Gilded Nightmare Read Free Page A

in the revolving door,” he said when I joined him. I noticed that a great many staff people seemed to have found business in the lobby.
    “You know the guy in the corner chair—name of Stephen Wood?” I asked.
    Jerry looked. “New to me,” he said.
    “Sam’s hinting around he might try to make trouble for the lady,” I said.
    “Thanks for the tip,” Jerry said, and moved casually toward the staring Mr. Wood.
    At that moment the cavalcade from Kennedy arrived at the front entrance.
    There were three large, magnificent-looking, air-conditioned Cadillacs. Two of them carried people and the third a collection of luggage that might have been manufactured in the mint. Waters, the Beaumont’s elegant doorman, reached for the rear door of the first Cadillac, which obviously carried the queen. He was fast, but not fast enough. The door opened and out popped a man whom I identified from the newspaper clippings as John Masters, the bodyguard. He was slim, hard-faced, wearing a tightly belted trench coat, black glasses, and a black hat with the brim pulled down over his eyes. His hands were in his pockets and I visualized hair-trigger guns. He was right out of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. —pure camp.
    Masters looked quickly up and down the street, satisfied himself that Fifth Avenue was devoid of assassins, and gave a brisk nod to the occupants of the car.
    Out came another man, tall, square-shouldered, wearing a black Chesterfield with a velvet collar. He also wore black glasses, and gray hair showed under the rim of his black fedora, brim jerked downward. Helwig and Masters stood on each side of the open car door. The third passenger, however, did not appear.
    The second Cadillac, instead, started to disgorge. Out came a short, obese little man, black-coated, hatted, and glassed like the others. He carried a small, black medical bag. This was Dr. Malinkov, “physician in residence.” He moved, uncertainly, toward the revolving doors. He was followed by two women: a blond Amazon in her early fifties wearing a tweed coat with a mink collar and a little mink toque on her ash-blond hair; and a small, very pretty girl, also blond, carrying a black miniature poodle who yipped disapprovingly at Waters.
    The two women and the three men now made a sort of alley between the first Cadillac and the door. Out of the car stepped another man, also wearing black glasses. But there the black motif ended. He was hatless, and his red hair was long, mod-style. He wore a double-breasted overcoat of pale-blue tweed with a heavy fur collar that looked like what I think sable looks like. The bottoms of his trousers were tight-fitting and, so help me, bright red. His shoes were a matching red in suede. He turned and held out his hand to the last passenger in the Cadillac.
    The Baroness made her appearance, controlled but brisk. Her coat was black sable, her hat black sable. The coat was a three-quarter-length affair, and all that was visible below it was a pair of very shapely legs covered by sheer stockings that were, in effect, invisible. Her skirt was obviously fashionably short. One gloved hand held the coat together tightly at her throat. The other hand just touched the gigolo’s fingers as she came out of the car and moved, quick and lithe, across the sidewalk. Helwig, the gray-haired man, wheeled in front of her, and Masters, the bodyguard, moved in directly behind her. It was as if it had been rehearsed many times. The girl with the pet poodle and the gigolo, Peter Wynn, came next. The Amazon and the doctor brought up the rear.
    Did I mention that Charmian Zetterstrom also wore black glasses? The lights from the lobby chandeliers made them glitter as she came through the revolving door and started for the desk. She looked around, cool, self-possessed. She moved with the grace of a professional dancer. She suggested youth and a controlled vitality that were extraordinary for a woman of what I knew her age to be.
    The whole campy entrance was