Girl Watcher's Funeral (16 page)

“You think he's trying to pin this on Jan just to hurry things?” I asked.

“He'd pin it on her—or you, or me—anything to speed up the machinery,” Chambrun said. “He's got his hands on a golden world and he wants to start running it. I'm not eager to buy his solutions. But I'm in a hell of a hurry to find your Jan. Guilty or innocent, she's in bad trouble.”

There was a tentative knock at the office door. Jerry would have breezed in. Chambrun nodded and I went to see who it was.

Max Lazar stood outside the door. He'd put on a plaid-patterned tweed jacket over his open-necked shirt and his beads. I knew he must have taken on about a gallon of martinis since the beginning of the party in 19A, but he seemed miraculously sober. His dark eyes moved past me to Chambrun.

“I'm glad to find you both here,” he said. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” Chambrun said.

Lazar came in, looking around the room—at the furnishings and the paintings. “Nikos told me you were a man of taste, Chambrun,” he said. “More than that, he said you were a man to whom he'd trust his life. I'm here because I need help, really from both of you.”

“Sit down, Mr. Lazar,” Chambrun said. “Coffee? A drink?”

“I'd be grateful for some coffee,” he said. “I've been rather pouring it on all evening.” He sat down in one of the high-backed Florentine chairs. I got him coffee. He sipped. “Turkish. And well made, which is a rarity,” he said.

I was aware for the first time that there was an almost aristocratic bone structure to his face—strong jaw and wide mouth, high cheekbones. The long hair and the fancy costume had made me think him slightly effeminate. Perhaps his profession had bulwarked that notion; the world of male fashion designers has its share of faggoty characters.

“I have a serious decision to make,” Lazar said. “It's about my showing on Friday.” He put his demitasse down on the little table beside his chair. “Nikos wanted success for me. He believed in my instincts for fashion. But most of all, and having been his friend, I think you'll know I'm not downgrading him, Chambrun—most of all, he wanted to win a battle. The fashion writers and the trade journals haven't given me much of a play. Nikos had tried to say please as nicely as he knew how, and they'd ignored him. Now he wanted to make a big splurge; to go over the top by way of their dead bodies, if you see what I mean.”

“He was that kind of fighter,” Chambrun said.

“I don't mind telling you, without too much personal vanity, the showing is sensational. Monica has arranged to stage it in really brilliant style; poor Rosey was all set to handle the publicity angles. If everything had gone smoothly, I think Nikos would have won his battle and I'd have been launched to—to the moon. Exclusivity; no mass production at least until the next showing. Lazar clothes worn by only a few society names, like Dodo Faraday, and by one or two big stars in the entertainment world. Everyone wanting to buy, only a few able to. By the time we came to my next showing, the whole fashion world would be drooling to get to me. This time, exclusivity; next time, the world.”

“So?” Chambrun said.

“So now it takes on a whole new climate,” Lazar said. “Nikos's murder will be front-page news in the morning. It will obscure the interest in what I have to show. Idiot women will be gossiping about Nikos, his women, his life. My things will be nothing in the background.”

“You want to call off the showing?”

“I want your advice,” Lazar said, “as Nikos's friend. You see I know what he has done for me in his will. I can afford to wait, now. I can come up with a new showing in six months, with all the outside sensationalism forgotten. I'll make it on my own merits. But—”

“Yes, Mr. Lazar?”

“Nikos so much wanted to win this battle with the fashion writers and the rag-trade papers. We'd make it, you see, in a whirl of sensationalism that will really have nothing to do with my clothes. We'll fill all the fashion columns, but it will be because there is a murder involved and not because my designs are great. Should I go ahead for Nikos's sake, or should I use my own judgment now that I'm on my own?”

“Nikos would be pleased, I think, that you care about his wishes,” Chambrun said. “He also cared about you as a creative talent, or he wouldn't have left you five years of security. I can't make a judgment about your business, Lazar, but I think I knew Nikos well enough to say that he'd leave it to you if he couldn't be here to run the show himself.”

Lazar nodded slowly. “I've been trying to convince myself of that because I wanted to.”

“But I would prefer it if you held back the announcement, publicly and privately, till late tomorrow afternoon—in time for Friday's morning papers. I don't want all the people connected with it taking off to the four corners until we've had every opportunity to get at the truth.”

Lazar lifted his head. “The whole thing is unbelievable,” he said. “Nikos—I loved him. A few hours ago I'd have said everyone who had dealings with him loved him. All
these
people, at least.” He hesitated. “I'm worried about Jan. I understand she's among the missing. Your security people have been asking questions.”

Chambrun's face went curiously blank.

“Poor Rosey was killed because she somehow hit on the truth about who switched Nikos's pills,” Lazar went on. “Rosey was reasonably close to Nikos. But Jan was very close. For two years she has been the closest person to him, round the clock. He trusted her. He loved her, like a man and like a father. She must have been the repository for hundreds of secrets. Nikos was no fool, Chambrun. You know that. If there was someone who wanted him dead, it's a hundred to one Nikos would have caught wind of it. Jan is the person he might have talked to about it. Something Nikos discussed with Jan might suddenly light up the sky for her, and she'd become very dangerous to the killer.”

“An interesting theory,” Chambrun said, as though it was a brand-new idea. “It has been suggested, however, she might have killed Nikos herself to keep him from finding out about Faraday.”

Lazar snorted. “Only an outsider would consider such a notion. You think Nikos didn't know about Mike?”

“I assume he didn't. From what Jan told Mark, she assumed he didn't.”

“You're imagining Nikos as a cuckolded old idiot,” Lazar said. He sounded angry. “He was a man who understood the facts of life. The girl had to have some sex, and he couldn't provide it. She was never missing when he needed her; he trusted her in every other area; so he closed his eyes to Faraday.”

“He told you that?”

“Of course not. But I knew Nikos. He never missed a trick about anything. It had to be that way.”

“It's possible,” Chambrun said, his eyes hidden under their heavy lids.

“It's certain,” Lazar said. “You've probably heard talk. Everyone's been jabbering upstairs. They say Jan was available to anyone who asked. That's not so.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked,” Lazar said, his mouth grim. “Oh, she has a great line about being a free spirit, and all that. But she's choosy. I must say I don't care for her choice of Faraday, but who can explain what turns on sexual electricity?”

I thought of Gallivan and Pappas, who had both implied Jan had offered to play games with them. And then I remembered an odd contradiction. She'd talked about Gallivan once; how now, with Nikos dead, she'd have to get out her track shoes.

“Did Jan have many friends outside Nikos's own little family group?” I heard Chambrun asking.

Lazar shrugged. “For the last two years she's scarcely been away from Nikos's side for a minute. Between you and me, I don't know when she found the time to carry on an affair with Faraday. Wherever Nikos stayed, she had an adjoining bedroom. Her job was to check on him at regular intervals—he was deathly afraid of those heart attacks, poor devil. When he traveled, which was always by train or on the
Merina,
she was never away from him. She had no time for outside friends. But before she came to Nikos, well, I have no knowledge of that. She was only twenty. I know nothing about her family. She was a model for a while before she joined Nikos, working for Zach Chambers. He might know about her.”

“He was her agent?”

“Yes.”

“What about Chambers? What was his relationship with Nikos?”

Lazar's smile was weary. “Zach is an unhappy fellow,” he said. “He's a queer, you know. He's getting along in years and he isn't as attractive to the young fry as he used to be. It's started him drinking pretty heavily. He's also a compulsive gambler, which keeps him constantly broke. But he's a genius at picking and schooling girls who can model. He gets along fine with girls, because he creates no problems for them outside his business dealings with them. He knows, instinctively, whether a girl can wear elegant clothes and not seem cheap. You saw Suzie Sands upstairs. That voice! I'd never in the world choose her to wear my designs, but Zach was right about her. On the runway, in the right clothes, she looks like a princess.”

“You still haven't told me how Chambers got along with Nikos,” Chambrun said.

“Nikos had respect for talent. Zach wasn't the kind of person Nikos would have for a friend, but Nikos respected him in a business way. Ever since Nikos became interested in fashion, Zach has provided models for him. Zach made a healthy package out of the deal. They only had one quarrel that I know of.”

“Oh?”

“It was about Jan,” Lazar said. “Zach thought she had the potential to be one of the great fashion models. She represented a gold mine to him. When Nikos picked her for his own private property, Zach was burned to a crisp. He made such a fuss he almost lost out with Nikos.”

“But if Jan had friends before Nikos, Chambers might know about them?” Chambrun asked. “You see, if she's hiding out somewhere, she could have gone into her past for help.”

“Zach could be helpful—if you can sober him up,” Lazar said. “He was stoned to the gills the last I saw him.”

The office door opened and Jerry Dodd came in. Lazar stood up.

“I'll need help,” the designer said. “With Rosey gone, I don't quite know how to go about the business of releasing the word that my showing is canceled.”

“Mark will help you in the morning,” Chambrun said.

Jerry stood aside and watched Lazar leave. Then he joined us.

“No sign of the girl,” he said.

“I want a crash search, Jerry,” Chambrun said. “Maids are to go into every room they can with towels, whatever. Where that doesn't work, I want a repair man to insist on being admitted—electrical short circuit, water leak, any excuse.”

“There'll be some loud howls from a couple of dozen illicit Romeos,” Jerry said.

“Let 'em howl. I want every room in the hotel covered.”

“Right.”

“I want doormen, Maggio's whole night crew, night watchmen, the whole staff alerted.”

“Consider it done.”

“How long will it take?”

“Couple of hours,” Jerry said.

“Pressure it.”

Jerry took off and Chambrun rose from his desk chair. “I've got a feeling we're too damned late,” he said. “Our best hope is that phone call. If she got to some old friend's place and called from there—” He shrugged as though he didn't place much hope in the idea. “Let's have a go at Zach Chambers.”

C
HAMBERS HAD ROOM 1920
, directly across the hall from Monica Strong's room. There was no answer when we knocked on his door. Chambrun produced a pass key and we went in.

I was almost knocked over by the sour, stale smell of liquor. All the lights in the room were blazing, and Zach was sprawled face down on his bed, out cold. I tried shaking him, and the only result was a low moan. Chambrun picked up the phone and called room service for hot coffee.

I went into the bathroom and soaked a towel in cold water. Somehow I got Zach rolled over on his back and went to work on him, slapping his face, trying the wet towel at the back of his neck. He moaned and groaned, but he showed no signs of coming to. After a bit the room service waiter arrived with coffee. Between us we pulled Zach up into a sitting position and got some coffee into his mouth. It was scalding hot. His eyes rolled up into his head and he tried, feebly, to push us away.

“Get him up on his feet and walking,” Chambrun said.

The waiter and I struggled with him. He was dead weight between us, his feet dragging. I kept slapping him and talking to him. He began to protest now, trying for words.

“Oh, please—for God sake!” I was able to distinguish.

We kept at it, getting coffee down him after each lap up and down the room. Finally his eyes focused on me.

“For God sake, go away!” he pleaded.

“When you come around enough to answer some questions, Zach, we'll let you go back to sleep.”

“I'm sick!”

“So come in the bathroom and be sick,” I said.

“What do you want? What in the name of God do you want?” He began to cry.

Chambrun slapped him so hard a red welt appeared on his flabby white cheek. “I want to ask you about Jan Morse, Chambers. We'll keep at you until you're ready to talk. You can save yourself a lot of discomfort if you'll listen and answer.”

“I'll t-try,” Zach stammered. “Only please let me sit down. The whole damn place is spinning around.”

“If you go to sleep, I'll give you a real going-over, friend,” I said.

“Look, man, I told you I'd try,” Zach said.

The waiter and I eased him down into an armchair. His head lolled to one side. I slapped him.

“Please! Please just ask me and go away,” Zach cried. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“Jan is missing,” I said. “We're trying to find her. We need your help.”