Time of Terror by Hugh Pentecost Page B

blinked its red eye. He picked up the receiver and said, “Yes?”
    It turned out to be Cleaves, waiting in the outer office. Chambrun had him come in. The Englishman looked gray with fatigue. He acknowledged the introduction to Hardy with a vague nod of his head.
    “Any news?” he asked.
    Chambrun gestured toward the bloody clothes. “Horween,” he said. “He disobeyed orders and substituted for one of our waiters. Coriander says he is dead, and sent us these things to prove it.”
    “Oh, my God,” Cleaves said. He sank down into one of the leather armchairs. “He was such a crazy, brave idiot!”
    “Do you have news?” Chambrun asked.
    “Nothing positive. Friends are trying to work out ways and means.”
    “Do you know where your wife is?” Chambrun asked. He hadn’t forgotten about Connie.
    Cleaves shook his head as though it was a matter of no concern. “I haven’t the foggiest,” he said.
    “Mark put her up in his apartment down the hall,” Chambrun said. “She walked out some hours ago and she hasn’t reappeared. I wondered if you might know where she could have gone?”
    “No, and what does it matter?” Cleaves said.
    “It occurred to me that she might have tried to join the children,” Chambrun said, “and that she may have become another hostage.”
    “That doesn’t alter my problem, which is raising the money,” Cleaves said.
    “Another thought I had was that she might have gone to her father for help.”
    That seemed to wake Cleaves up a little. “Buck Ames? He wouldn’t help me to buy a fish-and-chips if I was starving.”
    “They are his grandchildren!” Chambrun said, suddenly angry. “Look here, Cleaves, I don’t know what’s wrong between you and your wife, but I think it may be important for us to know.”
    “It’s none of your bloody business,” Cleaves said.
    “But you concede it’s possible your wife may have gone to her father for help?”
    “Anything is possible where Constance and Buck Ames are concerned.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “I mean they are pea-pod close. I mean they would both enjoy seeing me hang from the highest tree. I mean they would spring the trap under my feet if they could. Fortunately, they can’t.”
    “Where can we find Ames?”
    “How the bloody hell should I know?”
    “If your wife went to find him, it suggests he might be somewhere here in the city. I find it difficult to believe she’d go too far away from the hotel and her children.”
    “If there is a young and eager stud around somewhere, that’s probably where you’ll find her,” Cleaves said. And he looked at me. “She’s staying in your apartment, Haskell?” He gave me a very white, very mirthless smile. I would have enjoyed wiping it off his face, but I had the unhappy feeling he could beat the bewadding out of me.
    “Does Ames have an apartment or an office here in New York?” Chambrun persisted, ignoring the cracks about Connie.
    Cleaves seemed to sink back into his private concerns. “I believe there is a secretary somewhere, in someone’s office, who takes messages for him.”
    “International Trade Corporation?”
    “A private phone, I think.”
    “What office, what secretary?”
    “I believe the phone for Ames is listed under the single name Buccaneer.”
    Chambrun nodded to me and I began thumbing through the phone book. There it was—Buccaneer. I wrote down the number and handed it to Chambrun.
    “Try it,” he said to me.
    “Offices will be closed,” I said. “It’s going on seven o’clock.”
    “Try it.”
    I dialed the number and it resulted in an almost immediate answer from a pleasant female voice that said, “Buccaneer.”
    I handed the phone to Chambrun and he switched on the squawk box so we could all hear. “This is Pierre Chambrun, manager of the Hotel Beaumont,” he said. “I’m trying to reach Walter Ames.”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Chambrun, but I’m not allowed to give out any information about Mr. Ames.”
    “If