to be turned over to the police if anything happened to him. Did he have a safety deposit box somewhere?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Someone is going to come forward with that proof,” Chambrun said.

  “Unless they think it was a mistake,” Melody said. “Unless they think it was really meant for Maxwell. The bullet, I mean.”

  “Does it occur to you, Melody, that if someone has that proof he may decide, now, to use it for his own profit?”

  Her eyes widened. “I suppose that’s possible.”

  “So who could it be?”

  “Before God, Pierre, I don’t have any idea.”

  “It’s not you, Melody? You were Charlie’s woman.”

  “Pierre!”

  “There were two men who arrived at the hotel with Charlie when the joke was launched. Do you know who they were?”

  “No. Charlie said ‘a couple of guys’ were going with him to pose as Maxwell’s friends. He didn’t say who.”

  Chambrun turned to his desk and Hardy’s folder, which still lay there. He produced the photograph and showed it to Melody. I thought she took an extra-long time before she shook her head.

  “I don’t recognize either of them, Pierre.”

  Chambrun stood in front of her, looking down at her. How he kept his eyes off that extraordinary cleavage, I don’t know. “I knew you very well, Melody, in the toughest kind of world,” he said. “I know how loyal you can be to friends. If you’re shielding someone, let me tell you how dangerous it is. Charlie is dead, maybe on purpose, maybe by mistake. Maxwell’s bodyguard had his skull smashed in a little while ago. He’s dead. Someone is running wild, Melody; a killer. If you’re protecting some friend of Charlie’s, you may be sentencing someone else to death.”

  She reached out and touched his hand. “So help me God, Pierre,” she said. “I came to you because I didn’t believe Charlie was shot by mistake. I owed Charlie that much.”

  He looked at her steadily for a moment, and then he lifted his hand and patted her gently on the shoulder. “All right, Melody. If you say so.” He moved around behind his desk again. “Did Charlie have a lawyer?”

  “A fellow named Richard Hyland—Dicky Hyland. They were old college friends. He has an office on Park Avenue somewhere. I guess you could find him in the phone book. He used to come to our—to Charlie’s apartment from time to time. He’s a number-one bottle man.”

  “A lush?”

  “He’s a fun-and-games boy like Charlie.”

  “Could he be the one holding that hat over his face in the picture?” Chambrun showed her the photograph again.

  Melody studied it for a while. “I wouldn’t want to say, Pierre. Dicky is about that tall, with a kind of pot belly like that. But there are a million pots like that around; drunks who also eat.” She looked up. “What should I do now, Pierre? Go to the cops?”

  “Give me a little time, Melody,” Chambrun said. “I think you know me well enough to be certain I wouldn’t cover up for God if I thought he was guilty. Douglas Maxwell has more troubles at this moment than you would believe. His wife is an alcoholic who doesn’t want him to run for office. His daughter and her boy friend are his enemies, ready to do anything to stop his election. Someone appears to be gunning for him. His bodyguard and loyal friend has been chopped down. Those anarchistic kids are out to get him. If we throw this thing of yours at him without some kind of proof, we could destroy him totally. Maybe he doesn’t deserve it.”

  “I’m in your hands, Pierre,” she said.

  “Good girl.” He was suddenly businesslike. “I don’t know exactly what your position is. Somebody will have to make what are called ‘the arrangements’ for Sewall—funeral, his financial estate. What about you? Do you want this man Hyland to handle things for you, or would you like me to recommend a lawyer?”

  “The apartment is leased in my name,” Melody said, “so no one can boot me out.”

  “How are you fixed for money? You won’t be able to touch any of Charlie’s, you know.”

  “I’ll get by. I always have, Pierre.”

  “You can count on me for help in that direction, Melody.” Chambrun reached for his wallet. “Would a couple of hundred in cash be useful to you right now?”

  She raised her eyes, and, so help me, they were brimming with tears. “To tell you the truth, Pierre, I don’t even have taxi fare home. Charlie handed it out to me in nickels and dimes. How did I happen to pass you by thirty years ago?”

  He smiled at her, gently, and gave her the money. “I was there,” he said, “but always at the end of the line. Give me till sometime tomorrow, Melody. I’ll get back to you. Mark, will you see Melody to a taxi, and get her address and telephone number from her?”

  2

  THERE IS USUALLY A line of cabs outside the Beaumont, but on this night there weren’t any. The hackies must have got the word we had a riot on our hands and were giving us a wide berth. I walked Melody over toward Madison Avenue, where I knew we would pick up a cruiser. She slipped her arm through mine. It wasn’t a flirtatious gesture, just the way I guessed she’d approached any man all her life.

  “Tell me about Pierre,” she said. “Is he happy?”

  “He’s busy, which I guess is happy,” I said.

  “Woman—or women?” she asked.

  “He’s married to the hotel,” I said.

  “But a man that’s all man, like Pierre, must have a woman,” she said.

  “If he does, it’s a very private matter,” I said.

  “That’s like him,” she said. We walked a little way. “He’d never go for a blowzy old frump like me. I was never really his type; too coarse, too loud, too ready to take my clothes off any time, any place.”

  “That was your business,” I said.

  “Oh, I did it for free, too,” s
he said.

  “I think he’s very fond of you,” I said.

  “I always loved that little guy in the old days,” she said. “You know we were together in the French Resistance? We had a lot of hero types in those days—handsome guys, wild guys. But when it came down to the clutch, that little bastard was the toughest of the lot. I should have never let him get away. I could have made myself into his kind of girl. Oh, well—spilled milk and all that.”

  “You can count on him,” I said.

  She drew a deep breath. “I think I know that.”

  We kept walking. “Tell me about Barry Tennant,” I asked her. “He came to tell you what had happened?”

  “I already knew,” she said. “I’d seen it on TV.”

  “But it was friendly of him to come, wasn’t it?”

  “Sure. But I kicked his rump out of there fast because I wanted to get to Pierre.”

  “What’s Tennant like?”

  “Oh, he’s a good enough kid. Big talk about revolutions and overthrowing the government by force if it comes to that. They don’t know what they’re talking about, those kids. If they wanted to see a real revolution, they should have seen the Resistance. But Barry liked Charlie. You got to have someone to laugh with, someone to communicate with. He and Charlie never got serious about anything.”

  “Do you suppose Charlie ever told Tennant what he had on Maxwell? It would have delighted Tennant.”

  “You can bet Charlie never breathed a word of it,” Melody said. “Keeping that a secret was Charlie’s bread and butter.”

  At the crossing we hailed a taxi, and I opened the door for her. She turned to me. “You think I might be a target, Mark?”

  “Target?”

  “If someone knows I pointed a finger at someone—?”

  “Who knows?” I said. “Chambrun won’t mention it. Neither will I.”

  “If anything should happen to me, tell Pierre I don’t want any funeral wreaths, or lilies, or any of that crap. He once sent me a bunch of wildflowers when I was stripping in a café in Marseilles. Tell him that’s all I want.”

  “I’ll tell him. But you aren’t going to be anybody’s target, Melody.”

  “Keep your fingers crossed, Buster,” she said.

  I watched the taxi tool down Madison. I felt faintly uneasy.

  I turned back toward the Beaumont and instantly had the sensation that someone standing in the shadows a few doors down the block had me in his sights. All I needed to top the evening was for some creep to try to mug me. I looked around me for a cop. There had been a hundred of them saturating the area an hour ago. There weren’t any now.

  The shadow moved out into the open. “I’ve been waiting for you, Haskell.”

  It was Barry Tennant in his orange shirt, striped pants, and buckskin vest. He looked like dozens of other kids I’d seen in the hotel that night. What he was wearing was almost a uniform.

  “Did Melody get to see Charlie? I suppose that’s why she came up here—sentimental old trollop. Where’s Diana?”

  “She was with her parents,” I said.

  “I would have gone looking for her, but I figured it might not be too healthy for me to walk into the Beaumont lobby just now.” His white teeth flashed in the semi-darkness. “I hear the kids pretty well took it apart.”

  “They had their moment,” I said.

  “I told Diana I’d be somewhere when I’d seen Melody, but I heard Claude Cloud got shot, so I came uptown to see if I could help. Is he badly hurt?”

  “No. But he’s under arrest.”

  “Bastards,” Tennant said.

  “He asked for it,” I said.

  “Look, Haskell, can you get a message to Diana?”

  “I might—if she’s still in the hotel.”

  “Tell her I’ll see her when I see her,” he said. “I won’t be where I said I’d be. The cops have taken in wagonloads of kids. I’ve got to help get them out. I don’t want her to think I stood her up. Will you tell her?”

  “I’ll try. We’ve got quite a ball game going here now. Did you know Maxwell’s bodyguard had been slugged to death?”

  “Shaw?”

  “According to Diana, you weren’t deeply fond of him.”

  “The sonofabitch framed me for Maxwell,” Tennant said.

  “If you were in that crowd that stormed the hotel, you better start looking for a copper-riveted alibi,” I said.

  “I wasn’t with the kids,” Tennant said, scowling.

  “You better be ready to prove it,” I said.

  “Oh, I know!” His voice was bitter. “If you’re under twenty-five in this world, you’re responsible for all its evils. Maxwell and his kind have made a mess of the whole bloody universe and now they’re trying to blame it on the kids who don’t like what they’ve inherited.” He kicked at the sidewalk. “Why did you tell me about Shaw? Why didn’t you take me in and let them put me through the wringer?”

  “I’m damned if I know,” I said. “Maybe because I like your girl. Maybe because it seems too obvious. Maybe because I know they’ll come looking for you anyway and it’s none of my business.”

  “Thanks anyway for the tip,” he said. “And double thanks if you’ll get word to Diana.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He slid away down the street toward Madison.

  I walked back toward the hotel, not hurrying. I was thinking about my earlier conversation with Diana. “The point is you can’t do anything just for yourself,” she’d said. “It spreads out and touches people you never even heard of—like a forest fire.” The fellow who’d stood on the balcony and fired at Charlie Sewall—maybe thinking it was Maxwell—had started a rip-roaring forest fire. I guess the reason I didn’t try to turn Tennant in was because I didn’t want to help it spread.

  Just back of the reception desk in the main lobby of the hotel is a small office. There’s a desk and a couple of chairs and a phone. It isn’t used by anyone. It’s where they take a customer who wants to make a complaint, or arrange for an extra-large check to be cashed, or explain why he doesn’t want to pay his bill. It was where Maggio had left Melody Marsh while he went to hunt for Chambrun. I could still smell the vague scent of gardenias, her perfume.

  I got Mrs. Kiley, the night switchboard chief, on the phone.

  “I want to talk to Miss Maxwell in Fourteen B,” I told her.

  “You know that line’s monitored by the police, Mr. Haskell?”

  “I should have guessed.” Hardy wanted to be in on any crank calls or threats that might be headed Maxwell’s way.

  “I have Miss Maxwell for you,” Mrs. Kiley said.

  “Diana? Mark Haskell,” I said.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Are you where you can talk?”

  “I’m with Mother,” she said. “Father’s been taken down to Mr. Chambrun’s office.”

  “Miss Ruysdale?”

  “She’s gone, too.”

  “Is your mother all right?”

  “Normal,” she said. It sounded a little bitter.

  “The police are monitoring your line in case any crank calls come in,” I said. “They may think I’m a crank, so I’ll make it brief. Your friend isn’t going to be where he told you he was going to be. He’ll see you when he can.”

  “You’ve talked to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he know about—about—?”

  “He knows everything that’s happened. He’s going to be trying to get some of his friends out of jail. Outgoing calls are monitored on your line, too.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then she said: “Maybe you’ll buy me another drink when Father comes back.”

  “Try me. I’ll probably be in Mr. Chambrun’s office.”

  I went up to the second floor. Miss Ruysdale was at her desk in the outer office. She looked as though it was an ordinary business day. Jerry’s two men were standing on either side of Chambrun’s door.

  “You’re to report inside,” Miss R
uysdale said. “Tell Mr. Chambrun the limousine service is trying to locate the driver. No luck so far.”

  “The driver of what?” I asked.

  “The limousine that brought Mr. Maxwell and Shaw to the hotel. It seems Mr. Maxwell may need an alibi with Shaw dead. The driver of the limousine may be able to supply it.”

  I knocked on Chambrun’s door and went in.

  Maxwell was slumped in the armchair opposite Chambrun’s desk, his face covered by his hands. Chambrun made a little gesture to me for silence. I stood just inside the closed door, waiting.

  Maxwell lowered his hands. He looked at me. I think he saw me but I might as well not have been there.

  “Do you know, Pierre,” he said, “when I walked into the hotel tonight and found out what had happened to Charlie there was a moment when I was glad. I was glad the sonofabitch was dead. It was the first thought I had; not that it had been meant for me. That came later.”

  “So it’s true, then?” Chambrun said.

  “That Charlie has been blackmailing me for what seems like all my life? Yes, it’s true. I wish I knew how you found out about it.”

  Chambrun had evidently not exposed Melody so far.

  “The source isn’t important at the moment,” Chambrun said. “It was a friend of Charlie’s who thinks the bullet was meant for Charlie, not you.”

  “And that I fired it? Or had someone fire it?”

  “That you, at any rate, had a motive,” Chambrun said.

  “Lucky for me I have an alibi,” Maxwell said. Then his eyes narrowed. “But I don’t have an alibi, do I? Stew Shaw was my alibi.”

  “There’s the driver of the limousine,” Chambrun said. “I’m trying to locate him.”

  “Miss Ruysdale is still trying,” I said.

  Maxwell shook his head. “You don’t miss much, do you, Pierre?”

  “I want to help you, Doug, but I need to know it all to be of much use.”

  Maxwell closed his eyes for a moment. He must, I thought, be close to exhaustion after the tensions of the evening. “It’s so long ago it’s almost hard to remember,” he said. “It was thirty years ago, the spring of my senior year at Barstow. Charlie Sewall and I were very close in those days. The look-alike thing made us almost like twins. Charlie was the hell raiser and I was the serious student, but when I had free time for it, I enjoyed a little hell raising myself. We’d had some disciplinary bouts with the college authorities, but that spring we got into real trouble. Not with the college. Charlie liked to play the horses. He didn’t have the money, but I had a generous allowance from my father. I put up the money, but we went into it on a fifty-fifty basis. In the beginning it was just a couple of dollars a day; Charlie studied the charts and the morning line, and he was lucky or smart. We won a few, and then we won a big daily double—more than a thousand dollars. It—it’s the kind of thing that gets in your blood, Pierre. You understand, we didn’t often go to the track. We just figured and bet. There was a sort of poolroom-bowling alley place near the college. The proprietor could get bets down ‘just to accommodate the students.’ It all seemed innocent enough. Charlie and I were riding high. We had more cash to spend than we were used to.