Deadly Joke (3 page)

“But you didn’t say to yourself, ‘There’s good old John Smith’ when they came in?”

“No. I only wondered where Stew Shaw was; Maxwell’s bodyguard.”

“He wasn’t there because he was with the real Maxwell.”

“Right.”

“Could you describe those two friends?”

I shook my head slowly. “It was all so fast. All men in white ties and tails look something alike. I had no reason to want to identify the two friends. Mickly and I were concerned with getting Maxwell through the crowd to the Grand Ballroom.”

Hardy knocked the ash off his cigar. “Those two men were in on the joke with Sewall, but neither of them came forward; neither of them tried to help Sewall when he was hit.”

“Cameras must have got them,” I said.

“Hopefully. I saw the
TV
film. One of them was covering his face with an opera hat. The other was turned back, looking at Sewall. One of the press photographers might have gotten them, but we’ll have to wait for that.”

“I understand from Maxwell that practical jokes were Sewall’s specialty,” I said.

“So he got paid off by mistake.” Hardy looked at his cigar. Evidently he wasn’t getting pleasure from it. “There’s a balcony running along the west side of the lobby. Your Dr. Partridge thinks the shot was fired from there. Bullet had a downward trajectory. It would account for the fact that no one saw the killer. No one was looking up.”

“They were all looking at Sewall’s red and white striped shorts,” I said.

“How do you get onto that balcony?”

“The door at the north end opens out of the Trapeze Bar. The door at the south end opens onto the mezzanine, directly opposite a bank of elevators. There’s a stairway there, too, going down to the side street entrance.”

“I should have thought there’d have been a lot of people up on that balcony waiting to see Maxwell arrive.”

I looked at Hardy, wondering. “It was blocked off,” I said. “Jerry didn’t want people up there. He didn’t want to have to watch two areas. There had been threats, you know—student groups, Black militants.”

“How was it blocked off?”

“Doors at both ends locked,” I said.

“Who has the keys?”

I shrugged. “There are duplicate sets,” I said. “Jerry Dodd has sets. Security Officer has keys to everything. There’d be a set in Chambrun’s office, one at the main desk, and the housekeeper for that floor. Probably Mr. Del Greco, the captain in the Trapeze Bar, has one.” I kept ticking them off. “Night watchman, cleaning crew. A lot of sets, Hardy.”

“Thanks,” Hardy said dryly.

“That balcony isn’t the hotel safe,” I said. “There’s no reason to think of it as a security area. It can be closed off if there’s a reason. Tonight Jerry had a reason. I can’t remember any other time.”

“If your doctor is right, somebody did get out there,” Hardy said, “and to do that he had to have a key. We’ve looked at the doors. They weren’t forced.”

“So you check,” I said.

“That’s my business,” Hardy said. He sounded tired. “Check, and double check, and triple check. Damn these political assassinations! How do you check hundreds of screaming kids and black revolutionaries? All the time it may be some private kook who has no connection with anything, like the Bobby Kennedy case. Or it can be some private vendetta with the political climate being used as a cover-up.”

“Merry Christmas,” I said.

The fifteen hundred glittering guests in the Grand Ballroom gave Douglas Maxwell a standing ovation when he appeared, accompanied by Chambrun and surrounded by Jerry Dodd and his men and a half dozen plainclothes cops, with the scowling Stew Shaw at his elbow. It took him a while to make his way to the head table. People seemed to want to touch him, to reassure him. They stamped and clapped and shouted to him.

When he got to the head table, he stood at his place, his handsome face grave and unsmiling. Once or twice he raised his hands to ask for silence, but it was useless. He stood there, confronting the radio and
TV
microphones and the one for the
PA
system in the room. Beside him was the only empty chair in the room. That had been meant for his wife, Grace. On the other side of him Watson Clarke stood, equally grave. He was to be the master of ceremonies.

After a long time Clarke managed to get himself heard to persuade people to sit down and be quiet. When the room was still, Clarke didn’t speak. He just turned and gestured to Maxwell.

“I want to thank you for your cordial welcome,” Maxwell said.

That started it all over again. It was another five minutes before he could resume. Jack Mickly was standing next to me.

“He could be elected President tonight if he wanted,” he said.

“We have been confronted with a dreadful tragedy tonight,” Maxwell said. At last they were willing to hear him. “The man who was murdered in the lobby a little while ago was my cousin, Charles Sewall. Poor Charlie was a confirmed practical joker. He chose to make fun of me tonight. It cost him his life. Because there can be no question, ladies and gentlemen, that the assassin’s bullet was meant for me.”

The room was suddenly dead quiet.

“Poor Charlie and I looked so very much alike,” Maxwell went on. “Our mothers were twin sisters, and Charlie and I were almost literally twins. Over the years poor Charlie has used this fact to play innumerable jokes. Tonight the result was deadly.” Maxwell took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and touched his lips with it. “It is a pretty shattering experience to realize that someone is lurking in the shadows, waiting to kill you. Oh, I know I have enemies. There are groups of people—young people who are chanting outside this hotel at this very moment. There are revolutionary groups who have threatened all kinds of violence if I proceed along the political path I have chosen. But tonight, somewhere, there was one man, with one gun, bent on killing me. He would have succeeded if Charlie hadn’t chosen this time for a slapstick farce.” Maxwell drew a deep breath. Then he pointed to the empty chair beside him. “My wife is in a state of mild shock and begs to be excused.” There was a murmur of sympathy, and while he waited, Maxwell straightened his shoulders. “But I, ladies and gentlemen, do
not
beg to be excused! Not from the fight!”

The roof was raised again. They were all on their feet, cheering and yelling. I’ve got to admit I was impressed with Maxwell as he stood there, erect and unflinching. There was no political smiling or phony self-deprecation. He was a tall, strong, handsome figure. I understood a little better the total devotion of people like Watson Clarke, and Jack Mickly, and Stew Shaw. The cheering broke off on a kind of strangled note. Over the sound of it came the noise of gunshots.

Pandemonium of another kind began. I saw Shaw, the bodyguard, pull Maxwell down into his chair and literally cover him with his own body. I saw Jerry Dodd’s wiry figure racing between tables toward the entrance to the Ballroom, followed by Chambrun. Some of the elegant guests were down on their hands and knees hiding behind their tables.

I headed for the entrance, too. It was clear that the trouble, whatever it was, had taken place out in the lobby.

There was less confusion out there than there was in the Ballroom. A young black man was sitting on the floor opposite the entrance, his face twisted with pain, his back against the wall, clutching at a bleeding shoulder. His bright yellow shirt was bloodstained. Tinted glasses shielded his eyes. Three plainclothes men with drawn guns stood over him.

Lieutenant Hardy arrived at the same time as Chambrun, Jerry Dodd, and I. One of Hardy’s men reported.

“The black boy is one of the top leaders for a black militant group,” the man told Hardy. “They’d threatened to blow up the joint, you know, Lieutenant. This guy calls himself Claude Cloud. He managed to slip by the guards on the street and headed into the lobby toward the Ballroom. Sergeant McNeil ordered him to stop. When he didn’t, McNeil fired at him twice. Missed him with the first shot and got him in the shoulder with the second.”

“Was he carrying a bomb?” Hardy asked.

“He appears to be clean, Lieutenant. I thought I’d get the hotel doctor to take care of him. We take him out onto the street and we may really start something out there.”

“Get him to the first-aid room, and quick,” Hardy said. “We’re likely to have a panic inside if you don’t.” He turned to Chambrun. “Can you quiet things down in there?”

Chambrun’s face was a study in cold fury. I knew what he was thinking. They were turning his beloved hotel into a shooting gallery. He didn’t answer Hardy, but he turned back into the banquet quarters.

I stayed in the entrance. I wanted to cover both fronts. I saw Chambrun reach the head table and speak to Stew Shaw. The bodyguard slowly removed himself from his shielding position over Maxwell. Maxwell stood up again, and his voice sounded clear and firm over the crowd noise. Standing beside Maxwell, Chambrun’s square, short figure just about came up to Maxwell’s shoulder. Maxwell was a good six or eight inches taller.

Maxwell finally got the attention of his audience. “There’s nothing to be alarmed about, ladies and gentlemen. One of my black militant friends tried to get into the meeting. He wasn’t armed. When the police ordered him to stop, he refused and they shot at him. He’s only slightly wounded and in custody.”

It took a long time for them to quiet down. Drink makings were on all the tables, and they were suddenly getting a big workout. While they waited for silence, Maxwell and Chambrun were engaged in an earnest conversation. Then Chambrun left and came down to the entrance. He stopped by me.

“When Maxwell finishes, he isn’t going to stay for dinner,” he said. “Wait here and come up with him to the house suite. Jerry and his boys will be with you.” He turned and walked away toward the bank of elevators.

Out in the hall Mr. Claude Cloud had been removed by Hardy’s men.

In the Grand Ballroom, Maxwell had his audience again.

“The agenda of this evening was to begin with a brief speech of welcome by my very dear friend, Watson Clarke. After you have eaten what I know will be a magnificent dinner, there are other good friends who are prepared to talk to you about me.” He smiled very faintly. “Their remarks will be flattering, otherwise they wouldn’t have been invited.” There was a little wave of laughter. “I was to have followed them with a serious statement of my political beliefs, and then you were to be asked to support me—with money.”

Again laughter, which faded as Maxwell’s face turned stone-hard again.

“I have lost my taste for political routines tonight,” Maxwell said.

“Oh, no!” someone shouted, and it became a chorus.

Maxwell held up his hands for silence. “Don’t misunderstand me, ladies and gentlemen. I didn’t mean to imply that I am withdrawing. I am with you to the end, whether that end be victory or defeat.”

Applause and wild cheering again.

Maxwell went on when he could. “I meant there are times when one’s private responsibilities must be met. I have no taste for this banquet this evening, because my wife needs me.” Murmurs of sympathy. “I ask you to let me go to her. If I can come back for the after-dinner speechmaking, I will. Understand, I am not being frightened off by some would-be assassin. But I cannot turn my back on the woman who has stood at my side for nearly thirty years when she needs me. So, if you will excuse me for the moment—”

He stepped down from the table and headed for the door where I was waiting, Stew Shaw beside him. Everyone in the room stood up and clapped him out.

Jerry Dodd and his men closed around us as we headed for the elevator. Maxwell turned to me.

“What’s become of Cloud, Mark?” he asked.

“They’re holding him here in the hotel,” I said. “They were afraid if they took him out on the street it might start a riot.”

“He was one of my chief headaches at Barstow,” Maxwell said. “I’d like to talk to him.”

“That’ll be up to Hardy, sir,” I said.

“If he wasn’t armed, he just meant to shout me down. They’ll make a big thing out of his being shot.”

“It’s not serious,” I said.

“Not the wound, maybe, but the aftermath. I’ll be called a fascist imperialist until I grow deaf from it. Do they think Cloud may have been the one who shot Charlie? He had time to get rid of his weapon.”

“I don’t know what Hardy thinks, sir. I have the feeling that half an hour ago he’d never heard of Claude Cloud.”

“He will, after tonight. They have the techniques for turning him into a martyr.”

“May I say I think you behaved very well in there, sir,” I said. We had reached the elevators.

He looked at me, and his face twisted into a grimace of pain. “God dammit,” he said, “wouldn’t you think Grace could have stayed off the sauce this one night!”

M
AXWELL COULD NOT HAVE
shocked me more by throwing a glass of ice water in my face. I glanced at Jerry Dodd. His face was a mask; if he had heard, he was pretending he hadn’t. I looked at Maxwell. There was a thin film of sweat on his forehead.

There was no more talk because the elevator door slid open and six of us stepped in and were whisked up to the fourteenth floor.

The house suite consists of a sitting room, two bedrooms and two baths, along with a small kitchenette. You could wish you had the money to furnish your own apartment as tastefully and expensively. Someone, Chambrun I expect, had seen to it that the décor was of no particular period. It wasn’t Victorian or French or modern. The colors were neither gloomy nor too bright. Everything was comfortable, and there was everything for comfort.

When we walked in, Chambrun was standing by an open French window that opened onto a terrace overlooking the East River. There was no sign of Mrs. Maxwell or Miss Ruysdale, but the door to the sleeping quarters was closed.

Jerry Dodd approached the boss. “I can leave a couple of men out in the hall, Mr. Chambrun,” he said, “but I’d like to get back on the job. Hardy and his men are apt to get lost if there isn’t someone around to keep them from falling down a laundry chute.”

Chambrun turned. He gave Jerry a faint smile. “I’m sorry to have turned you into a bodyguard, Jerry. I was so concerned about Mr. Maxwell I had to have the one person I could really trust looking out for him. You go. Do your job.”