Bargain with Death Read online

  Bargain with Death

  A Pierre Chambrun Mystery

  Hugh Pentecost

  Contents

  Part One

  1

  2

  3

  Part Two

  1

  2

  3

  Part Three

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Preview: Time of Terror

  Part One

  1

  EVERY TIME THE LITTLE red button blinked on my office telephone, I felt a surge of anger rising in me. There had been no little red button until a month ago. When it blinked, it said, in effect, “Drop anything you’re doing, no matter what, and report on the double!” Yes, sir, you sonofabitch—sir!

  Like probably a hundred other people who worked at the Hotel Beaumont, my job was a day-to-day thing. It could end tomorrow by edict, or because I couldn’t stand it any longer, told Johnny-baby Sassoon what I thought of him, and went somewhere on a six-day drunk. Chambrun had quit a month ago on the day when Johnny-baby suggested that we have topless cigarette girls in the Spartan Bar.

  I say Chambrun quit, but that isn’t quite accurate. He raised such hell with Papa Sassoon about the whole setup that Joshua Wilfred Sassoon fired him at the cost of about half a million dollars, the balance due on an unexpired ten-year contract. Pierre Chambrun, the Beaumont’s legendary manager, was gone but not forgotten. He wasn’t very far away, but he could have been in Egypt as far as the hotel’s employees were concerned. There are three penthouses on the roof of the Beaumont, known until the arrival of Johnny-baby as the world’s top luxury hotel, and two floors of duplex apartments that are cooperatively owned. One of the penthouses belongs to Chambrun, and while Joshua Wilfred Sassoon could fire him as manager, he couldn’t remove him from the premises. Penthouse C was Chambrun’s private property, his home, his castle. He had retired there, he told us, to write his memoirs.

  The little red button blinked insistently.

  I got up from my desk, slowly, and started along the corridor to what had been Chambrun’s suite of offices. Johnny-baby, damn him, had set himself up in what had once been the holy-of-holies, Chambrun’s private office.

  If you happen to be one of those people who has read some of the accounts I have written of Pierre Chambrun’s activities, you will know that George Battle, who called himself the second richest man in the world and who owned the Beaumont, got himself into very big trouble and is even now fighting, with all his resources, to keep himself out of jail for the rest of his unnatural life. One of his first moves was to liquidate all of his assets, the proceeds, one assumes, to go into numbered Swiss bank accounts from where they could be siphoned off to him in some country from which he couldn’t be extradited—if it came to that. He sold the Beaumont to Joshua Wilfred Sassoon, who was at least the third richest man in the world, lock, stock and barrel. J. W. Sassoon had no interest in running a hotel, but he wanted something to occupy the nonexistent talents of his son Johnny. So he turned over the magnificent Beaumont to Johnny as a toy. The topless cigarette girls are an example of Johnny’s notions of “modernizing” the Beaumont. Chambrun balked and was fired. Most of us on the staff wanted to go with him, but he urged us to stay on and “see what happens.” The Beaumont was a living, breathing thing to him; I think he couldn’t bear to have her in entirely strange hands.

  I walked into the outer office and found myself faced by the miniskirted tootsie who was Johnny-baby’s secretary—at least. She looked strangely as if her makeup had slipped.

  “Thank goodness you’re here, Mr. Haskell,” she said. She waved me to the private office.

  I honestly hated to go through the door. The thick Persian rug was gone. The carved Florentine desk was gone. The blue-period Picasso was gone. The sideboard with the Turkish coffee maker was gone. Worst of all, Chambrun was gone.

  The idiot boy sat at a very modern chrome-decorated desk, surrounded by framed originals of the center-fold girls from Playboy magazine, drinking what had to be a very stiff Scotch-on-the-rocks. It was ten-thirty in the morning.

  Johnny-baby is a tall, athletically built young man, with reddish brown hair. He has a kind of round baby face, tanned a beautiful mahogany color. He is, I regret to say, handsome, and he has a wide engaging smile and brown eyes that invite friendship. He looked sick that morning.

  “Thank you for coming, Mark,” he said.

  “It’s my job to come when you send for me,” I said.

  He looked as if I’d hurt him, which pleased me.

  “My father is dead,” he said.

  In my state of mind about the Sassoon family I couldn’t feel sorry, but I said I did.

  “It appears to have been a heart attack,” Johnny-baby said. He took a big swig of his Scotch. “I need your help, Mark.”

  “With the press?” I asked. I am the public relations man for the Beaumont. Any press releases originate with me.

  “Not yet,” Johnny-baby said. He lit a cigarette and his hands shook. “The maid found him and reported it to the housekeeper on the ninth floor, a Mrs. Kniffin. Mrs. Kniffin called me and I went right up there.”

  J. W. Sassoon had taken two adjoining suites on the ninth floor. He was staying with us while Johnny-baby cut his teeth on the Beaumont.

  “My father was lying on his bed,” Johnny-baby said. “He—he was not wearing anything.”

  I thought that must have been a sight. The old man had weighed about two hundred and eighty pounds of pure blubber.

  “My father always slept in the raw,” Johnny-baby said. “I mean, there was nothing odd about his being nude. But—but the bed was all rumpled up, and—Mark, can I tell you something in confidence?”

  “Look, Johnny, did you have some doubt about how your father died?” He was my boss, but I was damned if I’d call him Mr. Sassoon.

  “Oh, he had a chronic heart condition. I don’t think there can be any doubt. The thing that bothers me—well, here it is. On the floor beside the bed was a black lace brassiere, a pair of black lace panties, a pair of black satin bedroom slippers, and a black lace negligee.”

  What a way to go, I thought.

  “So your father passed out, the lady panicked, and she—” I looked at him. “Ran out of the suite stark naked?”

  “There wasn’t any other sign of a woman being there, except a cigarette stub in the bedside ash tray,” Johnny-baby said. “Lipstick.”

  I had an irreverent picture of old J. W. Sassoon and an elaborate call girl. Oh, you can find call girls even in a posh place like the Beaumont. She slips into “something comfortable” and then slips out. But leave her calling card behind in the form of the black regalia?

  “You want me to cover up this aspect of the story for you if I can?” I asked Johnny-baby. “Or have you already spirited away the lady’s undies?”

  His eyes looked a little glassy. “It was too late for that,” he said. “The maid and Mrs. Kniffin had both seen them.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you they might have a price?” I asked him, feeling contemptuous. Johnny-baby must have been raised on the theory that every man has his price.

  Johnny shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked, mildly surprised. “What makes them different?”

  He looked straight at me and there was pain in his brown eyes. “I don’t think they like me,” he said. “Nobody around here likes me, though God knows I’ve tried. Would you take a bribe to do something for me, Mark?”

  I could have gotten smart-assed and asked him how big a bribe. Instead I just said, “No.”

  Johnny-baby looked down at the empty drink in front of him. “So I can only ask for your help and hope,” he said. />
  “Have you notified the police?” I asked him.

  “Not yet.”

  “For Christ sake, man!”

  “I had to figure out what to do. That’s why I need your help, Mark.”

  “Look,” I said, impatient. “Your father dies in bed with a hooker. The medical examiner will determine that he had a heart condition and died of it. But you have to go through that routine.”

  “It may not have been a heart attack.”

  “But you said—?”

  “I know what I said, Mark.” He twisted in his chair. “But it may not have been.”

  “Did you even have the house doctor see him?”

  “Not yet.” He turned his head from side to side.

  “What are you, a doctor yourself or something? Are you even sure he’s dead?”

  “No doubt of that,” Johnny-baby said. “I was in Vietnam for two years. I know a dead man when I see one.”

  “Well, that’s something. So let’s get Doc Partridge up to Suite 912 and send for the cops.”

  “No.”

  I shrugged. “So I don’t know any other advice or help to give you, man.”

  He looked up at me, quite steady now. “You think I’m a jerk,” he said, “and you think my father was a jerk. We’ve stupidly turned your world upside-down. I was sitting here this morning, just before Mrs. Kniffin called me, wondering if I crawled on my knees to Mr. Chambrun and kissed his foot if he would come back and run the hotel again.”

  Well, I thought. Well!

  “I was an ignorant, presumptuous bastard to think I could do it. My father didn’t care whether I could or not. I wanted it, so he gave it to me. Now everybody is laughing at me and hating me at the same time. I deserve it.”

  It was the damndest thing. Suddenly I liked him. “Look, Johnny, you’ve got trouble and there are certain routines you have to go through. I’ll handle them for you if you say so. I can’t answer for Chambrun, but I think he’d agree if he thinks you mean it.”

  “I’d offer him a new ten-year contract,” Johnny said. “But first—”

  Strings, I thought. Chambrun wouldn’t go for any strings.

  “First you have to understand what my trouble is, Mark. I knew my father inside-out, his quirks, his idiosyncrasies. He never had a call girl in his room; never in this world.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I know him—knew him.” His voice broke slightly. “He could throw his weight around in corporations and governments. He could buy power. He could do incredible things like spend millions of dollars to buy me a toy, like the Beaumont. He could afford that. But there were certain rules he lived by. When it came to women and sex, he was a rigid puritan. It would have disgusted him to be involved with a professional whore.”

  “So he decided to try it once before it was too late,” I said.

  “Never! Absolutely not.”

  “So what do you think happened?”

  “Somebody tried to frame him,” Johnny-baby said. “Maybe he got so angry it brought on an attack. Maybe he tried, physically, to protect himself.”

  “What good would it do them to frame him after he was dead?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out before the police come into the picture and draw easy conclusions about it. I thought maybe Mr. Chambrun would have a look at things before we brought in the law. I know he has a reputation for handling difficult situations here in the hotel. Would you tell him I want him back—for keeps? Would you tell him I need his help, need it desperately?”

  “I think maybe you’re going to have to tell him that yourself,” I said.

  Johnny Sassoon shook his head. “I’m going to stay with my father,” he said. “I’ve left him alone too long.”

  Pierre Chambrun is a short, dark, square little man with black eyes buried in deep pouches that can be compassionate, twinkle with humor, or turn as cold as a hanging judge’s. For years the Beaumont has been his kingdom, a small city within the walls of one building, with its own shops, restaurants, bars, luxury boutiques, hospital units, safety deposit vaults, ballrooms, convention quarters, police force. The staff is Chambrun-trained, Chambrun-efficient. Some people think he has some sort of private radar system, magic eyes in the back of his head. He knows exactly what is going on in his world at every moment of the day and night. It isn’t really magic. His people are trained to report to him on the instant anything even slightly out of the usual is happening anywhere in the Beaumont. An incredible loyalty makes it all work with Swiss watch efficiency.

  When I got to Penthouse C that morning, Chambrun already knew that J. W. Sassoon was dead. I suspected Mrs. Kniffin had been his eyes and ears.

  Miss Ruysdale, Chambrun’s incomparable secretary, met me at the front door.

  She smiled at me. “Mr. Chambrun is waiting for you,” she said. Betsy Ruysdale is a handsome, beautifully turned out woman in her midthirties. Normally she presides in the office where Johnny-baby had his miniskirted tootsie. She protects Chambrun from unnecessary irritations, appears to be able to read his mind, and there is a persistent rumor that she may take care of much more personal needs. He calls her Ruysdale, never Betsy or Miss Ruysdale. Only once, when she was in danger, have I seen him be anything but impersonal about her. Yet we on the staff wondered about them.

  “J. W. Sassoon is dead,” I told her.

  “He knows, Mark.”

  Of course he would, I thought. I found him in the little paneled study off his living room. The inevitable cup of Turkish coffee, an incredibly vile brew, was by his hand and he was smoking one of his flat Egyptian cigarettes.

  “Took you long enough,” he said.

  “Johnny-baby had me in his office,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Do you also know that he wants you back, will give you a new ten-year contract, and needs your help?” I said, expecting some sign of surprise. I was disappointed.

  “It took him longer than I expected,” Chambrun said. “What kind of help?”

  I told him. He stood up, trying, I thought, not to show too much eagerness at the prospect of getting back into the saddle. He walked out to where Miss Ruysdale stood, still smiling.

  “Have Eric bring over the new contract for Sassoon to sign,” he said.

  “It’s already here, Mr. Chambrun.”

  Chambrun looked at me, his eyes dancing in their pouches. “Let’s get down to 912,” he said.

  As always he had been way ahead of the game.

  When we reached the ninth floor, we found Jerry Dodd, the Beaumont’s chief security officer, waiting outside 912. Jerry is a shrewd, dark, wiry little man who is, I suspect, next to Miss Ruysdale, Chambrun’s most trusted aide. I like to think I rate Number Three.

  “Young Sassoon’s in there with the body,” Jerry said. “He hasn’t called the police or had Doc Partridge up to look. He’s about as flaky as they come.”

  “Not so flaky,” Chambrun said, smiling. “It may interest you to know that I’m back on the job.”

  “Hallelujah!” Jerry said.

  Chambrun rang the bell and a moment or two later Johnny opened the door for us. He led us back into the living room of 912.

  “I’m grateful to you for coming, Mr. Chambrun,” he said. “Did Mark tell you—?”

  “The new contract is waiting for you to sign when we’re through here,” Chambrun said. It was so very cold and abrupt that even Chambrun felt it. “We can talk about it, Johnny. I’m glad to help.”

  We went into the bedroom where the huge body of J. W. Sassoon lay on the king-sized double bed, somehow grotesque in its nakedness. I saw the missing lady’s working clothes lying on the floor.

  Chambrun moved in a slow circle around the bed, like an animal suspicious of some sort of hidden trap. I found myself staring at the dead man’s jowly face. He had died with that face contorted by pain or anger, it was hard to tell which.

  Jerry Dodd had picked up the telephone by the bed, covering
it first with his handkerchief. I heard him ask for Mrs. Veach, our daytime switchboard supervisor. He wanted a list of out-calls from the suite. He turned to us while he waited.

  “If he arranged to have some hooker come to his room, he may have phoned for her from here,” Jerry said.

  Johnny-baby, looking stricken, shook his head. “He never sent for a girl. He never dreamed of having a girl. I would swear to that.”

  Jerry gave him a patient grin. “She was here,” he said.

  Mrs. Veach evidently came back on with a couple of numbers for Jerry. She obviously went on talking after the two numbers she gave him were written down. Jerry listened, frowning. He thanked her and put down the phone.

  “Mrs. Veach thinks this instrument is bugged,” he said. “They’ve noticed some kind of interference on it for the last few days.”

  “Why didn’t she report it?” Chambrun asked, his voice sharp.

  Jerry glanced at the miserable Johnny-baby. The glance asked why she should have reported it and who she should have reported it to? What went on with the Sassoons was the Sassoons’ business.

  “Check it,” Chambrun said.

  Jerry began unscrewing the mouthpiece of the phone. I saw Chambrun pick up the missing lady’s negligee.

  Jerry gave with a low whistle. He had the phone apart. “Bugged all right,” he said. Chambrun came over to look. “Sophisticated little gadget.”

  “Tiny radio transmitter,” Chambrun said.

  “It would pick up whatever was said on the phone,” Jerry said, “and anything else that was said in this room. Someone somewhere else in the hotel, or anywhere within a block of here, could listen.”

  “Why?” Johnny Sassoon asked. It was like a cry of pain.

  Jerry shrugged. “Your ball game,” he said.

  A faraway look had come into Chambrun’s eyes. He had been holding the black negligee close to his face. He held it away from him now. “Nobody ever wore this thing,” he said. “No perfume. No body scent.” He bent down and picked up the other items, including the black satin slippers. He turned the slippers over so we could see the soles. “Never worn. Not a scratch on them.” He looked at Johnny. “The lady may have intended to wear these things for your father, but she never got around to it.”