Deadly Joke by Hugh Pentecost

and overthrowing the government by force if it comes to that. They don’t know what they’re talking about, those kids. If they wanted to see a real revolution, they should have seen the Resistance. But Barry liked Charlie. You got to have someone to laugh with, someone to communicate with. He and Charlie never got serious about anything.”
    “Do you suppose Charlie ever told Tennant what he had on Maxwell? It would have delighted Tennant.”
    “You can bet Charlie never breathed a word of it,” Melody said. “Keeping that a secret was Charlie’s bread and butter.”
    At the crossing we hailed a taxi, and I opened the door for her. She turned to me. “You think I might be a target, Mark?”
    “Target?”
    “If someone knows I pointed a finger at someone—?”
    “Who knows?” I said. “Chambrun won’t mention it. Neither will I.”
    “If anything should happen to me, tell Pierre I don’t want any funeral wreaths, or lilies, or any of that crap. He once sent me a bunch of wildflowers when I was stripping in a café in Marseilles. Tell him that’s all I want.”
    “I’ll tell him. But you aren’t going to be anybody’s target, Melody.”
    “Keep your fingers crossed, Buster,” she said.
    I watched the taxi tool down Madison. I felt faintly uneasy.
    I turned back toward the Beaumont and instantly had the sensation that someone standing in the shadows a few doors down the block had me in his sights. All I needed to top the evening was for some creep to try to mug me. I looked around me for a cop. There had been a hundred of them saturating the area an hour ago. There weren’t any now.
    The shadow moved out into the open. “I’ve been waiting for you, Haskell.”
    It was Barry Tennant in his orange shirt, striped pants, and buckskin vest. He looked like dozens of other kids I’d seen in the hotel that night. What he was wearing was almost a uniform.
    “Did Melody get to see Charlie? I suppose that’s why she came up here—sentimental old trollop. Where’s Diana?”
    “She was with her parents,” I said.
    “I would have gone looking for her, but I figured it might not be too healthy for me to walk into the Beaumont lobby just now.” His white teeth flashed in the semi-darkness. “I hear the kids pretty well took it apart.”
    “They had their moment,” I said.
    “I told Diana I’d be somewhere when I’d seen Melody, but I heard Claude Cloud got shot, so I came uptown to see if I could help. Is he badly hurt?”
    “No. But he’s under arrest.”
    “Bastards,” Tennant said.
    “He asked for it,” I said.
    “Look, Haskell, can you get a message to Diana?”
    “I might—if she’s still in the hotel.”
    “Tell her I’ll see her when I see her,” he said. “I won’t be where I said I’d be. The cops have taken in wagonloads of kids. I’ve got to help get them out. I don’t want her to think I stood her up. Will you tell her?”
    “I’ll try. We’ve got quite a ball game going here now. Did you know Maxwell’s bodyguard had been slugged to death?”
    “Shaw?”
    “According to Diana, you weren’t deeply fond of him.”
    “The sonofabitch framed me for Maxwell,” Tennant said.
    “If you were in that crowd that stormed the hotel, you better start looking for a copper-riveted alibi,” I said.
    “I wasn’t with the kids,” Tennant said, scowling.
    “You better be ready to prove it,” I said.
    “Oh, I know!” His voice was bitter. “If you’re under twenty-five in this world, you’re responsible for all its evils. Maxwell and his kind have made a mess of the whole bloody universe and now they’re trying to blame it on the kids who don’t like what they’ve inherited.” He kicked at the sidewalk. “Why did you tell me about Shaw? Why didn’t you take me in and let them put me through the wringer?”
    “I’m damned if I know,” I said. “Maybe because I like your girl. Maybe because it seems too obvious. Maybe because I know they’ll come looking for you