Twospot

by Bill Pronzini

  “What’s your name?” I asked the second man.

  “Diebenkorn, sir.” He said it sheepishly, as if the sound of his name embarrassed him.

  “Well, Diebenkorn, you’re my communications man.” I ordered him to park his unit directly in front of the building. As I was hastily outlining Friedman’s situation and coordinating communications channels, I saw Canelli entering the lobby, followed by six inspectors. All seven men were big and burly, momentarily evoking the incongruous image of seven football linemen dressed in business suits, shouldering their way through the doors toward bruising action on an imaginary line of scrimmage.

  “Come over here—” I gestured for them to follow me into the farthest corner of the lobby, where they assembled around me in a loose circle. It was another football-style image: the huddle, everyone waiting for signals. As I handed out the lapel buttons Friedman had given me, I gave the orders.

  “I don’t know how much Canelli told you,” I said, “but here’s the situation. For those of you who don’t know, Castro is landing at the airport in about twenty minutes, maybe less. He’s scheduled to drive in a motorcade through the Golden Gateway and the financial district to here”—I gestured toward the lobby doors and the plaza beyond—“the City Hall steps, where the mayor’ll welcome him. Now, Lieutenant Friedman is in charge of municipal security, and he and I have good reason to think that, somewhere in this building, there’s someone who’s going to try and kill Castro, probably when the mayor’s welcoming him. So—”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning sharply, I faced a tall, stooped, sad-faced man with a long nose, a prim little mouth and ice-cold eyes. He was dressed like a banker—and held a small badge in the palm of his hand.

  “I’m Parsons,” he said. “FBI. What can I do for you?”

  I tried to explain the situation while my men shifted restlessly around me. At my elbow, Canelli was muttering something unintelligible. As I talked, Parsons frowned disapprovingly.

  “I haven’t got anything on this,” he said. “I just talked to Mr. Brautigan. Just a few minutes ago. And he had no problems to report.”

  “Well, Lieutenant Friedman and I have been working with Brautigan all morning,” I said. “And half the night, too. And believe me, there’s a problem. Have you got this building secure?”

  Holding his chin disdainfully high, Parsons nodded. “We were here at eight, when the doors opened.”

  “How many men do you have?”

  “Three,” he answered. “Including myself. We checked packages —anything big enough to hold a rifle, or rifle parts. All deliveries to the building have been impounded.”

  “What about the offices facing City Hall? Are they evacuated?”

  Parsons sighed. “We’ve checked them out. But they aren’t evacuated. Those weren’t my orders.”

  “Do you mind if I have them evacuated?”

  Nostrils pinched, mouth pursed, he said, “This building is my responsibility, Lieutenant. The FBI’s responsibility. I’ll have to check with my office before I can let you evacuate those offices. And, frankly, unless Mr. Brautigan has gotten some new information in the last minute or two, I doubt if he’ll issue the orders. I’d be glad to try. But—”

  “Christ, I’m giving you new information right now. Right this minute.” I looked at my watch. “And, right about now, Castro is landing at the airport. He could be here in a half hour, for God’s sake.”

  He stepped back, glancing speculatively toward a phone booth. I moved toward him. Looking him hard in the eye, I dropped my voice as I said, “Listen, Parsons. While you’re phoning Brautigan, I’m going to check out the offices for anything suspicious. I won’t evacuate them. I’ll just check them. I’m going to assign two men to each floor, beginning at the twelfth floor.” Still holding his eye I said, “We’ve gone to a lot of trouble over this, Parsons. Including myself, I’ve got ten men here, solely on my authority. And I, personally, have lost a night’s sleep. So I’m sure as hell not going to walk away from it. And you can tell Brautigan that. For me.”

  Still with his chin high, neck stiff, he shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “Are there any empty offices?” I asked. “Or any locked up?”

  “Five or six empty, I’d say, and a few locked up. All of which, incidentally, we checked out. In fact—” He permitted himself a small grimace that could have been a smile. “In fact, we checked out everything but the ladies’ room.” He reached in a vast pocket and produced a set of four keys, which he extended to me with thumb and forefinger fastidiously pinched. “There are the master keys. One key is for the office doors. One’s for the cleaning closet on each floor. The other two are bathroom keys.”

  As I turned to my men, I felt another tap on my shoulder.

  “Don’t forget to return those keys to me. They’re my responsibility, you know.”

  I assigned my six men to the three top floors, ordering each team of two to check every third floor. Canelli and I, meanwhile, would investigate the locked offices, beginning at the top floor. We would coordinate our communications through Diebenkorn, outside. While the six men dispersed, I waited in the lobby until Parsons called Brautigan, at FBI headquarters. During the conversation I saw Parsons’s face become increasingly glum. Finally, hanging up, he turned to me and curtly announced that he’d been instructed to “cooperate” with me. Trying to conceal the satisfaction I felt, I ordered him and his men to secure the lobby. Canelli, meanwhile, was holding an elevator for me. Going up to the twelfth floor, the elevator ride seemed interminable.

  “This is a pretty old elevator,” Canelli said. “Fifteen years, I bet. At least.”

  When we finally stepped out into the twelfth-floor corridor, a team of inspectors was already at work, briefly questioning each person they found in every occupied office. Canelli and I momentarily hesitated, getting our bearings.

  “How about the cleaning closet?” Canelli asked, gesturing to a pair of small blind doors set next to a door marked “Stairs.” “Should we check that?”

  “Why not?” I stepped to the first of the small twin doors and tried each of my four keys, without success.

  “I, ah, don’t think that’s the cleaning closet, Lieutenant. I think that’s, ah, probably for the electrical panel. There’s one for every floor. For the lights, and the elevator relays, and like that.” As he always did whenever he corrected me, Canelli spoke softly, apologetically. Beneath his scruffy car coat, he was probably sweating.

  As I was opening the matching door on a jumble of mops and pushbrooms, Canelli walked quickly down the hallway, rattling office doors. The time was ten minutes after eleven. As we searched the empty offices I repeatedly called Diebenkorn, checking on Castro’s progress. The motorcade was now approximately two miles north of the airport, Diebenkorn reported, proceeding toward the city.

  We’d worked our way down to the seventh floor when my walkie-talkie crackled to life. I could hear Friedman’s voice, but the transmission was hopelessly garbled. A moment later Diebenkorn cut in.

  “Are you getting that, sir?”

  “No,” I answered shortly, “I’m not.”

  “It’s Lieutenant Friedman. He’s trying to contact you directly. There must be interference.”

  “Get the message, then, Diebenkorn,” I said sharply. “Get it and relay it to me.”

  “Yessir.”

  I was fitting key into a door marked “Vista Vacations” when Diebenkorn came back on the air. “Well, what’s he say?” I asked irritably. I’d decided Diebenkorn was an officer who couldn’t accept responsibility.

  “He says that he’s routing Castro around this building. But he can’t do anything about the ceremony on the steps of City Hall, he says. Because of the media. They’re going to televise the speeches, he says. So Castro won’t buy a change of schedule. Neither will the mayor. Or the FBI, either, because they don’t have a backup plan, I guess.”

  Swearing under my breath, I answered, “All right. Give him a roger. T
ell him that we haven’t found anything—that the building is about half searched.”

  “Yessir.”

  I slipped my walkie-talkie in my pocket and pushed open the “Vista Vacations” door. It was a small office, furnished with an oversized metal desk, a persimmon-colored plastic-covered couch and a matching armchair. Framed travel posters decorated the walls. A woven straw rug covered the floor, wall to wall.

  As we’d done before, Canelli checked the office itself while I opened the clothes closet and the door to a tiny alcove containing a mirror and washbasin.

  I’d just opened the lavatory door when I heard a sharp intake of breath. Whirling, I saw Canelli in a crouch, gun drawn, facing the metal desk.

  “Hey,” he said. “Hey. Come out of there. Slow and easy.”

  As I drew my own gun I saw a head of close-cut auburn hair rising form behind the desk. A face followed—a woman’s face.

  Shelly Jackson.

  24

  “Drop it,” Canelli grated. “Drop the goddamn gun.”

  As she slowly straightened I heard a heavy metallic thud as a pistol struck the carpeted floor behind the desk. Now she stood at her full height. Ignoring Canelli, she’d turned to face me. She wore a two-piece tweed dress. Her shoes were alligator, matching her purse. The silk scarf knotted at her throat was green, highlighting her eyes. She could have been dressed for lunch at the Fairmont. A small, ironic smile teased the comers of her provocatively shaped mouth. Her gray-green eyes mocked me with cool, controlled contempt.

  “Drop that, too,” Canelli barked, stepping toward her. “Empty your hands. Put them on top of your head. Now.”

  Instead, she moved a single step toward the big window behind the desk. She raised her right hand, fingers spread—showing us an empty palm. She rotated the hand, for both of us to see. She was pantomiming a magician’s now-you-see-it- turn.

  Then she raised her closed hand to waist height. She took another slow, measured step toward the window. In the closed left hand she held something small and square, the shape and size of a cigarette package.

  “If he shoots,” she said to me, “he’ll blow up a lot of innocent people.” She spoke in a cold, flat voice. Her eyes had never left mine. Now she rotated her left hand, allowing me to see what she held. It was an ordinary electronic garage door opener. When she was sure I’d seen it, she half turned away, aiming the opener at the window.

  “There are bombs,” she said softly. “There are two bombs. And if you don’t do exactly as you’re told, I’ll explode them. Right now. With this.” She lifted the small plastic garage door opener.

  Cautiously moving between Shelly and the desk, with his revolver trained on the girl, Canelli stooped down behind the desk, reappearing with a blued-steel automatic in his hand. At a nod from me, Canelli retreated, holstered his gun and disarmed the automatic. The gun was a 9mm Browning, the best of its type. There’d been a cartridge in the chamber. The small knurled hammer had been cocked. She’d been ready to kill us.

  “You may as well put your gun away, too, Lieutenant. You aren’t going to shoot me.” Her eyes moved away from mine as she stared out the window. As she leaned on the window frame, her face was profiled against the glass. Dressed in her expensive brown tweed dress, with the silk scarf at ther throat, her pose was aloof, detached. She lowered the electronic opener until it angled down toward McAllister Street, then rotated it until it lined up on the City Hall steps.

  Her purpose was plain. She’d hidden explosive devices somewhere on Castro’s route, either on the street or at the City Hall steps. When Castro appeared, she’d explode the bombs. It was a common terrorist tactic.

  There was no rifleman. There’d never been a rifleman.

  I realized that I still stood in a muscle-locked, self-defensive crouch. I straightened and holstered my revolver. With my eyes, I gestured for Canelli to step back, giving her room. In the silence, I could hear the sounds of a crowd in the streets below. Shrill voices were shouting in unison: “Castro nunca, Castro nunca.”

  “It won’t work, Shelly,” I said. “We know the whole plan. We got it from Leo, an hour ago. We’ve had Castro’s car diverted. He taking another route. There won’t be a speech, either,” I lied.

  Still with her face averted, staring down into the street, she smiled. It was a detached smile, eerily serene. Seen in perfect profile, the smile softened her face. She was a beautiful woman.

  “Leo didn’t talk,” she said quietly. “Neither did Rosten.”

  I looked at my watch. The time was eleven-forty. In twenty minutes, bypassing the building, Castro would have arrived at the City Hall steps.

  During those twenty minutes words were my only weapon.

  “Why do you think we’re here, if Leo didn’t talk?”

  “You probably tricked him,” she answered. She spoke in a calm, reflective voice. “He might have let something slip, but he didn’t talk. Leo’s not really very smart. But he’s dedicated.”

  “The perfect tool. Is that it?”

  The small, curiously pensive smile returned. She nodded. “That’s it.” There was a short silence. Then, still looking down into the street, she said, “Has the motorcade really been diverted?”

  Suddenly I knew why she asked—and suddenly realized that I’d made a terrible mistake, telling her that the route was changed. The electronic opener probably couldn’t operate much beyond a hundred feet. Its signal probably couldn’t carry across the Plaza, to the City Hall steps. The bombs, then, were close by, probably in the street below. So when Castro bypassed the building and reached the City Hall steps, three hundred yards away, it would all be over. She’d be defeated, vulnerable. The advantage would be mine.

  But I shouldn’t have forewarned her—shouldn’t have surrendered the vital element of surprise.

  “Has it been diverted?” she asked sharply.

  “Yes.” Letting my eyes fall, I tried to put a note of duplicity in my voice—tried to make it sound like a desperate lie.

  Her face was still in profile. I saw her mouth tighten, and her eyes slightly narrow. Now she turned to face me fully, searching my face for the truth.

  “How many policemen are in the building?” she asked quietly. “Besides the FBI men?”

  “Just us. Canelli and I.”

  The ice-green eyes searched mine for a final moment. She was making her decision. She checked her watch, then again turned to look out the window. All the while, her thumb remained on the opener’s square plastic button.

  “We’ll give it ten minutes,” she said finally. “I’m waiting for a call.”

  “Who’s going to call you?”

  She didn’t reply. But now I could see the first signs of tension working at her face. Her jaw was tightly clenched. Beneath the smooth, creamy skin of her neck, muscles were drawing taut.

  “Are you worried about the getaway?’ I asked. ”Is that what the call’s about?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “If it’s Leo you’re waiting for,” I pressed, “forget it. He’s in custody. He told you so, on the phone—told you he was out of it.” I let a beat pass before I said, “Didn’t he?”

  Still she didn’t answer. Profiled against the window, her face was impassive.

  But now a muscle was jumping at the corner of her mouth. Her neck was corded.

  I moved a slow, cautious step toward her. I didn’t have a plan. Certainly I couldn’t wrestle the opener away from her before she pushed the button. But I wanted to be closer to her as I began probing for weakness:

  “How’d you get into this, Shelly? I can figure Leo. He’s a true believer. He’s the nut—the one with the wild eyes. There’s always one like him in an assassination. But you aren’t a true believer. And you’re certainly not a nut.”

  This time, her smile was genuine: a small, smug little smirk of pleasure. “No, I’m not a nut, Lieutenant. I’m a business person. I work for people who’ll pay me a lot of money for this job.”

  “Which people? R
ight-wingers?”

  The question amused her. “Right-wingers are amateurs,” she answered contemptuously. “And it’s the amateurs that cost you in this business. I tried to tell them—tried to warn them about Leo. But they wouldn’t listen. Not until he had Howard kill Booker. And then it was too late.”

  “Who’re they? Who’s paying you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Is it organized crime? Is that it?”

  Again she refused to answer. But the small smile widened almost imperceptibly.

  “Organized crime,” I said. “The Mafia. They hired you for the job. You found Leo, who’ll work for free. Then you turned up Mal Howard. He’s always been for sale.”

  Still she didn’t respond. But the truth was plain in her face. Years ago, the Mafia had vowed to kill Castro. And the Mafia never forgot. Castro had deprived them of their greatest prize: Cuba, crime capital of the world. For that, they’d promised, Castro would die.

  Here. In San Francisco. At the hands of a slim girl in a stylish tweed suit.

  Trying to get her talking, to find a wedge, I said, “I should’ve connected you with Mal Howard. You were both in Florida at the same time. Christ, it should’ve been obvious. He has a background in explosive devices, too. It all fits.”

  She nodded indifferently. My theorizing didn’t interest her.

  “You’re an enforcer,” I said. “A goddamn lady enforcer.”

  She glanced at me. Once more, the smile teased the provocative corners of her mouth. Finally she spoke.

  “You’re lucky there were two of you,” she said. “I would have shot one. But I couldn’t risk trying for both of you.”

  She’d started to talk. I must keep her talking.

  “Have you shot many people, Shelly?”

  “Not many.” As she spoke, she glanced sharply at ther watch. The time was ten minutes to twelve. She looked at the phone, still silent. The ten minutes she’d allowed herself were gone.