Twospot

by Bill Pronzini

  Leo has to be beside himself by then: two bungled jobs in two nights. But because Howard’s wound is superficial, Leo gives him another chance on Saturday: take care of Alex at Virginia Davis’s apartment on Greenwich Street. It was logical that Leo would be aware of Alex’s girlfriend and where she lived, and reason out that Alex might hole up there.

  Now—today. Time is getting short; Monday noon is almost here. After three bungled jobs, maybe Leo doesn’t want to run the risk of ordering yet another try for Alex; too many things have happened already to focus police attention on the Cappellanis, and I’ve been hired to act as Alex’s bodyguard. But then, at the fest, Alex makes his comment about Monday-noon projects, and Leo decides he can’t take the chance of Alex remembering about Twospot and endangering his project. So he orders Rosten to kill Alex tonight; Rosten doesn’t like it, but for whatever reasons he goes along with it. Leo waits until he’s sure I’m out of the way—heading over to Rosten’s place, though he couldn’t have anticipated that and then goes into Alex’s room and wakes him up and sends him down to the cellar. Which was what he told Rosten on the phone. The idea, again, is for Alex to just disappear: Rosten is supposed to take him to that backhill spot at the end of this road, shoot him, and hide the body somewhere so that there’s not another immediate murder investigation to threaten tomorrow’s project.

  It was a pretty good scenario. Whether or not it was wholly accurate was up to the police to find out after I gave him to them.

  But the primary question still had no answer: what was this project of Leo’s? What sort of project is big enough, important enough, to trigger a mad chain of murder and secrecy? What sort of project demands a melodramatic code name like Twospot . . . ?

  Light shimmered against the sky ahead of us, beyond the second hill from the cottages—another car approaching. The county police? But I did not hear sirens, and the light over there was yellow-white, not the red of dome flashers.

  Alex sat forward tensely: he had noticed the lights too. I took the car up to the top of the hill, and from there I could see the outlines of the oncoming car behind the headlamp glare. It was not a sheriff’s cruiser; it was just a car, too far away and too indistinct to be recognizable, traveling at a good clip.

  When the driver saw us the car slowed, and I slowed, and we both pulled over to opposite sides of the road and braked alongside each other. The driver was the guy I had talked to earlier, Boylan, and Mrs. Cappellani was leaning across the seat beside him. She called something to Alex with relief in her voice, and Boylan began asking questions, and Alex chattered something about Rosten. I put an end to the confusion by saying, “There’s no sense trying to talk here, follow us to Rosten’s cottage,” and then hitting the accelerator again.

  In the rear-vision mirror I watched Boylan’s car swing into an abrupt U-turn and come after us. Then I gave my attention to the road until we were over the next hill and approaching the cottages. There was still no sign of the police. If Mrs. Cappellani had alerted any others besides Boylan, they were not out and around here either; all the cottages except Boylan’s were dark and the area was deserted.

  I turned off the road beside Rosten’s place and cut the engine and the lights, and we got out. Boylan parked behind us. I said to Alex, “You take care of the explanations. I’m going inside.”

  Without waiting for an answer or for Boylan and Rosa to come up, I left him and went to the cottage and tried the door. It was unlocked. I fumbled around on the wall inside, found a light switch, and flipped it.

  As far as I could see in the pale glow of a ceiling globe the place had a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchenette. It was outfitted like a monk’s cell: neat, clean, with no more than five pieces of furniture in the living room and bedroom combined. On the far wall was an open rack that held rifles, a shotgun, and four handguns on wooden mounting pegs. Near the front window was a small table empty except for a portable radio and the telephone.

  I made straight for the phone and looked at the row of buttons on its base. One of those buttons was depressed, the one with the numerals 116 below it. The number Dymo-labeled across the dial —Rosten’s number—was 208.

  Turning, I crossed back to the doorway and stepped outside again. Alex and his mother were standing close together near my car—about as close together as they had ever been, I thought—and they were talking animatedly. Boylan was off to one side of them, looking bewildered. I caught his eye, gestured for him to come over to where I was.

  When he did that I said, “The phones here—how does the intercom system work?”

  He gave me a blank look. “The phones?”

  “If I want to call your place from here, what do I do? Push the button with your number on it?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t ”

  “Whose extension number is one sixteen?”

  “Mr. Cappellani’s,” Boylan said. “Leo’s. His room over at the main house . . .”

  He was going to say something else, ask me questions, but I pivoted away from him and went back inside. All right, I was thinking, so that confirms it: it was Leo I overheard Rosten talking to. But it wasn’t hard evidence; I had no hard evidence of any kind to give the police when they came. Unless there was something here in Rosten’s effects that would point conclusively to Leo. Or something here that would give me an idea of what the Monday-noon project was.

  I searched the living room first, quickly and easily because of its spartan furnishings. Nothing—no notes, no papers of any kind. Then I went into the bedroom and rummaged around in the dresser. Nothing. The only other thing in there besides the bed was a closet; I opened that up, looked through it.

  And that was where I found them, in a box on the upper shelf.

  Pamphlets—a dozen of them, all privately printed. Pamphlets with titles like Castro’s Rape of the World and The Cuban Octopus: Tentacles of Destruction and Fidel Castro and the Communist Conspiracy.

  I stood there holding them in my hands, and the hackles began to rise on my neck. From outside, finally, I heard the first tentative wail of sirens—an eerie, unreal sound in the stillness that added to the chill forming along my back.

  Castro, I thought.

  The newspaper article I read last week: Castro was due to arrive in San Francisco on Monday, tomorrow, just another stop on his goodwill tour of American cities. Monday. At noon.

  And Rosten had inflammatory right-wing literature in his closet. And Frank Cappellani had been a right-wing reactionary. And if Leo did not take after his mother at all, if he was his father’s son

  Twospot and the Monday-noon project.

  The sirens got louder outside. I could wait for the police, but if I did that they might want full explanations before they took action, got in touch with Hastings. Time. It was after eleven now, it was almost Monday. Hastings had to be told and he had to be told immediately. If I was right—Jesus, if I was right—he had less than thirteen hours to find Leo and prevent what could turn into the most devastating political assassination since the murder of John F. Kennedy.

  I threw the pamphlets back into the closet and ran out of there to the phone.

  PART FOUR

  The Police Lieutenant

  19

  Softly swearing, I hung up the phone and looked at the bedside clock. The time was one-twenty A.M. I sank back on my pillow, groaned, and allowed my eyes to close. For a moment I lay motionless. Beside me, Ann stirred drowsily. I heard her murmuring, then felt her drawing close to me, snuggling up.

  “Have you got to go out?” Her voice was husky, sleepthickened. As she spoke, I felt her foot touch mine. Now her toes began a slow, sensuous movement up the calf of my leg. If I was weighing a decision, she was trying to tip the balance.

  “Hmmm?” Her hand touched the top of my hip, moved slowly across my stomach, then up to my chest. My body was responding, rippling to a slow, erotic pulsing of desire. My genitals were tightening.

  I groaned again. “That’s not fair.”

 
“Hmmm.” Her hand was high on my chest—and now descending.

  Quickly I turned to her, kissed her hard, drew the full, warm length of her body close against mine—and pushed her away.

  “You’re shameless, you know that?”

  “Hmmm.” Lasciviously.

  I kissed her again with firm finality, then turned to the phone and reluctantly began dialing.

  “Who’re you calling?”

  “Friedman. I’ve got to.”

  “Oh. Pete.” As she said it, I felt her forefinger on my spine, playfully moving up—then down. Ann and Pete were friends. So she would tease me while I talked to him.

  Surprisingly, Friedman answered on the first ring.

  “It’s Frank. Sorry.”

  He sighed: a long, deeply resigned exhalation. “I just walked in the house. Just this minute.”

  “Trouble?”

  “With the Secret Service and the FBI and all the other goddamn agencies of the federal government. Not to mention the Cubans. They don’t listen. They’re amiable enough. But they don’t listen.”

  “The FBI doesn’t listen, either.”

  He snorted. Then: “What’s happened?”

  “I’ve got more trouble for you. For Castro, too, maybe.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  Detail by detail, as concisely as possible I repeated the conversation I’d just finished with Bill. Friedman was silent for a moment. Then, softly and earnestly, he began to swear. As I listened, I rolled over on my back. Giggling, Ann began kissing my ear. Finally I heard Friedman say:

  “You know these people—Leo, and the rest of them. What d’you think?”

  “I think we’ve got to take it seriously. We’ve got to find Leo. Fast.”

  “I’m glad you said ‘we,’” he answered dryly. “If that’s an offer to help, I accept.”

  “It’s an offer.”

  “What about Bill? Do you think he’s got his facts straight?”

  “You know him better than I do,” I countered. “What d’you think?”

  He sighed again. “I think he’s probably got his facts straight.”

  “So what now?”

  “Does Leo live in San Francisco?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know where. I talked to him in his office.”

  “Why don’t you come over here? I’ll find out where he lives. We can go from here.”

  “Right.”

  “Let’s take that,” Friedman said, pointing to a cruiser parked in his driveway.

  “That’s against regulations, taking a cruiser home.”

  “Since I’ve only been home for approximately forty minutes, I guess I’m clean.”

  I waited until he wedged his two hundred forty pounds beneath the steering wheel before I asked, “Where’s Leo live?”

  “Sea Cliff,” Friedman grunted. “Thirty-second Avenue, north of Lake Street.” He backed out of the driveway and turned north, driving smoothly, at a moderate speed. Even in hot pursuit, Friedman never seemed to hurry. But he was usually first on the scene.

  I switched on the radio, turning the volume down. “Do you have a codeword for the Castro security thing?” I asked.

  “Yes. Counterpunch.”

  “That’s pretty catchy. Your idea?”

  “Of course.” He yawned.

  “You want me to drive? At least I got two hours’ sleep. You can close your eyes.”

  “Frankly,” Friedman said, “I’d rather have no sleep than two hours’ sleep. Besides, as soon as Castro leaves town—tonight, that is, at ten forty-five—I’m going to leave town, too. For three days’ fun in the sun. Except that, the way I feel now, we may stay a week.”

  “Where’re you going?”

  “San Diego. Clara’s aunt has a place there, on the beach. She’s in Europe.”

  “Have you got Leo’s house under surveillance?” I asked.

  “Naturally.”

  “Did you call the FBI?”

  “No.”

  I looked at him. “Why not?”

  “Because, if Leo should happen to be home, playing the part of the innocent industrialist, one of two things might happen. One, he might have an explanation for everything, which would make us look silly, especially if we’d called the FBI, our natural enemies. Or, two, we might get lucky and foil an assassination attempt single-handed. Which would make us heroes. Plus it would also confound the FBI, our natural enemies.”

  “I doubt that he’ll give us an explanation. More likely, he’ll refuse to give us an explanation, and start raising hell, and call his lawyer. He’ll try to run over us. That’s his style.”

  “A real honcho, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  We drove for a few moments in silence before Friedman ventured : “It’s too bad that you had to waste Howard. If he’d fingered Leo, we’d have our case, no sweat.”

  Remembering the sound of Howard’s head hitting the rocks, I didn’t reply.

  “I’m wondering how Howard fits into all of this,” Friedman said.

  “I think it’s obvious,” I answered. “He was a hired gun. He was probably hired to kill Castro. Then, when Booker uncovered the assassination plot, Howard was hired to kill Booker. Bill thinks Booker tried to blackmail Leo, threatening to blow the whistle on the plot. From what I know of Booker, I think it’s a pretty good theory.”

  “How’d Alex get mixed up in all this?”

  “Alex overheard Booker and Leo talking about it—about something Leo and Rosten are ‘planning’ for today. That’s why Leo ordered Alex killed.”

  “I wonder whether Leo’s had time to hire another triggerman,” Friedman mused. He turned left on Twenty-fifth Avenue. In ten minutes, we would arrive at Sea Cliff.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Which is precisely the reason I think you should call the FBI. They should be interrogating Rosten right this minute. He’s the only real leverage we’ve got. We’ve got him dirty. He might talk. And, God knows, we need all the information we can get ”

  “It doesn’t sound like Rosten’s much of a talker,” Friedman. answered laconically.

  “Still, we’ve got to try.” I turned to him, saying heatedly, “You’re just being goddamn foolish, Pete, not calling the FBI. This private feud you’ve got going with them is going to cost you one of these days.”

  “Let’s see what happens at Leo’s house.”

  “But, Christ, minutes might count.”

  Amused, he glanced at me aside. “The older you get, the more you’re developing a talent for turning dramatic phrases, you know that? Some of them are a little trite, maybe. But, altogether, I think it’s a step in the right direction. When I first knew you, I thought you were a little too taciturn.”

  “And the older you get, the more stubborn you get.”

  “What time does Castro get in town, anyhow?” I asked truculently.

  “Eleven A.M.” Grimacing now, Friedman glanced at his watch. “Exactly eight and a half hours from now.”

  “What’s his schedule?”

  “He’s flying in from Dallas, on a commercial jet. He lands at eleven, like I said. He’ll have a press conference in the VIP lounge, which is supposed to end at eleven-thirty. From there, he drives to City Hall.”

  “Will there be a parade?”

  “No,” Friedman answered. “Just a motorcade. He’ll get off the Bayshore Freeway at Seventh Street, and travel down Bryant to the Embarcadero. He’ll drive through the Embarcadero Center and the Golden Gateway, and then go south on Montgomery Street, through the financial district. He’ll go west on California, then south on Polk Street. He’ll drive down Polk directly to the City Hall, where his honor will be waiting on the steps. As I understand it, they’ll have the blue carpet out—not the red. That’s because Castro’s a commie, as I get it.”

  “Will he have an open car?”

  “No. It won’t be a parade situation. He’s scheduled to travel at twenty-five miles an hour, once he gets off the freeway. Beginning at Montgomery a
nd California, the intersections will be held open for him. They don’t anticipate any crowds along the streets, though. Not until he gets to the Civic Center.”

  “What’s the rest of his day?”

  “The usual. Lunch at the Commonwealth Club, followed by a speech. An appearance at the Press Club, dinner at the Bohemian Club. It’s a pretty tight schedule. He hasn’t even booked rooms at a hotel. At ten forty-five, he leaves for Los Angeles, where he’ll spend the night.” He turned right on Lake Street.

  “If he’s going to get killed,” I said, “it’ll probably be on his way from the airport, or at City Hall.”

  “Right.” He turned left on Thirty-second Avenue. “My main concern is City Hall. The mayor will say his standard few words on the steps, and Castro will probably say several words. There’ll be a crowd. Maybe an unfriendly crowd. Or, at least, there’ll be protesters. Which will make a confusing situation. Which I don’t like.”

  We passed through the two brick pillars that marked the entrance to Sea Cliff, one of the city’s most pretentious subdivisions. Built on the highlands overlooking San Francisco Bay and situated on the seaward side of the Golden Gate narrows, Sea Cliff was a part of the ocean’s shoreline panorama. Here, the nights were always foggy. The fog smelled of salt and water and the pungent odor of marine life.

  I pointed to a large two-story brick house, checked the address Friedman had scrawled on an envelope and said, “There it is—Leo’s house.”