Walking Dead Man Read Online Free PDF

expensive call girls who sometimes are seen in the Trapeze Bar; M on a woman’s card means she’s a manhunter; O means the guest is “over his head,” can’t afford the Beaumont’s prices and shouldn’t be allowed to get in too deep; MX on married man’s card means he’s double-crossing his wife, and WX means the wife is cuckolding the husband. The small letter “d” means diplomatic connections. If there is special information about the guest, it is attached in memo form to the card, and if that information is not meant to be public knowledge in the front office, the card is marked with Chambrun’s initials, meaning that the boss has special knowledge about the guest in his private file.
    Ruysdale was holding out a card to me.
    “You’re a wonder,” I said as I took the card. “How did you know?”
    “No miracle,” she said. “Karl Nevers phoned me that there was trouble in the penthouse.” Nevers is the night manager on the front desk. “First thing that occurred to me is that it might have been meant for Mr. Chambrun.”
    I glanced at the card. “Richard Cleaves,” I read out loud. “Room 1419. He must be part of Zorn’s group.”
    “He wrote the novel that Zorn’s film is based on,” Shelda said. “ A Man’s World. Have either of you read it? It’s really a very good novel.”
    “Especially the nude scenes,” I said. I looked at the card again when I saw Shelda blush. Chambrun’s initials were lettered in the corner. “What’s the scoop on him?” I asked.
    “Only Mr. Chambrun and God know what’s in the private file,” Ruysdale said. She was thumbing through more cards.
    “Is Cleaves blond, crew cut, black glasses?” I asked.
    Shelda nodded. I remembered him coming in at the rear of David Loring’s cavalcade. “And there are no nude scenes in the novel,” Shelda said, unexpectedly sharp. “They’ve been added for the film.”
    I put the card down on Ruysdale’s desk. “I wonder what’s so special about Master Cleaves,” I said.
    “He’s a very interesting but a very cold and distant young man,” Shelda said. “He came to see Mr. Battle in France when discussion of the film came up.”
    “Cold and distant isn’t your type,” I said.
    Miss Ruysdale gave me a bored look. “Why don’t you grow up, Mark?” she said. “If you’re concerned about Mr. Chambrun, why not get to work on some of these cards.”
    She was right, of course. I was behaving badly.
    “The reason I came with you, Mark,” Shelda said, “was that I thought Mr. Chambrun ought to know about Richard Cleaves.”
    “He evidently does know something,” Ruysdale said, fingering the card with Chambrun’s initials on it.
    “It was about three months ago,” Shelda said. “Maxie Zorn made an appointment to see Mr. Battle at his villa in Cannes. I didn’t make the appointment. Gloria, his daytime secretary, made it.”
    “Before you go any further,” I said, “would you mind telling me what the duties of the nighttime secretary are?”
    “Do shut up, Mark,” Ruysdale said.
    Shelda gave me a steady look. “Mr. Battle rarely sleeps more than an hour at a time,” she said. “He catnaps day and night. When he’s awake, his mind is never not working. He has thoughts about business, about a memoire he’s writing, about world affairs. The moment he has an idea, he rings for his secretary, whichever one is on duty, and dictates. Sometimes it is only a sentence or two. Sometimes he’ll go on for a couple of hours. We have a stenotype machine—the kind a court stenographer uses—so he can go on as long as he wants.”
    “And you pop out of bed whenever he has an idea?”
    “I sleep in the daytime,” Shelda said. “May I tell you about Richard Cleaves?”
    “If he opens his mouth again, I’ll send him to his room with bread and water,” Ruysdale said.
    “Gloria made the appointment and it was in his book when I took over that day. It just said ‘Maxwell Zorn.’ But three of them came: