“So?”
“One thing about Kendig—he’s meticulous, he’s orderly. If he started writing this book on South-worth paper he’ll probably finish it on Southworth paper. Now he bought a hundred sheets and he bought carbon paper. That’s enough to write fifty originals and make fifty carbons. Not enough to finish that book of his, is it. Not unless he had more of the stuff in his luggage. But if he had more of it why make a special stop just to buy it in Norfolk?”
Ross began to see. His eyes widened a little.
“He was low on paper,” Cutter said, “so he bought a packet in Norfolk. But it wasn’t enough to finish the book. So he’s got to buy paper again.”
Ross made a face. “I get what you mean now. But how many places are there in this country that sell typing paper?”
“We can rule out places that don’t sell South-worth, can’t we. So we start with Southworth. We find out who wholesales for them. We go through the wholesalers, find out which stores they supply with bond paper.”
“That’s still got to be thousands of stores.”
“All right. It’s a lot of phone calls. But that kind of mindless legwork—that’s what the FBI has a talent for.”
– 12 –
HE WAS KEYED up and rather enjoying it. They ought to be getting close by now. Kendig had dropped enough clues for them but if they’d allowed their brains to rust on the assumption that their computers would take care of everything then they wouldn’t be within a thousand miles of him. But he didn’t think Joe Cutter had it in him to succumb that way. They’d be a while yet because they wouldn’t take the easy straightforward course even if one was available. Byzantium was in their blood: they would twist and contort, they would set snares within mazes. But they would be along.
For seven years, off and on, he had worked with Cutter and played poker with him. It was possible that no one knew anyone as well as he knew a regular poker opponent. The intimacy of his relationship with Cutter had been something far closer than family and perhaps closer than husband and wife: they knew each other’s shadings, excellences, vulnerabilities—and differences.
Cutter was not so coldly mechanical as he pretended to be but nevertheless Cutter was logical in the procedures of his intellect: a percentage player. You could bluff him out of a good hand if he decided the pot odds weren’t good enough; you could rely on him not to play a wild hunch; he bluffed often enough but he did it with calculation. Kendig relied more on instincts and talents and he had the advantage of flexibility but Cutter had qualities of relentless thoroughness. His ruthlessness included the ability to act with purposeful unpredictability; you couldn’t count on him to plod along a prearranged path with his nose to the ground—Cutter was high-voltage; he had the spark to jump across gaps.
He could show up any time now.
Kendig made his preparations in the evenings after each day’s typing hours. He had bought two identical suitcases in Birmingham and he cut one of them apart and used it to make a false bottom inside the other. Manuscript and part of his cash would go into the hiding place; the rest of the cash remained in wallet and canvas money belt.
He had a tripwire along the rutted driveway up from the road; if man or car approached it would break a thread and the old cowbell would fall to the porch.
But he needed a second exit. It could have been done in a number of ways; he took advantage of regional resources. It was white lightning country and the backhill bootleggers were numerous, their stills concealed everywhere in the piney woods. He’d spent part of every day in the pines along the county road, watching their comings and goings—mostly by night. There was one mountain-dew outfit that ran three tankers in and out: a ’57 Oldsmobile, a ’64 Chevy and a ’59 Ford Fairlane. The still was a mile and a half back off the county road and he hadn’t tried going up the driveway; they’d have it under surveillance twenty-four hours a day if not booby-trapped. But he’d had a look at the operation from the high country through 8x Zeiss glasses; it was about a four mile cross-country walk from his clapboard. They had at least three back-road exits that he could see from his vantage point; some of them probably went many miles before they gave out onto a main road somewhere. But the local law was indifferent and maybe the district federal office was in the moonshiners’ pockets; at any rate the tankers had been using the front driveway in and out for as long as Kendig had been keeping tabs on them.
It would do; and the time for it was tonight.
At four in the afternoon he took page 243 out of the typewriter and hid the manuscript and drove down to the village. He bought groceries enough to last a solitary man two weeks. He bought a Vise-Grip wrench and then he put everything in the car and waited by the telephone booth until two minutes before five and dialed the New York number direct.
– 13 –
BOTH TELEPHONE BOOTHS had OUT OF ORDER placards on them. Ross motioned Ives into the first one at 4:55 and stepped into the adjoining booth. “Operator?”
“Yes sir. I’m all ready to institute your trace as soon as we get a ring on that line.”
“Fine.” Then he turned on the tape recorder and waited.
Ives obeyed instructions: he let it ring four times and then picked it up. Ross picked up simultaneously, watching Ives through the double glass.
“Hello?”
“Deposit eighty-five cents, please.”
The money bonged distantly; then Ives spoke: “Kendig?”
“Did our publishers go the price, Mr. Ives?”
“Yes. I’m happy to say I’ve got a sweet batch of contracts for you. In fact I even managed to—”
“Never mind, I’m in a hurry. Just answer my questions yes or no. Did those people from Washington get back to you again?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell them the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Have all the publishers received the fifty-one pages? No sidetracked manuscripts?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Are they listening in on this call right now?”
“Yes.”
Ross gritted his teeth.
Then he heard Kendig laugh. “That’s fine, Mr. Ives. I’ll be in touch again.”
Click.
Ross tapped the cradle. “Operator? Operator?”
“Yes sir. We couldn’t trace the individual phone I’m afraid—there wasn’t time. But we’ve got the area code and we might have the town for you in a few minutes.”
“What’s the area code? Where was it?”
“Georgia, sir.”
Ross grinned. It was all fitting together now.
– 14 –
HE SLIPPED THE pump attendant ten dollars before the pump started running; the man grinned conspiratorially, topped Kendig’s tank and filled the five-gallon jerrycan in the trunk. When Kendig drove out of the station the kid was watching him go; the kid would remember him well enough and that was part of his intention.
He drove half an hour up the asphalt; he stopped the car about a quarter mile short of the bootleggers’ gate and hid the five-gallon can of gasoline in the trees. Then he drove on past the moonshinery to his own overgrown driveway; unhooked the trip-wire, drove in, reset the wire, drove up to the house and lugged the groceries inside.
He diced a steak and cut up a pepper and an onion and a banana, threaded the pieces on skewers he fashioned of wire coat-hangers and marinated the kebab in a sauce he compounded of half a dozen ingredients; he boiled up some brown rice and then fried it while the kebab was broiling. He made a salad of spinach greens and sliced tomato and segments of mandarin orange. The only thing he didn’t include was wine; he’d need a clear head tonight.