Conrad leaps to his feet, runs to the balcony, stares down. Disbelief—astonishment. “You son of a bitch!”
Radford glances down over the edge as what’s left of the van is consumed in a conflagration.
Conrad is beside himself. Radford shoves him back inside. He shuts the glass doors and speaks:
“Now I’ll ask. Just once.”
Conrad walks away gathering his composure; he’s trying to think. Radford readies the nutcracker and begins to walk forward. Half the length of the room separates them.
Conrad says, “I’ve studied you inside and out. I memorized that file. I know you.”
He swings back in his pacing. Walks toward Radford—not hurrying, and not approaching too close. “You got brainwashed someplace between sniper school and coming back from Iraq. What happened, you get hypnotized by some Zen priest? You had a chance to kill those guys in the cafe the other night, but you wouldn’t do it. You had ’em dead to rights, you let ’em go. So you’re not going to kill me now—I’ve got no gun and anyhow I’m no use to you dead … You won’t shoot me in the back.”
And abruptly Conrad leaps to the door, yanks it open and dives through. Radford throws the nutcracker but it’s a fraction of an instant too late; it clatters against the closing door. Radford races to the door, picks up the nutcracker, exits on the run …
He races along the hall, looking every which way … And sees—a door sighing shut on its springs. Red sign above it: “EXIT.” Radford flings it open, plunges through …
He’s on a landing. The stairs go down several stories and he can hear the clattering sound of racing footsteps down there, Conrad fleeing toward the bottom, and Radford leaps down the stairs, half a flight at a bound, pursuing …
On the avenue the racket of fire and police sirens approaches the burning debris of what used to be Conrad’s van, as Conrad comes out of the building at the dead run, racing, reaches the bottom, crosses to an exterior door, exits …
Radford emerges from the back door just in time to see Conrad disappear around the far corner of the building. Radford gives chase, running full-tilt. Around two, then three sides of the building—and then just as Conrad runs out into the street, a police car and a fire engine arrive at the flaming wreckage of the van. Radford stops in cover—sees Conrad running across the street; sees two alert cops pile out of the police car … sees firemen start hosing the van fire … sees one of the cops look at the fleeing Conrad, and the other cop look straight this way, almost as if he’s looking at Radford but actually he’s just trying to see what Conrad’s running away from.
Radford reluctantly gives it up and slips back into the alley.
In Commander Clay’s office, Dr. Trong and his wife face Denise Clay. Dr. Trong is angry. Clay is impatient. “Doctor—Major—whatever, get to the bottom line. I’m busy here.”
“Bottom line, Commander, he couldn’t have done the second assassination because he was right in our kitchen eating breakfast.”
Mrs. Trong gives her husband a dry look.
Clay is stony. “Who’s going to believe that? They know you’re on his side.”
“I don’t care what they believe. I’m telling you to believe it.”
Clay nods. “I could buy him for the first one. But this second murder—it’s political and it’s organized … But he’s our only lead, and we’ve got to get him … If you’re telling the truth, you harbored a capital fugitive and you could do time as an accessory.”
“Not if he’s innocent, I won’t. And some people will have a lot of egg on their faces.”
Dickinson bursts in. “They spotted him …”
Dr. and Mrs. Trong hold their breath. Clay whips toward the door; Dickinson restrains her. “—And they lost him …”
Clay reacts—big exasperation—and Trong smiles at his wife, and she makes a face at him.
Outside a sporting goods store Radford parks his cycle and takes out the photo from Conrad’s apartment—the group photo of shooters, emphasizing Harry and the trophy. He takes it into the store and shows the picture to a saleswoman, asks questions, gets an answer: “Sure, I know that guy. Lives out on Highland …”
In Harry’s kitchen Anne talks on the phone with repressed fury. “It’s too far, that’s all. How many more wet operations are you people setting up?… I don’t care. Don’t talk to me like that. You find Damon. Find him right now and tell him either he calls me tonight or I go to the police.”
She hangs it up violently and that’s when she looks around and sees Radford, standing frighteningly near her.
“‘Wet operations’—I thought that one went out with the Iron Curtain.”
Anne tries to shrink away. Radford moves in on her. “Or is it what you do under the covers with guys you’re setting up for a frame?”
“C.W.—I didn’t know. Oh God, how can I explain this? They just wanted your fingerprints on the rifle. They said they were going to give you a head start.”
Radford whips the nutcracker around her throat.
“Head start to where?… Where’s Harry?”
She doesn’t comprehend. “Who?”
He whips out the now-crumpled photo of the gun-club group and shoves it in front of her, forcing her to look at it.
“Your husband.”
Anne goes weak. “He’s not my husband. And his name’s not Harry.”
“This is his house. You live here.”
“I—I got a divorce. From my fourth husband. I had no place to go. I never really had any kind of a home—you know? He offered, and I moved in here with him—I never meant to stay.”
“They sicced you on me. I was the perfect sucker, wasn’t I?”
“C.W., I—” She’s very scared. “What do you want?”
Radford taps the photograph. “For openers—him.”
After nightfall behind his gun shop Harry is showing a sleek new limousine to a customer in a chauffeur’s uniform who looks like a bodyguard for a crime boss. “Yes sir, state-of-the-art. Three eighths-inch Teflon armor plate.” He moves around, pointing out features on the new luxury limo. Not far away is parked an older limo. “All bulletproof glass. Not just the windows. Even the mirrors.”
Radford watches this, from concealment in a doorway down the alley. He’s got Anne, not gently; he holds one hand around her mouth.
Harry kicks a tire. “Bullet-proof steel cord in the sidewalls and tread. I’m tellin’ you it’ll take an anti-tank bazooka to stop this mother.”
The customer says, “Okay … When?”
“She’s all gassed up. I’m just waiting on that upholstery. Be in tomorrow, for sure Friday.”
“Well then you call me and I’ll come pay the balance. Right?”
“Right. Sure. You got it, my man.”
The customer goes to the older limo and drives away while Harry takes the keys out of the new limo’s ignition and pockets them—Radford particularly notices this action—and then Harry goes into the shop’s back door.
Radford, carrying the nutcracker, pulls Anne with him, approaching the same door.
Inside the gun shop Harry crosses to the front window. He pulls back a slat of the blind to peer suspiciously out into the night, cupping his hand around his eye to see better.
Out there a police patrol car slowly cruises forward.
Harry lets the blind fall back into place and turns, and that’s when he sees—Radford, looming, moving silently forward—almost on top of Harry—nutcracker lifted … Harry reacts: recognition; dread …
Two cops are in the slow-moving patrol car. The cop in the passenger seat sees something, switches on the car’s swivel spotlight and swings the beam around until it reveals—a motorcycle parked in the deep shadows of the alley.
“Hey.” Softly.
The car stops. The cops get out and approach the motorcycle, with flashlights. One whispers to the other with suppressed excitement: “We got it! Put in a squeal!”