Birthday, Deathday

by Hugh Pentecost

  “You say it was Chang,” I said. “He says he was never there—said it to us tonight.”

  Peter drew a deep breath, fighting for control. “I heard of Chang when I first arrived at the embassy in Buenos Aires. There was a great deal of talk about Cuban and Red Chinese revolutionaries who were training and drilling antigovernment forces in the mountains. Chang was a big name, often talked about. The man I saw, the chief butcher, matched descriptions of Chang that have since been given me. I—I’ve never been able to look at a picture of him. If he was sitting at this table with us I’d have no way of being sure he was the man who blinded me.”

  “His voice? Wouldn’t you know his voice?”

  “I don’t think so. That time was bedlam. A hundred men, laughing, shouting, cheering as they—they fouled and killed the women. When the leader came to me, ready to blind me, he shouted his orders to me at the top of his lungs so that everyone could hear. I never heard him speak a conversational word. It—it’s all a blurred madhouse of sound.”

  “So it was only assumptions by the press and political people down there that identified him as Chang?”

  “My description of him seemed to confirm it for them.”

  “And what did he look like?” I asked, trying to make it sound very casual.

  A nerve twitched near the edge of the black glasses. “A big man—over six feet—the biggest Chinese I’d ever seen. High cheekbones, a pasted-on smile. Broad, broad shoulders. Cold eyes, like pieces of cut glass.” Peter reached out and his hand closed over my wrist. I almost cried out, the grip was so painful. “Is that man upstairs, Mark?”

  “He could be,” I said. “But there are four other men up there, Chang’s bodyguards, who might fit that description. Li Sung would have fit it.”

  Peter loosed his hold on my wrist. “What does it matter whether it was Chang himself, or one of his men, trained and ordered by him?” Little beads of sweat had sprung out on his forehead. I found myself wondering what would happen if Peter found himself alone with the General. Neil Drury couldn’t hate him any more than Peter did.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Mark,” he said. “That I hate Chang, that I’d like to destroy him.” He laughed, a jangling sound. “Yes, I do; yes, I would. But for me it would not be just enough for him to die. I’d want him exposed. I’d want him tried for murder before the whole world. I’d want proof of his guilt, not just the pleasure of breaking his neck. I’d want the world to know the kind of man we’re sucking up to, inviting into our councils, treating with abject public courtesy. I wish I could persuade Neil that he’s wrong; that there must be a way between us to get at the truth and make it public.”

  “For that he has to be found,” I said. My drink was gone and I signaled to the waiter for another. I told Peter about the check we’d done on registered guests at the Beaumont, and that we’d only come up with four we couldn’t pretty well account for. I ran them down for him. There was Robert Zabielski, five feet eight, overweight, involved with a hooker who’d spent the last two nights with him in his room drinking sour-mash bourbon.

  “Neil is my height, almost six feet,” Peter said. “He couldn’t shrink himself.”

  I went on to Paul Wells, apparently about seventy. Right height, right weight, wrong age, genuinely bald. Peter shook his head.

  Next there was Sam Schwartz, the phony Hollywood impresario. Right height, right weight, an ugly scar on his face that could be the result of clumsy surgery. Big talker, big roll.

  “It’s a part Neil could play,” Peter said.

  Finally there was James Gregory, the emphysema victim with the oxygen tank. Dr. Partridge testified the illness was genuine.

  “He checks out in a way,” I told Peter, “but there is an odd coincidence. His doctor, a man named Coughlin, is known to us. Good customer of the hotel’s. But he happens to be a plastic surgeon, not a specialist in lung diseases. He explained to Doc Partridge that Gregory is an old friend; he’s caring for him because of that friendship. All the same, our man Dodd wondered if Coughlin might be the surgeon who altered Drury’s face.”

  “Interesting possibility.”

  “Which brings me to a question, Peter,” I said. “Foster, the State Department man, told us he ‘understood’ Drury had undergone cosmetic surgery. He knows Drury and he assumes he wouldn’t know him if he sat down next to him. You and Laura accept surgery as a fact. How did you come to know about it? You haven’t had any contact with Drury you say.”

  “It was in the newspapers when Neil got into trouble in the East three years ago,” Peter said.

  “How did the newspapers get it?”

  “Some journalist in Hong Kong helped Neil get away,” Peter said. “He gave out the story. His name was Rattigan, a Reuter’s correspondent. He was immediately transferred from the area. Chang made it unsafe for him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Peter shook his head. “I tried to locate him to get the whole story from him. According to Reuter’s he walked out on his job after he was transferred—to Europe. He seems to have disappeared into thin air. I’ve never been able to get on his trail.”

  “Chang?” I suggested.

  Peter’s mouth tightened. “Could be,” he said.

  I saw Mr. Cardoza, the maître d’, coming toward us. “You and Mr. Williams are wanted in Mr. Chambrun’s office,” he told me. “Lieutenant Hardy has some questions to ask you.”

  Peter and I walked out of the Blue Lagoon into the lobby, his hand resting gently on my arm, I saw Mike Maggio, still trying to make time with the redhead at the newsstand. He signaled to me that Laura was still in the grill.

  Lieutenant Hardy, the homicide man, is, I think I’ve said, an old friend of ours at the Beaumont. He is a big blond man who looks more like a professional fullback than a modern cop. The key to his success over the years is his thoroughness. He’s not a fireworks kid, but he covers every inch of a territory he’s concerned with and he talks to everyone remotely concerned, and he keeps at it and at it until the pieces of his puzzle fall into place.

  Over the years Hardy and Chambrun, temperamentally as different as two men can be, have developed a genuine mutual respect. Working together they are a very tough team. Chambrun’s impatience is complemented by Hardy’s dogged, detailed, and very thorough checking; Hardy’s plodding tempo is picked up by Chambrun’s often brilliant improvisations.

  Miss Ruysdale was still on the job when Peter and I got to the office and she gave us the green light to go on in. Chambrun was slumped in his desk chair, smoking, the inevitable cup of Turkish coffee in front of him. Hardy, his tie loosened, the top button of his white shirt undone, was having a very thick corned beef sandwich, washing it down with a glass of beer.

  Without any direction from me, Peter walked to one of the armchairs as though he could see it and sat down.

  “No luck downstairs, Mr. Williams?” Chambrun asked.

  Peter shook his head. “He could be ten feet away and I wouldn’t know it unless I heard him speak.”

  “You don’t believe in Miss Malone’s extra-sensory perceptions?”

  “I want to,” Peter said, “so part of the time I believe in it and part of the time I don’t. No bells have rung for her so far.”

  “She’s still circulating downstairs,” I said.

  Chambrun frowned, but he didn’t say anything.

  Hardy wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed his plate away. The sandwich was gone, down to the last crumb.

  “I feel like an outsider,” he said. “You people are not very interested in my problem.”

  “Wrong,” Chambrun said. “If, as seems likely, Neil Drury is your murderer we’re very interested.”

  Hardy took a notebook out of his pocket. “I’ve got nothing here that indicates anything—yet,” he said. He looked at me. I sensed he was a little embarrassed by Peter’s blindness. “You two are the only ones I’ve found so far who had any direct contact with my corpse. Seems strange that nobody noticed a large
Chinese guy circulating around the hotel.”

  “Not so strange,” Chambrun said. “To begin with, those of us who were alerted to trouble did not expect General Chang and his party to arrive until tomorrow. You know this hotel, Hardy. It’s a center for UN people—Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans; any race and color you can think of. Simply the fact that he was a large Chinese wouldn’t have brought Li Sung any special notice here.”

  “He hadn’t registered,” Hardy said. “He wasn’t a guest of the hotel.”

  “He was on the list of people in General Chang’s party, due tomorrow.”

  “The point is, nobody seems to have paid any attention to him when he showed up here earlier today.”

  “I repeat, no reason why anyone should.” Chambrun’s impatience was beginning to show. “You expect the doorman to telephone my office every time a foreigner walks through the revolving doors?”

  “So Mr. Sung was as commonplace around here as ham and eggs.” Hardy said, unruffled. “The point is, I don’t know when he got here, how long he’d been hanging around. General Chang, through his interpreter, tells me he got to New York last night.”

  Chambrun leaned forward. “Interpreter?” He laughed. “General Chang speaks better English than you or I!”

  Hardy laughed. “So he was putting me on.” He made a note in his book. “Now, Mark, you and Mr. Williams actually talked to Li Sung. Tell me how it was.”

  “I had brought Peter here to the hotel and moved him into my apartment,” I said. “I came down here to report to the boss.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Late afternoon,” I said. “I didn’t make a note of the time. But wait a minute. Wexler was here, and when he left this office he said something about our having twenty-two hours to get things organized. Chang was due to arrive at Kennedy at three o’clock tomorrow. That would have made it somewhere around five o’clock.”

  “So let’s get on to Li Sung,” Hardy said.

  “Mr. Chambrun and Jerry Dodd and I talked for a few minutes after Wexler left. Then I went down the hall to rejoin Peter and found Li Sung with him.”

  “Right around five o’clock?”

  “Right. Maybe nearer five-thirty.”

  Hardy made a note. “So you were the first one to see Li Sung, Mr. Williams.” Hardy looked up, frowning. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Williams. I meant to say—”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, Lieutenant. The word ‘see’ is an acceptable figure of speech. It doesn’t hurt me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Forget it. I was alone in Mark’s apartment. I’d been taking up the time he was gone with learning my way around. A routine I have to go through if I’m going to stay in the place. The door buzzer sounded and I crossed the room, pleased that I could make it without bumping into something, and opened the door. I was aware that someone was facing me, but I couldn’t guess who. ‘Yes?’ I said. A half-amused voice said, ‘Man, you must be Peter Williams.’ Young sounding, American sounding. But some instinct told me this wasn’t a friend. I’d left this stick of mine hanging over the back of a chair in the middle of the room. I turned my back on the man in the doorway and I felt a hell of a lot better when I reached out and found my stick. I was perfectly oriented. I moved around the chair so that it was between me and my caller. He laughed. ‘That’s cool,’ he said. ‘The way you handle yourself is cool.’ I assumed, whoever he was, he was looking for Mark. I told him Mark was down the hall in Mr. Chambrun’s office. ‘No sweat, Dad,’ he said. ‘I was looking for you.’ ”

  “How could he expect to find you there?” Hardy asked. “Had you registered?”

  “I don’t think so,” Peter said. “I mean, I don’t know if Mark had registered for me. I didn’t register.”

  “He wasn’t officially registered,” I said. “Atterbury, the reservation clerk, knew he was sharing with me. Johnny Thacker, the day bell captain knew. I told him on my way up, asked him to make himself useful to Peter. So if Li Sung asked the right person he might have found out.”

  Hardy scowled at his notebook. “He didn’t ask Atterbury or Thacker. He didn’t ask the switchboard.”

  “The switchboard hadn’t been notified,” I said.

  “But he didn’t ask. He didn’t ask anyone we’ve checked with,” Hardy said. “So how did he know?”

  Chambrun’s coffee cup made a clicking noise in its saucer. “We’re beginning to think that someone we haven’t spotted was here in the hotel as an advance man for General Chang,” he said. “Li Sung would have known—could have asked him. The man, whoever he is, could have seen Mark take Mr. Williams upstairs; could even have overheard him talking to Johnny Thacker.”

  “It’ll do for now,” Hardy said. “So what did Sung want from you, Mr. Williams?”

  “He wanted me to leave the hotel. ‘I order you to leave the hotel, man,’ he said. He made it quite clear. I was a friend of Neil Drury’s, so I was a potential enemy of Chang’s.” Peter’s mouth hardened. “I also have my own reasons for being Chang’s enemy, ‘Although you’re wrong, man, in thinking he had anything to do with what happened to you.’ He told me if I made any kind of a wrong move they wouldn’t wait to ask me questions. Just then, Mark came back.”

  Hardy looked at me.

  “He repeated all that to me,” I said. “And he included Laura Malone in his threat. He knew that Wexler was producing her from the West Coast.”

  “How did he know that?”

  “He didn’t say. He knew.”

  “So then what?”

  “He left, after Peter tried to tell him he was only here to persuade Drury to give up. Sung told him he could ‘tell that to the marines.’ ”

  “Then what?”

  “Peter and I talked for a while—about Li Sung, and about Miss Malone. Then I came back here to report to the boss what had happened.”

  “Know the time?”

  “I remember looking at my watch as I came down the hall. Six-thirty.”

  “And then?”

  “We went up to the twelfth floor to check out the arrangements that had been made for Chang’s party.”

  “And then?”

  “I rejoined Peter. He was listening to the seven o’clock news, I remember. We decided to go down to the Trapeze for a drink. While we were there Jerry Dodd came to tell us that Li Sung was spread out on the sidewalk outside the hotel.”

  Hardy studied his notebook. “Li Sung left your room a little after six. You talked till six-thirty. You returned here and went back to your room while the seven o’clock news was on. You went down to the Trapeze where Jerry found you.”

  “Right.”

  “Li Sung went off the roof at a few minutes before seven,” Hardy said. “Must have been while you were here talking to Mr. Chambrun.”

  “Why didn’t we know at once?” I asked.

  Hardy shrugged. “A cab driver saw the body hit the street. He wasn’t sure where it had come from. He called the cops from a drugstore on the north side of the hotel. It has a street entrance, you know. This cabbie didn’t come into the hotel. A patrol car was on the scene in five minutes. But it was probably ten minutes before they let Jerry Dodd know what had happened. It looked as though Sung had taken his dive from the hotel. Routines took time. Jerry had things to do before he came looking for you. The point of interest is that Sung lived less than an hour after he left your apartment, Mark. And I have a question. What the hell was he doing on the roof of the hotel outside Mrs. Haven’s penthouse?”

  Nobody made a guess because Mike Maggio came into the office followed by Miss Ruysdale. Mike looked more serious than I had ever seen him.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Haskell,” he said to me, “but I lost her.”

  Believe it or not, I didn’t follow him.

  “Miss Malone,” he said. “I lost her. She was in the Trapeze, having a drink for herself. I—I had to go to the john. I figured she was settled for a moment. When I came back she was gone. Mr. Del Greco said she just
signed her check and walked out. Nothing unusual about it, he said.”

  “You tried her room?” Chambrun asked, his voice sharp.

  “She’s not there,” Mike said.

  Chambrun was on his feet. “Let’s get moving,” he said.

  Part Three

  CHAPTER 1

  MAYBE THE SECURITY SHOULD have been tighter. All she’d planned to do was move around in the public rooms on the chance that she might “feel” Drury’s presence. Mike Maggio is a sharp and dependable guy. I’d felt perfectly safe as long as he was keeping an eye on her. I thought it was understood that if she saw anything, “felt” anything, she’d call me at the switchboard. Nobody was going to use any muscle on her out in public with Mike Maggio at the ready and the whole hotel swarming with cops and special agents.

  She couldn’t walk from one room to another without interested and protective eyes being aware of her. And yet she had.

  In the first few minutes of our hunt for her I wasn’t really worried. We’d pick up her trail the minute we began checking with the cops, the agents, and with Jerry Dodd’s people. I should have known that Mike Maggio wouldn’t have come to Chambrun’s office in an obvious panic unless he’d first made exactly that kind of cheek. He hadn’t just stood in the lobby holding up a wet finger to see where the wind was coming from. He’d checked, and then he’d come at once to Chambrun, the right thing to do.