Birthday, Deathday

by Hugh Pentecost

  Miss Ruysdale was at her desk in the outer office when I got there. She gave me her special little impersonal smile, one dark eyebrow raised quizzically.

  “You find a crevice for your gold mine?” she asked.

  “My living-room couch,” I said. “His name is Peter Williams. He’s blind, by the way.”

  “The sole survivor of the Drury massacre,” she said. You’re never very far ahead of Miss Ruysdale. She reached for a stack of papers on her desk. “I’d prepared you a set of clippings on the Drury business. But if you’ve got hold of Peter Williams, you won’t need them.”

  “Thanks for thinking of me, ma’am,” I said.

  “I was thinking of Mr. Chambrun,” she said.

  “Alas!”

  Her eyes twinkled. “There is not time for flirtations, Haskell. Here is a Xeroxed copy of a floor plan of the rooms set aside for General Chang and company. Twelfth floor. Two suites, ten doubles, seven single—both sides of the corridor.”

  “You must have had to move some people around,” I said, studying the plan.

  “The Great Man is exhausted from being charming,” she said. “He’s also burned by the necessity of putting up people who had reservations at some of the competition—the Plaza, the St. Regis.” She smiled faintly. “He is also being burned at the moment by the bland assumption of Mr. George Wexler that he can give the orders.”

  “Wexler?”

  “The CIA man who is to be generalissimo of the defense forces.” She nodded toward the closed door of Chambrun’s office. “You’re to go in. If he barks at you, know that he really wants to bite Mr. Wexler. Good luck.”

  George Wexler looked like an amiable, pipe-smoking, college professor. He was sitting in the armchair across the desk from Chambrun, whose eyes were two narrow slits in their pouches. Jerry Dodd, the Beaumont’s security officer—we don’t call him “house detective”—was standing by a far window, his back to the other two men. I guessed he was struggling with laughter.

  Wexler turned his shaggy, rumpled head my way, pipe dangling between his front teeth. He took the pipe away and smiled as if he was delighted to see me.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Chambrun said.

  “Bringing help,” I said. “One Peter Williams who was once Neil Drury’s best friend. He’s down the hall in my apartment.”

  Wexler glanced down at a notebook that lay open in his lap. “Peter Williams, only survivor of the Drury disaster; blinded by the kidnappers. We know all about him, but it didn’t seem much use asking for his help. He can’t see. We need someone who can point Drury out to us.”

  “He’d know his voice anywhere, no matter how Drury disguised it. He might also be able to smell him,” I said, perfectly straight-faced.

  I saw Chambrun’s eyes widen, and there was pleasure in them. “Something you overlooked, Mr. Wexler,” he said. “ ‘Smell him’! Well, well!”

  “Blind men sometimes have extraordinary extrasensory gifts,” Wexler said, entirely amiable. “I should have taken the time to talk to him. I’m grateful to you for bringing him here, Mr.—?”

  “Haskell,” I said. “Public relations for the hotel.”

  “I’m George Wexler, in charge of this caper,” he said.

  There was a growling sound from Chambrun. “A caper,” he said, “in case you don’t read mystery fiction, Mark, is a slang word for ‘case.’ ”

  Wexler chuckled. “Sorry, Mr. Chambrun. I didn’t know you were a purist.” He put his pipe in his pocket, took out another one, and began to fill it from an oilskin pouch. “Your Peter Williams, Haskell, and the girl are our best hope of identifying Drury. Let us pray.”

  “What girl?” I asked.

  He looked down at his notebook again. “Laura Malone. A hooker. Drury lived with her for about a year before the tragedy.”

  “A ‘hooker,’ ” Chambrun said to me, with mock patience, “is a high-class call girl or prostitute.”

  Jerry Dodd turned from the window for the first time. He is short, dark, with very bright blue eyes. A shrewd operator, Jerry, who was one of a few people in whom Chambrun placed complete trust. Miss Ruysdale was another, and I hoped I was.

  “You mean a guy like Drury paid for his tail?” Jerry asked.

  “I think they were in love,” Wexler said. “They met in Hollywood. She moved in with him—for about a year. The last time she saw him was the night he got word about his family. She thinks she would know him, no matter how changed he is. One of our men is flying her in from the Coast. She should be here early evening.”

  “She go back into business for herself?” Jerry asked.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Wexler said. “My man will have all the dope on her when he gets here. Now, Dodd, what I need from you is a course in how to keep our men from standing out like sore thumbs in the hotel’s daily routine.”

  “It depends on who’s looking whether a thumb looks sore or not,” Jerry said. “Your men can never hide themselves from the staff.”

  Wexler took out of his pocket a paper that was a copy of the floor plan Ruysdale had given me. “This is clear enough,” he said, “but it covers only one corridor, one bank of elevators, one fire stair. I need a guided tour from roof to subcellar; I need to see every emergency exit, every linen closet, every conceivable hiding place.”

  “Every room in the hotel is a hiding place,” Chambrun said. “Are you suggesting that we invade six hundred rooms?”

  “I want to know how to invade them if I need to,” Wexler said.

  Jerry Dodd grinned at him. “The kind of tour you want could take a couple of days, Mr. Wexler. The Beaumont is like a small city within itself.”

  Wexler glanced at his watch. “We have about twenty-two hours,” he said. He stood up. “I have an appointment with the FBI.”

  “When do you want to start taking your tour?” Jerry asked.

  Wexler smiled. “I’ll have a man ready for you in ten minutes.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Wexler?” Chambrun asked. You could cut the acid in the air.

  Wexler held a lighter to his pipe, looking at Chambrun through the little clouds of blue smoke. “I know you resent my intrusion here, Mr. Chambrun. I would if I were in your shoes. I’m sorry. I need your help to keep the boat from rocking while we try to prevent a murder that could turn the world upside-down. I need your special knowledge of the locale and the routines.” He smiled. “I promise you, if it will make you feel any better, you can have a free kick at my behind when it’s all over.”

  Chambrun’s heavy lids lifted. “I stand properly rebuked for being childish,” he said. “Count on us.”

  “Good man,” Wexler said. He walked to the door and turned back. He spoke to me. “I’ll want to talk to your Mr. Williams,” he said. “Perhaps it would save time if he waited until Laura Malone gets here and we can pool their information about Drury.”

  “You name the time,” I said.

  I watched him leave. Not a bad guy, I thought. I don’t think he underestimated Chambrun. But if I stood to have my head served up for lunch in the White House if I failed, I guess I’d want to play it my way.

  Chambrun walked over to the sideboard and his beloved Turkish coffee maker. I think he was a little embarrassed by the way he had treated Wexler.

  “I congratulate you on finding Williams, Mark,” he said. “I think we should not wait for Drury’s girl friend to start pumping him for every detail he can give us about Drury. I suggest you make Williams your number one priority.”

  “To be really useful to us he needs a chance to orient himself in the hotel,” I said. “I already have a good deal about Drury from his former agent, as well as some from Peter.”

  “Your job,” Chambrun said. “Hop to it.”

  I walked down the hall to my apartment and opened the door with my key. Just inside the door I froze. Peter Williams was sitting in the leather armchair that faced the door. Standing over him was a man, a huge man, built like a defensive tac
kle on a pro football team. He turned to look at me and I saw that he was Chinese; high cheekbones, straight, slightly flattened nose, and a wide, smiling mouth. His black eyes were only a little slanted, bright and hostile. His powerful body seemed to be straining against the very well tailored jacket of a tropical worsted suit.

  “Mark?” Peter asked, the black glasses turned my way.

  “Yes, Peter.”

  “As you can see, we have a visitor. He is Mr. Li Sung, General Chang’s chief of staff, it seems.”

  Mr. Sung smiled at me, and then said, in surprisingly colloquial English: “Hi, man.”

  CHAPTER 4

  I CLOSED THE DOOR and stood with my back to it. “How did he get in?” I asked.

  “I let him in,” Peter said, “proud that I could walk to the door, without bumping into anything.”

  “So, keep your shirt on, buster,” Mr. Sung said. His smile widened. I saw that his lips weren’t smiling. “You’re wondering how come I’m not talking to you with Charlie Chan gobbledeguck. University of Southern Cal, class of sixty-three.”

  “Football?” I asked.

  “Shot-put and hammer throw,” Mr. Sung said. His smile faded. “Shall we get down to brass tacks, Mr. Haskell?”

  “What kind of brass tacks?” I asked.

  “Mr. Sung wants me to leave the hotel,” Peter said.

  “Correction,” Mr. Sung said. “I don’t just want Peter-baby to leave the hotel; I order it.”

  I saw then that one of the reasons his jacket seemed so tight was that Mr. Sung was wearing a shoulder holster.

  “An order has to be backed up by the authority to issue it,” I said.

  “Oh, boy, man, let’s not get technical,” Mr. Sung said. “My job is to guarantee the safety of General Chang. General Chang has enemies. One of them is a man named Neil Drury who has promised to kill him. Now, Mark-baby, you produce Peter-baby. Peter-baby has been Neil Dairy’s very close friend ever since they were kids in knee pants. So it is clear that Peter-baby will do anything he can to help his friend. So he is dangerous to me and to my General Chang. So I order him to leave the hotel.” He shrugged. “So if it’ll make you feel better, Mark-baby, I ‘advise’ him to leave the hotel. Because if he blinks his eyes more than once I will shoot a very large hole in his belly.” He patted the holster bulge near his left armpit. He was making no bones about the gun. I guessed he probably had a permit signed in person by J. Edgar Hoover. Diplomatic privilege.

  “George Wexler thanked me for bringing Peter here,” I said. “He’s in charge of protecting your general.”

  “Officially, baby,” Mr. Sung said. “I will really protect him. So I advise Peter-baby to ‘get out of town,’ as the old song says. Because I will only have to get uneasy to give him the number-one treatment.” He walked straight past me to the door, where he turned back. “You should know, Mark-baby, that I also know that Wexler is importing a lady friend of Neil Drury’s. I have expressed disapproval but Wexler has ignored it. If you meet the lady you can tell her that I also advise her to get out of town. I do not choose to be surrounded by Neil Drury’s friends.”

  “Would you believe that my only purpose in being here is to persuade Neil to give up his crusade?” Peter asked.

  Mr. Sung grinned. “You can tell it to the marines,” he said. He seemed proud of his outdated slang. He opened the door and went out.

  Peter leaned his head back against the chair. “A comic-strip heavy,” he said.

  “I’m not laughing,” I said. “In spite of his custom-tailored suit and his attempt at sounding ‘mod,’ he strikes me as a very primitive man who won’t bother to play by the rules.”

  “I can believe it,” Peter said. His mouth tightened. “You may recall I’ve met General Chang and his gang before.” He lifted a hand to touch the rim of his black goggles. “What woman was he talking about, do you know?”

  “A girl named Laura Malone,” I said, still thinking about Mr. Sung.

  Peter sat up very straight in his chair. “Laura Malone?”

  “According to Wexler she’s a ‘hooker’ who shacked up with Drury for a while.”

  Peter laughed, a mirthless laugh. “Oh, my God,” he said.

  “You know about her?” I asked.

  He relaxed back against the chair again. “Yes, I know about her. Why is she coming here?”

  “Apparently the supersleuths have been checking out on Drury’s past to find friends or associates who might help them identify him when and if he shows. The girl thinks she would know him no matter how changed his face may be.” I laughed. “They overlooked you because they knew you couldn’t see him.”

  “She might know him at that,” Peter said. It was almost as if he was thinking out loud. “They were very close to getting married when Neil’s world caved in.”

  “Married?” I said. I guess the surprise sounded in—my voice. “I mean—if she’s what Wexler said—?”

  Peter smiled. “You sound like a New England church deacon, Mark. You can sell out your business partner, your community, your church, your state, and if you repent you are accepted back into your world. But if you’re a woman and you sell your body, no amount of repentance will do you any good. You’re in the scarlet letter department forever.” He moistened his lips. “Neil told me about her on a trip he made East a month before his world blew up. He fully intended to marry her and he wanted me to understand because he knew I’d hear the talk that was bound to circulate.”

  “Wexler said they lived together for a year.”

  “They had,” Peter said. “Neil met her at a party somewhere. He was footloose, a bachelor, not involved at the moment. She was an extraordinarily beautiful, sexy girl. It was a routine, sort of ‘night out’ thing for him. He invited her to leave the party and they went to some sort of nightspot for a drink or two. Then he invited her to his house, to listen to some records or see his etchings or what-have-you. It was perfectly clear what he wanted and she seemed quite willing. A lovely evening,—he thought. When they got to his house something happened, something in the conversation. She thought he knew what she was—a professional. Something he said made it clear he didn’t. He wasn’t shocked, only amused that he’d been had. He made some wisecrack about perhaps a professional could teach him something. It was all quite impersonal now. No longer a conquest. He took her to bed, expecting nothing but technique. Somewhere along the way he realized it was more than that. There was a kind of special electricity about it. He found himself wishing he hadn’t gone through with it—because he felt something for her.

  “Sometime toward morning, when he was half asleep, she got up and dressed. He came to, seeing her standing beside the bed, ready to go. He asked her how much he owed her. She told him, quite without any emotion, that it was ‘on the house.’ Before he could pull his wits together she was gone.”

  “The prostitute with the heart of gold,” I said.

  The corner of Peter’s mouth twitched. “That’s what Neil thought. An odd experience; an unusually satisfying, impersonal piece. But he couldn’t get her out of his mind. He wanted to see her again. He hadn’t bothered to get her address or phone number. At the time, having found out about her, he’d assumed it was simply a one-night stand. He went back to his friend at whose party he’d met her, took a lot of kidding, and found out how to reach her. He called her and invited her to dinner. She turned him down. He called her again and she hung up on him. He went to where she lived and presented himself at her door. Reluctantly, she let him in. She looked, he told me, as though she’d been crying. She told him, in a kind of dead monotone, that she couldn’t afford to involve herself except professionally. She couldn’t afford, she told him, to get to like someone. They would hate her in the end for what she was, and she simply wouldn’t allow herself to be hurt. The going was tough enough without that.

  “He suggested she take a vacation from her work and come to live with him. It was crazy, he told me, but he wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman i
n his life. They spent that whole evening together, going from nightspot to nightspot, arguing the point. Along toward morning she went home with him—and never left him again. It was, he told me, the most perfect relationship he’d ever had. Not just the sex part of it. It was a genuine love, filled with compassion and understanding. She anticipated his needs, understood his moods. It was, he told me, an overwhelming pleasure just to be in the room with her. She was a woman, he said, instinctively dedicated to just one thing—to be everything to her man.

  “He talked of marriage to her early. He wanted to give her everything he had to give. This she wouldn’t buy at first. She had to be sure the past wouldn’t floor him when he was reminded of it, and he would be reminded of it by some ‘kind people’ if he married her. People, she knew, were laughing at him now behind his back because he was living with a call girl. She didn’t have to have a title, she told him. But at the end of about eleven months of persistence from him she finally agreed.

  “That was when he came to New York and told me about it. He wanted me, his best friend, to know the truth about it, no matter what people said, what the gossip was.” Peter drew a deep breath. “Actually it was just two days after that I took off for South America in my job for Neil’s father. And a month later—” His hand moved vaguely toward the black goggles. “Yes,” he said, “I think she might know him no matter how changed he is. She and he were two parts of one whole.”