Free Nightmare Time by Hugh Pentecost Page B

hearing Zachary muttering under his breath. He and Chambrun hadn’t buried the hatchet after all.
    From the outer office I called Romy Romanov’s room, and he answered promptly. I asked if I could come up and talk with him.
    “Coffee waiting for you,” he said. Which reminded me that I hadn’t had anything to eat since an early dinner the night before. My stomach was complaining.
    Romy was waiting in the open door of his room when I got there. I went in with him and found Pamela Smythe smiling at me from where she was perched in a corner of the couch across the room. She was wearing a nice-looking, pale-blue summer cotton dress—a little more formal than the last time I’d seen her, but not less attractive.
    I let them both know what had happened, with nothing held back. Romy exhibited some distress as the story unfolded. Pam Smythe listened, frowning.
    “I’ll make you a list,” Romy said when I’d finished. “It won’t be a big one—seven or eight names. It has to be people who know the hotel, who are familiar with Miss Ruysdale. She wouldn’t have let a complete stranger into her apartment, no matter what credentials he offered. Give me a few minutes to think.” He gave me a bitter little smile. “I suppose Zachary is sure I won’t give you any name that’ll be of any use to you.”
    “Something like that,” I said.
    “Chambrun doesn’t believe that?”
    “He’s asking for your help,” I said.
    Romy walked over to a desk in the corner of the room and sat down, pulling a pad of yellow legal paper toward him.
    “Coffee?” Pam Smythe asked, indicating a percolator that was plugged into a wall socket under a side table.
    “Thanks,” I said. “You wouldn’t have a piece of stale bread or an old sandwich somewhere? Breakfast seems to have gone by me.”
    Five minutes later I had coffee and a hearty ham sandwich. Romy was still scowling at his legal pad. Pam sat down beside me on the couch as I drank my coffee and ate my sandwich, grateful for both.
    “It’s a miserable world,” Pam said. “People everywhere, on both sides of the political fence, want peace. The people in charge, the leaders, want power. They try to persuade us that the only way to get the peace we want is to fight a war.”
    “It’s topsy-turvy time,” I said.
    “If there were no military secrets, no scientific or technological secrets, we could use what we know to make it a better world for everyone.” She made an impatient gesture. “Even our love lives are tainted by this sick thinking. The fact that Romy is a gifted, talented, kind, witty man doesn’t matter to my father. Romy is Russian, and all Russians are the enemy!”
    “Give you a hard time?” I was already feeling better, thanks to the sandwich and coffee.
    “As hard as he can. But, as I pointed out to you earlier, I’m over twenty-one! I live my life as I choose. Fortunately, I’m not dependent on Kenneth Smythe, the computer king, for my economic support. I had a grandfather named Bill Smith who left me enough to keep my head above water.”
    “Smith?”
    She laughed a bitter little laugh. “When my father began to move in high places, ‘Smith’ became too commonplace for him. He changed his name to Smythe. I wonder how many of the names Romy will give you on his list are people’s real names? I wonder how many of the facades we see are real and how many are fake? How many of the Smythes are Smiths? Romy is going to give you a list of people he thinks are two-faced. Could your Miss Ruysdale have been suckered by some two-faced charmer?”
    “She has a man, a very solid love affair,” I said.
    “Could he be a double-dealer?”
    “His name is Pierre Chambrun,” I said.
    She laughed. “Oh my! Well, I think my man is just as solid as you think her man is.”
    Romy was rising from the desk, a sheet of the yellow paper in his hand.
    “I’ve only got eight names here for you, Mark,” he said. “If I were asked for a list of all the people I know