Birthday, Deathday

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Nothing,” Chambrun said.

  The General’s shoulders moved in a slight shrug, as if to imply that he had done his best to be courteous. “I owe you an apology, Mr. Haskell.” The smile faded. “Perhaps you can understand that my personal safety comes first with me. I had supposed that Mr. Chambrun’s hotel would be a safe place for me to stay in New York. I had supposed that your government agencies would have made it totally safe. Yet my top man, my close and trusted friend Li Sung, was murdered in cold blood when he came in advance to check out the preparations. It became evident to me that I could only rely on my own forces to keep me safe. When you suddenly stepped in my path in the lobby, Mr. Haskell, Yuan Yushan acted instinctively, and quite properly from his point of view.”

  I turned to see if Yuan Yushan was still standing behind me with a drawn gun, but the two giants had evidently stayed out in the foyer.

  “You were told in advance that you would be greeted in the lobby,” Chambrun said.

  “By you, Mr. Chambrun. By you. I had no reason to suppose an underling would take your place. When a strange man stepped forward—” He shrugged. “You are both aware that there is a maniac somewhere nearby who has only one aim in life, to kill me. You know that we have no way of guessing what he looks like. So we will take no chances. Let anyone, no matter who, make any sort of unexpected move toward me and I will not wait for you, or Mr. Wexler, or Mr. Larch to try to explain to me. Explanations will be worthless if Neil Drury manages to get to me. So you see, from where I sit, Mr. Chambrun, anyone may be Neil Drury unless he is well checked in advance and I know exactly why he is near me. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Quite.”

  “And while we are on this painful subject,” the General went on. “I find myself distressed by the information that you are offering your hospitality to two people who are obviously my enemies.”

  “What two people?” Chambrun asked.

  “Laura Malone and Peter Williams,” Chang said. “Mr. Wexler has offered me a rather absurd explanation for this. These people, he naïvely assures me, are here to help you identify Neil Drury so that you can persuade him to let me alone. You take me for a child, Mr. Chambrun?”

  “Anything but,” Chambrun said. His voice was colorless.

  “Williams and Miss Malone are Drury’s closest and dearest friends. They have no other interest but to help him. In addition, Williams, who is under the delusion that I was responsible for what happened to Drury’s family in South America and therefore what happened to him, is just as eager to get at me as Drury is. I would qualify as a patient for a mental institution if I allowed myself to believe that these two people are concerned with anything but to see me destroyed. Therefore, unless you want their deaths on your conscience, Mr. Chambrun, I urge you to get them out of the hotel and as far away from it as possible—tonight, at once.”

  “Is that also Mr. Wexler’s wish?”

  “Mr. Wexler’s wishes are no concern of mine. Your people put on the masks of politeness and efficiency, but deep down, to use your American slang, they hate my guts. I must protect myself, Mr. Chambrun.”

  “Wexler must have expressed himself about Miss Malone and Williams,” Chambrun said. “He believes, as I do, that whatever their feelings are about you their concern is to keep Drury alive. Whatever Wexler or Larch or Mr. Foster feel about you, General, their job is to keep Drury from getting to you. To do that, they must spot him. Miss Malone and Williams are their best bet.”

  “It is your decision to make, not mine,” Chang said. “I shall protect myself.”

  “Wexler told you they were here so that you would not misunderstand why they were here,” Chambrun said.

  Chang’s wide smile reappeared. “Mr. Wexler did not tell me they were here,” he said. “I told him! That’s when he gave me this naïve explanation.”

  “How did you know they were here?” Chambrun asked.

  “My dear Mr. Chambrun, you don’t really suppose that I am only protected by my bodyguards and my staff who have arrived here with me, and by the lamented Li Sung who came a day ahead of time? There have been people in your hotel for some days, watching, watching.”

  “Who?” Chambrun asked.

  “If I told you that, Mr. Chambrun, my defenses would be only half as effective.” He laughed, softly. “And now to the main reason for your being here.” He made a gesture to Miss Taku, who came forward with several sheets of paper in her hands which she held out to Chambrun. He took them, frowning.

  “As Mr. Wexler has told you,” Chang said, “the day after tomorrow is my birthday. I choose to make a diplomatic function of it. That is a list of people I plan to invite—most of them from the diplomatic corps at the United Nations. Diplomats and their families.”

  “Most of them?” Chambrun asked, still scowling at the lists.

  “A few persons not connected with politics,” Chang said.

  Chambrun looked up, his eyes widened. “Laura Malone? Peter Williams?”

  Chang chuckled. “If they are still alive the day after tomorrow I would prefer to have them where I can see them rather than snooping around behind my back. Also, there are always gatecrashers at a party like this. I suspect Neil Drury will make a try at it.”

  “And how will a gatecrasher get by our guards out in the hall?

  “Mr. Chambrun, you are not thinking clearly. There are over two hundred names on that list. The party cannot possibly be held up here. I’m told the Grand Ballroom is the only facility that would be adequate.”

  “If you wanted to commit suicide, this would seem to me to be an admirable way to arrange it,” Chambrun said.

  “I think it may be a perfect way to dispose of my enemies,” Chang said. “Reveal them and dispose of them.”

  “The Grand Ballroom is not available on that day,” Chambrun said.

  I happened to know that it was.

  “Then make it available,” Chang said. “I’m quite certain the State Department will urge you to make it available. Now, I would like to talk to you and your banquet manager about food, drink, some sort of music and entertainment to go with the evening.”

  “There isn’t time to arrange such a party,” Chambrun said. “Wexler mentioned special salmon from the Northwest. It would take days—”

  “I’m told you are a magician at arranging such things in an emergency,” Chang said.

  The little man in the frock coat emerged from the foyer. He bowed apologetically to Chambrun and me and then spoke to the General in what I suppose was Chinese. The General frowned.

  “It seems I must answer questions from a Lieutenant Hardy, a homicide detective. He is concerned about Li Sung.”

  “A first-class man,” Chambrun said.

  “But a waste of time,” Chang said. “We all know who killed Sung, but I choose to deal with him in my own way, with my own methods.”

  For the first time Chambrun’s voice took on an edge. “By gouging out his eyes?” he asked.

  Chang’s mouth tightened, and then he laughed. “You are still believing in the myth that I had anything to do with the Drury tragedy in South America. I assure you that is a myth, Mr. Chambrun. How soon can we discuss plans with your banquet manager?”

  “Mr. Amato has gone home for the night,” Chambrun said. “If I can reach him, he can be back here within an hour.”

  “Make the effort.” Chang said. “Let me know when you are ready to talk.”

  We were dismissed.

  CHAPTER 4

  THERE WERE A LOT of scary things about the situation, but I think what disturbed me most was that Chambrun seemed to be caught off balance. He was not in total control of his world. Chang was making the rules, an unheard-of situation in the Beaumont. The General’s diplomatic status was, in effect, giving him a license to kill. You couldn’t hold the law over his head as a deterrent. He had a right to protect himself. If an innocent person got caught in the meat chopper, the General could give his shoulders an Oriental shrug and point to the fact
that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men had failed to put a known assassin under lock and key. While an unidentified Drury was on the loose, Chang could justify almost any violence.

  “If our President was in the same position in some foreign city, we’d expect the Secret Service to protect him,” Chambrun said when we were back in his office. “If a strange man suddenly pulled a gun out of his pocket, we wouldn’t expect the President’s guards to wait for the local gendarmes to serve a warrant.”

  Chambrun rarely drinks, but on that occasion he went to the sideboard and poured himself a generous three fingers of cognac. When he brought it back to his desk, he seemed to be more interested in inhaling it than drinking it, the little snifter glass cradled in his two hands.

  “He’ll use Drury as an excuse to tackle Drury’s friends,” I said, “Peter and Laura in particular.”

  Chambrun raised his heavy lids to look at me over the rim of his glass. “I noticed that the lady threw you a little off center, Mark.”

  I think I actually blushed. It was so absurd, when you thought of it. I hadn’t had more than three minutes of private words with her. “Both of their lives have been wrecked by Chang,” I said. “So I feel protective. Is that so childish?”

  “Your protective impulses do you credit, but don’t get burned,” Chambrun said.

  “Look,” I said, “we’ve got to locate Drury. We’ve got to get him away from here and talk sense to him. We’ve got to make it clear to him that he’s not only risking his own life but also his friends’ lives.”

  “I had a thought on our way here,” Chambrun said. “Rather, I had thoughts. The first of them was that I have been an idiot. We are dealing with a ruthless master of political intrigue in Chang. Of course he wouldn’t depend on Wexler, or Larch, or Foster to protect him. Of course he would have had someone here well in advance to scout out the situation. More. It’s not only the hotel they’d be interested in, but the UN, the city streets, the car-rental agencies they use, every item of service they’ll require. He wouldn’t count on our official people or even his own. He’s got someone looking over Wexler’s shoulder. Sung knew about Peter Williams and Miss Malone. They weren’t a surprise to him. He’s ahead of us every step of the way.” He took a tiny sip of his brandy. “We have four men on a list, one of whom we thought might be Drury in disguise. One of them could equally well be Chang’s man. For all we know they have already spotted Drury, are waiting for him to make his move. And if he doesn’t move soon enough for them this absurd birthday party may tempt him. It may occur to Drury that Chang’s birthday should also be his deathday.”

  “We have to find him!” I said.

  “Do we have a chance without Williams and Miss Malone to help us?”

  “But they—”

  “We have to use them and try to protect them at the same time,” Chambrun said. “So far they’ve only talked to you in generalities, Mark—what his voice sounds like, his characteristic gestures. We need to know him much better than that. We need to know him as intimately as though we were married to him, which, in effect, Miss Malone was.” He smiled. “And since you feel so protective, I think you’re the one to dig it out of her.”

  “So when she tells me what he was like in bed, where are we?” I asked.

  “We may get to know how we can trap him into revealing himself. And we have to find that out in a very great hurry, Mark.”

  “Had you thought he, too, might have an advance man here in the hotel?” I asked.

  “Good boy,” Chambrun said. “Now you’re starting to think about something besides Miss Malone’s sad blue eyes.”

  A little red light blinked on Chambrun’s desk and he switched on the intercom. “Yes, Ruysdale?”

  “Johnny Thacker is here with a package for you,” Miss Ruysdale’s voice informed him.

  “Package?”

  “From General Chang.”

  “Send him in and come with him,” Chambrun said.

  Johnny was wearing the dark blue coat with brass buttons and a pocket patch with the word “Beaumont” sewn in gold thread to it. He was carrying a small, square package wrapped in ordinary brown paper.

  “He sent for me and Wexler told me to go up,” Johnny said to Chambrun. “I went through the mill up there. Jesus. Frisked, fondled by both cops and robbers. I was finally let into the presence. Did you get a look at that Chinese chick, Miss Taku? I’d like to find out personally if it’s true what they say about Chinese women.”

  “To the point, please, Johnny,” Chambrun said.

  “His Majesty was there, all smiles, holding this package in his hand. Would I convey it to you? Would I be sure to hand it to you in person? Not to Wexler or anyone else. Just to you. It’s my job to say yes to everyone, so I took it.”

  “And Wexler?”

  “He’s waiting with his tongue hanging out for you to call him and tell him what it is. He held it up to his ear for a while before he let me bring it. I guess he thought it might be a bomb.”

  Chambrun took the package and opened it, slowly and quite carefully. Inside the brown paper was some tissue paper. Inside the tissue paper was a small tape recorder. Chambrun’s face was a study.

  “The General wants me to know,” he said, “that his room is no longer bugged.” He switched on the recorder and the tape wound soundlessly. If anything had been recorded, it was now erased.

  “I forgot to tell you,” Johnny said. “The General said you should know he was disappointed to find you playing children’s games with him.”

  I went back down to the lobby. If anything my concern for Laura—and Peter, of course—was more intense. You saw Chang in action, you listened to him, and any doubts you had that he could be as big a monster as he’d been painted disappeared. Laura and Peter were pawns in the game that he’d wipe off the board without thinking twice, use with complete ruthlessness if it would help him get to Drury and end that threat forever.

  I went directly to the Blue Lagoon. The room was crowded now, with a dozen couples waiting hopefully outside the velvet rope for a table.

  Laura was no longer at the bar.

  “She moved on about a half hour ago,” Cardoza told me.

  “To where?”

  Cardoza shrugged. “Maggio was floating around in the distance. He’ll know.”

  “Nothing happened here?”

  “She probably has a few bruises from being pinched,” Cardoza said. He gestured toward the far end of the room. “Your other pigeon is here.”

  I’d been too concerned about Laura to notice Peter at a corner table, staring blankly toward us.

  I went looking for Mike Maggio and found him lounging over by the newsstand, talking to the redheaded gal who manned it until it closed about one o’clock.

  “Watching your chick got me feeling hungry,” he said, giving the redhead a wink.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  He waved toward the door of the grill room. “Doing her thing in there,” he said.

  “Don’t lose her.”

  I went over to check. Laura was sitting at the bar again. She saw me, for sure, but she gave no sign of it. God knows if Drury was looking for her she stood out like a neon sign.

  I needed to talk to someone, so I went back to the Blue Lagoon and joined Peter at his table. He seemed glad to see me.

  “I hoped you might catch up with me,” he said. “This listening bit in a public room like this isn’t going to work, I’m afraid—unless Neil wants it to happen. Is that birthday party for real?”

  “For real,” I said. “Would it surprise you to know that you and Laura are on his guest list?”

  The black goggles jerked my way.

  “We need to face some very hard facts, Peter,” I said. “Chang doesn’t believe for an instant that you and Laura are here to turn Drury off. He thinks you’re here to help Drury, so you’re the enemy. You’re invited to the party because he wants to be able to keep an eye on you. Make one slightly suspicious move in the Gene
ral’s direction—pow!”

  “And he can get away with it?” Peter asked.

  “He can get away with it. I know you and Laura feel you must stay here, hoping to make a contact with Drury. I know that is our best chance to find him. But I still think you both should get as far away from here as you can and stay there till this is over.”

  “Till they kill Neil,” Peter said, his voice harsh.

  “He’s calculated his own risks. He doesn’t want you to share them or he’d have approached you long ago. If Chang decides to use you or Laura against him, you’ll have spoiled his only chance of succeeding.

  Peter’s right hand gripped the cane that was hooked over the arm of his chair. “If I had the slightest notion that Neil could succeed with what he has in mind, I’d do what you say; go away and let him work it out by himself. But he can’t succeed, can he?”

  “Very small chance,” I said. “At best he may get Chang and be torn to pieces. More likely he’ll be killed before he can get anywhere near the General.”

  “Killed by Chang’s men, or even our own people if they try to stop him and he won’t be taken.”

  “True.”

  The black goggles turned away. “Chambrun could be right, you know. Chang could try to grab Laura—or both of us—as hostages. But Neil might not make a move to prevent it, or help us after it happened.”

  “He loves you both,” I said.

  “He did love us both,” Peter said. “Laura was his whole life for a year. Now revenge is his life. He might not lift a finger to help either of us.”

  “You’re saying he’s stopped being a human being; become a revenge-crazy maniac,” I said.

  “I’d have to talk to him to know for sure,” Peter said. “But if he has, no man alive could blame him.” His voice was low and unsteady. “The last thing I ever saw in this life was what happened to his mother, his sister, and his father. Would you be surprised if I told you that the first thing I remember every morning when I wake up is that scene? Would you believe that I go to bed with it in the front of my consciousness, like a bloody film run over and over for my benefit? I hear a sound, or smell an odor, in the course of a day and it comes back—the sight of those filthy bastards defiling Mrs. Drury and Joanne—lovely Joanne. I hear Mr. Drury screaming for mercy, not for himself but for them. I can see the giant Mongolian butcher who led those men watching, laughing. His face is always part of that nightmare, bearing down on me, his knife glittering in the sunlight!” Peter raised his hand and brought it down on the table so hard my glass and his coffee cup bounced and slopped over. People sitting near us turned to look, shocked by the violence of it.