Shape of Fear (4 page)

O
FFICIALLY THE BUSINESS DAY
was over for me. Before I inherited my present job I would have left the office promptly and involved myself in pleasures dissociated from the world of Pierre Chambrun. Somehow, by his own personal magic, Chambrun had changed my way of life without asking me to do any such thing. I had given up my apartment and moved into the hotel. I found myself having a drink or two at the end of the work day, going to my room to change into a dinner jacket, and spending the evening moving about the hotel, from the various bars to the Blue Room night club, to the private banquet rooms where special events were in progress. A little like an old time western marshal checking out the town at night.

It was my town, with its own mayor, its own police force, its own public services, its co-operatively owned apartments, its facilities for transients, its night clubs, its cafés, its restaurants, its quality shops opening off the lobby, its telephone switchboards, and its complex human relationships.

My town. That’s the way I thought of it, and I suddenly felt a part of it, and possessive about it, and jealous of its reputation. I guess that was exactly the way Chambrun felt, which is why the place runs with the smoothness of an expertly engineered Swiss watch. Others felt as I did, I knew. There was Jerry Dodd, the security officer, who could smell trouble before the people involved had actually gotten into it. There were Mr. Atterbury, the head day clerk, and Karl Nevers, the head night clerk, both of whom could spot a phony before he had managed to cross the lobby of the reservation desk. There were the bartenders, and the captains, like Mr. Novotny and Mr. Cardoza, and Mr. Del Greco who presided over the Trapeze Bar. And there was Mr. Amato, the banquet manager, and Johnny Thacker, the day bell captain, and Johnny Maggio, his night-time counterpart. At any time of day or night, Pierre Chambrun could press a button in his office and have the answer to any question almost before it was out of his mouth. Of course, he knew exactly whom to ask.

The Trapeze Bar at the Beaumont is suspended in space, like a birdcage, over the foyer to the Grand Ball Room. The foyer, painted a pale chartreuse with a rich cherry wood paneling, is a meeting place for people when the ballroom itself is not in use. The Trapaze, its walls an elaborate Florentine grillwork, is popular mainly because it’s different. An artist of the Calder school has decorated it with mobiles of circus performers working on trapezes. They sway slightly in the draft from a concealed air-conditioning system. It creates the illusion that the whole place sways gently.

The head bartender in the Trapeze is a pleasant, brown-haired, chubby little guy named Eddie. He saw me coming through the grillwork doors and an ice-cold martini was on the bar almost before I reached it

“Kill the taste of the sherry,” he said.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“Built-in radar,” he said. “Old boy go upstairs for his siesta?”

“I guess. You know Mr. Cardew a long time, Eddie?”

“He came with the woodwork—long before me,” Eddie said. “You know the rules, Mr. Haskell. Never talk about a customer.”

“To a customer,” I said.

“It’s like this,” Eddie said. “Most of us know about the old boy. Twelve, thirteen years ago he decided he could expect to live another five years. He’d been hurt in the crash of twenty-nine and other crashes. Not much dough left. Enough capital to live on for about five years in the fashion to which he was accustomed. At the end of five years he was out of money and healthy as a horse. He couldn’t live anywhere but here. So, one night he ordered an elaborate dinner in the grill, said goodnight to Cardoza, and headed up to his room. When he got there, he found Chambrun sitting in an armchair waiting for him. Chambrun was smoking one of his Egyptian cigarettes and tossing a little medicine bottle up and down in his hand. Enough sleeping pills to kill three people. You know how Chambrun works. Mind-reading sonofabitch!” Eddie said that affectionately. “He knew what was in the wind, and when old man Cardew bought those pills in our drugstore—he had to buy them here because he had to charge them—one of Chambrun’s little birds whispered in his ear.

“It wasn’t enough to stop the old boy that night. Chambrun had to stop him for keeps, and he managed it. He persuaded Cardew that he was of real value to the hotel. That he was worth his keep and a few extras. He managed to get around the old boy’s enormous pride and convince him. So you might say he’s an extra pair of eyes and ears for Chambrun. That could be resented.”

“But it isn’t?”

“There’s nothing small about the old man. No petty complaints. No sticking his finger in other people’s business. Maybe three-four times in the last eight years he’s been able to foresee trouble and help prevent it. From Chambrun’s point of view, that’s worth the money.” Eddie’s expression changed. He was looking past me into the Trapeze. “You’re about to be tapped for Skull and Bones,” he said.

A hand rested lightly on my shoulder and I turned away from the bar to find myself facing Digger Sullivan. He had already dressed for the evening in a well-cut dinner jacket—and the black glasses were missing. I got my first look at a pair of wide, candid gray eyes. There was a kind of mocking humor in them that failed to hide some much deeper concern or hurt.

“Buy you a drink?” he asked pleasantly.

“It’s the right time of day,” I said, conscious that he was trying hard to read me.

“Martini?” he asked, glancing at my glass on the bar.

“Fine.”

“Send them over to a table, please,” he said to Eddie.

He led the way to a table fairly close to the entrance and we sat down. A waiter brought the martinis. Another passed a tray of hot canapés. When we were alone, Sullivan didn’t beat around the bush.

“How much do you know about me?” he asked.

“I just finished reading a batch of clippings on some trouble of yours,” I said.

“Then you’ve asked yourself why Chambrun didn’t call the police or at least insist on my checking out of this glittering bird cage.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you asked him?”

“No.”

“You accepted his judgment without questions?”

“He’s the boss,” I said.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Then you don’t know why?”

“No.”

“Come, Mr. Haskell, give!” he said, the white smile failing to disguise the anxiety in his eyes.

“Nothing to give,” I said. “Here at the Beaumont we accept Mr. Chambrun’s decisions without quibbles.”

He was a chain smoker, and he put out one cigarette and lit another. “It beats me,” he said. “I suppose I’m being specially watched?”

“I have no idea,” I said. I tried to relax him. “If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you, but actually I don’t know.”

He hunched his shoulders as though he was fighting an actual physical tremor. “Place seems to be all eyes,” he said.

I knew what he meant. He wasn’t talking about the many customers who had drifted into the Trapeze, most of them dressed for the evening. The Trapeze was a way station before they went on to a private party somewhere or to one of the hotel dining areas. Right now the Trapeze was doing a rushing business, Mr. Del Greco, and an assistant captain moving among the tables taking orders. The customers here were, by-and-large, not the new rich. As a whole they were totally unself-conscious. The women were expensively put together, dressed, jeweled. There were more different hair colors than God had ever invented. But these people were not displaying themselves to a gawking public. This was their room, not open to autograph hunters or glamor-struck adolescents. There was a curious blankness to their faces. Eyes rested on Sullivan and me, wondered about us and passed on without changing expression. Not one of those social masks had a crack in them.

They weren’t the eyes Sullivan had referred to.

The eyes he felt were on him belonged to the captains, the waiters, the bartenders, the man at the far end of the bar who might well be part of the security staff—but who wasn’t to my knowledge. Still, he could be. But beyond this, I’d always had the feeling that somewhere—in the ceiling, perhaps—was a master peephole through which Chambrun watched and watched and knew everything about his world.

“Part of what makes the Beaumont what it is,” I told Sullivan, “is the ability of the staff to anticipate everyone’s needs.” With coincidental perfect timing a waiter held a match for Sullivan’s cigarette. I grinned at him. “See what I mean?”

He didn’t answer. He seemed to have frozen where he was sitting, his gray eyes fixed on the entrance. He looked like a man braced for some kind of shock. He stood up and moved slowly around the table. Automatically I rose and turned to look where he was looking.

A young woman had come into the bar and was peering around with wide, obviously near-sighted, eyes. I could hear Sullivan’s breath ease out with a kind of strange whispering sound between his teeth.

The girl was blonde—a rich, golden blonde. She was wearing a marvelously understated black dinner suit in a silk-and-wool material. Under the jacket was a blouse in shocking pink, with a bright-blue jeweled sash providing a perfect accent. Fashion shows are part of my job at the Beaumont, and I would have bet my last buck that this was a Dior creation.

The women in the room might be looking at the clothes, at the white kid gloves, at the elegant black pumps, but the men were having another experience. I think every one of them must have had my impulse—to move quickly forward and ask if I could help. Sex in women presents itself in various guises. There are women who blatantly try to make it apparent. There are those who, without trying, promise adventure.

Then there was this woman. I can only describe her effect on me by saying that I’ve never seen a woman who so obviously would be incomplete without a man. But it would have to be
the
man, a special man, one man. The hazy, near-sighted eyes were deep blue mist biding some inner fire. And I suddenly felt infinitely sad that I could never be
the
man. It was a unique experience, just looking at her. And instinctively, from Sullivan’s reaction, I knew this must be the former Juliet Valmont, now Madame Charles Girard.

She moved forward toward us but aiming somewhere past us in the depths of the room. The absurd notion occurred to me that she was going to pass close enough to us for me to reach out and touch her. I wondered if Sullivan was a blur to her, if she had distinguished his face. I couldn’t be certain she had looked straight at him. I wondered what kind of explosion might take place when she did recognize him.

A kind of sigh went over the room as she started to move. It expressed pleasurable relief. Standing in the entrance, her effect had been magical, but it could have been spoiled by awkward movement or the sound of a harsh voice. Her walk was so graceful that she seemed almost to be floating. As she approached us, I was conscious of an exquisite but delicate perfume. She never once raised her eyes to Sullivan’s face. She had, I thought, failed to recognize him—which could be something of a blessing.

And then she spoke, in a low, husky whisper, without looking at either of us.

“For God’s sake, help me!” she said.

She kept right on going, but I thought I’d never heard such a desperate plea. I actually turned to take a step after her. Was she afraid of someone? Or had it only been the drama inherent in her, and had she simply been having difficulty seeing her way across the room?

That was when I saw the man at a corner table rise and start toward her. He was handsome, hard-faced, about forty, I guessed, with prematurely gray hair and dark, scowling eyebrows. He wasn’t looking at the miracle of a woman who moved toward him. His stare was fixed on Digger Sullivan—Sullivan, who hadn’t turned, who hadn’t moved, who hadn’t given the slightest sign of recognition.

“Who is she joining?” I heard him whisper.

“Gray-haired man—interested in you,” I said.

“Girard,” he said between his teeth with more pent-up hatred than I can describe.

I forced myself to look at him. His face was gray, muscles knotted along his jaw.

“You heard her?” he asked, as though he needed to be assured her words hadn’t been part of a nightmare.

“Yes, I heard her.”

“Oh, God!” he said. Then, without looking at her again, he made for the door, almost running.

I walked slowly over to the bar, leaving two untouched martinis on the table. Eddie gave me an odd look.

“He forgot to pay,” he said.

“I guess he did.”

“Your party? or do I charge it to his room?”

“My party,” I said.

Eddie chuckled. “You can put your eyes back in their sockets,” he said. “Quite a dish, that Mrs. Girard.”

“ ‘Dish’ doesn’t describe her, Edward,” I said. I looked down the room again. She was seated beside her husband, and he was leaning toward her, speaking quickly and obviously angry. She listened, a kind of rigidity taking control of her body.

Charles Girard, I told myself with curious pleasure, was not
the
man.

It is a legend at the Beaumont that Pierre Chambrun never leaves the building, that his summer tan is sunlamp induced, that he would get lost if he went out on the city streets because there have been so many changes in the skyline since he first took over at the Beaumont in the early thirties. It’s not true, of course. He goes out almost every day, and on one or two evenings a week he manages a theatre or the opera in season. His own apartment, on the penthouse level, provides him with plenty of space for summer sunbathing. But his comings and goings are unpreceded by a brass band, and it’s true that his secretary in the day time and the security officer on duty at night always know exactly where he is, down to his seat location in a theatre. So, if there is any trouble at the hotel, Chambrun always seems to be immediately present and in command. When I first came to the Beaumont to work, I was told that I couldn’t make a mistake without Chambrun popping up around the next corner. It was almost true.

That night, however, Chambrun had gone to the theatre to see
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
He was not destined to see it through to the end.