Deadly Joke (7 page)

“This is not a police questioning, Miss Maxwell,” Hardy said. “Your father wanted to talk to him. Cloud was willing.”

“But you’re holding him?” Diana asked.

“He tried to break into the banquet, Miss Maxwell,” Hardy said patiently. “When he was ordered to stop, he disobeyed. Things were pretty tense downstairs, and one of my men shot at him to make him stop. It’s just a flesh wound.”

“What are you holding him for?”

“Disobeying a police order, trespassing, maybe we can make conspiracy to commit a homicide stick,” Hardy said.

Maxwell tried to take charge. “Mark’s told you what happened here tonight?” he asked Diana.

She looked at me. “Your first name is Mark? You didn’t tell me.”

“We didn’t get that far,” I said.

“Yes, I know what happened to Charlie,” Diana said to her father.

“You know that bullet was meant for me, Kitten?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Do you think we’re not justified in trying to find out who shot at me?”

“What has that got to do with Claude?” Diana asked.

You could see the struggle Maxwell was putting up to keep his angry frustration in control. “Your friend Mr. Cloud has threatened me in public, Kitten; he has threatened me in the middle of the night with obscene phone calls; tonight he broke through police lines in an effort to disrupt a private dinner held on my behalf—and God knows what else he intended to do when he got in. It’s a war, Kitten. Do you blame me for trying to find out what the rules are?”

“Oh, man!” Cloud said. “Rules! That’s all they think about is rules! They make ’em. We don’t.” He laughed. “Poor old Charlie knew how absurd the rules are. Why should there be a rule that says you can’t appear in public without your pants? Anybody could forget his pants—if he was in a hurry, or he was thinking about something else. But Charlie knew the rules. If the great Douglas Maxwell appeared without his pants, he couldn’t get elected to the United States Senate. No matter how good he was, you understand, how honest, how well-equipped. No pants, no Senate.”

“You knew my cousin Charles?” Maxwell said.

“Sure I knew him. A great guy, Charlie.”

“You knew what he planned to do tonight?”

“Sure I knew. Man, he needed an audience ready to laugh.”

“You know the two men who arrived at the hotel with him?” Hardy asked.

Cloud wagged a finger at him. “‘Heah come de fuzz!’” he said. “Remember, Daddio, no lawyer, no questions from the fuzz.”

Maxwell drew a deep breath. “Political warfare is one thing, Cloud. Murder is something else again. We can’t live with anarchy.”

“Man, who says so?” Cloud said, grinning. “Anarchy would be a lot better than living in a world with your no-pants rules. Anyhow, you didn’t get murdered, man. It was Charlie who got it.”

“Meant for me,” Maxwell said. “It was the sheerest luck that I didn’t get it ten minutes later. If Charlie hadn’t—”

“Man, you sound like you were proud it was meant for you,” Cloud interrupted. “Did you ever think it might not have been meant for you at all? Did you ever think it might have all been part of Charlie’s joke? He didn’t have too much to live for. Maybe he thought the biggest joke of all would be for people to think you killed him, or had him killed, for making a joke of you. Was it that way, man? I mean, was it?”

The color drained from Maxwell’s face. The muscles were knotted along his jaw lines. “I don’t think there’s any purpose in continuing this, Lieutenant,” he said.

“I second the motion,” Hardy said. “Come on, Cloud.”

“Sure, man,” Cloud said. “Which way to the Bastille?”

“I’ll call your lawyer for you, Claude,” Diana said.

Cloud waved at her. “I guess maybe the time has come, baby. Thanks.” He started for the door and turned back. “I’m not against murder, Maxwell, if it helps to get rid of pollution. But I’m not, personally, an executioner, man. I’m scared of guns—and firecrackers. Not that that would matter any. Barry Tennant didn’t like guns and he didn’t own one. But you fixed him, man. You know, I was real surprised you didn’t find a bomb in my pocket when you arrested me. The name of the game is frame.”

Maxwell turned away. “Get him out of here,” he said.

When the door closed on Cloud and Hardy, I felt as if a balloon had been deflated. Maxwell went over to the bar and poured himself a drink. He turned back, finally, to Diana, as if the drink had given him strength.

“I know you came to see your mother,” he said. He was dismissing her.

“Where is she?” Diana asked. It was a death struggle between these two, I thought, with Maxwell seeming the more vulnerable.

Maxwell nodded toward the door to the bedrooms and turned away again. It developed that Diana was going to have to walk through, around, or over Chambrun to make it. He stood directly in front of the door, rocking gently on his heels.

“What is this ‘frame-up’ gibberish?” he asked.

“Please, I’d like to go to Mother,” Diana said.

“Let’s not play games, Diana,” Chambrun said. “I’ve known you since you were a baby. I was at your christening. I’ve watched this feud grow between you and your father, and I’ve stayed out of it. None of my business—until tonight. Tonight my hotel has been used as a stage for murder. It has been used as a stage for a bad-taste practical joke. Would you believe that I may be more offended by that than the shooting? Cloud tells us that he knew what Charlie Sewall was planning. Charlie had to have an audience ready to laugh. Cloud was Charlie’s friend and he’s your friend. So I suspect you knew what Charlie was planning for tonight. Am I right?”

Some of the color had drained from Diana’s face, and she faced Chambrun, rigid, her hands curled into small fists.

“Yes, I knew,” she said.

“Oh, God!” Maxwell said, under his breath.

“You went along with it because you wanted your father hurt,” Chambrun said. “Which brings us back to this frame-up talk. I know what it’s about in part. You think your father had drugs and a gun planted in Barry Tennant’s apartment. Why?”

“He hates Barry,” Diana said.

“That’s not good enough,” Chambrun said. “Your father may hate Barry, but he’s a man of character, integrity, honor.”

“Then why were the police sent to pick up Barry?”

“Because he headed an activist group which had threatened your father over the Barstow riots. Other kids were checked out, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” Diana said, still rigid. “But I wasn’t sleeping with other kids.”

“Diana!” It was a whisper from Maxwell.

“Was your father with the police when they raided Tennant’s apartment?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t think he planted the gun personally—and the marijuana?”

“Nobody planted the pot,” Diana said. “Barry never denied that he had experimented with pot. He didn’t go for it, and he simply forgot to get rid of it. But the gun—”

“So your father corrupted the New York City police force?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s the best word I’ve heard for the police in months,” Chambrun said dryly. “So who did plant the gun?”

“The police took Stew Shaw along with them to identify Barry,” Diana said. “He was the college security chief then. He was then, and is now, Father’s boy.”

Chambrun’s narrowed black eyes turned on Maxwell. “What about that, Douglas?”

Maxwell spread his hands. “It simply isn’t true,” he said.

“You mean you never told Shaw to plant a gun on Barry Tennant?”

“Never.”

“But that doesn’t mean Shaw couldn’t have done it, thinking it would please you. He
is
your boy, as Diana put it.”

Maxwell moistened his lips. “I would bet my life that Stew never did such a thing.”

“Don’t be too free with your bets, Douglas. Your life is already at stake. Someone may be down the corridor now, waiting to take it. Where is Shaw?”

“He went back to the house to get some things I need,” Maxwell said. “It seemed safe enough, with your men and the police to protect me.”

“Can I go in to Mother now?” Diana asked. She hadn’t once looked at her father.

Chambrun shrugged and turned away. I watched Diana go. Maxwell returned to the bar. He was taking on quite a load himself, I thought.

Chambrun and I left the unhappy Maxwell family to themselves, with Miss Ruysdale somewhere in the background. We went down to Chambrun’s office on the second floor. He had been out of touch too long. He had to know what was going on in the private world of the Beaumont. He flipped the switch on the box communicator on his desk so that I could hear what was going on.

Lieutenant Hardy had just called
14B
to reach him and was on the way up to the office now.

The Banquet Department reported that the last of the guests had left the Grand Ballroom and the cleaning crew was already on the job.

All quiet in the lobby. The reporters and the camera people had disappeared.

The pickets were still outside the hotel, chanting obscenities, aimed about evenly at Maxwell and the cops.

Business as usual in the Blue Lagoon, which is the hotel’s night club.

The telephone switchboard was swamped with calls of inquiry about Maxwell. Was he dead? Was he hurt?

Finally Chambrun switched off the box and leaned back in his chair. “I think I could do with a brandy, Mark,” he said. I went to the sideboard and brought him a brandy and a cup of Turkish coffee, which is always brewing there. He cupped the brandy glass in both hands for a moment, savoring its aroma. Then he sipped and put it down.

“I believe in Maxwell,” he said. “I don’t believe he framed young Tennant, no matter how much he hated him for what he’s done with Diana. Did you meet Tennant?”

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” I said.

“I know you promised Grace,” he said. “But obviously you went to get Diana for her. Which means that she knows where Diana lives and has kept it a secret from her husband. Did you meet Tennant?”

“Let’s say I have met him,” I said.

“Do you think he was here in the hotel tonight?”

“I don’t think either of them were,” I said.

“But they knew what was going to happen—Charlie Sewall’s joke?”

“Diana told you that.”

“Did you bring them news?” he asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Did they know that Sewall had been shot?”

“It seemed to be news,” I said. “They were shocked, I think.”

“If they knew it was Charlie, and Charlie was their friend, then we have to count them out,” Chambrun said. “Unless—” His eyes narrowed.

“Unless what?”

“Unless it was meant to be Charlie,” he said. “Unless it wasn’t a mistake.”

“But Diana and her boy wanted Charlie to pull off his joke,” I said.

“So they say.”

We weren’t able to go on with it because Hardy arrived. He looked beat. He was carrying a manila folder which he put down on Chambrun’s desk.

“May be some help,” he said. He opened the folder. On top of a stack of papers was a photograph. I moved around to get a look at it. It was a picture of Charlie Sewall in the lobby, without his pants, smiling. Flanking him were two men in white tie and tails. One of them was totally obscured by a folding opera hat which he was holding up to his face, obviously to avoid the cameras. The other was turned back to look at Sewall, so that all we had was his profile. It was a youngish face, contorted by laughter.

“Either of you know him?” Hardy asked.

I didn’t.

Chambrun shook his head. “There isn’t enough of the face,” he said. “Only the jaw line, dark hair.”

Hardy pushed the photograph aside. “We have a preliminary report from ballistics,” he said. “The medical examiner got the bullet out of Sewall’s chest. They guess it’s a foreign-made gun, probably a 6.5 millimeter Walthers, German make. Same kind of gun some people think was used to assassinate Bobby Kennedy.”

“Hard to come by?” Chambrun asked.

“No. I could name you a dozen gunshops where they can be bought. It’s a handgun, very accurate if you know how to use it.”

“You need to find the gun before you can match the bullet to it,” Chambrun said.

Hardy made a sour face. “The ability to match a fired bullet to a gun is considerably exaggerated,” he said. “Sometimes you can, sometimes not. More often not—not well enough to have it stand up in court as evidence. It would be happy coincidence if we found the owner of a
P-38
Walthers, but we might not make it stick as
the
one.”

“And it was fired from the mezzanine balcony?”

“No question.”

“Which means the killer had a key to the locked doors.”

“Or a magical lock-pick,” Hardy said.

“Which doesn’t exist,” Chambrun said.

“Right.”

The red light blinked on Chambrun’s phone. He switched on the squawk box again.

“Chambrun here.”

“Karl Nevers here,” a tense voice said. “The pickets have broken through the police lines, sir. Like hundreds of them. They’re tearing the place apart, Mr. Chambrun.”

It was bedlam downstairs. Hundreds of kids, boys and girls, were churning about, screaming and yelling. I could hear glass smashing. It seems that some of them had charged the front entrance and the cops had concentrated there. It was a decoy, because the main force had come in the side entrance, charging down the corridor of shops, breaking glass windows, looting furs and jewelry, and clothes. The cops were caught between the two forces. Frightened guests were in the center of a whirlpool of violence. Some of the kids had clubs and baseball bats. They swung at everything in sight—people, chandeliers, furniture. Here and there a cop, snowed under by the raiders, had been able to draw a gun and was firing wildly into a solidly packed mass of people. Above it all was a chanting.

“We want Maxwell! We want Maxwell!”

As Chambrun, Hardy, and I came out of the elevators into this madhouse, we were almost trampled to death by kids crowding into the car we had vacated. I heard a girl shouting hysterically.

“Fourteen B! It’s Fourteen B!”

They knew where Maxwell was.

We swung around and got into the next car. Hardy blocked a group of charging kids. He swung his fist like a sledge hammer, knocking one boy back into the group and scattering them like ninepins. I got the elevator door closed and we went up. Chambrun’s face was a study in cold rage.