I exchanged a glance with Friedman, who raised his eyes to the ceiling and silently shook his head.
“What kind of a car does your husband drive, Mrs. Cappellani?” I asked.
“He drives a Lincoln,” she said. “It’s a new Lincoln. Brand-new.”
“What color is it?”
“It’s silver. All silver, except for the top. That’s black. Like leather.”
Friedman heaved himself to his feet. “Where is he, Mrs. Cappellani? Do you know? Do you have any idea where he is — any idea at all? We’ve got to find him. And you’ve got to help us. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know that.” She raised her head, looking up at us each in turn, with wide innocent eyes. I wondered what she thought she saw in my eyes. Was it a flower? “You’re good men,” she said finally, nodding to me, then to Friedman. “You’re good men. I can see that. I know that.” As she said it, she lowered her head, staring down at her tightly clenched hands. “I know that,” she whispered. “And Leo knows it, too. That’s why he’s running away from you. Because the evil must always flee from the good.”
“Then where is he?” I urged. “Tell us.”
“There’s a girl. Her name is Lynda Foster. Leo doesn’t know that I know about her. But I do. That’s where Leo stays, sometimes. With her.”
“Where does she live?”
“On Potrero Hill, I think. Close to the top. She has an apartment with a view. It costs him three hundred dollars a month. Plus utilities.”
We left her on the couch, bowed over her clasped hands. Her lips were moving soundlessly. She could have been praying.
20
Friedman got out of the cruiser and looked balefully at the steep flight of stairs leading up to Lynda Foster’s apartment.
“These goddamn hill dwellers,” he groaned. “For a view, they kill themselves. Us, too.”
Potrero Hill had always been the working man’s Telegraph Hill, overlooking the warehouses and factories and switchyards of San Francisco’s industrial area. Behind a confusion of railroad tracks and corrugated iron buildings towered the enormous cranes and gantries of the city’s shipyards. The Bay was beyond, with the Oakland hills in the background. In recent years the real estate boom had burst over Potrero Hill. The old, tired houses had been bought by speculators, skillfully cut up into tastefully decorated apartments and rented as view property at inflated prices.
“Come on,” I said, leading the way. “It’s three-fifteen, for God’s sake. We’ve got to find him.”
Friedman groaned again, and began heavily climbing the stairs.
“Do you think one of us should be covering the back?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Probably,” Friedman gasped, laboring behind me. “Except that I don’t think there is a back. Not on this hill.”
When I finally reached the upper landing and rang the bell, I was secretly gratified to see Friedman stopped midway up the last flight of stairs. He was holding to the railing, heavily panting and helplessly shaking his head.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Sweet Jesus.”
As he said it, a light came on inside the apartment. With a peony-printed sheet wrapped around her, a girl was coming quickly toward me down a short, cluttered hallway. She moved easily, eagerly. She was expecting someone — but not the police. I watched her stop short when she saw my stranger’s face, then watched her mouth come open when she saw my badge. She was a tall, slim girl with sharp features and a leggy, lithe figure under the sheet.
“Just a minute,” she called through the door. “Wait a minute.” She quickly retraced her steps, disappearing into a rear room. A moment later she reappeared, this time wrapped in a Japanese kimono. After a brief, noisy struggle with a nightchain and a deadbolt, she wrenched the door open.
“Miss Foster? Lynda Foster?”
“Right.” She nodded decisively, tossing her hair in a loose blond whirl around her face. “What is it? What’s happened?” It was a quick, avid question. She was looking for excitement.
“Nothing’s happened. Are you alone?”
“Sure.” Her dark, lively eyes darted between Friedman and me as she mischievously smiled. “Why?”
I decided to gamble: “But you were expecting Leo Cappellani. Weren’t you?” As I asked the question, I stepped into the hallway, followed by Friedman. With the door closed, the three of us touched the walls as we stood facing each other. My foot struck something that tipped. Glancing down, I saw a shallow pan filled with kitty litter. Most of the litter had spilled on the floor.
“Sorry,” I said.
“That’s all right. It happens all the time,” she said cheerfully. “Are you looking for Leo?”
“Why do you think we’re looking for Leo?” Friedman asked.
“Because that’s what you seem to be doing. Looking for Leo.”
“Is he here?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Has he been here tonight?”
“Nope.”
“Are you expecting him?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? What time is it, anyhow?”
“About three-thirty.”
“Then I’m probably not expecting him.”
“Do you mind if we look around?”
“Not if you don’t mind telling me why you’re looking,” she answered promptly.
“I’m afraid we do mind, though,” Friedman said, moving past her. “Regulations, you know.”
I helped Lynda Foster clean up the kitty litter while Friedman searched the apartment. Five minutes later we climbed back inside the cruiser. I checked in with Communications while Friedman sat glumly behind the steering wheel, rubbing his eyes.
“What do you think about Lynda?” I asked.
“I think she’s exactly what she seems,” he answered. “She’s an aging flower child who’s getting smart enough to let men with money pay the rent and buy her pretty things.”
“Maybe we should have interrogated her more—”
“Interrogations take time,” he answered wearily. “And we don’t have much. I don’t think she can help us. Besides, Leo’s wife convinced me.”
“Convinced you of what?”
“Convinced me that he’s going to try to kill Castro. It all makes sense, when you think about it. Everything adds up. Booker found out about the plan and got himself killed for his trouble. And Alex almost got himself killed for the same reason.” His voice was hoarse with fatigue. Still digging his fingers into his eyes, he sat silently for a moment. Then he said, “I’m beginning to think that Leo might just be as nutty as his nutty wife. Different nutty, of course — like Hitler was nutty, say. But still nutty. And it’s the nuts that do these assassinations. Like Leo and Rosten. They hire a triggerman — Mal Howard — and they’re in business. Or they get someone to do it for love, like Lee Harvey Oswald.” He started the engine, put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.
“So what now?” I asked.
“So now we find Leo. That silver Lincoln with the black leather top should simplify the problem. But first, we find an all-night gas station.”
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
“No. I’ve got to call the FBI. Our natural enemies.”
After calling the FBI, Friedman and I stopped for ham and eggs at an all-night restaurant in the mission district. Milton Brautigan, the FBI’s local agent in charge, had promised that two agents would leave within the hour, on their way to interrogate Rosten. At four A.M., Friedman and I arrived at the Hall of Justice.