Shape of fear, p.3
Shape of Fear, page 3
“Digger Sullivan?” I asked.
A shadow crossed Murray Cardew’s face. The nickname offended him. “Michael Digby Sullivan,” he corrected me. “A figure of some prominence in the world of auto racing and automotive engineering. Monsieur Bernardel is a manufacturer of automobiles and a member of a distinguished French family. Sullivan, on the other hand, though the possessor of great charm, has no family background. His father was an Irish soldier-of-fortune, a war hero of sorts, but no family. His mother—well, to be quite frank, his mother was a film actress. Talented, I’m told, but her father ran a hardware store somewhere in Idaho—or was it Iowa?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know which it was, sir.”
“No matter. Sullivan has no political or social connections. In the ordinary course of events he would not sit at the head table. But this is the one request Monsieur Bernardel has made; he wants his friend Sullivan at his right hand. Most awkward.”
“Why, sir?”
Murray Cardew looked at me as though I wasn’t quite bright. “The table will seat eight people, Mr. Haskell. Monsieur Bernardel and Sullivan make two; Monsieur and Madame Delacroix make four; the Princess Baragrave, the former Mabel Grovesnor, and her sister, Miss Eileen Grovesnor, are designed to be the dinner partners of Monsieur Bernardel and Sullivan, and they make six. Now we come to the problem. By diplomatic protocol, the seventh and eight guests at that table should be Monsieur and Madame Charles Girard, Monsieur Girard being the equivalent of our attorney general in the French government.”
“Wow!” I said.
The old man’s eyes twinkled. “Not elegantly put, Mr. Haskell, but yes—wow!”
“So you put the Girards somewhere else,” I said.
“Precisely where you come into the picture, Mr. Haskell”
“I?”
“My being involved at all, Haskell, is due to my long friendship with Monsieur Delacroix. I was asked to assist the social secretary from the French Embassy in seating the guests. They are preponderantly Americans, and I, not immodestly, suggest that I can place them without coming up with any embarrassing combinations. But the matter of the head table is the social secretary’s prerogative. He is a cold young man, one Jean LaCoste. He takes a rigid stand in matters of protocol. He is aware of the complications …”
“That Sullivan was accused of the murder of Madame Girard’s father?” I asked. “That Bernardel cleared Sullivan? That Girard was the prosecutor and that both he and his wife publicly stated they believed Sullivan’s alibi was false and that they’d eventually prove it?”
“I see you are quite up to date,” Murray Cardew said, a thin smile under his white mustache. “Interesting combination of personalities, wouldn’t you say?”
“Impossible,” I said. “Surely Mr. Bernardel understands this. If the Girards must be at the table, he could arrange to see his friend Sullivan later—some other time, some other place.”
“For Monsieur Bernardel, it must be said he had requested Sullivan’s presence before he knew the Girards were involved. When he was told, he refused to alter his request. He felt it would appear he was withdrawing his support from Sullivan.”
“And the Girards? Surely they’d prefer not to be at the table.”
“Monsieur Girard, like our young friend the social secretary, believes that men in public life must be governed by rigid discipline. He would like not to be at the table, but to request a change would be to confess to some sort of weakness. An absurd point of view, but there it is.”
“So nobody has any fun,” I said.
“Precisely. A ghastly evening for everyone at the head table.”
“Well, if nobody will give …”
“Then,” said Murray Caŗdew, “we must override them.”
“How?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Haskell. The procedure of the evening is as follows. To start with, there are place cards on all the tables.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When the guests arrive, there is a reception in the Colonnade’s anteroom. When the guests are ready to move into the ballroom and to take their places at the tables surrounding the dance floor, they are handed a printed seating list at the door; they examine it to discover which table is theirs and go on in. Am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The place cards and these printed lists are being handled by the hotel, are they not?”
“Yes, sir. Part of my job.”
Murray Cardew nodded, smiling. “On the seating lists, Mr. Haskell, we will place the Girards at Table Number Six instead of Table Number One. We will place Geoffrey Saville, the British racing driver, and his wife at Table Number One in their place.”
“But this fellow LaCoste, the social secretary, will spot that the minute he sees the lists.”
“Ah, that is where you come in, Haskell. He will not see the lists. You are going to fall down on the job, sir.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are going to—to ‘fumble the ball,’ to use a slang expression, Haskell. Those printed lists will not arrive until the very last moment—some mix-up you will tell LaCoste when he demands to see them. He will have no choice but to check the tables themselves. There he will find the place cards exactly as he wants them. But the moment he has checked, Haskell, you—or someone you delegate for the job—will switch the place cards so that they match the lists which will now, magically, appear. The Saville’s at Table One, the Girards at Table Six. By the time everyone is seated and Monsieur LaCoste discovers what has happened, he will not make a scene. It would be impolite to the guest of honor. He will undoubtedly demand that you be discharged.”
“That’s just great,” I said.
Murray Cardew’s smile widened. “I think you can consider your position secure, Haskell, since it was Pierre Chambrun, your immediate superior, who suggested this device to me.”
So much for Mr. Murray Cardew.
And so much for that Machiavellian gent who countersigns my weekly paycheck.
THREE
OFFICIALLY 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.
