Bargain with Death

by Hugh Pentecost

  “I take it you have instructions about the money,” I said.

  “I have instructions, Mr. Haskell,” the voice said. “You are to go back to the Beaumont.”

  “To get the money?”

  “Be good enough to let me do the talking, Mr. Haskell.” In spite of the mouthful sound it was a cold, hard voice. “You will go back to the hotel. You will inform Mr. Chambrun and the police that you are to go to Mr. Chambrun’s penthouse on the roof. But you are not to be watched, or followed, or checked on. You are to go there and wait for instructions.”

  “By phone?” I asked.

  “Just listen, Mr. Haskell. You will take an elevator, alone, to the penthouse level. You will step out of the elevator and you will watch the indicator till you know the elevator has gone down again. You will let yourself into the penthouse with a key which I trust Mr. Chambrun will give you. You will wait, inside the penthouse, for instructions.”

  “By phone?” I asked again.

  “Just listen to me, Mr. Haskell. You were to have come to that phone booth alone. If you’ll look across the way to the entrance of a dress shop, you’ll see a shadow. That’s the man you had follow you. It will be just as easy to check on whether you go to the penthouse alone, without any traps set. If you don’t do exactly as you’re told, Mr. Haskell, we will provide

  Mr. Chambrun with a nice new dead body to ponder.”

  “You’re telling me that you’ll kill me if I don’t obey you?”

  The man laughed. “Oh, no. We need you, Mr. Haskell. But you would like to see Mrs. Brent alive again, wouldn’t you?”

  I came out of that phone booth for the second time in five hours, wringing wet. I took off on the run toward the shadow in the entrance to the dress shop.

  “They spotted you,” I said to the man.

  “Damn! No instructions, then?”

  “Oh, I got instructions. Listen, go to that booth and phone Chambrun.” I gave him the special number. “Tell him not to go to his penthouse, or let anyone else go, until I get back to him and explain.”

  I didn’t take time to tell him anything more. I started to run back up Fifth Avenue to the Beaumont. In spite of the mouthful-sound of that voice, the threat it conveyed had seemed completely real to me. I tried to concentrate on whether it was a voice I knew, garbled by what I assumed was a voice alterer. It had been crisp and sharp, with an overtone of sardonic humor. It was not like anyone I knew. I thought it might fit the handsome, athletic-looking man in the white dinner jacket I’d seen earlier in the Trapeze. Treadway. The threat was in character with a man we suspected had killed so easily and so violently.

  My aim was to get to Chambrun as quickly as possible. I’m in pretty good shape for my thirty-five years, but I had the anxious feeling I might fall flat on my face before I made it. My legs felt rubbery. When I finally persuaded the guards on the Fifth Avenue entrance to the hotel to let me in, the world was spinning around in front of me. I remember that when I got inside I bent over double trying to get some air into my lungs. I had the feeling I couldn’t make the one flight of stairs to the second floor, and I stumbled toward the elevators. Faces looked at me out of a kind of haze, I suppose assuming that I was drunk. Somebody took me by the arm and I tried to shake myself loose.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Mike Maggio asked.

  I grabbed hold of him as though he was a life preserver. “I’ve got to get to the boss,” I managed to tell him.

  He didn’t ask questions, but got me to an elevator and up to the second floor. Miss Ruysdale was standing out in the hall, a worried look on her handsome face.

  “We got your message,” she said.

  I just sort of waved at her and, still hanging onto Mike, I staggered into Chambrun’s office. He was standing up beside his desk. Hardy was still there, talking to someone on one of the phones. I remember I sank down into one of the big green leather armchairs and bent forward again, still trying to get air. I was aware that Miss Ruysdale went over to the sideboard and poured me a drink.

  “You can die later,” Chambrun said in a cold voice. “Would you mind explaining your message?”

  I managed to choke it out in bits and pieces, and then I swallowed the drink Ruysdale brought me. I thought I might not have to die after all.

  Chambrun and Hardy were staring at each other.

  “Carlson!” Chambrun said. “I knew there was something fishy about him, but he talked me out of it.”

  “I don’t follow,” Hardy said.

  “If people took over the penthouse, they found him there,” Chambrun said. “The hell with the stock market. They got rid of him by frightening him into silence.”

  “Why didn’t they keep him as a hostage?” Hardy asked.

  “They’ve got Valerie,” I managed to say.

  “And used her with Carlson,” Chambrun said. “A good guess is that Carlson is to arrange something for them on the outside—getaway plan. A car, a plane, a boat. Because obviously what they’re going to demand of us is a way out of the hotel, unmolested by us or by your people, Hardy.”

  “And the money, if they know about it,” Hardy said, looking at the black bag.

  “Oh, they know about it,” Chambrun said. “They persuaded Carlson to tell them all they needed to know.”

  “How could they hole-up in your place when it was being searched by your bomb plan?” Hardy asked.

  “Because I am an idiot!” Chambrun said. “I didn’t expect to find a bomb, you know that. We were looking for people—Treadway, Olin, Gamayel, Mrs. Brent. Carlson was going to be important to us if we heard from the kidnappers. He was close to breaking. I wanted him rested and ready. So I told the roof crew to bypass my place.”

  “If they aren’t the kidnappers up there,” Hardy said, “how did they know about that Fifty-ninth Street phone booth?”

  “Carlson,” Chambrun said. “Carlson babbling his life away.”

  Hardy reached for a phone. “We’d better get Carlson back here on the double. He can at least tell us exactly how it is up there.”

  “Mark is going to tell us that,” Chambrun said. He looked at me, almost gently. “If it isn’t too much to ask of you, Mark.”

  “Of course I’ll go,” I said.

  “Why must Mark go up there?” Hardy asked. “Why don’t they simply tell us what they want on the phone?”

  “They’ve got Mrs. Brent,” Chambrun said. “For all we know they’ve got Gamayel, possibly even Johnny Sassoon. They want someone to see just how strong their position is. They probably want to ask some questions.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “What some of the alternative ways out of the hotel are,” Chambrun said. “We just play it move by move.”

  “But you’ll let them go, to save Valerie and any other hostages they may have?” I asked.

  Chambrun’s eyes narrowed. “It’s just possible we may be able to bargain,” he said. “While you make your journey up there, Mark, I think we should have Olin and Emory Clarke here, Lieutenant. They may be able to tell us just what we have to bargain with.”

  Under normal conditions the elevators in the hotel become self-service after one o’clock. The elevator operators go off duty. Those operators were still on tonight, but it was agreed I should go up alone. Mike Maggio urged Chambrun to let him ride up with me.

  “If they’re going to pull any kind of double cross on Mark—” he said.

  “I don’t think they will,” Chambrun said. “They haven’t asked him to bring the money on this trip. They must know it’s here. For all we know there is someone watching every move we make—someone in the lobby, for example. So I suggest you go downstairs, Mark. Take your time. Mike, you get the operator off a car. Do it noticeably. Then keep your eyes on the house phones. I’ll have the switchboard report if there are any calls to the penthouse. Someone may call up to let them know Mark is following instructions. Maybe we can spot whoever it is.”

  “Right,” Mike said.

>   Chambrun gave me that gentle look again. “Play it cool, Mark,” he said. “Listen to their demands. Don’t protest. Don’t play the hero over Mrs. Brent, if she’s there. Take as much time as they will let you. The longer you’re there, the more time we have to set up plans and counterplans.”

  “Counterplans?”

  “If the mastermind up there is Treadway, how much do you think you can count on his word? Once he’s out with his hostages, how safe will they be, do you think?”

  On that cheerful note Mike Maggio and I went down to the lobby. It was still a pretty busy place, but the atmosphere of panic was gone. I could hear the jazz group playing in the Blue Lagoon, and the sounds of laughter. People have a way of getting over crises in a hurry. Mike went over to one of the elevators and talked to the operator, who left the car. I watched, my hand gripping the key Chambrun had given me as I was leaving the office. I had the insane feeling that I might lose it. Tension? God, was I tense!

  I glanced at the house phones. Several of them were in use, but I didn’t recognize any of the callers. I walked to the elevator, feeling as though I had diver’s boots on my feet. I pressed the button for the roof. The doors closed out the lobby and its people, and a faint whirring noise told me we were going up. The floor numbers over the door blinked on and off, on and off. We went up, floor after floor. I had the impulse to stop the car, get out wherever it stopped, and to hell with it. But I could hear that voice on the phone asking me if I wouldn’t like to see Valerie alive again.

  The car stopped, the doors slid open, and I looked out into the penthouse foyer. It took an effort to move out of the car before the doors closed. I had to hold them open to make it. I turned and looked up at the indicator. The car was going down, automatically—30, 29, 28, 27.

  I opened my hand and looked down at my sweaty palm holding the key. I took it in my right hand and approached the door. I put the key in the Yale lock and turned it. The door opened easily and I went in. The first thing I was aware of was that faint, special perfume of Valerie’s.

  I went through the inner foyer to the living room.

  She was sitting on the couch, facing me. Her hands were locked in front of her in her lap. Her lovely face was pale, the skin stretched tight over her high cheekbones. The wide, hazel eyes met mine steadily.

  “Thanks for coming, Mark,” she said.

  “Are you all right?” My mouth was dry, my voice husky.

  “Yes.”

  “Hold it right there, Haskell,” the crisp, energetic voice said. There wasn’t anything in his mouth now. He stepped out from behind the carved Burmese screen that flanked the couch. It was Treadway, still wearing the white dinner jacket he’d had on in the Trapeze, still smiling as I’d last seen him. Cradled in his arm was a deadly looking machine pistol. “If you have a gun, I suggest you drop it on the table there.”

  “I don’t have a gun,” I said.

  “Then turn around and face the door,” he said. “You won’t mind if I make absolutely certain.”

  I turned and he came up behind me and patted over my clothes, not too gently. I sensed he moved away, although I couldn’t hear anything on the thick Persian rug.

  “All right, you can turn around. You can even sit down if you like,” Treadway said.

  I started toward the couch to sit beside Valerie. I wanted to touch her, to make sure she was alive. She looked like a statue.

  “Not so close to the lady,” Treadway said, still smiling. “I suggest that chair.”

  I took the chair he indicated. He had moved around behind the couch so that Valerie was between him and me.

  “I like your promptness,” he said.

  “I came as quickly as I could.”

  “Leaving Mr. Chambrun to gnash his teeth, I suspect.”

  “He’s ready to listen to what you want,” I said.

  “I should think he might be. I’m sure he knows how little Mrs. Brent’s life means to me.”

  “Who else is here with you?” I asked.

  His smile widened. “Isn’t Mrs. Brent enough for you?”

  I looked at Val. “Who else?” I asked.

  She lowered her eyes and shook her head slowly. I couldn’t tell whether she was saying there was no one, or that she couldn’t talk.

  “First of all,” Treadway said, “you must have guessed that my main concern is a way out of the hotel, without being blocked, obstructed, or followed, either in the hotel or out of it. With Mrs. Brent, you understand.”

  “It figures,” I said.

  “But I don’t mean to leave it to you. And by ‘you’ I don’t mean you, Haskell. I mean Chambrun and his police help.”

  “There are only so many ways out of the hotel,” I said.

  “I want to know all or any ways that don’t involve the lobby or the main entrances,” Treadway said. London-based, his card had said. There was a British lilt to his speech. He looked and performed like an actor, like a James Bond kind of romantic hero. And yet all the while I was remembering Trudy Woodson and the story I’d heard about Valerie’s husband. If this was the cold-blooded bastard responsible for those atrocities, you didn’t take him lightly. Unbelievable, but you damn well better believe.

  “I imagine,” Treadway went on, “that by this time Chambrun knows something of my history. I know he’s talked to Emory Clarke and to Jim Olin. I hope they impressed him.”

  “He saw Trudy Woodson,” I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t. The smile froze on his face. His blazing black eyes had murder in them. He raised the machine pistol in a dramatic gesture and squinted along the barrel. It was aimed right at the middle of my forehead.

  “Please!” Valerie said in a tight, frightened voice.

  Treadway lowered the gun slowly. Then his smile was real again. The sonofabitch was laughing at me. “If I had been you, I wouldn’t have waited to see what would happen,” he said. “You have only one chance in a situation like that. If you just sit there and do nothing, you’re a dead man.”

  “I meant to imply,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, “that Chambrun doesn’t underestimate you.”

  “Good,” he said. “Very good. But Chambrun isn’t the only factor in this problem. He doesn’t have to have certain things spelled out for him. I told you on the phone that if he didn’t want to play the game, I would present him with this lady, very dead. Did you make a believer of him?”

  “You made a believer of him,” I said.

  “I repeat. He isn’t the only factor. There are other people who would like to prevent my leaving. Jim Olin, for example. And he couldn’t care less what happens to Mrs. Brent. There is Gamayel and his friends, whoever they are, and they couldn’t care less.”

  “So you haven’t got Gamayel?” I asked.

  “I haven’t got Gamayel—yet,” he said. “Maybe I’m not being clear, Haskell, though I pride myself on my clarity. Chambrun and his policemen might help facilitate my exit, knowing that I wouldn’t hesitate to disembowel Mrs. Brent right in front of them. This little gun can blow a hole the size of a grapefruit right in the middle of her handsome navel. They wouldn’t like that and I suspect they wouldn’t risk it. But Olin is something else again, and so is Gamayel. So in addition to providing me with a way out, Chambrun must also protect me from those two and anyone who may be working for them.”

  “We don’t know where Gamayel is,” I said.

  “Then let’s just say he is everywhere. What I’m getting at is that the way out must be protected every step of the way by Chambrun’s security people and the police. Clear?”

  “Quite clear,” I said.

  “So when you go back—oh, yes, you are going back unless you try something foolish—when you go back you will work out the one, or two, or three ways Mrs. Brent and I can be escorted out of here in safety. When you come back and present, me with those plans, I will decide which one it’s to be. And exactly when it’s to happen. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Chambrun will also
give me assurances that I can believe that there is no way Olin or Gamayel or anyone else can get at me on the way. I will have to believe those assurances.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “And he must understand,” Treadway said, “that one false move, one attempt to invade this penthouse from the roof, or from the elevators—I only have to hear something I can’t explain—and Mrs. Brent will be shot to pieces, and so will anyone else I see as long as there is life in me to pull this trigger.” His smile widened. “I won’t ever go peacefully, Haskell. But you see how completely I depend on your American chivalry. Anything to save a beautiful lady.”

  “How do we know she’ll be safe once you get away from the hotel?”

  “You don’t.”

  “How can we protect you once you’re out on the street—out of the hotel?”

  “I didn’t tell you, did I? When I decide which way we’ll go, I will notify friends and there will be a car waiting. All you have to do is get us across the sidewalk.”

  “Carlson’s getting you a car?” I asked.

  “So Chambrun figured that one, did he?” Treadway said. He laughed. “I wish I didn’t have to tie Mr. Chambrun’s hands. He’d be an exhilarating opponent. Warn him, however, not to interfere with Carlson. The consequences could be distressing for Mrs. Brent.”

  “Carlson’s on your team?” I asked.

  “He couldn’t help himself, Mark,” Valerie said in that faraway voice. “He was told what would happen to me if he refused.”

  “Is this what you were afraid of when you asked me for help, Val?”

  “Oh, my God, no!” she said.

  “All right, Mr. Haskell, on your way,” Treadway said. “You return when you are ready with the alternative plans. You phone me first—on the private phone. And one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “I understand the ransom money for Johnny Sassoon is waiting in Chambrun’s office. Seems a pity to have it lie there, fallow. If the kidnappers call again, you can always raise some more cash for them. So bring what you have up here when you come back.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if Chambrun came with the plans himself?” I asked.

  “It’s a tempting idea,” Treadway said. “He’d make a better hostage than you in some ways. But I think you must be it, Mr. Haskell.”