Girl Watcher's Funeral

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Or one like it,” I said. “Karados had it in his vest pocket.”

  “What did you see done with it?”

  “Karados had his attack,” I said. “I got to him with his secretary, a girl named Morse. He said something like ‘—in my vest pocket.’ Jan found it, and—”

  “Jan?”

  “Miss Morse.”

  “You know her well, then?”

  “Just met her three minutes before it happened,” I said.

  “I see. So Miss Morse found the bottle. What did she do?”

  “Opened it, took out a pill, and slipped it under Karados’s tongue.” I sensed trouble. “Something wrong with that?”

  “Perfectly correct procedure,” Partridge said.

  “So?”

  “So Karados looked at me after a few seconds and said, ‘Dear God. It doesn’t work!’ Then I heard Cardoza suggest mouth-to-mouth. Before I could move, Jan—Miss Morse—was giving it to him. She fought like a madwoman for him. You saw that, Doctor.”

  “Why are you defensive about her?” Chambrun asked.

  “Look here, Mr. Chambrun, why don’t you come clean with me?” I said. “You suspect something?”

  Chambrun made a little gesture to Partridge.

  The old doctor cleared his throat. “Karados had angina,” he said. “The pills he took when he had an attack were nitroglycerine. This particular supply I prescribed for him. Made up in the hotel drugstore.”

  “So this time they didn’t work,” I said.

  “Damn right they didn’t work,” Partridge said. “They didn’t work because what’s in that bottle now are soda mints—bicarbonate.”

  “They would kill him?”

  “Yes, they’d kill him,” Partridge said angrily, “because they wouldn’t do anything for him. Harmless, but of no use whatever to a man in the throes of an angina attack. Whoever replaced those nitro tablets with soda mints might just as well have shot Karados through the heart.”

  “You or the pharmacist made a mistake,” I suggested.

  “Don’t be an ass!” Partridge said.

  “So you call the police,” I said.

  Chambrun didn’t answer at once. He’d taken his silver cigarette case out of the breast pocket of his coat and was tapping one of his flat Egyptian cigarettes on it. Finally he lit it.

  “Between ourselves,” he said. “Nikos Karados was very close to me at a time when friendship and loyalty were at a premium. I would not like to let him down, even in death. Now there are two possibilities before us. Someone close to Nikos—close enough to have access to a bottle that would never be out of his reach— Am I right about that, Doctor?”

  “A man with angina would carry those nitro pills on him wherever he went,” Partridge said. “At night they’d be no further from him than his bedside table.”

  Chambrun nodded. “So someone very close to him managed to get hold of that bottle for long enough to flush the nitro pills down the john and replace them with soda mints. That’s one possibility. The second is suicide. Nikos was ready to die; he made sure that when the moment came he couldn’t change his mind.”

  “You buy that?” Partridge asked.

  “No,” Chambrun said. “I never knew a man who relished every moment of living, important or unimportant, as much as Nikos. He ran risks all his life. German intelligence tried to assassinate him half a dozen times during World War Two. Nikos fought to live. Suicide is unthinkable. He was always having too much fun.”

  “So you call the police,” I said again.

  Chambrun ignored me. He pressed the intercom button on his desk and Miss Ruysdale’s voice came through, cool and clear.

  “Yes, Mr. Chambrun?”

  “Be good enough to bring me a chart of all the Karados accommodations as they stand at the moment, please.” Chambrun leaned back in his chair and looked at the curl of gray ash on the end of his cigarette. It reached the silver ash tray on his desk just as it was falling. “You know much about high fashion, Mark?” he asked.

  “I read Marylin Bender’s column in the Times” I said. “I glance at Women’s Wear Daily. I know who Baby Jane Holzer is, thanks to Tom Wolfe. I mean, the fashion columnists have taken over from the society columnists.”

  “Rather superficial, I’d say,” Chambrun said. “We are, for the moment, the fashion center of the world, thanks to Nikos. I had some misgivings about involving the Beaumont, but Nikos pointed out to me that if you can hold a fashion show in the Metropolitan Museum of Art twice a year, the Beaumont shouldn’t flinch at the idea. And he was Nikos, my friend. The nineteenth floor is, at the moment, a pop-fashion jungle, as nearly as I can make out—designer, models, models’ agents, photographers, columnists, stylists, public relations geniuses, the boy friends of beautiful girls, the girl friends of beautiful girls—God knows who else. Nikos was the center of it all, paying for it all, bent on turning Max Lazar from a comparatively unknown designer into the big guru of mod-fashion. These people are in and out of each other’s rooms, including Nikos’s suite, like one big, uninhibited family; incest to Beatle music. It is one long, swinging party planned to last until after Lazar’s showing day after tomorrow. Only the models are kept on a leash. They must not have bloodshot eyes or that tired look when they come out on the runway wearing Lazar’s concoctions.”

  “You’re saying too damn many people could have had access to that little green bottle,” Partridge said.

  “Thanks for your concise brevity, Doctor,” Chambrun said.

  Partridge stood up. “What you do about all this is your affair, Pierre. I have signed the death certificate. No medical hanky-panky. He died of angina pectoris. The fact that he didn’t take a nitro pill has no medical significance as far as cause of death is concerned. He died of natural-unnatural causes. If you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a game of cribbage in the Spartan Bar.”

  “Thank you, Doctor—I think,” Chambrun said. “I’d be happier if you hadn’t been so observant about the pills. As it is—” He lifted his shoulders in a Gallic shrug.

  The doctor passed Miss Ruysdale in the office door. She came in as he went out and placed a sheet of paper on Chambrun’s desk.

  “Karados is in Suite Nineteen-A,” she said, pointing to the paper. “Adjoining it on the north is nineteen hundred one, occupied by Timothy Gallivan, Karados’s lawyer and financial adviser. On the south is nineteen hundred seven, occupied by one Jan Morse, listed as Karados’s secretary. There are connecting doors from both these rooms with Karados’s suite—keys on the Karados side of the door. Down the hall are four models, most notably Suzie Sands, top high-fashion model in the business. There is Monica Strong, the stylist who will stage-manage Lazar’s showing. There is Lazar himself. There is Michael Faraday, millionaire girl watcher, and his glamorous wife, known as Dodo.”

  “Girl watching is everybody’s thing,” I said. Nobody seemed to be listening.

  “Suzie Sands is registered as Mrs. Thomas Tryon,” Miss Ruysdale said. “Tommy Tryon shares her room with her. Off the record, they are not married, Mr. Chambrun. Believe it or not, Suzie is putting Tommy through law school. At a hundred and fifty dollars an hour for her modeling talents she can well afford it.”

  “You are a mine of information, Ruysdale,” Chambrun said.

  “Any time, Mr. Chambrun. In passing, Mr. Timothy Gallivan is in my office waiting to see you. He is—”

  “Nikos’s lawyer,” Chambrun said. “Hang onto him till I buzz you. Get word to Jerry Dodd that I want to see him.”

  Jerry Dodd is the hotel’s security officer. We don’t have a “house detective” at the Beaumont.

  Miss Ruysdale went out, and Chambrun sat staring at the little green bottle. I thought for a moment he’d forgotten that I was still there. He hadn’t.

  “This bottle,” he said, “was certainly handled by Nikos when he put it in his vest pocket, by Miss Morse when she took it out, and by Partridge—before he knew there might be anything wrong with it. Therefore, no meaningful
fingerprints.” He looked at me, his eyes narrowed. “If the police come into the picture, we lose the game before it starts. There is no physical evidence. The nitro pills are certainly gone. A five-year-old child could buy soda mints without question. Inject a cop into the picture and everyone sits tight and nothing happens. There is just one chance to get at the truth, Mark. We have two days in which to listen, circulate, and watch. It’s just possible that someone a little high, a little overstimulated, may let something slip. I’ll get in touch with our friend Lieutenant Hardy at Homicide and tell him the score. I think he’ll agree that the best procedure is to let us handle it for the next couple of days.”

  “It sounds reasonable,” I said. “If anybody can come up with anything, Jerry Dodd is the boy.”

  “Not Jerry, Mark,” Chambrun said, shaking his head. “A security officer will arouse suspicions. The one person free to come and go without being at all obvious is the hotel’s public relations man. They’ll welcome you because they welcome every possible shred of publicity.”

  “Me!” I said.

  “You,” Chambrun said. He smiled faintly. “Your three-minute friendship with Miss Morse seems like a good opening wedge.”

  I just stared at him.

  “You and I, Ruysdale, Jerry Dodd, and the Doctor are the only ones who’ll know what’s in the wind. To the rest of the world Nikos died of angina. Period. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said in a small voice.

  His smile widened slightly. “I’m sure you’ve always wanted to play cops and robbers, Mark.” Then the smile disappeared. “I count on you. Nikos was my good friend.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, shall we see what Mr. Gallivan has on his mind?”

  2

  I SUPPOSE I SHOULD have expected that Timothy Gallivan would be something rather special. Karados wouldn’t have had an intimate he trusted with all his affairs who was ordinary. Gallivan was short and lithe, and he seemed to be full of bounce, as though at any moment he might take off in a soft-shoe routine. I was reminded of an old movie I’d seen on the Late-Late show—Jimmy Cagney playing the role of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. Gallivan had that kind of irrepressible energy that made both Cagney and Cohan great performers. His smile was ready to explode at you any second. I imagined that he and Nikos had spent a lot of time laughing together at the cockeyed world.

  “I don’t know much about Greek wakes,” Gallivan said, when he’d introduced himself, “but Nikos wasn’t having any. Cremation at once—and a party. That was his idea. Always leave them laughing. Would you believe there’s money—a hell of a lot of money—set aside in a dozen places to buy drinks for friends when the moment came: the Ritz in Paris, Moriarty’s Saloon here in New York, Sardi’s, Dinty Moore’s, The House of Chan, some dump in Athens, another in Rome, a London club where he was a member, a tailorshop in Dublin where he bought clothes, and here, Chambrun. For one hour, starting at the cocktail hour tomorrow, Nikos will pick up the whole tab in the Trapeze Bar. He wanted people to have fun on him.”

  “It’s in character,” Chambrun said.

  “The reason I’m here,” Gallivan said, rumpling his curly red hair that was salted here and there with gray, “is to reassure you about the fashion show. Everything will go on exactly as planned. The people involved who are registered here will stay on till after the showing. All the arrangements for the Blue Lagoon Room stand: the food, the liquor, the music.” He chuckled. “A pop orchestra this time, Chambrun, that may send you screaming for some mountaintop. But Nikos wanted it; something in the mod-mood. There are no problems about prompt payment. Nikos knew this was going to happen someday. Money for this brawl is in a special account to which I have immediate access.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” Chambrun said.

  Gallivan’s smile faded and he shook his head. “It’s going to be a strange world without him,” he said. “Twenty years I’ve been at his elbow, night and day. Never a dull moment. I am suddenly so rich I couldn’t count it if I wanted to. I’d gladly give it all back just to have him walk in that door.” His bright blue eyes lifted to fix on Chambrun. “You knew him when it counted.”

  “Yes, when it counted heavily,” Chambrun said.

  “I knew him then, but I didn’t become permanently involved with him until nineteen fifty.” Gallivan drew a deep breath and grinned at us. “Well, my one aim now is to make these next three days the success Nikos wanted them to be. Did you know, gentlemen, that Women’s Wear has not paid proper attention to Max Lazar? Did you know that the high priestesses of the fashion world have not bowed deeply to Lazar? Did you know that a fat Greek shipping tycoon intended to kick these lady fashion writers and their rag-trade bible in their respective smug rumps and catapult Mr. Lazar over their prostrate forms to the top of the high-fashion mountain? That’s what Nikos meant to do, just for the hell of it, you understand, and by God, that’s what we’ll all do for him. This show here at the Beaumont is just the beginning. But it will be a shot heard round the world!”

  “You say ‘we’ll do it for him,’” Chambrun said. “Who is ‘we,’ Mr. Gallivan?”

  “The team,” Gallivan said. “There was a ‘team’ in your time, Chambrun—the people who kept you and your Resistance people informed. That’s how Nikos worked. A team for each project—a team of specialists. We have them now. The team includes me—handling the money whip; Monica Strong, a stylist who will stage a show that will leave them breathless; Zach Chambers, who can produce the most beautiful models in the world, exclusively for us; the Michael Faradays, who will provide us with the society tie-in we must have; and there is Rosemary Lewis, fashion columnist who will die laughing as she whizzes past the opposition. And there is, of course, Max Lazar, who has designed the product.”

  “Is he any good?” Chambrun asked.

  Gallivan gave us another candid grin. “How good is good?” he asked. “He is talented. He is a disciple of the cult of pop-fashion. Is he a put-on? Is he just plain mod-camp? That’s for you to decide, gentlemen. But the final answer to this little skirmish is who blows the loudest trumpet. I’ve got a few million bucks that says we will!” His laughter was full of delight. “You want the girls to put on underwear again? When we’re through, if Lazar says so, they will. You like girls without bras, or do you prefer the No Bra Bra? It will be Lazar who determines the future of the female bosom, not a trade paper or a fashion writer.”

  “Is Jan Morse a member of the team?” I asked.

  The blue eyes turned my way and I thought for a second a glacial hardness covered them. Then he laughed. “The general must never be allowed to become bored,” he said, “or he may lose interest and the battle be lost. Jan is a darling girl with the mind of a twelve-year-old and the instincts of a Lolita. It pleased Nikos just to look at her. She kept the general from being bored. She is now, though she doesn’t know it yet, a very rich and desirable young heiress.”

  The key, I remembered, had been on Nikos’s side of the door. I felt unaccountably depressed.

  “It’s my job at the moment,” Gallivan said, “to rally the team. We are holding a slight drinking bash in Nikos’s suite. Nikos’s wish. ‘Not later than an hour after my death the people closest to me will meet to eat and drink and remember happily all the past joys of our time together.’ His words. You gentlemen are both cordially invited.”

  “Unfortunately I’m up to my neck in problems,” Chambrun said, “but I’m sure Mark will accept with pleasure. It’s his job to cover the public relations aspect of this whole affair for the Beaumont.”

  “Come along, chum,” Gallivan said to me. “If nothing else, you will get a glimpse of some women that will make your young mouth water.”

  I looked at Chambrun. His face was innocently blank. …

  Under normal circumstances if anyone had suggested to me that I’d enjoy going somewhere to watch girls, I’d have had a stock reply. “Why should I want to watch girls? I’ve got a girl.” It just happened, however,
that Nikos Karados had chosen a disturbed time in my private life to die. I have a fabulous secretary, golden blond, shaped like a lewd angel, witty and full of fire, named Shelda Mason. For two years Shelda and I have lived a very happy, totally involved, life together. We both have what Shelda calls “Chambrun fever.” The Beaumont is our joint life. I have a suite of rooms on the fourth floor, down the hall from my office, and Shelda has a small garden apartment two blocks from the hotel on the East Side. I keep clothes in both places.

  Shelda and I had come to an unexpected crossroad. We could go on forever, without any sort of permanent obligation to each other, loving every minute of it; or we could take the plunge, tie the knot, make it final, total. It sounds like a simple decision to make, but somehow it wasn’t. I think we were both a little afraid to change the status of our relationship. It might not be as wonderfully good, as free and as completely fun.

  It so happened that Chambrun had some rather special business to transact with Mr. George Battle, owner of the Beaumont, who sits in the sun on the French Riviera counting his money. Chambrun, who had never told anything about our relationship and knew everything about it, suggested that Shelda might act as his courier. She would spend a couple of weeks on the Riviera and in Paris doing some odds and ends for him, buy herself some new clothes, have herself a ball.

  It seemed to make sense. Separated for a couple of weeks, Shelda and I might come to some kind of decision about ourselves. For two weeks, Shelda said on the night before she left, we’d both be completely free. If I found myself interested in another girl, I was to be unhampered, and no recriminations. If she found herself intrigued, same deal. I knew, of course, that no other girl was going to interest me, but I felt a hot iron turning in my gut when I thought of Shelda and some other man. I daresay she felt the same thing. I was to meet Shelda ten days from now at Kennedy, with or without a marriage license in my pocket. She would say yes or no. There’d be no discussions, no regrets. The moment of final decision would take place then.