Shape of Fear (11 page)

She could have asked me anything and I would have given it to her. I wondered how I would feel if I knew that she loved me and that I could never have her.

“Maybe it would be easier for him not to know,” I heard myself say. “Was that what you meant yesterday when you asked for help? You wanted him to help you make the chance to tell him this?”

“You heard!” she said.

“You were closer to me then than you are now.”

She turned back from the windows, wondering, trying to guess about me. “You could help, Mr. Haskell.”

“Name it,” I said.

“Make Digger believe what I will tell him.”

“That you love him?”

She shook her head, a kind of desperate movement. “I can make him believe that, Mr. Haskell. But can I persuade him to go away from here—quickly, today? When he knows I believe in him, can I persuade him to give up looking for my father’s murderer? Because if he doesn’t, Mr. Haskell, they’ll get rid of him. He’s too dangerous to them. And he can’t win. They won’t let him win. He wants to prove something to me. It’s been proved. Charles has proved it. Help me to persuade him, Mr. Haskell, that he must drop it there.”

“You and your husband know who killed your father?” I asked.

“A nameless, faceless, unimportant gunman,” she said. “A paid killer. It is the people who paid him who are dangerous. About them we have no proof. Digger must drop it, because every move he makes is watched. If he should happen to stumble on real evidence, he would be dead before he could open his mouth to speak. Help me, Mr. Haskell. Digger is a romantic—committed to heroism. I pray that if he knows I believe him, he’ll have no reason to go on hunting for the truth.”

I had no chance to promise. The door to my office burst open and there was Digger.

“Juliet!” he cried out.

They stood facing each other across the room. It was as if they were frozen in place, unable to move toward each other. I thought I’d never seen two people so completely in need of each other.

“I’ll be outside,” I said.

“Thanks,” Digger said, without looking at me.

I went out into the reception room. Shelda was staring wide-eyed at the closed door to my office.

“So that was it!” she said.

“What was ‘it’?”

“Old Mark Cupid,” she said laughing. “I didn’t know you had that much romance in you, boss-man.”

It was a shattering moment for those two in the other office. It was the first time they had spoken words to each other since that day in the French magistrate’s court nearly three years before, not counting Juliet’s whispered words in the Trapeze Bar the night before. One night they had been deeply in love and eternally promised to each other. The next day murder and hatred and revenge had come between them. Now they were together again, but with the hopeless barrier of Charles Girard between them.

Digger told me later what went on between them.

They just stood there, a room separating them, not speaking. Being there with Juliet was like having new blood pumped into his veins, Digger told me. Finally he managed to speak, sounding as though she was a stranger.

“You sent for me, Juliet,” he said.

“I sent for you?”

“I got your message,” Digger said.

“But—but I didn’t send you a message,” Juliet said. “I got
your
message.”

“I didn’t send a message,” he said.

She moved quickly across the room to him. “You must get out of here, Digger …”

“Wait! I …”

“Don’t you see? Someone has brought us together for a reason. I want to see you. I want to talk to you. But not now. Not here! Someone’s tricked us into being here at the same time. Please—don’t stop to talk now. Just go!”

She put her hands on his chest and tried to push him toward the door. Touching him and his being touched was too much for them.

“Oh, my God!” Digger said, and had her in his arms, kissing her on the mouth with all the fierce longing of three years in that one moment. “I love you—I love you—I love you,” he kept saying over and over.

And for that moment, whatever her intentions, whatever her loyalties, she couldn’t fight off the man she loved. She kept whispering to him. He didn’t care what the words were. He knew what they meant.

But finally she managed to pull away from him. “You’ve got to go, Digger! This is some kind of trap. We’ll arrange to meet somewhere again. Talk to your friend, Mr. Haskell. He knows what I want to tell you.”

“To hell with traps!” Digger said. “Do you think I’m going to let you go, now that you’re here?”

The time for a decision was past.

In the outer office I saw Charles Girard coming along the corridor. He was running. His face was white marble with deep gashes cut at the sides of his mouth. I had no time to warn Digger and Juliet. I did move in front of the closed door to my office.

I did a little boxing in college. I’m in pretty good physical shape. I’ve never been particularly afraid of anyone physically. But it’s a curious thing. If you go to the movies or watch television, you get the idea that the world is made up of situations in which people take punches at each other. Two men meet each other, exchange a few words and—pow! You can see it every half hour on that little horror box in your living room. But the truth is that, at thirty years of age, I’ve never seen anyone throw a punch at anyone in real life. Oh, I saw it in the army, but is that real life? It just doesn’t happen in civilized society often enough for it not to be remarkable.

It got remarkable in a hurry.

“Get out of my way!” Girard said, in a low, shaken voice.

“Now just a minute, Mr. Girard,” I said fatuously

That was all. While I was playing the cool, calm and sophisticated man, Girard gave me a merciless, chopping blow on the side of the head. I hit the deck but good, and Girard smashed through the door into my office.

I heard Juliet scream.

My head felt like a balloon. I tried to shake away the haze. I could see the vague outline of Shelda standing behind her desk.

“Get help,” I think I said, but it sounded like someone with a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

I grabbed hold of a little magazine table and tried to pull myself up. Instead, the table fell over on top of me. In that Mack Sennett position I was aware that Juliet came running out of the office. I felt outraged. Nobody was trying to help me. I heard the splintering of broken furniture.

The fog cleared a little. There were no women around. I managed to get up this time and stood there for a moment, weaving back and forth. Then I walked unsteadily toward my office.

Two men, making no sound except for heavy breathing, were stalking each other, coldly intent on killing each other. I didn’t have to be told that. And with a curious kind of dazed detachment I realized that if there was any edge, it lay with Girard. Digger was younger and certainly physically stronger, but somewhere Girard had learned how to fight to kill. Probably the French Resistance, I thought. Digger crowded him, leading with jabbing lefts, his right cocked for the kill. And then Girard closed with him, hands raised, locked together, and brought down viciously on the back of Digger’s neck. Digger went down to his knees, and Girard swung a vicious kick at his jaw. Digger went flat on his face.

Somehow I unfroze at that point. I jumped on Girard’s back, my arms locked around his neck. Very promptly I went somersaulting through the air to smash against the far wall. As I struggled up, I saw that Digger had managed to get to his feet. I saw on his bloody face that he knew how desperate his situation was. Girard, crouching low, moved in on him. I started forward at the same time.

“Stay out of it, Mark!” Digger said, his voice thick.

“You’ve got to stop it!” I said.

Somehow I got in the middle of it before they reached each other. It was like being caught in a stone crusher. They kept trying desperately to get at each other. I could hear Girard muttering under his breath in French. Someone kicked me violently in the shin. The pain was excruciating, but I kept hanging on to each one of them, trying to foul up the situation as best I could. And then I took a solid punch right on the button and lost all interest in the proceedings.

It seems I had stalled things just long enough. I wasn’t aware of the arrival of Jerry Dodd, Johnny Thacker, the day bell captain, and a couple of boys from the elevators. Jerry Dodd had to use the butt of his gun on Girard to stop things.

When I came to, Shelda was patting my face with a wet handkerchief. The office was a shambles. The house doctor was working on Girard who was lying face down on the rug. Digger was sitting in my desk chair, leaning back with his eyes closed—as though he’d been thrown there.

Standing over me—and Shelda—was Chambrun. I felt frightened. I think I’ve never seen such cold anger in a pair of eyes.

“Did you arrange this?” he asked, very quiet.

“Arrange what, sir?” I asked through swollen lips.

“Did you arrange for Sullivan to meet Mrs. Girard here?”

“Good God, no, sir!” I said.

The set lines of Chambrun’s face relaxed slightly. “Your secretary told me you’d been playing matchmaker,” he said.

“My secretary is an idiot,” I said, holding tightly on to Shelda’s hand.

She made an unexpected wailing sound. “Are you all right, darling?”

“I’m a hell of a long way from all right,” I said. I managed to struggle up to my feet. Every bone in my body ached. Then I looked at Shelda. “Did you say ‘darling’?”

“Shut up, you big goof,” she said.

“Be that as it may,” I said. “Mrs. Girard was here because she had a message from Sullivan asking her to meet him here. He never mentioned it to me.”

A hollow voice came from behind me. It was Digger. “I never sent her a message. I had a message from her. She says she didn’t send it. We were gotten here, and then Girard was tipped off. How is he?”

“He’ll do,” the doctor said. “I think if a couple of you will help me, we can get him to his room.”

Jerry Dodd and Johnny Thacker got their arms around Girard and lifted him to his feet. He stood there, still struggling for breath, his knees buckling. He spotted Digger sitting in the desk chair.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Digger just shook his head.

“If she has gone somewhere else to meet you, so help me God, I’ll …”

Digger laughed. “I’ll carry a fire axe with me next time,” he said.

Girard ignored him. “Where is my wife?” he demanded.

Nobody there seemed to have an answer for him.

T
HE SCENE SHIFTED TO
Chambrun’s office. Digger and I, both very much the worse for wear, were there with Chambrun and Jerry Dodd. I was trying, for the first time, some of Chambrun’s sickish-sweet Turkish coffee. Digger was sprawled in the big leather armchair, gingerly testing arms, legs, and ribs to see if he was all in one piece.

“He was going to kill me,” he said. “And he knows how, by God! I didn’t have time to adjust to the idea before he was all over me.”

“You can prefer assault charges against him,” Chambrun said.

Digger shook his head slowly. “No. No, I won’t do that.” He gave Chambrun a crooked little smile. “You see, I know how he feels. Only the situation isn’t what he thinks it was. Someone else framed the whole thing.”

“I’m waiting to hear about that,” Chambrun said.

“I got a message from Juliet asking me to meet her in Mark’s office at ten-thirty,” Digger said. He fumbled in his coat pocket and brought out a small square of white paper. It was one of the hotel’s regular telephone message forms. “ ‘Please meet me in Mr. Haskell’s office at ten-thirty. Juliet.’ ” Digger handed it over to Chambrun.

“It wasn’t made out by a switchboard operator,” Chambrun said. “It should have a time written on it and the operator’s number. Is this Mrs. Girard’s handwriting?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Digger said. His laugh was short and mirthless. “When I met Juliet in Paris three years ago, it happened—like that! We were in love. I saw her every day. We never had reason to write to each other. I don’t think I ever saw her handwriting. We saw each other every day until the day her father died. After that—no contact.”

“How was this delivered to you?” Chambrun asked.

“With my breakfast—I had it in my room. When the waiter wheeled in the table, he handed me the message. He said he’d found it stuck under my door.”

“Find out who the waiter was, Jerry,” Chambrun said, “and get him here. Go on, Sullivan.”

“That’s all,” Digger said. “There it was. She’d set up an appointment. Yesterday in the Trapeze, as Mark can tell you, she’d asked for help. Of course I went to Mark’s office at ten-thirty.”

“And Mrs. Girard denied sending you the message?”

“Yes. She’d had a message from me, she said.”

“Slipped under her door after Girard left her to go to the airport to meet Bernardel,” I said.

“You talked to her?” Chambrun asked me.

“Yes.” I told them about the minute or two I’d spent with Juliet—the whole thing; that her husband had discovered Digger was innocent of Colonel Valmont’s murder; that she wanted Digger to know that; most of all, that she wanted him to pull completely out of the situation because his life was in danger; that she intended to stick by her husband, no matter what, but that Digger had to know that she believed in him—and that she loved him.

I heard Digger give a sort of low groan.

Chambrun, eyes narrowed against the smoke from one of his Egyptian cigarettes, moved restlessly up and down behind his desk. “A fake message to you, Sullivan; a fake message to Mrs. Girard; and a third one to Girard, turning him back from his trip to the airport.”

Jerry Dodd came back from the outer office where he’d been phoning to the kitchens for the waiter. “Waiter’s on his way up, boss,” he said. “Ferruccio Conti, one of our old-timers. And by the way, Mrs. Girard left the hotel. Waters, the Fifth Avenue doorman, saw her go out. Must have gone straight from Mark’s office out of the place. And just for the hell of it, I checked on Kroll. I’ve had him covered since you asked me to a little earlier. He left around ten for the airport to meet Bernardel.”