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Authors: Hugh Pentecost
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Richard Cleaves apparently hates both Battle and the boss.”
“So you and I will go and talk to him,” Jerry said. “Get moving, Art. I want every square inch of this hotel covered.”
“It’s a long job, Jerry.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to finish it,” Jerry said. He beckoned to me, taking it for granted I was with him.
I looked at Shelda.
“You have to go, darling,” she said.
My girl!
Just outside the office door is the bank of elevators. The wall opposite is the outside wall of the building. Behind the elevators is the lobby, and open space rising three stories high. The second floor, then, is a corridor facing the elevators, with Chambrun’s offices ballooning out on one end and on the other, the bookkeeping offices, the switchboards, my apartment and my office. East of the elevators is a wide, open stairway leading down to the lobby. There is a fire stair next to the bookeeping offices. Those are the only two exits from the second floor except the elevators, four of them.
Jerry and I stood by the elevators, looking up and down the corridor, not speaking. Each of us, I guess, was trying to imagine what had happened out here. Chambrun had been summoned, he believed, to the penthouse. There would have been three possible things he could have done. He could have walked down the open stair into the lobby and taken the one elevator that went up all the way to the roof. He could have taken one of the other elevators down to the lobby. That would, I thought, have been out of character unless the car was standing right there with the door open. He was a much too impatient man to wait for a car to take him one flight down. The third possibility was that he had taken an up-elevator to the twenty-fourth floor, planning to change elevators there.
“The guys who suckered him out of his office couldn’t gamble on what he’d do,” Jerry said. “They have to meet him right here, head on. They couldn’t risk the lobby, where a hundred people would see whatever happened, or the twenty-fourth floor, where cops are seeing to it that no one gets up to the roof.”
“They waited for him in the elevator that goes to the roof?”
Jerry shook his head. “Elevator operator and a cop in that car,” he said. “First question I asked when I came down from the penthouse was whether they’d seen him.”
You should know that all the elevators at the Beaumont have operators from seven o’clock in the morning until midnight. The rest of the time they are self-service. There’d have been no employee on the regular elevators at the time Chambrun had left his office.
We walked down the open stairway to the lobby. Things had quieted down here. The Spartan Bar had closed for the night and the lady invaders had reluctantly left. The Blue Lagoon, the hotel’s night club which opens off the far end of the lobby, had also closed. The Trapeze Bar, overhead, was dark.
Mike Maggio, the night bell captain, saw us and came hurrying over. Mike is a handsome, dark Italian with a normally mischievous grin. There was something almost comical about the seriousness of his face now.
“I was just on my way up to the office,” he told Jerry. “When I got the word from Miss Ruysdale, I wanted to check out as well as I could down here first. Nobody saw him, Jerry. I swear I would have. I was afraid he’d show while those broads were raising hell in the Spartan, and I kept looking for him, wondering what I’d say to him.”
“You better get your orders from Ruysdale,” Jerry said, “but keep asking. Don’t make it sound like anything’s happened; just say he’s needed and we don’t know where he is.”
“Will do,” Mike said. “You think it’s bad, Jerry?”
“I think it’s bad,” Jerry said.
The lobby had a strange feel for me. This place was my home; I lived here, I worked here, I found most of my recreation here. In spite of its great size I think I would have noticed any small thing out of place, any
“So you and I will go and talk to him,” Jerry said. “Get moving, Art. I want every square inch of this hotel covered.”
“It’s a long job, Jerry.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to finish it,” Jerry said. He beckoned to me, taking it for granted I was with him.
I looked at Shelda.
“You have to go, darling,” she said.
My girl!
Just outside the office door is the bank of elevators. The wall opposite is the outside wall of the building. Behind the elevators is the lobby, and open space rising three stories high. The second floor, then, is a corridor facing the elevators, with Chambrun’s offices ballooning out on one end and on the other, the bookkeeping offices, the switchboards, my apartment and my office. East of the elevators is a wide, open stairway leading down to the lobby. There is a fire stair next to the bookeeping offices. Those are the only two exits from the second floor except the elevators, four of them.
Jerry and I stood by the elevators, looking up and down the corridor, not speaking. Each of us, I guess, was trying to imagine what had happened out here. Chambrun had been summoned, he believed, to the penthouse. There would have been three possible things he could have done. He could have walked down the open stair into the lobby and taken the one elevator that went up all the way to the roof. He could have taken one of the other elevators down to the lobby. That would, I thought, have been out of character unless the car was standing right there with the door open. He was a much too impatient man to wait for a car to take him one flight down. The third possibility was that he had taken an up-elevator to the twenty-fourth floor, planning to change elevators there.
“The guys who suckered him out of his office couldn’t gamble on what he’d do,” Jerry said. “They have to meet him right here, head on. They couldn’t risk the lobby, where a hundred people would see whatever happened, or the twenty-fourth floor, where cops are seeing to it that no one gets up to the roof.”
“They waited for him in the elevator that goes to the roof?”
Jerry shook his head. “Elevator operator and a cop in that car,” he said. “First question I asked when I came down from the penthouse was whether they’d seen him.”
You should know that all the elevators at the Beaumont have operators from seven o’clock in the morning until midnight. The rest of the time they are self-service. There’d have been no employee on the regular elevators at the time Chambrun had left his office.
We walked down the open stairway to the lobby. Things had quieted down here. The Spartan Bar had closed for the night and the lady invaders had reluctantly left. The Blue Lagoon, the hotel’s night club which opens off the far end of the lobby, had also closed. The Trapeze Bar, overhead, was dark.
Mike Maggio, the night bell captain, saw us and came hurrying over. Mike is a handsome, dark Italian with a normally mischievous grin. There was something almost comical about the seriousness of his face now.
“I was just on my way up to the office,” he told Jerry. “When I got the word from Miss Ruysdale, I wanted to check out as well as I could down here first. Nobody saw him, Jerry. I swear I would have. I was afraid he’d show while those broads were raising hell in the Spartan, and I kept looking for him, wondering what I’d say to him.”
“You better get your orders from Ruysdale,” Jerry said, “but keep asking. Don’t make it sound like anything’s happened; just say he’s needed and we don’t know where he is.”
“Will do,” Mike said. “You think it’s bad, Jerry?”
“I think it’s bad,” Jerry said.
The lobby had a strange feel for me. This place was my home; I lived here, I worked here, I found most of my recreation here. In spite of its great size I think I would have noticed any small thing out of place, any
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