Nightmare Time (19 page)

“A little bit,” I said. “We’ve faced violence here in the hotel before. Chambrun has always said that it was like a small city within a city. The same things will happen here that will happen in any other metropolis. But not to us! You understand that, Romy? While it was a spy story involving the Willises, it wasn’t too far out. Now it involves Chambrun and Betsy Ruysdale, and that’s the foreign language you were talking about. Are they in as much danger as I’m afraid they are, Romy?”

Romy gave me a steady look. “You think they may be tortured and then killed?”

I nodded.

“I’m afraid I think your fears are justified,” Romy said.

“The cold-blooded murder of the Willises, Betsy, and Mr. Chambrun?”

“The stakes are high, Mark. The President’s Star Wars program, if it’s successful, could end up destroying Russia and its millions of people. They think of it as war, and in war you don’t think of killing an enemy as murder.”

“At this point I don’t give a damn about the morality of it,” I said. “I just want my people back safe!”

“They want to protect themselves against what they see as total destruction,” Romy said. “A few lives taken in the process couldn’t matter less to them.”

“You sympathize with that point of view?”

“I sympathize with the masses of people all around the world,” Romy said. “People who want peace, to be able to go about their business unafraid. I don’t think I sympathize with the politicians on either side who see military victory over the other side as the only way of arriving at peace.”

“In a highly complex, scientific technology like the Star Wars program, how can one man have so much knowledge stored in his head that getting him to talk could be so vital?”

Romy shrugged. “Colonel Martin and Captain Zachary may be able to answer that question for you,” he said. “Like where is the fuse box located that can turn on or off all the lights in your house? You don’t have to know how the system works, just how to start it or turn it off. One small bit of information like that could be stored in one man’s head and be enormously important to his enemies.”

Pamela brought coffee in three mugs on a silver tray. She and Romy sat on the couch together, I in an armchair facing them. The coffee was a godsend.

“If Chambrun has arranged for his own disappearance, what could he be aiming at, and where did he find a lead that he wouldn’t pass on to the rest of us—and Hardy and Colonel Martin?”

Romy took a sip of his coffee, reached in his pocket for a cigarette, and lit it before he answered me. “I grew up in a world of intrigue, Mark,” he said. “Understand, not that we don’t live in a world of intrigue here in the United States, here in New York, right next door to the United Nations. But people don’t talk and act as though they were living in a world of secrets. Chambrun may be a little different than the average man.”

“Agreed, but in what way are you talking about?”

“I’ve heard him talk about ‘the Black Days,’” Romy said. “Those were the days when his entire country France, was overrun by terrorists—the Nazis. Who could you trust? Who might be collaborating with the enemy. The end result was that you really trusted no one.”

“What’s that got to do with the Hotel Beaumont in 1986?”

“Let’s say Chambrun stumbles on something that may point to the villain of this piece,” Romy said. “He’s surrounded by hundreds of loyal people, by the press, and by hundreds of others, foreigners and Americans, who could be part of a conspiracy to destroy the Star Wars plans.”

“Americans?”

“My dear Mark, you’re living in a dreamworld if you think there are no Americans who might sell out their country. A Russian spy in West Germany defects to the British and tells all; a British spy goes over the Wall into East Germany and tells all he knows. Why? Maybe just for money, maybe they have genuinely come to disapprove of their own country’s policies. Americans sell out. Those people in the Navy last year—a couple of brothers? Whatever their reasons, misguided assessments of the truth or just plain greed, they are all around us.”

“You’re saying Chambrun doesn’t trust his own people, his own friends?”

“I’m saying he grew up in a violent time when he couldn’t afford to trust anyone,” Romy said.

“If he told me something in confidence, I’d cut out my tongue before I’d betray him,” I said.

Romy clapped his hands together in a mock gesture of applause. “I’m sure you mean that,” he said. “But let me suggest a hypothetical case to you. Suppose Chambrun told you that he had reason to believe that I was the villain you’re all after. He had reason to believe it, but was still looking for proof that would stick. You must keep this a secret until he had more on me. You wouldn’t tell anyone, granted, but how would you act toward me? Would it be as it’s always been, friendly, courteous to a hotel guest, relaxed and at ease? Or would you inadvertently let me know that I was suspected by a look in your eyes, the twitch of a nerve in your cheek, a difference in your whole attitude toward me? You could even be overcordial to hide what you now suspected about me. If I was guilty, I’d be watching for the slightest clue that I was suspected. If you, Chambrun’s closest associate, were changed, I would instantly suspect that Chambrun, who could be dangerous to me, was onto something.”

It made some sense, I thought. “But Chambrun would know what his disappearance is doing to so many of us who are concerned for him,” I said. “It isn’t like him to leave us all stewing over him. He could give us some other explanation for what he’s doing that wouldn’t show his hand—to you, if you were it. If you’re the villain and you haven’t got him, then his disappearance must have you very much on guard.”

“Chambrun would know that,” Romy said. “He’d be waiting for me to make a wrong move, dictated by my suspicion that he was onto me. That may be exactly why he’s pulled a vanishing act—to scare me into making a false move.”

“But that isn’t what you really believe, is it, Romy?” Pamela Smythe asked. They apparently had no secrets from each other.

“No, it isn’t,” Romy said.

“For God’s sake, what do you believe?” I asked.

“I don’t really believe anything,” Romy said. “I’m just guessing.”

“Guessing what?”

“Has it occurred to you, Mark, that Ham Willis—Major Willis—may not be the all-American boy you all think he is? That he is the defector? That he has sold out?”

“No, it hasn’t,” I said. I guess I sounded impatient. “All this stuff about turning the boy loose so he can be used to make Willis talk makes that just about impossible to believe.”

“Does it? Try thinking the way the people in my world might think. Willis has passed on key secrets to the enemy. Sooner or later Intelligence will know that the enemy has those secrets and that they could only have been passed on by Willis. He wants us to think he was forced to talk. He may also want the boy with him when he goes into hiding somewhere. He’s got plenty of people to help him, the fake Father Callahan, the fake Henry Graves, the man with the hat and the dark glasses, and heaven knows how much more.”

“Colonel Martin and Zachary have never suggested such a possibility,” I said.

“Would they want to suggest that one of their own people is a traitor? They’d keep that very much to themselves until they can find Willis and nail him. The name in the trade for traitor in the ranks is a ‘mole.’ It would be a black mark against Martin and his staff if anyone guessed one of their people was a mole. They’d keep it to themselves until they could prove it and hang him.”

“But you are just guessing? You don’t have any real reason to believe that?”

“Who is doing anything else but guessing?” Romy said.

“Except maybe Mr. Chambrun,” Pamela said.

“And he can’t prove it yet, so he’s gone undercover, waiting for someone to make a mistake,” Romy said.

“Willis or one of his people, or maybe the whole Willis theory is phony and it’s somebody else?” I said.

“That’s true,” Romy said. “But don’t abandon the Willis guess, Mark, just because Willis once saved your Mr. Chambrun’s life.”

“If it was Willis,” I said, “why did he have to kill Tim Sullivan, our elevator man? Risk hiding his body?”

Romy shrugged. “Something went wrong. Until it’s laid out for us, we won’t know exactly how Willis wanted it to look.”

IF MY CONFUSION
could be any more complete than it had been, Romy had helped to make it so. The Willis theory was hard to swallow, and yet I couldn’t ignore it. It could be that way, and yet—Chambrun would have had a “gut feeling” about it. He would have bought it or discarded it. I had to worry about it.

Without Chambrun to keep the entire situation in focus, I realized that no one was in charge of the situation on the roof. Victoria Haven, tough old bird that she was, might just about have had it as a babysitter for young Guy Willis.

Betsy Ruysdale, Jerry Dodd, and I were the only people who didn’t need personal clearance from Chambrun when roof security was in effect. I had no difficulty getting from the thirty-ninth floor to the roof, wondering as I went who would give the clearances now. Jerry, I supposed. He was head of security.

As I headed toward Chambrun’s penthouse I was greeted by Mrs. Haven’s “Japanese gentleman friend.” The little spaniel snarled, and then gave me an “Oh, it’s only you” bark. The last vestiges of a late sunset were disappearing in the west. It was almost eight-thirty.

As I should have expected, young Guy Willis was glued to the television set, where endless reports on the crisis in my world were interrupting regular programming. Chambrun’s disappearance was already a news item. Mrs. Haven, watching the last light of what had been a grim day at the west picture window, turned to greet me with an unspoken question.

“Nothing,” I said. “No news of the Boss.”

Her face showed concern, the lines and wrinkles etched a little deeper than usual. The rumor that she and Chambrun had been an older woman-young man item years ago seemed reinforced by her obvious anxiety. She nodded toward the television set at the far end of the room. I don’t think Guy Willis had noticed my arrival—he was so intent on the news broadcast.

“Hope keeps us all going,” Mrs. Haven said. “It’s just about twenty-four hours ago that his parents left him and never came back. When he tries to blot it out with sleep he has that nightmare of his, over and over.”

“His parents being beaten by ‘Father Callahan’ and a man he can’t identify?”

Mrs. Haven nodded. “He tried to force himself to sleep at first,” she said. “He hoped the nightmare would come again and the second man would turn, so that he could see his face. It didn’t happen, and he’s given up. Has no one come up with a sensible guess as to what’s happened to Pierre?”

“Most of us are thinking what we want to think—that the Boss has arranged for his own disappearance.”

“I guess you’d have to count me as a member of that club,” Mrs. Haven said. “But it’s hard for me to believe that Pierre wouldn’t have confided in someone! If he didn’t, it becomes harder and harder to stay optimistic.”

The TV was turned up so high it wasn’t necessary to talk quietly so the boy couldn’t hear. “I’ve come from talking with Romanov,” I said. “He thinks Major Willis may also have arranged for his own disappearance.”

“And that he’s been trying to get the boy free so they’d all be together?” Her painted mouth was a thin red line. “I’ve guessed at that one too, Mark. But why didn’t Willis take the boy with him in the first place? Why leave him behind and then have to go through all this to get him released? At nine o’clock last night they could have all walked out and no one would have paid the slightest attention.”

“To make it look the way it looks,” I said. “That he’s under duress, abducted by someone else.”

“And have to go through the business of murdering Tim Sullivan and kidnapping Betsy, just to make it look as though someone else is involved? That’s too farfetched for me to buy, Mark.”

That’s how it was getting to be for me—too farfetched.

“Are Hardy’s people getting anywhere with Mr. Gary over in Penthouse Three—our ‘Father Callahan’?” she asked.

“I haven’t heard anything,” I told her.

“They’ve been keeping at him,” Mrs. Haven said. “I’ve noticed a change of interrogators every couple of hours. They don’t let up on him for a minute. Does it do to you what it does to me—to know there is a man over there who could give us all the answers? Isn’t there some new fancy way, some new technology, that can pry the truth out of him?”

“I guess the bad guys can be just as tough as the good guys,” I said. “Major Willis won’t talk, and they try to get the boy so they can torture him in front of his father. No drug, no truth serum, no machine. The bad guy can be just as difficult to get to.”

Mrs. Haven turned to the window. Lights were popping on all over the city. “You know, Mark, just before you came I was standing here making two wishes. First, that I was twenty-five years old again, and second, that I was a man.”

“Twenty-five I understand, though if I was wishing I could hope I’d grow old as gracefully as you have,” I said. “But why a man?”

“Because, damn it, I wouldn’t just be sitting here, I’d be
doing
something!” She faced me. “We’ve got the police department, and Military Intelligence, and the CIA, and God knows who else all at work like a herd of elephants trying to catch a garter snake in the back garden! I wish I was twenty-five, and a man with a hero complex! I wouldn’t be tied up in red tape, or procedures, or the law! I’d be out there doing something to rescue Pierre, and Betsy, and the Willises. I’ve been in this room now for hours, holding a little boy’s hand, watching that electric clock on Pierre’s desk ticking off the seconds. Every second that goes by brings us that much closer to complete failure! And I’m just sitting here doing nothing!”

“You’re helping that boy hang on to his courage,” I said. “That’s not nothing.”

“While Pierre and Betsy and the Willises are waiting for some jerk’s patience to run out! That boy won’t want to live if his parents are dead. I won’t want to live if Pierre, my last real friend still alive, is dead. Now, if I was twenty-five, a man, and a hero, I’d turn that boy loose, and I’d see where they take him, and I’d rescue the hostages! I couldn’t fail if I was twenty-five—and a man!”