Birthday, Deathday

by Hugh Pentecost

  “He didn’t go back to her—after South America?” Peter shook his head. “When he got to South America he came to see me in the hospital. I was sick with horror and self-pity. He was a madman, seething for revenge. But he thought of her. He begged me, when I got back to America, to get in touch with her, to help her in any way I could. He was making financial arrangements for her.

  “ ‘But surely you’ll see her,’ I said. He shook his head. ‘Not till I have squared accounts with this Chinese butcher,’ he said. ‘And I don’t expect to come out of that alive. If I see her I might be persuaded to forget what’s happened to my family.’

  “I should have told him then that was exactly what he should do. That he couldn’t win. But just then I was as eager as he was for revenge.”

  “Did you ever get in touch with Laura Malone?”

  “When I got back to New York, and was able to forget my own problems for ten minutes, I put through a telephone call to her. She was no longer in Neil’s house. It had been rented to some actor out there to make a film. They had no idea where Laura Malone was. It took nearly a month for acquaintances of mine to find her. She was working as a receptionist in some film company offices. She talked to me on the phone, polite, remote. She didn’t need any help, thank you. No, she hadn’t seen Neil. She didn’t expect to. There had been a letter ending things. That was that.”

  “But she’s evidently ready to help now,” I said.

  The black goggles were focused on the far wall. “She loves him,” he said.

  It was about six-thirty in the afternoon when I reported back to Chambrun in his office. The girls in Atterbury’s office and mine had completed their checkout routine on the hotel guests. The results were even better than Chambrun had forecast. There were just four men registered in the Beaumont who didn’t check out satisfactorily on the first go-round.

  Chambrun had the cards on his desk when I got there and was discussing them with Jerry Dodd. I interrupted to tell them about our visit from Mr. Li Sung. His face had a rock-hard look to it that I knew very well.

  “I have tried, through personal contacts, to get the State Department to make some sense for us,” he said. “No luck. I have pointed out to them that Chang’s men could promote a blood bath here at the Beaumont, or anywhere else they may stay. I’ve tried to convince them that Chang should be protected by our people alone, not his. No dice. They have pointed out that if a high official of this country—the President for example—travels abroad he is surrounded by our own secret service people as well as the local security people. That’s true, of course, except that we know they won’t mow down anyone whose looks they don’t like. I’m told I must assume the same thing about Chang’s men.”

  “Chang is a butcher,” Jerry said.

  “He has said he was never in South America,” I said.

  Chambrun made an impatient gesture. “We live in a constantly changing diplomatic climate,” he said. “Five years ago Chang was a barbarian Communist enemy. Today he is an accepted member of the world community. His past crimes are wiped off the slate.” Chambrun lit one of his Egyptian cigarettes. “I’ve lived through this before—back in the dark days.”

  He referred to the “dark days” from time to time. That was when he had fought in the French underground in the last years of World War II.

  “Just across the border from us was Franco, the Spanish dictator, friend of Hitler and Mussolini. We have tried, convicted, jailed, and executed German war criminals. But Franco, their friend and collaborator, is now treated with respect and courtesy. That is what is known as diplomatic expediency.” He brought the palm of his hand down hard on the desk. “So that’s the game we have to play—smile and bow and offer all our courtesies to a cold-blooded murderer and torturer. Diplomatic expediency!”

  “Should I get Peter away from here?” I asked. “Sung made it clear he was a ready target; also the Malone girl when she gets here.”

  “It’s up to them,” Chambrun said. “They may be able to help us spot Drury and turn him off. We need them, but I wouldn’t ask them to stay if they feel it’s asking too much.”

  “I think Peter wants to stay,” I said. “If something happens to Drury, it’s a victory for Chang, and he has his own thoughts about Chang, poor bastard.”

  “Chang knows he has those thoughts,” Chambrun said. “He may think Peter Williams is just as dangerous as Drury. I would if I were in his shoes.”

  “You think he’s offered to help to cover his own desire to be on the scene—maybe take his own flier at Chang?” Jerry asked.

  “He can’t do anything without help,” I said.

  “And Drury would help if he’s here, and probably the girl, and maybe dozens of other people right under our roof whom we have no way of guessing about.”

  “I really think he’s deeply fond of Drury,” I said, “and that his one concern is to help keep him from being uselessly wiped out.”

  Chambrun’s eyes narrowed. “It will make it easier for you to share your rooms with him if you keep on believing that, Mark,” he said. He reached for the four cards on his desk. “Robert Zabielski, a salesman from Cleveland, Ohio.”

  “About thirty,” Jerry Dodd said. “Address a phony. Been here two days, so he hasn’t paid a bill. We haven’t seen a personal check or a traveler’s check. Made his reservation ten days ago, the same day Chang’s visit was announced in the press. He’s about five feet eight inches tall, overweight. Wouldn’t seem to fit Drury’s specifications.”

  “Habits?”

  “He drinks in the Trapeze about this time of day. A gal has joined him there the first two nights. She doesn’t live in the hotel but she’s gone to his room with him both nights. Room service records indicate they do some solid drinking without any eating.”

  “What do they drink?”

  “Sour-mash bourbon—by the bottle!”

  “No vodka?”

  “No vodka.”

  “Next,” Chambrun said. “Paul Wells.”

  “Old man, I’d guess in his early seventies,” Jerry said. “He gave a Philadelphia address. It checks—but he’s only lived there about six weeks. A sort of rooming house. Cheap place. One wouldn’t think he could afford our prices. Been here three days. Spends most of his time in the hotel—the Trapeze, the Blue Lagoon Room, the Spartan Bar. He pays cash for everything. His bill will have nothing but his room on it. He’s about six feet tall, thin. Right specifications, wrong age.”

  “Drury is an actor. He could age himself,” Chambrun said.

  “Bald as an egg,” Jerry said.

  “Next is Sam Schwartz,” Chambrun said.

  “Hollywood address. Hotel—the Spencer Arms. Flea bag. Lived there for about a year. Talks a great ball game to the hotel people out there about his big film deals. Carries a roll that would choke a horse, lavish spender. But a quick check of the people we know in the film business indicates no one has ever heard of him.”

  “But he checks out in a way,” Chambrun said.

  “He’s had that hotel room for a year, but according to them he’s away most of the time—weeks on end. Where he goes, nobody knows. He’s the right height, right weight, has an ugly scar on his right cheek that could be a phony, or the result of clumsy surgery. Doesn’t drink. Leaves the hotel here in the morning and doesn’t come back until late evening. Been here a week. No phone calls. He has his room for four more days.”

  “And finally James Gregory,” Chambrun said.

  “Came in three days ago,” Jerry said. “Gave his address as a private clinic on Long Island. Suffers from emphysema. Hasn’t been out of his room since he got here. No phone calls. He has seen Doc Partridge, who says he’s in bad shape. Lives with an oxygen tank by his side. Seems to just he in his bed and read papers and magazines. He reserved his room for two weeks. The clinic on Long Island vouches for him; long-time patient. There’s something odd about it, though.”

  “Odd?”

  “This clinic specializes in cosmetic surge
ry. Most of the patients are women getting their noses bobbed, their ears trimmed, or their faces lifted. The head man is a Dr. Coughlin, who has a big and good reputation in the field. I got Doc Partridge to call him.”

  Dr. Partridge is the Beaumont’s house physician.

  “And?” Chambrun asked.

  “Doc pretended he needed to know something about the case.”

  “Why did Gregory call in Doc?” Chambrun asked.

  “He has to take injections of some sort—Gregory does. He can’t give them to himself. All perfectly normal for his kind of sickness, Doc says. Coughlin was apparently perfectly open with Doc. Gregory is an old friend, Coughlin says. A writer who’s spent his life traveling around the world. Now he’s trapped by his sickness—his oxygen needs. Coughlin took him into the clinic so that he could look out for him personally. Gregory wanted a change and Coughlin, who has a blue card in our file, made the reservation for him.”

  A blue card is a top credit and past performance top-drawer record at the Beaumont.

  “But you have his friend on your list,” Chambrun said.

  “Just the coincidence of his connection with a cosmetic surgeon,” Jerry said. “Coughlin just could be the man who took care of Drury. Our man with the oxygen tank could be scouting out the lay of the land for Drury.”

  “But you say he doesn’t leave his room,” I said.

  Jerry nodded. “General Chang isn’t here yet,” he said.

  It was then that Chambrun and Jerry and I went up to the twelfth floor to look at the arrangements Atterbury had made to receive Chang, his staff and bodyguards, and the FBI and CIA boys. Wexler joined us there, pipe suspended from one corner of his mouth. His tweed suit looked as if he’d slept in it. The little crow’s-foot lines at the corners of his eyes looked deeper than they had earlier.

  Mr. Atterbury, who is highly efficient but a little fruity, was to be our guide. He was perspiring and somewhat flustered, it seemed.

  “There are two rooms at the far end of the corridor that won’t be vacated for another hour,” he said.

  “We have till tomorrow afternoon,” Wexler said, cheerfully.

  Atterbury, as if he was conducting a museum tour, started to describe the layout, but Wexler checked him. “It’s the same as the floor plan I saw earlier?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The reserved rooms were on both sides of a deadend hallway. The rooms on the east side of the hall had a view of the river. From the windows there was a sheer drop of twelve stories to the street below. The rooms on the west side opened onto an eleven-story drop to the glass roof covering the main lobby. The gap to the opposite wing was a good fifty yards. There was no way to breach it, unless you could fly. The closed end of what was in effect a three-sided rectangle was occupied by a bank of elevators.

  Wexler had already filled in his floor plan. At the mouth of the corridor were rooms for the FBI men and the CIA. Chang’s people lined each side of the hall until you came to the suite that was on the east side of the hall. First, south of the suite was a double room for two of the personal bodyguards. Another double, directly across from the suite, was to be occupied by the other two personal bodyguards. The final single room on the east side was to be for Chang’s lady secretary, and opposite that the room for his valet. If you wanted to rush the suite, it would be like the charge of the Light Brigade—cannons to the left of you, cannons to the right of you.

  Wexler expressed himself as pleased. “The only other thing, Mr. Atterbury, is some comfortable chairs to be placed at the mouth of the corridor. There will always be armed sentinels stationed outside the rooms.”

  Chambrun spoke for the first time. “When did Li Sung check into the hotel, Atterbury?”

  Atterbury has a photographic memory. He dreams of registration forms. I daresay he could give you the name and room number of every guest in the hotel without referring to notes.

  “There is no one by that name registered in the hotel, Mr. Chambrun,” he said, “unless he has checked in, in the last ten minutes, and there has been no reservation made for a person of that name.”

  Wexler cocked an eyebrow at Chambrun. “He’s Chang’s top man,” he said. “Not due till tomorrow.”

  “He was here a little while ago,” Chambrun said. He nodded to me and I told Wexler about Sung’s cheery visit with Peter and me.

  “Describe him,” Wexler said, scowling.

  I did my best. Sung’s size had been the most memorable thing about him. His size and his speech.

  Wexler chuckled. “That’s Li-baby,” he said.

  “You had some reason to doubt it?” Chambrun asked.

  Wexler rubbed the bowl of his pipe against the side of his nose. “Neil Drury isn’t our only problem,” he said. “General Chang has a rather extraordinary assortment of enemies: dissidents in his own country, the Chinese on Formosa, people from other Asian countries who are hard to distinguish from Chinese, due to the color of their skins, unless you are an expert. Oh, we have a list of a couple of dozen people in addition to Drury that we’ll be watching for.”

  Chambrun’s forehead was split by a deep frown. “A shooting gallery, that’s what you’re setting up for us, Mr. Wexler.”

  “But can you think of anyone better equipped to help us deal with the problem than you and your staff, Mr. Chambrun?”

  Chambrun grunted. “Flattery will get you no place,” he said.

  Peter Williams was listening to the seven o’clock news on radio when I rejoined him in my rooms. I suggested a drink.

  “If it wouldn’t be too boring for you, Mark, I’d like very much to have a drink in one of the public places the Trapeze Bar, for example. I’ve got to begin to learn to find my way around. There’s so little time.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  I telephoned down to Mr. Del Greco, the captain in the Trapeze, and asked him to set aside a table for us. Six o’clock is about the busiest time down there, with people stopping off for cocktails before dinner.

  The Trapeze Bar is almost literally suspended in space over the foyer to the Grand Ballroom below it. The walls are a kind of iron grillwork, and some artist of the Calder school has designed a collection of mobiles of circus performers operating on trapezes. The faint circulation of air from a conditioner keeps these little figures constantly in motion. The patrons of the Trapeze at this time of day are apt to be rather elegantly dressed. It isn’t a saloon where you just step in off the street for a slug. It is a gathering place for social celebrities, political figures, famous stage and film personalities. It’s popular with this sort of customer because there are no kids hanging around with autograph books, almost never any of the gawking curious. The important and the famous and infamous can enjoy themselves there without the danger of outside interference. Mr. Del Greco, who looks like a Spanish grandee, runs a very tight ship.

  As Peter and I went down in the elevator to the lobby and then up the short flight of stairs to the Trapeze, I wondered how he prepared himself. Did he count the steps? Did special smells, noises, other details register permanently with him—things I wouldn’t think about or be aware of because I can see?

  Mr. Del Greco greeted us with his usual courtesy and took us to a corner table. Several people nodded to me as we took our place. I must have known three-quarters of the people in the room as regular customers. I introduced Peter to Del Greco and made sure he’d be properly cared for if he came there alone.

  As we waited for our drinks—a Jack Daniels on the rocks for me and coffee for Peter—I caught him up on things. I was particularly interested to know if any of our four question-mark guests rang any sort of bell with him, or Dr. Coughlin, the face-changing surgeon.

  “Never heard of any of them,” he said. He sipped his coffee, which the waiter had brought. “I told you before, I have no idea where Neil got his face changed.” He smiled faintly. I’m curious to know how you know he has had it changed.”

  “That’s what the CIA tells us. It seems to be a
ccepted as a fact.”

  “Neil was an expert at makeup,” Peter said. “He’d easily change his appearance almost totally. I’ve been wondering if perhaps he circulated the rumor on purpose. He could then appear with a half dozen different faces while you’re looking for one new one.”

  “Oh, brother!” I said.

  “With all the cops and bodyguards surrounding him, how is the hotel involved in protecting Chang?” he asked.

  “Details connected with service,” I said. “Mr. Fresney, the head chef, will supervise every ounce of food that goes to Chang’s party. Food could be tampered with.”

  “Poison?”

  “A possibility,” I said. “Jerry Dodd, our security chief, will have men on the twelfth floor checking out on every bellboy, waiter, maid, housekeeper who appears there. No outsider dressed like a waiter is going to get into Chang’s area. We know our people. Without us the professionals would have to check everyone each time they appeared. From the front doorman to the linen maid we’ll be constantly watching. The people on our telephone switchboard will be monitoring incoming calls—listening for cranks and crackpots and trying to trace any such calls that may come in. Our people will double what is the usual patrolling of the hotel, all the fire stairs, back corridors which aren’t used by the public, the basement areas, the roof. It would take Wexler’s people a month to learn what to look for.”

  Peter swirled the coffee in his cup. “What about bombs, which are the pet playthings of today’s assassins?”

  “Tomorrow morning every inch of every room reserved for Chang’s party will be searched, and after that sealed off. From that moment on the whole twelfth floor will be under constant surveillance by our people. Wherever Chang goes in the hotel our people will be present outside the perimeter of his own bodyguards. We hope he will let us know when and where he proposes to go, but if he doesn’t, we’ll still be with him.”