Graves got in the car, slammed the door. To Lewis: `Let's go.'
`The apartment?'
`The apartment.'
Wright had taken a fashionable apartment in the hilly north-central section of San Diego, not far from the Cortez Hotel. His building looked out over the city and the harbour. At this hour people were leaving the apartment house, standing in front and waiting until the doorman brought their cars around from the underground garage. Graves had had some trouble getting used to that when he first came here. He was accustomed to the East, where people in cities walked to work or took public transportation. In California, everybody drove. Everybody.
Wright himself was an exception. He had a driver and a limousine. But then, Wright was always an exception, he thought.
Wright usually came out about 8:20. His girl for the night - one of five or six he saw with some frequency - preceded him by ten or fifteen minutes.
`There she is,' Lewis said.
Graves nodded. It was odd how you could yell Wright's irls. Even from across the street they co,zld be spotted instantly. Yet there was no particular physical type, no particular details of dress. They weren't professionals. But there was a certain quality about them, something blatantly erotic. They were the girls a man would choose if he wanted to be reassured. Graves watched this one, who wore a simple white dress and had very long legs, as she climbed into a Datsun sportscar and drove off.
`701 to 703,' he said, speaking into the intercom mounted on the dash.
There was a crackle of static. `703 here. I thought we could sleep in today.'
Graves ignored the complaint. `Red Datsun sportscar, convertible, California licence ZVW 348. Got it?'
`Got it. Out.'
A moment later, a Ford station wagon drove past them, and the driver gave them the high sign briefly. That was 703.
Graves slumped down in his seat, thinking. They had not bothered to interrogate Wright's girls in recent weeks. When they began, they had had dozens of interviews with the girls. Sometimes they had been straight interrogations; more often they were casually arranged meetings. In both cases the information was monotonously the same. John Wright was a nice and kind and generous and charming man. He was also nervous and definitely conservative. He sweated a lot, preferred the missionary style, kept the room dark, and always remained a little aloof.
Hardly valuable intelligence insight.
`Why do you want this one?' Lewis asked. And then he said, `Here comes the limo.'
A black Lincoln limousine pulled up in front of the apartment building. The chauffeur, George Marks, got out, buttoned his uniform jacket, and stood by the door of the passenger side.
Graves had never picked George up for questioning. It had seemed too risky. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake. But he could think of a hundred possible mistakes he had made, especially today. Especially when Wright was being arrested.
`Why are they going to arrest Wright?' Lewis asked. He hadn't got an answer on his previous question, so he was trying another.
Graves lit a cigarette. `Phelps is nervous.'
`But this computer-tapping business isn't enough -'
`Phelps is running scared just now. There's talk of closing down his division of Intelligence. In fact, the new Secretary is thinking of closing down all State Intelligence work.'
Lewis raised his eyebrows. `Where'd you hear that?'
Graves smiled. `I'm in Intelligence myself.'
Lewis glanced at him a moment, then looked back out the window. A man emerged from the apartment building - stocky, neatly dressed, moving purposefully.
`There's Wright,' Lewis said and started the engine of his car.
Graves had watched John Wright get into his limousine every morning for sixty-six days. He knew the routine welclass="underline" George opened the door and tipped his cap; Wright nodded to him, bent over at the waist, and slipped quickly into the back seat. George closed the door, paused to tug at his leather gloves, and walked around to the driver's side. In the back seat Wright stared straight ahead or opened his newspaper to read.
But this time John Wright stared across the street directly at Graves. And he continued to stare until the limousine moved off in the hot San Diego morning.
Lewis was now very good at following in San Diego traffic; he kept pace - three cars back. After a time Lewis said, `He was looking at you.'
`He certainly was.'.
`Do you think he's on to us?'
`Impossible,' Graves said. He thought of the closet in his apartment. He had five distinctly different suits in that closet, and he rotated them on different days. He thought of the three sedans and the four delivery trucks that the Department used for surveillance work. Different manufacturers, different colours, and a new licence plate every week. He had never parked in the same place, never waited for Wright in the same way. He had never presented Wright with a recognizable pattern.
`Impossible,' he said again.
And then Graves thought of himself. If he were Wright, would he discover that he was being followed? Even with all the precautions, the safeguards, the changes? He liked to think that he would.
And if he would, why not Wright?
`He's deviating,' Lewis said, nodding at the limousine. Graves saw that it was true. Normally on Wednesday mornings Wright went to Balboa Park, where he walked in the gardens, fed the pigeons, and relaxed. But he wasn't doing that today.
He was going downtown.
`Where's our other car?' Graves said.
Lewis picked up the car radio receiver. `701 to 702. Where are you?'
There was a hiss of static. "701, we're at Third and B, going downtown.'
Lewis glanced at Graves, who nodded.
`Very good, 702,' Lewis said, and clicked off.
The second car, the dry cleaning van, was running in advance of the limousine. That was standard procedure - one car tailing from the front, one from behind. In cities on really big jobs, they sometimes used four cars, working all around the suspect car. That made it impossible to lose the suspect. But Graves didn't want a four-car tail, and in any case Phelps would never have approved the expense.
The limousine went down Third to Avenue A, then turned left going west.
`702, you have him?F
'We still have him.'
Lewis followed the limousine as it went crosstown on A and stopped, pulling up in front of a warehouse. Lewis pulled to the kerb half a block behind. They watched as Wright got out and went inside.
Graves lit a cigarette, and they waited. But after only a minute or so, Wright reappeared and got back into his car. The limousine started off.
`Wonder what that was about?' Lewis said.
As they passed the warehouse, Graves read the lettering. He was surprised to find it wasn't a warehouse at all.
Containers of all sons
`Damned if I know,' Graves said. He made a note of the name and address in his notebook and then looked up at the street. The limousine was going north now. It went two blocks and turned left, then left again. It pulled up in front of another warehouse.
`It seems he's doing some shopping,' Lewis said.
`He's in the wrong part of town.'
`I'll drive past,' Lewis said, and continued smoothly past the warehouse and the parked limousine. Graves looked out of the corner of his eye. He saw George, the chauffeur, lighting a cigarette. He saw the large glass windows of the warehouse, which was also a salesroom of some kind. Inside he saw Wright standing at the counter receiving a package. In the window were displayed various shining pieces of laboratory equipment.
SANDERSON SCIENTIFIC EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLY
Serving Hospitals and Laboratories
Since 1953
Graves had to smile. Only in California would a date like 1953 seem proof of ageless service to the consumer. `We'll wait for him here,' he said, and Lewis pulled over at the end of the block and cut the engine.