Twospot

by Bill Pronzini

  “This isn’t going to work,” Friedman said, pushing the bell for the fourth time. “Either no one’s home, or no one’s answering.”

  “Push it again. Keep your finger on it.”

  Yawning, he leaned heavily against a porch pillar and did as I asked. A full minute passed before I saw an oblong of light fall on a hallway wall at the top of the big central stairway. A bedroom door had opened.

  “Someone’s coming,” I said. But it was another two minutes before I saw a muff-slippered foot appear on the upstairs landing. The foot moved hesitantly beneath a richly embroidered blue dressing gown. Another foot followed the first. An angle of the upstairs wall contrived to reveal first a skirt, then a woman’s torso, finally her full figure. With the dim reflected light behind her, she stood at the head of the stairs, looking down at us. I took my shield case from my pocket and held my badge against the door’s single pane of glass. At the same time, Friedman rang the bell again. I saw her squint as she stared down at the badge. Finally, with one hand at her breast and one hand gathering the gown together midway down her thigh, she began descending the stairs one slow, reluctant step at a time. Underneath the embroidered blue dressing gown, her nightdress was frothy white lace. Her dark hair fell loose around her shoulders.

  “Good-looking woman,” Friedman said. “Leo’s wife?”

  “I don’t know.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, still fifteen feet from the front door, she stopped.

  “What d’you want?” she called. Clutching the robe with both hands, she evoked the classic image of the threatened female: eyes wide, mouth soft and uncertain, head held rigidly on a taut neck, bosom rapidly rising and falling. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing’s happened,” I said. “We just want to talk to you. Let us in. I don’t want to shout.”

  One slow step at a time, she approached the door, closely examining my badge. Even without makeup, she was a striking woman. The swell of her breasts was full and firm. Her shoulders were wide, self-confidently set. Her mouth was generous, her eyes large and luminous beneath gracefully arched brows.

  But she was frightened. Badly frightened. Fear was plain in the fixity of her stare, and the pallor of her face, and the small, uncertain movements of her hands and mouth.

  Friedman stepped forward. “Are you Mrs. Leo Cappellani?”

  She nodded: one slow, tight inclination of her handsome head. The muscles of her neck were corded. Still clutching the robe, her hand was knuckle-white.

  “Let us in, Mrs. Cappellani,” Friedman ordered. “We’ve got to talk to your husband.”

  She began shaking her head in short, unnatural arcs. “Leo’s not here.”

  “Then we want to talk to you.” As he spoke, light from the house next door fell across the Cappellani porch. “Open the door,” Friedman grated. “Now.”

  Her head moved sharply aside, as if he’d struck at her. The quick, spontaneous response suggested an abused wife’s reaction. A moment later I heard a click and a chain rattle. As we entered the house, she retreated before us. Again she moved as if she expected us to abuse her—and was resigned to it.

  “You look like you should sit down, Mrs. Cappellani.” Friedman took her elbow and turned her firmly toward a darkened living room. “Let’s go in here.” He switched on a lamp and gestured her to a seat on the sofa. Still moving with strangely nerveless submission, as if she’d surrendered her will, she obeyed him. She sat in the exact center of a large velvet sofa. She looked like an unhappy little girl waiting for someone to come into the room and punish her.

  “Where’s your husband?” I asked. “He left the winery between ten and eleven. He told his mother he was coming here, to his home.” I spoke in a flat, hard voice, making the question an accusation.

  “He didn’t come home,” she answered. “He’s not here.” Her voice was totally uninflected: a dull, dead monotone. Her eyes, too, were dead.

  “Has he phoned you tonight?”

  “No, he hasn’t phoned.” Her embroidered robe had fallen open across her thighs, revealing a froth of white nightgown lace. She tried to close the robe with one hand and couldn’t. When she used her other hand, the robe parted at the top, revealing the swell of her breasts. Defeated, she tremulously caught her breath as she struggled with the robe.

  “What’s the matter, Mrs. Cappellani?” Friedman asked.

  Head bowed, she didn’t answer. Slowly, hopelessly, she began to shake her head.

  “You’re very upset,” Friedman said, speaking quietly and reasonably. “It’s obvious. And it’s got something to do with Leo, hasn’t it?”

  “He’s in trouble. That’s why you’re here. Because he’s in trouble.” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. Suddenly she let the robe fall away as she clasped her hands in her lap. She sat staring helplessly down at her hands.

  “Leo had Jason Booker killed,” I said. “You suspected that, didn’t you?”

  “I—I thought so. I heard him talking—saying strange things on the phone. And he—he acted strangely, too. He’d done something terrible. It was in his eyes.”

  “He tried to have his brother killed, too. He tried three times. Thursday, Saturday, and again tonight. He ordered Paul Rosten to kill Alex, tonight.”

  “Paul Rosten is—” She let her voice trail off. Still bowed over her clasped hands, she again moved her head slowly from side to side. She could have been a penitent, atoning for some terrible sin. “He’s mad, I think. Paul’s a little mad. I can see it deep in his eyes, sometimes. But Leo’s not mad. Leo—he’s fallen from grace. He’s wicked and cruel. He’s done terrible things, and he believes in terrible, godless laws. But he’s not mad. Not like Paul.”

  “Do you know what Leo’s planning to do in just a few hours, Mrs. Cappellani?” Friedman asked. “Has he told you?”

  “Oh, no.” Almost primly, she denied it. “No, he wouldn’t tell me, because it’s wicked. What he’s planning is wicked. I know he’s planning something. And I know someone’s going to die. Someone very important. I—I listen to Leo, that’s why. And I watch his eyes. That’s how you learn about people, you know—by watching the eyes. Because the eyes are the windows of the soul. And, lately, I’ve seen something terrible in Leo’s eyes. It looks like a—a flower of evil, blooming in his eyes.” To herself, she secretly nodded. She was speaking very softly, in a small, shy, little girl’s voice. She was leaving us, retreating to some safe, secret place. “At first it was just a seed,” she murmured dreamily. “And then it was a bud, way down deep in his eyes. Then, one by one, the petals began to open—terrible, blood-red petals.” She looked up at me and said, “Most people, you know, think flowers are beautiful. But I know better. Flowers can be poison. They can be evil and terrible—with death at the center.”

  I exchanged a glance with Friedman, who raised his eyes to the ceiling and silently shook his head.

  “What kind of a car does your husband drive, Mrs. Cappellani ?” I asked.

  “He drives a Lincoln,” she said. “It’s a new Lincoln. Brandnew.”

  “What color is it?”

  “It’s silver. All silver, except for the top. That’s black. Like leather.”

  Friedman heaved himself to his feet. “Where is he, Mrs. Cappellani? Do you know? Do you have any idea where he is—any idea at all? We’ve got to find him. And you’ve got to help us. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know that.” She raised her head, looking up at us each in turn, with wide innocent eyes. I wondered what she thought she saw in my eyes. Was it a flower? “You’re good men,” she said finally, nodding to me, then to Friedman. “You’re good men. I can see that. I know that.” As she said it, she lowered her head, staring down at her tightly clenched hands. “I know that,” she whispered. “And Leo knows it, too. That’s why he’s running away from you. Because the evil must always flee from the good.”

  “Then where is he?” I urged. “Tell us.”

  “There’s a girl. Her name is L
ynda Foster. Leo doesn’t know that I know about her. But I do. That’s where Leo stays, sometimes. With her.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “On Potrero Hill, I think. Close to the top. She has an apartment with a view. It costs him three hundred dollars a month. Plus utilities.”

  We left her on the couch, bowed over her clasped hands. Her lips were moving soundlessly. She could have been praying.

  20

  Friedman got out of the cruiser and looked balefully at the steep flight of stairs leading up to Lynda Foster’s apartment.

  “These goddamn hill dwellers,” he groaned. “For a view, they kill themselves. Us, too.”

  Potrero Hill had always been the working man’s Telegraph Hill, overlooking the warehouses and factories and switchyards of San Francisco’s industrial area. Behind a confusion of railroad tracks and corrugated iron buildings towered the enormous cranes and gantries of the city’s shipyards. The Bay was beyond, with the Oakland hills in the background. In recent years the real estate boom had burst over Potrero Hill. The old, tired houses had been bought by speculators, skillfully cut up into tastefully decorated apartments and rented as view property at inflated prices.

  “Come on,” I said, leading the way. “It’s three-fifteen, for God’s sake. We’ve got to find him.”

  Friedman groaned again, and began heavily climbing the stairs.

  “Do you think one of us should be covering the back?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Probably,” Friedman gasped, laboring behind me. “Except that I don’t think there is a back. Not on this hill.”

  When I finally reached the upper landing and rang the bell, I was secretly gratified to see Friedman stopped midway up the last flight of stairs. He was holding to the railing, heavily panting and helplessly shaking his head.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “Sweet Jesus.”

  As he said it, a light came on inside the apartment. With a peony-printed sheet wrapped around her, a girl was coming quickly toward me down a short, cluttered hallway. She moved easily, eagerly. She was expecting someone—but not the police. I watched her stop short when she saw my stranger’s face, then watched her mouth come open when she saw my badge. She was a tall, slim girl with sharp features and a leggy, lithe figure under the sheet.

  “Just a minute,” she called through the door. “Wait a minute.” She quickly retraced her steps, disappearing into a rear room. A moment later she reappeared, this time wrapped in a Japanese kimono. After a brief, noisy struggle with a nightchain and a deadbolt, she wrenched the door open.

  “Miss Foster? Lynda Foster?”

  “Right.” She nodded decisively, tossing her hair in a loose blond whirl around her face. “What is it? What’s happened?” It was a quick, avid question. She was looking for excitement.

  “Nothing’s happened. Are you alone?”

  “Sure.” Her dark, lively eyes darted between Friedman and me as she mischievously smiled. “Why?”

  I decided to gamble: “But you were expecting Leo Cappellani. Weren’t you?” As I asked the question, I stepped into the hallway, followed by Friedman. With the door closed, the three of us touched the walls as we stood facing each other. My foot struck something that tipped. Glancing down, I saw a shallow pan filled with kitty litter. Most of the litter had spilled on the floor.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “That’s all right. It happens all the time,” she said cheerfully. “Are you looking for Leo?”

  “Why do you think we’re looking for Leo?” Friedman asked.

  “Because that’s what you seem to be doing. Looking for Leo.”

  “Is he here?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Has he been here tonight?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you expecting him?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? What time is it, anyhow?”

  “About three-thirty.”

  “Then I’m probably not expecting him.”

  “Do you mind if we look around?”

  “Not if you don’t mind telling me why you’re looking,” she answered promptly.

  “I’m afraid we do mind, though,” Friedman said, moving past her. “Regulations, you know.”

  I helped Lynda Foster clean up the kitty litter while Friedman searched the apartment. Five minutes later we climbed back inside the cruiser. I checked in with Communications while Friedman sat glumly behind the steering wheel, rubbing his eyes.

  “What do you think about Lynda?” I asked.

  “I think she’s exactly what she seems,” he answered. “She’s an aging flower child who’s getting smart enough to let men with money pay the rent and buy her pretty things.”

  “Maybe we should have interrogated her more—”

  “Interrogations take time,” he answered wearily. “And we don’t have much. I don’t think she can help us. Besides, Leo’s wife convinced me.”

  “Convinced you of what?”

  “Convinced me that he’s going to try to kill Castro. It all makes sense, when you think about it. Everything adds up. Booker found out about the plan and got himself killed for his trouble. And Alex almost got himself killed for the same reason.” His voice was hoarse with fatigue. Still digging his fingers into his eyes, he sat silently for a moment. Then he said, “I’m beginning to think that Leo might just be as nutty as his nutty wife. Different nutty, of course—like Hitler was nutty, say. But still nutty. And it’s the nuts that do these assassinations. Like Leo and Rosten. They hire a triggerman—Mal Howard—and they’re in business. Or they get someone to do it for love, like Lee Harvey Oswald.” He started the engine, put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.

  “So what now?” I asked.

  “So now we find Leo. That silver Lincoln with the black leather top should simplify the problem. But first, we find an all-night gas station.”

  “Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

  “No. I’ve got to call the FBI. Our natural enemies.”

  After calling the FBI, Friedman and I stopped for ham and eggs at an all-night restaurant in the mission district. Milton Brautigan, the FBI’s local agent in charge, had promised that two agents would leave within the hour, on their way to interrogate Rosten. At four A.M., Friedman and I arrived at the Hall of Justice.

  “I’ve got to get a couple of hours’ sleep,” Friedman said as we rode up in the elevator to our office. “You’re going to have to cover for me. I’m sorry, but I’m out of gas. Wake me up, though, if something happens.”

  I waved a hand. “Sleep. Either we find him, or we don’t. If we don’t find him, and if Rosten doesn’t talk, there’s not much we can do. Not until Castro arrives, anyhow.”

  “I think we’ve got to call Chief Dwyer,” Friedman said. “We should do that now. And he should call the Commissioner. We can’t take the whole responsibility for this.”

  “Is that why you’re going to sleep?” I asked sourly. “So I’m the one who calls Dwyer at four in the morning?”

  Friedman smiled. It was an exhausted attempt at humor. Beneath dark stubble, his face was gray with fatigue. His eyes were lusterless. In the last hour, the lines of his face had deepened.

  “Go to sleep,” I said, pointing to the door marked Dormitory. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call him. Sleep.”

  At ten minutes to eight, Friedman knocked once on my office door and entered without being invited.

  “For those four hours’ sleep,” he said, sinking into my visitor’s chair, “many, many thanks.”

  “No problem. I slept a little myself, in fact. An hour, almost.”

  “I’m getting old,” Friedman said. “This is the first time it’s really hit me. Honest to God, for the first time in my life, tonight, I just—just ran out of gas.” He shook his head. “I’m getting old,” he repeated. “Too damn old for all this crap.”

  “You’re not getting old,” I said. “You’re getting fat. Too damn fat. It’s no wonder you get tired, carrying all that
extra weight around.”

  “Ah—now comes the lecture. For the four hours’ sleep, it turns out I got to hear a lecture.” He spoke with a Yiddish patois, burlesquing the ancient resignation of the race.

  “Look at the medical statistics. Look at the relationship between overweight and heart disease. Think of Clara, for God’s sake.”

  He shrugged. “If I didn’t eat so much, I wouldn’t be so amiable. And, next to Clara and my kids, you’re the one who’d suffer most, if I turned into a grouch.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re so amiable. Does Clara know?”

  “She knows.” He stretched, yawned, sat up straighter in the chair. “What’s happening? What’d Dwyer say?”

  “He said he’d talk to the Commissioner.”

  “That’s all? He didn’t think we should change Castro’s route, for instance? Or at least delay him at the airport for a half hour?”

  “I don’t think,” I answered slowly, “that Dwyer believes anyone who’s in the social register could commit murder.”

  Ruefully, Friedman guffawed. “You’re right,” he answered. “Sure as hell, you’re right. Also, as always, Dwyer is covering his ass. I knew he’d do it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He doesn’t want to get directly involved in the anti-assassination planning. That way, if something goes wrong, he’s got a patsy.”

  “You.”

  He smiled—then shrugged. “Me. Us. Take your choice.”

  “You.”

  Again, he yawned. “So what else has happened?”

  “There’s nothing from the FBI. And, so far, I haven’t got a license number for Leo’s Lincoln. It’s newly registered, and apparently it’s not in the computer yet. There won’t be anyone in Sacramento until nine o’clock, to run a manual check for us.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “I’ve got four teams in the field—one at Leo’s house, one at his office, one at his girlfriend’s and one at the Cappellani town house. Canelli’s coordinating all four teams. He’s at Leo’s office.”