The Second Assassin

by Paul Christopher

  ‘How many ways in or out?’ Hennessy asked.

  ‘There’s lots of trails through the bush but as far as I know there’s only one actual road.’

  ‘He’ll find an out-of-the-way spot to park his motor car and then he’ll walk in,’ said Barry.

  ‘But the king and queen won’t be alone,’ Hennessy offered. ‘They’ll have cops all over the place at Val Kill as well.’

  ‘He’ll be there hours ahead of time, long before Their Majesties appear.’

  ‘Which means he’ll have to go to ground somewhere not too far away,’ said Jane. ‘Tonight. A hotel or a motor lodge.’

  ‘Why? He might go directly to his hide,’ Barry suggested.

  Jane shook her head. ‘Not likely. He’s off his home turf. It’ll be dark soon. Some guy stumbling over the Roosevelt estate shining a flashlight around is going to be pretty obvious.’

  ‘How many hotels do you think there are in the vicinity?’ asked Hennessy with a sigh.

  ‘Why don’t we find out?’ Jane said. ‘Get hold of Pelay and have him bring us up a Red Book.’

  ‘What’s a Red Book?’ Barry asked.

  ‘The Hotel Association puts it out every year. It’s like a telephone directory for hotels all over the country.’

  ‘Like an RAC Guide.’ The Scotland Yard detective nodded. When Jane looked confused, he explained, ‘Royal Automobile Club.’

  Hennessy made the call, the bell captain brought up the thick red-covered book and Jane flipped to the alphabetically listed section for New York. ‘It’s got to be Poughkeepsie,’ said Hennessy, looking over her shoulder. ‘It’s the only place within reach.’ There were three major and one minor hotel listed for the Hudson River town of forty thousand – Earles, with 55 rooms, the Kings Court with 150, Nelson House with 160 and the Poughkeepsie Inn with 120 rooms.

  Jane jotted down the names and addresses on a sheet of hotel stationery then walked Pelay back to the door.

  ‘Can you bring us up some sandwiches?’ she asked. ‘Corned beef, ham and cheese, that kind of thing? Put ’em in lunch bags. I think we’re going to be eating on the road.’ She led Pelay out the door and into the hall. ‘You want more beer too?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Maybe a few sodas.’

  ‘Sodas, okay. Coca-Cola.’

  ‘Great,’ Jane said, speaking quietly. ‘And one more thing.’

  ‘Sure, you bet.’

  ‘A gun.’

  Pelay looked shocked. ‘A gun, Janey? What for are you wanting such a thing?’ He was beginning to look very nervous.

  ‘I need a gun, to protect myself.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now. I’ll pick it up from you on the way out of the hotel.’

  ‘What kind of gun you want?’

  ‘Whatever you’ve got handy.’ She patted him on the cheek. ‘Just so long as it’s got bullets in it.’

  ‘Anything else while I’m at it?’ Pelay said, curling his lip. ‘You want maybe I get you a Tommy gun or something?’

  ‘No, but I will be needing a car.’

  ‘Whose car?’

  ‘Yours would do.’ Jane gave the little man her best smile. Pelay drove a brand-new, bright yellow Plymouth Roadking convertible coupé complete with whitewalls. It might as well have been a Lincoln or a Caddie for all the care and attention he gave it.

  ‘You want my car?’

  ‘It’s life or death. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask.’ She paused. ‘And I need that little camera I saw in Bill Hartery’s office.’ The house detective’s diminutive camera was a cheap little Univex Mercury, but it had a self-synchronizing flash unit.

  ‘You want me to steal Mr Hartery’s camera? Janey, you are stretching our friendship to its very limits.’

  ‘I told you, Pelay, it’s life or death.’ She grabbed a bit of cheek between her thumb and forefinger, tugging affectionately. ‘Do this for me and I won’t tell the guys at our next poker game about what the so-called countess from Montevideo said to me.’

  The blood drained from his face. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘All about it.’

  ‘I will fetch what you need.’

  ‘Good man.’ She pushed him gently down the hall and went back into the room, closing the door behind her. ‘What was that all about?’ Hennessy asked.

  ‘Pelay’s bringing us up some more sandwiches.’

  ‘Well that’s all fine and good,’ said Barry, ‘but I really think we have to address the situation at hand.’

  ‘Address it how?’ Hennessy asked. ‘Take it to Foxworth?’ The policeman snorted. ‘He wouldn’t give us the time of day. As far as he’s concerned our man’s floating out in the Flushing Bay somewhere, getting nibbled on by the fish.’

  ‘What about the bulletproof vest? The stolen cars?’ Barry asked.

  Hennessy shook his head. ‘Not enough. We can’t be absolutely sure of the vest and there’s no way to tie the stolen cars to our killer.’

  ‘I think the two of you should go up to Hyde Park tonight,’ said Jane. ‘Tommy here still has some clout. Maybe he can convince his Special Branch colleagues that we’ve got a problem. Maybe you can do the same with the Secret Service.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll go check out the parking lots of the hotels in Poughkeepsie. It’s a long shot but it’s worth a try. If I strike out at the hotels I’ll check out as many of the motor lodges as I can heading north. If I find one of the stolen numbers I’ll get word to you.’

  Hennessy’s eyebrows furled. ‘How?’

  ‘Call in to the Plaza every half hour. I’ll leave a number with the front desk if there’s any news.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of you running into the fellow on your own,’ said Barry.

  ‘I’m a big girl, Tommy. I can take care of myself.’ She offered up her best smile. ‘I promise I won’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ Hennessy grunted. He chewed on his lip for a moment. ‘Maybe the Limey’s right. Maybe one of us should go with you.’

  ‘I need a white knight to protect me. Is that it? And you’re nominating yourself?’

  ‘It’s a good idea, Jane, and you know it.’

  ‘No, Dan, it’s a bad idea. You wouldn’t get five yards into Hyde Park without Tommy’s Scotland Yard identification.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t he go by himself?’

  ‘I doubt he can drive one of our cars. For him it’s the wrong side of the road.’

  ‘Actually, both sides are the wrong side for me,’ Barry answered. ‘I never learned how to drive at all.’ He shrugged. ‘Not much point, living in London.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll teach you when this is all over,’ said Jane.

  ‘I’d like that.’ Barry smiled.

  ‘If you two’ve finished batting eyelashes at each other, maybe we can get this show on the road.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Jane. ‘Just as soon as Pelay brings the sandwiches.’

  * * *

  John Bone stood bare chested, looking into the mirror in the rear of the gunsmith’s shop. The quilted canvas-and-lead-plate FBI vest he’d worn was draped over the toilet seat a few feet away. Gently prodding with his fingers Bone tested the pain from the three dark bruises on his chest. One of the bullets had struck the vest just beneath the heart. The second had taken him in the left upper ribs, knocking the wind out of him and the third struck in the upper right chest dangerously close to the neckline of the vest. Had it struck flesh it would have wounded him badly, if not killed him outright.

  To the good, however, the shots had served to blow him off his feet and into the boat, sending it over the weir and downstream to safety. It had been a near thing, and after he had stolen the motor car from the parking lot by the pier, it had occurred to him that perhaps discretion really was the better part of valour in this particular case and the project should be abandoned. It would have been an easy enough thing to make a change of clothing, abandon the car he’d stolen and take the next train to Florida. Wit
hin twenty-four hours he could be back in Havana, or in Nassau, and from either destination he could vanish almost instantly, reappearing in any part of the world he chose.

  But instead he had decided to stay and complete his assignment, in which case he would collect the rest of his payment. He had known almost from the beginning that this would likely be his last major operation. Not only did he want to go into retirement on a successful note; he also wanted to go into retirement with as much money as possible. Moving through the gunsmith’s shop, gathering up what he needed to finish things, he decided that while the odds had swung slightly against him, they had not changed radically.

  By his calculations they now stood at approximately sixty–forty against. The element of surprise was gone and from this point on the royal couple would be even more closely protected. The time element had now been reduced and because of that so had the possible targeting opportunities. On the other hand, if it was assumed that he had been killed under the bridge, then the odds would swing tremendously in his favour, since there was no sense in taking precautions against an adversary who no longer existed.

  He checked the wristwatch he’d discovered in the bedside table in the back room upstairs. Seven thirty. The luggage he’d retrieved from the Gramercy the day following his takeover of Lavan’s shop was already in the trunk of the stolen Dodge, as were his small bag containing the handgun he’d decided on, an Austrian Steyr automatic, and detailed maps of the area around the Roosevelt estate he’d picked up in Washington in the event there was a problem at the fair. The silenced British DeLisle carbine, complete with a Leupold scope, was packed in a rifle case, leaning up against one of the display cases by the front door.

  Bone decided against taping the bruise on his side, even though he was reasonably sure at least one rib was cracked. The tape would restrict his movements and the pain was easier to endure than failing his mission tomorrow. He slipped on a fresh shirt, eased himself carefully into his suit jacket and out into the shop, turning off the light in the back room as he left.

  He scooped up the screwdriver he’d brought up from the shop, slipped it into the pocket of his jacket and then picked up the rifle case. He went out onto the deserted street, used Lavan’s ring of keys to lock the door behind him then poked the keys back through the mail slot in the door.

  That done, he took the rifle case to the car, put it into the trunk with the rest of his gear, then closed and locked the trunk. Stooping down, he took the screwdriver out of his pocket and used it to remove first the rear and then the front licence plates, which he then slipped into his jacket. Bone checked his watch again and then began strolling south down Crosby Street. He turned right on Canal, heading west, and eventually turned north again and into the Village, a man out for an evening stroll, enjoying the first cool breezes of the day.

  Bone found what he was looking for in a narrow passage between a shoe factory and a warehouse just off Le Roy Street: an old stake-sided delivery truck, obviously parked there for the night and completely out of sight. He went down the alley and within five minutes he’d removed the plates from the old truck and replaced them with the ones from the stolen Dodge. A half hour after that, with the truck licence plates on the car in front of Lavan’s, John Bone headed out of the city.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Saturday, June 10, 1939

  Hyde Park, New York

  Sir Alan Lascelles sat in the wing chair beside the window in the well-named Pink Room on the second floor of Springwood, President Roosevelt’s estate in the Hudson River Valley, and smoked a cigarette. Her Royal Highness had carried herself off to bed shortly following the disastrous and disastrously late dinner during which an entire service of Limoges china had been shattered when a serving table collapsed. The king was off with the Canadian prime minister chatting away happily about events of state. When Lascelles had left Roosevelt’s smoking room twenty minutes before they had been discussing their mutual distaste for the Russians and Lascelles, neither a diplomat nor a member of the Foreign Office, tactfully withdrew.

  In the royal household overhearing some conversations was decidedly unwise and could easily lead to banishment to some god-awful corner of the empire where it either never stopped raining or never rained at all. As the eldest daughter of the late viceroy of India, Lord Chelmsford, Lascelles’s poor wife, Joannie, had spent enough time in awful climates. At their age neither of them were up to a stint in someplace like British Guyana or the Ivory Coast. A chill ran down his spine at the very thought of it.

  He finished his cigarette and sat back in the comfortable chair, allowing himself to relax a little. There were only three events scheduled for tomorrow: church, a picnic and tea at the First Lady’s cottage at Val Kill. Roosevelt, bless his shrewd heart, had seen to it that their leave-taking from the United States would be without too much in the way of pomp and circumstance, sending them on their way with a minimum of fuss. Another few days and they’d be back aboard ship and on the way home. He smiled at that. Home – now didn’t that have a nice ring to it. A week or so of leave with Joan and the children at their country house in Dorset, without a single royal in sight – what a treat that would be!

  A knock at the door brought him out of his reverie.

  ‘Come in.’

  The door opened and Hugh Cameron, the king’s policeman, stepped into the room. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but there’re two men who’d like to see someone in authority.’

  Lascelles glanced at his wristwatch. It was almost ten. ‘Who are they and what do they want at this time of night?’

  ‘They’re policemen, sir. One of theirs and one of ours, so to speak. They say it’s extremely important.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Two Secret Service men are detaining them in the main hall downstairs, sir.’

  ‘I’ll come down,’ said Lascelles. Picking up his cigarette case and lighter he followed Cameron out of the room.

  * * *

  Jane was tired and she was running out of hotels. She’d checked the first three on the list, first looking through the parking lots and on the street, then going in and buttonholing the hotel night clerks, paving the way with a ten-spot each time. No white Dodge and no late check-ins that even came close to the description of the elusive Mr Green or whatever his name was.

  She turned off Main onto Market Street, then turned again onto Cannon, finding the Poughkeepsie Inn just a little off the corner. She parked the bright yellow Plymouth across from the hotel entrance, then climbed out of the car and went across the street. The parking area filled up the corner lot beside the six-storey brick hotel, lit by a pair of street lights. She felt her heart jump in her chest as she spotted a ghostly white Dodge parked at the back of the lot. Threading her way between the other vehicles she saw that it was a ’39, brand-new, just like the one stolen from the World’s Fair site. Reaching the car her spirits fell as she saw that the plates were all wrong. Instead of 3J 20 86 the plate on this car was T9 33 47. She let out a long breath and turned away. Time to start hitting the smaller places along 9A and State 9 itself, the old Post Road highway that was the main road to Hyde Park and Albany.

  She stopped in her tracks and turned back to the big coupé as the realisation hit her. The Dodge couldn’t have that plate number because all licence plates in New York State had a number–letter pair at the beginning except for trucks, which always started with the letter T. She walked back to the Dodge, took a careful look around to make sure no one was watching her and bent down to check the plate. Sure enough there were fresh scratches around the screw holes on the rear plate. She didn’t even bother with the front plate. She knew she’d hit pay dirt. Tom Barry was sure the killer was Irish and it was a pretty sure bet that only someone from New York would know about that small peculiarity with the licence plates. If he’d chosen a car instead of a truck she would have missed it.

  Standing up, Jane headed back to the sidewalk, feeling the weight of the small Brazilian copy of a Germa
n Walther that Pelay had given her along with the car. She had no idea where he’d got it from and the little man had offered up no explanations. Reaching the sidewalk Jane stopped, adjusting the heavy bag on her shoulder. She checked her watch. It was just past ten.

  The smart money said she should go into the lobby of the hotel, get a bunch of change from the night clerk and use a pay phone to make a trunk call to the Plaza and leave a message at the desk there. She had no business bearding lions in their dens and even less business getting too close to a man who’d already killed several people, including an FBI agent, and by her definition was at least partly the reason her first true love had been murdered and then dumped in a New Jersey ditch like so much garbage.

  ‘Well, screw the smart money,’ she whispered angrily under her breath. This was her fight and her story as much as it was any man’s and she was goddamned if she was going to give it all up now with a pretty little curtsy and go stand on the sidelines while the men played the Green Hornet and Kato from the serials. One way or the other she was going to put the finger on this guy and make him real instead of some sort of ghost. Ghost or not, according to Tommy he’d taken three shots to the chest. Even though he’d had a bulletproof vest on, he would definitely have a bruise or two.

  She looked down at herself. Blue cardigan over a pleated white silk dress, blue linen shoes and no hat. She looked more like she was going off to play a round of golf than hunting down a killer but at least she didn’t look like a broad on the make. She adjusted the heavy bag on her shoulder and went into the hotel. The lobby was long and narrow, leading to the elevators, the carpet inevitably red. The reservation desk was on the left and a pair of double doors led into the restaurant-bar. The sign over the doors read The Henry Hudson Room and a sandwich board on the floor announced the piano stylings of ‘Gloves’ McGinty. The fuzzy eight-by-ten pasted onto the poster showed a leering man in his seventies holding up a pair of long-fingered hands encased in white gloves. What a gimmick. Jane headed for the reservation desk and a young clerk with a poor complexion who reminded her of Ricky, the soda jerk back at Walgreens.