Walking Dead Man (13 page)

Hardy was at the door and I saw him turn away for a moment as though he was going to be sick. I got over to where he was and why I wasn’t sick I will never know. The room was a shambles. There was a horrible bloody mess lying in the middle of the floor which I recognized as the remains of Allerton. Half of his head and one arm seemed to be missing.

A ghastly specter appeared in the bedroom door. It was George Battle. Blood was running down his face. I saw that the mirror in the bathroom door was shattered. Battle pointed a shaking finger at Hardy.

“You sonofabitch!” he almost shrieked at the lieutenant. “You let this happen!”

I turned back into the living room to find Shelda. I didn’t want her to see what was in the other room. I was just in time to see Chambrun come in the front door from the elevator. His face looked carved out of gray marble.

T
HE NEXT LITTLE BIT
of time is hazy in my memory. I guess we were all somewhat in shock. I remember Chambrun saying to me as he passed me on his way to the bedroom, “Call Partridge.”

Dr. Partridge is the house physician. I remember hoping he wasn’t too hung-over. Doc gets plastered every night playing backgammon in the Spartan Bar with some cronies of his. As I put in the call, I remembered we had a doctor on the premises.

I saw Kranepool escorting a babbling George Battle into the living room and help him down into a corner of the couch. I was aware of the sweet sickening smell of blood and something else, strong and pungent, which must have come from the explosive. Hardy appeared and I saw him kneel beside the unconscious Butler. And then Dr. Cobb put in an appearance. He headed straight for George Battle. One look and he disappeared, to return in half a minute with his medical bag.

All the time Battle was shouting accusations at Kranepool. It had been meant for him, he kept saying. The place was full of cops and they had let it happen. Only a miracle had saved him from a horrible death.

Nothing yet made the slightest sense to me. The place had been bombed out, but how? I remember going over to Shelda and taking her in my arms. She asked about Allerton.

“Blown to pieces,” I said.

“Oh, God, Mark, if he hadn’t taken in the mail for me—”

“Don’t think about it, baby.”

“If he hadn’t done me a kindness because he knew I wanted to be here with you—” She buried her face against my shoulder. She was crying.

The mail turned out to be the key to the whole thing. It was a highly sophisticated device, contained in a letter, that had blown the room apart and sent the unhappy Allerton to join his ancestors. It was the same kind of device that Arab terrorists had made familiar in the preceding months in their attempts to murder Israeli diplomats and other important Jews in the world.

It was Chambrun, stone-faced, who finally got some kind of coherent story out of George Battle. The man had been in the bathroom doing something, as I understood it, about a denture that was bothering him. Allerton called to
him
from the bedroom saying that there was mail.

“I asked him if there was anything important,” Battle told Chambrun, “He said there didn’t seem to be. ‘Except what looks like a birthday card for you, Mr. George.’”

“Birthday card?” Chambrun asked.

“That’s irony, isn’t it?” Battle said. “Today is my birthday. I don’t make a federal case out of it, Pierre. I was surprised that anyone knew—or cared. So I asked Allerton to open it and see who it was from. And—and the place blew up!”

Hardy had been on the phone to headquarters. “The bomb squad experts are on their way,” he said. “I’m not sure, because it’s not my specialty, that it was a letter bomb, but I don’t see any other answer. I had reason to search that room thoroughly and I can promise you there wasn’t any bomb planted there. There’s no way to toss anything in from the roof. The windows in the bedroom and bathroom open onto the sheer wall of the building. Unless it was a letter bomb, Allerton or Butler had to be carrying the damn thing on them.”

“It would have to be Allerton,” Dr. Cobb said. He had gone over to the unconscious bodyguard. “This man and Mr. Battle were both hit by flying glass. I suspect Butler was knocked down by the impact of the explosion, which is how he hurt his leg. It would be helpful if I could get him moved to his room—or some room—where I can stretch him out.”

“What about the rest of the mail, George?” Chambrun asked Battle.

“I don’t know what it is—or was,” Battle said. “I told you, I was in the bathroom. A denture which age has forced on me was uncomfortable. I thought I must have fitted it into place improperly, so I went into the bathroom to fix it. I was standing, facing the mirror over the washbasin, when poor old Allerton called in and said there was mail. I told you that he said there didn’t appear to be anything important. Then he mentioned the birthday card. I asked him to open it. That was that.”

“I had the letters in my hands,” Hardy said. “There were seven of them. Six of them looked like business letters—typewritten addresses, the names of business firms printed in the top left-hand corners. And there was a large, square green envelope, hand-addressed, that I assumed was some kind of a greeting card.”

“Was there anything to indicate it was a birthday greeting?”

“No.”

“So Allerton knew it was your birthday, George.”

“For God sake, Pierre, Allerton has worked with me for nearly twenty years. I’m surprised that he remembered, poor devil, but of course he knew. And so, by the way, would anyone else who happened to look me up in
Who’s Who.”

“What did you do with the letters, Hardy?” Chambrun asked.

“The detective who’s riding the elevator brought them in,” Hardy said. “I took them, shuffled through them for no particular reason, and took them to Miss Mason.” He glanced at Shelda, who was still clinging to me. “I supposed, as Mr. Battle’s secretary, she was the one to take them in.”

Chambrun looked at me. “Allerton offered to take them,” I said. “He knew that Shelda and I—”

“What difference does it make who brought them in?” Battle asked, his voice shrill. “It was meant for me. If Allerton hadn’t mentioned the birthday card, and I hadn’t been involved in the bathroom, I would normally have opened the mail myself. I was curious when he mentioned a birthday card, so I asked him to open it. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I would have opened it myself.”

We watched while two of Hardy’s men picked up the unconscious bodyguard and carried him down the hall, followed by Dr. Cobb.

“The force of the explosion was terrific,” Battle said. “If I hadn’t been standing by the washbasin and able to grab it for support, it would have knocked me down. The mirror above it shattered and that’s what cut my face. The mirror behind me in the door also shattered. I heard Ed Butler screaming and I staggered to the door and saw—saw Allerton. Christ Almighty!”

“Butler was in your room when Allerton came in with the mail?”

“Of course he was there. Do you think I’d leave myself unprotected for five seconds after what had already happened here? You and your damned security people, Pierre, and the lieutenant and his stupid cops haven’t been very much use to me up to now. I had to have somebody I trusted with me, and now one of them is dead and the other only alive, like me, by some miracle. Pierre, what are you going to do to stop the next attempt?” Battle stared at Chambrun for a moment and then leaned back against the couch, looking exhausted. He blotted at a little trickle of blood that ran down his cheek.

Chambrun stood very still for a moment, obviously not intending to answer Battle’s question. Then he turned to me. “We’re going to have to find different quarters for Mr. Battle,” he said. “Find out from Atterbury exactly what’s available. Not on the fourteenth floor, please. I don’t want him near Cleaves, Potter and Company.” I started to head for the front door, but he stopped it. “Talk to Atterbury on the house phone,” he said. “We’re going to have to go into a huddle over what’s to be done with the press.” He turned to Shelda. “That house phone is going to start ringing steadily in a moment. No way that explosion can stay a secret Are you up to manning it, Shelda? We talk to no one except people who want Hardy or Kranepool from their headquarters. For anyone else the answer is no, unless you make some special judgment on it.”

“I can manage it,” Shelda said.

“Good girl. Hardy, I think we should talk to Butler if Dr. Cobb has brought him around.”

Ed Butler had come out of it when I joined Chambrun, Hardy, and Kranepool in the bodyguard’s bedroom down the hall. He wasn’t the cold, tough cookie he had been the night before. He looked as if he’d been crying. He was propped up against the pillows on his bed, and there was a surgical patch above his left temple.

“He’s not seriously hurt,” Dr. Cobb was telling the others as I came in. “I took eight stitches in that scalp wound. When the explosion knocked him down, he twisted his knee. It’s going to bother him for a while. There’s some hysterical shock involved.” It came out of Cobb between little gasps for breath.

“Where were you, Doctor, when the blast went off?” Chambrun asked.

“In my room. Breathing. Oxygen. It damn near rolled me out of bed. My God, a small thing in a letter could do all that damage?”

“You saw for yourself,” Chambrun said. “Can Butler talk to us?”

“Why not?” the doctor said.

Chambrun moved to the edge of the bed and looked down at Butler. “Tell us exactly what happened in the bedroom, Mr. Butler.”

Butler moistened his lips. “I—I was in there, sitting in a chair by the window, when Allerton came in. He had some letters in his hand. He looked around for Mr. Battle and I told him the old boy was in the bathroom. The bathroom door was open, so whatever he was doing clearly wasn’t private. Allerton was looking at the letters. He held up a large green envelope. ‘Someone’s sent the old effer a birthday card,’ he said. I walked over to him and we stood looking at the envelope. Not many people feel sentimental about Mr. Battle. We were both wondering who it could be, I guess. Then Allerton took a few steps away from me and called in to the old man. Told him there was mail. The old man asked him if there was anything that looked important. Allerton said no, but there was a birthday card for him. The old man sounded surprised and told Allerton to open it. I—I told you he’d taken a few steps away from me—Allerton, I mean—and I guess that saved my life. He started to open the envelope and the place blew up. I was knocked flat and I felt something tear into my head. It was glass from the window, I think. I tried to stand up and my knee felt like a knife was in it. Then—then I saw what was left of Allerton and I got the hell out of there.”

It checked exactly with what Battle had told us.

Chambrun was frowning. “Do you know, Mr. Butler, who gave instructions to have mail brought up here?”

“How do you mean?”

“I ask because it isn’t normal routine for mail to be delivered to the rooms unless there are special instructions to that effect.”

“It wouldn’t be me,” Butler said. “Miss Mason or Allerton would handle that kind of job.”

Chambrun turned to the house phone beside the bed and asked for Mr. Atterbury on the front desk. “Atterbury? Chambrun here. You sent mail up to the penthouse this morning?—So find out.—You didn’t have a routine request to have mail sent up?—Thank you.” Chambrun put down the phone. “The desk had no instructions. You say it was one of your men who delivered the mail up here, Hardy?”

“Detective Pagano,” Hardy said. “He’s stationed on the special elevator.”

“It might be a good idea to find out how he came by it,” Chambrun said. He turned back to Butler as Hardy went out of the room. “You are hired, Butler, as a bodyguard. How long have you had the job?”

“Twelve years this summer,” Butler said.

“How many times in those twelve years has some kind of attack been made on Mr. Battle?”

Butler hesitated. “For real, not till last night,” he said.

“You mean when the man in the stocking mask took a shot at him?”

“That’s it. But you have to know that this trip to New York is the first time he left the villa in Cannes since I worked for him. Oh, we’ve had people try to get into the grounds over there; reporters trying to interview him, photographers hoping to get a shot of him. I’ve had to throw them out, drive them off. But when you say ‘attack’ I suppose you mean someone trying to do him harm. Last night was the first time.”

“Tend to make you rather careless, wouldn’t it?” Chambrun asked, quite casual.

“You don’t work for Mr. Battle and get careless,” Butler said.

“But when you saw all the precautions that were set up last night, you must have thought it was pretty absurd. It would keep out the press, and the curious Peeping Toms, but you didn’t think someone would try to get to him to kill him. Or did you?”

“Mr. Battle made a big point of it,” Butler said. “It was the first time he’d come out of his own—his own like fortress—for seventeen years. He told us there were people all over the world who might try to get at him. He didn’t leave any doubt that he expected trouble.”

“But you didn’t expect it, which is why you fell asleep at your post?”

Butler pushed himself up on his elbows, and he winced as pain hit him somewhere. “
I did not fall asleep!”
he almost shouted. He lowered himself, and his voice was unsteady as he went on. “Sure, I might have dozed off in the garden back home—Cannes. There is an electric fence, and guards at the gates. Anyone tries to sneak in there and it sounds like the Fourth of July. Bells ring, sirens start screaming. But here there were no alarms and I stayed awake.”

“And no one went into that bedroom?”

“Absolutely no one!”

“And yet there was someone there. The man in the stocking mask got in there somehow.”

“I know. And I don’t know how,” Butler said. “He didn’t get by me is all I do know.”

Hardy came back into the room. He was frowning. “Some guy handed the letters to Pagano,” he said, “and told him Mr. Battle had asked to have them brought up. Pagano supposed he was someone connected with the hotel. Business suit, no hat. The elevator operator saw him, didn’t know him, supposed he was a cop. About six feet, medium brown hair, blue or gray eyes, maybe thirty—thirty-five years old. They both say they’d know him again. Maybe we can get a police artist to do a makeup on him. Pagano and the elevator operator both took it for granted. It didn’t seem odd Mr. Battle would want his mail. At the desk they say there was no mail to send up. Never was any.”