Walking Dead Man (3 page)

“It’s just possible,” Chambrun said, scowling. “Butler breaks into the room, the gunman runs out through the bathroom, doubles back past the door through which Butler has gone, and makes it out to the vestibule.”

“The minute the shot was fired my man on the roof nearest the door stepped into the vestibule,” Jerry said, “twenty seconds, maybe. He looked at the elevator indicator and saw that the car was down in the lobby.”

“Fire stairs,” Chambrun said.

“Bolted on the inside,” Jerry said. “You can’t leave by the fire door and lock it behind you.”

“He got across the roof to the next penthouse,” I said.

“Only just possible. My two men outside were standing by, guns drawn. I say ‘possible’ only because there isn’t any other way.”

“Your men weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing,” I said.

Jerry gave me a bitter little smile. “I’ll be denying that to the cops and the District Attorney for the next month. I know those guys.”

The door to the bedroom opened and Dr. Cobb came out. The fat man was wearing a food-stained dressing gown. He found a cigarette in a torn pocket and lit it with unsteady hands.

“He wants you in there, Edward, sitting beside his bed,” Cobb said to the bodyguard. “You better hold his hand nicely, Edward. You don’t smell like roses to him right now.”

Butler went into the bedroom, muttering something about this being an effing injustice world. Dr. Cobb’s watery eyes were roving anxiously around the room. I knew the look of an alcoholic desperate for a drink.

“Liquor in that Chinese cabinet, Doctor,” Chambrun said.

“God bless you,” Cobb said. He opened the cabinet and poured himself five fingers of Jack Daniels in a highball glass. He tossed it down like water. “Lifesaver,” he said.

“The patient?” Chambrun asked.

“He’s never as sick as he appears to be,” Cobb said. “But he had the bewadding scared out of him, Mr. Chambrun. That bullet missed him by inches. I’ve given him a sedative. He’ll sleep presently, scared or not.” he took a deep, wheezing breath. “Puzzling thing. The man wanted to kill him, yet when the light came on and he had a clear shot at him, he only fired once, missing.”

“Maybe he thought he’d frighten him to death,” I said.

Jerry Dodd gave me an odd look. “Maybe when the light went on he saw he had the wrong man,” he said.

Chambrun’s heavy lids lifted.

“Not very many people knew that you wouldn’t be sleeping in your bed tonight, boss,” Jerry said. “When he saw it wasn’t you, he managed to jerk off that first shot a little wild and went away. How does it go? ‘Come again another day’?”

Dr. Cobb reached for the Jack Daniels bottle.

One thing you don’t do with Chambrun in a serious situation that involves the hotel is make jokes. I was a little tight, angry over Battle’s desire to have Shelda make a sex movie, and thinking everything was pretty comic about this two-yacht, two-chef, two-Cadillac tycoon. I’d been prepared to believe this whole thing was some kind of psychotic charade—until Jerry said what he did. Jerry was making a serious suggestion.

Chambrun didn’t comment. His eyes were hidden again, deep in their pouches.

Jerry didn’t let go of his idea. “Any minute now we’re going to be swarmed under by cops,” he said. “Homicide cops, assistant
D.A.
’s maybe the
D.A
. himself. Mr. George Battle is the richest man in the world.”

“The second richest,” Dr. Cobb wheezed. He’d poured himself a second massive slug of bourbon.

“Newspapers, the media,” Jerry said. “Everybody’s going to be digging into the Battle history: how he got so rich, how much of the world he controls, the hotel in detail, his love life, his health, who hates him, who could have a motive for trying to kill him. And all the while some character is hanging around the fringes waiting to take a second shot at you, boss.”

Chambrun’s smile was wry. “So how did I get so rich, how much of the world do I control, what about my love life, my health, and who hates me.”

“I’m not laughing,” Jerry said. “Let me say that it’s a miracle this guy got in here and got out again. There’s only one realistic way it could have been done.”

“The fire stairs,” Chambrun said.

“Right. Someone who knows the hotel in detail. Someone who came up here earlier in the day and threw the bolt on the fire stairs door. I didn’t check it personally when I came up here. I’m afraid I took it for granted. It was a way into the vestibule that we may have overlooked.”

“And how did he get through the front door?”

“Someone connected with the staff, planning long in advance, could have gotten a duplicate key made. From the housekeeper’s set.”

“And how did he get past Butler, sitting outside the bedroom door with a gun in his lap?” Chambrun asked.

“Human fallibility,” Jerry said. “Butler will deny it with his dying breath, but he could have fallen asleep.”

“Wouldn’t this killer of yours have been surprised to find a bodyguard outside my door, if he knows so much about the hotel and me?”

“It’s a good question,” Jerry admitted.

“And the three men on the roof?”

“If he came by the fire stairs, he’d have no reason to know they were there. Look, boss. Take it seriously. The guy is after you. He’s planned a way to get in. He finds a guy sitting outside your bedroom door, asleep, a gun in his lap. He’s puzzled, but he’s in. He decides not to blow it. He tiptoes down the hall, into the bathroom, through it to the bedroom. He knows the layout. He knows where your bed is located in the room. He’s going to pour lead into where the pillow ought to be. Then the light goes on. His finger is on the trigger and he squeezes. But a fraction of a second of light shows him it’s not you in the bed. The shot misses. He cries out in surprise and splits. But there’s a silver lining to every cloud. Nobody’s going to be looking for him. They’re going to be looking for someone who might want to rub out George Battle. So he waits for another good moment. You don’t take it seriously, boss, and you’re a walking dead man.”

“What do you want me to do?” Chambrun asked. “Lock myself in my office until you pin the tail on this donkey?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say yes to that,” Jerry said. “I want to cover you every minute, day and night. If there’s an intelligent cop on the case, I want to alert him to the fact he’s looking for the wrong guy. Let Mark and Betsy Ruysdale run your routine errands for you so I can keep you covered. I want to check out on every guest in the hotel and recheck the entire staff, along with a list of people that may have been fired in the last year.” Jerry ran slender fingers through his sleek, dark hair. “I want to keep you safe, boss.”

“Thanks for being concerned, Jerry,” Chambrun said, “but if I have to walk around my own hotel scared, I might just as well be dead. What am I supposed to do, say ‘Please, sir, may I go to the bathroom?”

“Stubborn bastard!” Jerry said.

Chambrun smiled, “At least that makes you sound less like a mother hen.”

The doorbell rang, and a moment later we were inundated by cops, police photographers, a young man from the
D.A.
’s office. In the confusion Jerry had me by the arm.

“Get hold of Betsy Ruysdale,” he said. “She’d be intuitive about anyone who might want to get the boss.”

“You believe that’s the way it is?” I asked.

“I’m not going to risk its being any other way,” he said.

For a few moments the elements of a mad comedy stayed with us. Dr. Cobb, his stained dressing gown drawn around him like a toga, was blocking the way into the bedroom.

“You can’t go in there,” he told two plainclothes cops who were trying to push him aside. His cigarette bobbed up and down between his flabby lips.

“That’s where it’s at!” one of the cops shouted at him.

“The man in there is my patient,” Dr. Cobb said. “It would be dangerous to his survival for you all to go barging in there. I must forbid it.”

“Out of the way, dad,” one of the cops said.

“I think you better think about it,” Chambrun said. There was authority in his voice that made the two plainclothes men turn his way. “I’m Pierre Chambrun, the hotel manager. The doctor is right. Mr. Battle is suffering from shock. He might not survive any more excitement.”

“You might be guilty of murder,” Dr. Cobb said. He couldn’t say any more because he appeared to be choking to death on cigarette smoke.

At that point Allerton, wearing a neat, white houseman’s coat, appeared in the door from the kitchen. “Would anyone care for coffee?” he asked.

I draw the curtain there.

There is only one elevator that goes all the way up to the penthouse level. The rest stop at the twenty-fourth floor. Jerry Dodd had commandeered the penthouse car so that no one not wanted at the top could get there. The main stairway and the fire stairs were blocked off by Jerry’s men.

I had sobered up rather abruptly and I wasn’t laughing any more. Jerry’s theory that Chambrun was the real target had helped the sobering process. Jerry and Chambrun would probably be embroiled with cops and the
D.A.
’s man for the next hour or so and I figured I could get things rolling. I could locate Miss Ruysdale and start checking out on the list of guests to see if there were any suggestive names on it.

I went down the stairway to the twenty-fourth floor and was let out by Jerry’s men. That’s as far as I got for a while. The corridor I walked into was jammed with people. I recognized several newspapermen who’d, somehow, gotten the word. There were rubberneckers, and some employees, and a little way off I saw Maxie Zorn, Peter Potter, the four-foot Mephisto, and Shelda.

I had a time fighting my way to them. The reporters were all over me. I tried “no comment” for a while, but I saw I wasn’t going to get out of there alive with that, so I held up my hand for silence and, miraculously, got it.

“I’m not authorized to make any kind of statement,” I said. “But I can tell you that someone took a shot at George Battle and missed. Battle isn’t physically hurt, but he’s in shock.”

“Who was it?”

“Have they got him?”

“The cops have only just arrived,” I told them.

“You don’t know who it was, Mark? He got away?”

“So help me, no answers yet,” I said.

By then Maxie Zorn had me by the coat lapels. “I’ve got to get to him, Haskell,” he said. “If he’s in any kind of danger, we’ve got to settle our deal.”

Potter, the dwarf, looked up at me, his brown eyes dancing. “Your money or your life—in that order,” he said. “Someone really shot at him?”

“Really. Missed by about six inches,” I said. “I’d have bet my best silk shirt he wouldn’t have survived that.”

“He may not,” I said.

“Oh, God, I’ve got to get to him,” Zorn said. “Can’t you explain to those creeps on the door that I have to get to him?”

“Every man is said to have his price,” I said. “You could try.”

“I think I could be helpful to him,” Shelda said.

I let myself look at her for the first time. “How were Golden Boy’s etchings?” I asked her.

“Oh Mark, you idiot!”

“Sorry, friends, I have work to do,” I said.

There was no trouble getting to the down-elevator. Everyone and his brother was trying to come up. As I stepped into the car, I realized that Shelda was with me.

“There’s no point in pretending we’re strangers, Mark,” she said.

“Who’s pretending?” I said. I felt butterflies in my stomach. I knew I didn’t care who’d been shot at or who was in danger. I wanted her so badly it hurt.

The car started its noiseless descent. I had pressed the second-floor button. Chambrun’s office and my apartment were both located on two. Shelda stood across the car from me. She was wearing a pale blue dinner dress of some kind of shiny material that seemed to fit her lovely figure like a glove. She was carrying a silver evening bag and there was a gardenia pinned to her shoulder which, I told myself bitterly, must have been put there by Golden Boy. I wasn’t making much sense, you understand, with an attempted murder upstairs and Chambrun in danger. I wanted to hurt her.

“Did you have to strip down so David-baby could see whether you meet his specifications?” I asked.

“There doesn’t seem to be much point in trying to talk to you,” she said, her eyes averted.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Among other things I’d wanted to tell you how very glad I am to see you, Mark. Evidently that doesn’t matter to you.”

Of course it mattered like hell, but I was still involved in playing the jealous adolescent. “It’s a great opportunity for any girl,” I said, “the chance to roll around in the hay with David-baby.”

“I haven’t said yes,” she said, still not looking at me.

“I have news for you. Zorn will raise the price to a quarter of a million if you play hard to get.”

“There doesn’t seem to be much point in trying to talk to you about it,” she said. “Please, tell me what happened upstairs.”

I told her, winding up with Jerry’s fear that the attack had really been meant for Chambrun. She listened, frowning that intense little frown that always reminded me of a small child puzzling over an arithmetic problem about apples and oranges.

The car had stopped at the second floor and the doors opened.

“I think maybe I should talk to you and Mr. Chambrun,” Shelda said, “no matter how distasteful that may be for you.” She walked out of the car and down the corridor toward Chambrun’s office.

My intention had been to look up Miss Ruysdale’s private, unlisted home phone number, so that she could be gotten to work on our guest list as Jerry had suggested. I should have known better. Miss Ruysdale was at her desk in the outer office when Shelda and I walked in. I’ll never know whether she has some secret organization that alerts her to everything, or whether she is just plain psychic when it comes to Chambrun and his needs. Ruysdale is on the tall side, with dark red hair, thick, cut short, and worn like a duck-tailed cap. She has a straight nose, a high forehead and cheekbones, and a wide mouth. She is almost classically beautiful. She is, I know, all woman but she affects an almost male severity in her dress and manner. Chambrun would want his secretary to be attractive, but not some doll who would have all the male staff salivating over her. I suspect Ruysdale may be the most interesting woman I know, but I’ve never been able to penetrate beyond her efficient, friendly-but-impersonal office manner.