She was standing in front of the American flag, wearing a mannish gray suit and a stoic expression. And she wasn’t alone.
I shut the door and crossed to the desk. From where he was sitting sprawled on a creased leather sofa, Alex Cappellani watched me with dullish eyes. He looked as if he had been thrown there — legs splayed out, arms propped up at loose angles on the sofa’s armrest and back. Raggedy Andy. If he had slept much last night, his face belied the fact; the grayish pallor and the ostrich look were worse than they had been yesterday.
Mrs. Cappellani said, “Thank you for coming,” without inflection and without moving.
“Sure.” I looked over at Alex. “When did the police let you go?”
“Late last night,” he said. His voice was as dull as his eyes. “That lieutenant, Hastings, gave me permission to come up here.”
“Have they found out anything new?”
“From me? God, I told you and I told Hastings everything I know yesterday at Virginia’s place.”
“So you still haven’t remembered where you heard the word Twospot before?”
He shook his head loosely.
“And the police haven’t learned anything on their own about Howard or who hired him?”
“No. Howard died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”
Mrs. Cappellani came forward a couple of steps and said to me, “How efficient is this man Hastings?”
“Pretty efficient,” I said.
“Then you feel he and his people will find out who is behind Jason’s murder and the attempts on Alex’s life.”
“Eventually, yes.”
“Eventually,” she said. “And in the meantime?”
“Pardon?”
“Someone clearly wants my son dead, for whatever incredible reason. He doesn’t know; I’ve spoken to him at length and I’m convinced of that.” She was talking as if we were the only two people in the room, as if Alex were somewhere else. “That someone has tried twice to kill him or have him killed; it’s reasonable to assume that there will be a third attempt.”
“Maybe,” I said. “And maybe not. Two failures might have scared off whoever it is.”
She was silent. But her eyes said she was worried about a third attempt and she did not want any hollow reassurances from me to the contrary. I glanced at Alex. He was plenty worried about it too, you could see that plainly enough. Fear glistened like pinpoints of light in his pupils.
“Look, Mrs. Cappellani,” I said, “I can understand and I can sympathize with your concern. But if you asked me up here as an investigator, I’m going to have to turn you down. There’s nothing I can do. Even if the San Francisco police would sanction my involvement in a murder case, which they wouldn’t, I don’t have any facilities for—”
She cut me off with an impatient slicing gesture. “I’m well aware of that,” she said, “and I did not bring you here to undertake a private investigation. Nor do I particularly want advice from you.”
“Then why am I here, Mrs. Cappellani?”
“I want to hire you to act as Alex’s bodyguard.”
“Bodyguard,” I said. But sure, it figured.
“I want you to go everywhere he goes, live with him, stay at his side twenty-four hours a day.”
“Uh-huh. For how long?”
“Until the person behind this madness is caught.”
“That might be a long time,” I said, and thought but didn’t add: And it might be never.
“I realize that.”
“It could also cost you a substantial amount of money.”
“I do not give a damn,” she said stiffly, “how much it costs. This is my son’s life we’re discussing here.”
“I wasn’t trying to be insensitive, Mrs. Cappellani; I was only stating a fact.” I shifted my gaze to Alex again. “How do you feel about this?”
“I don’t like it much,” he said. “But I’m scared and I don’t mind admitting it. Good and scared.”
I nodded and said nothing else. The two of them watched me, Alex expectantly, Mrs. Cappellani calculatingly. I swung away from them and walked across to the nearest of the bookshelves and scanned the titles while I did some thinking. Military history, political history, wines and winemaking; no fiction of any kind. There had not been much romanticism in Frank Cappellani’s soul, apparently; the same kind of no-nonsense practicality that his wife exhibited.
Behind me she said, “We’re waiting.”
I turned and came back to them. “I don’t carry a gun,” I said. “I don’t even own one. I don’t like them much.”
“I see. Which means you refuse to carry one even under special circumstances.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Then perhaps we should find someone else who will.”
Before I could say anything to that, Alex said, “No,” and got abruptly to his feet and came over to me. “Listen, will you take the job if you don’t have to carry a gun?”
I hesitated. The truth was, I did not care for personal bodyguard work. The responsibility was too great; if something happened in spite of my efforts, I would have to shoulder the blame — it would be on my conscience. Still, I was already mixed up in this business, I knew most of the people involved, I was curious about what lay behind it all, and I needed the damned money.
Mrs. Cappellani’s mouth had puckered up as if she were tasting lemons. “He isn’t interested,” she said to Alex, and there was disdain in her voice; now it was me she was talking around. “There’s no point in wasting any more time with him.”
Alex ignored her. To me he said. “I trust you. Christ knows, I need somebody to trust right now. And I watched you in the apartment yesterday, when that Howard character tried to break in. You know how to handle yourself in a tight situation, and you don’t need a gun to do it. Take the job, will you? For God’s sake.”
I let out a breath. He was like a frightened puppy, and how do you turn your back on a frightened puppy? I said, “I’ll have to make a telephone call first.”
“To whom?” From Mrs. Cappellani, acknowledging my presence again. She wanted me as badly as Alex did, I realized — either because he had convinced her earlier that I was the only man for the job, or for reasons of her own.
“You can listen in if you like. May I use your phone? It’s a longdistance call.”
“Of course.”
The thing was anchored on one side of the desk; I went over to it and picked up the handset. One of the two buttons marked “Open Line” was already depressed. I dialed the 415 area code for San Francisco and then the number of the Hall of Justice. Frank Hastings turned out to be in his office, despite the fact that it was Sunday, and he came on the line right away.
I told him where I was and why I was here and what I had been asked to do. “I wanted to check with you before I take the job,” I said. “If you have any objections I’ll back off.”
He thought it over for a couple of seconds. “Just bodyguard work, nothing else?”
“Right. If anything should come up that you’d be interested in, you’ll hear about it right away.”
“Go ahead, then.” He paused. “Just take it easy out in those vineyards this time. No more nighttime wrestling matches.”
I smiled a little. “Not if I can help it. Thanks, Frank.”
“Keep in touch,” he said.
I rang off and turned to look at Alex and Mrs. Cappellani. They were both staring at me, standing side by side.
“All right,” I said. “You’ve hired yourselves a bodyguard.”
15
Twenty minutes later, with money matters settled, Alex took me up to my room on the second floor rear, adjacent to his room. It was spacious but cluttered with the sort of old dark mismatched furniture that people replace individually with more modern fixtures, can’t bear to get rid of for sentimental reasons, and tuck away in guest rooms like this one. The windows overlooked the cellars and the pond and the green-and-brown vineyards beyond. There wasn’t a connecting door between the two rooms, but there was a connecting bathroom that amounted to the same thing.