Goodbye California

  ‘Fifteen months.’

  ‘So he may just have dropped out of the scene for that time?’

  ‘Sergeant Ryder, a man with the know-how can go underground for fifteen years in this nation and never surface once.’

  ‘He may not have been in the country. He could have a passport at home.’

  Dunne looked at him, nodded and made a note. ‘Washington checked out with the AEC at seventeen-seventeen H Street. They keep records there of those seeking information, those consulting card indices and dockets on nuclear facilities. No one had ever checked information on San Ruffino – there was none to check. I got Jablonsky out of bed over this one. He was reluctant to talk. Usual threatening noises from the FBI. Then he admitted they have advanced plans for building a fast breeder reactor there. This comes under AEC control. Top secret. No records.’

  ‘So Carlton’s our man?’

  ‘Yes. Not that that’s going to help much now that he’s holed up with Morro.’ Dunne consulted another paper. ‘You wanted a list of all the organized and – “successful”, I think you said – cranks, weirdos, eccentrics or whatever in the State. This is it. I think I said two hundred. Actually, it’s a hundred and thirty-five. Even so, I’m told it would take for ever to investigate them all. Besides, if this lot are as clever and organized as they seem to be, they’ll have an unbreakable cover.’

  ‘We can narrow it down. To start with, it’ll have to be a large group. Also, a comparatively new group, formed just for this purpose. Say within the past year.’

  ‘Numbers and dates.’ Resignedly, Dunne made another note. ‘Don’t mind how hard we have to work, do you? Next comes our friend Morro. Not surprisingly, nothing is known about him, as a man, a criminal with an eye-patch and damaged hands, to us or to the police authorities.’

  Jeff looked at his father. ‘Susan’s note. Remember she wrote “American?” American, question mark?’

  ‘And so she did. Well, Major, another little note if you please. Contact Interpol in Paris.’

  ‘So Interpol it is. Now the notes you took from Donahure. Easy – just meant waking up half the bank managers and tellers in the county. Local Bank of America. Drawn four days ago by a young woman with pebble-tinted glasses and long blonde hair.’

  ‘You mean twenty-twenty vision and a long blonde wig.’

  ‘Like enough. A Mrs Jean Hart, eight hundred Cromwell Ridge. There is a Mrs Jean Hart at that address. In her seventies, no account with that bank. Bank teller didn’t count notes – just handed over ten banded thousands.’

  ‘Which Donahure split up eight ways for eight banks. We’ll have to get his prints.’

  ‘We got them. One of my boys with the help of a friend of yours, a Sergeant Parker – who, like you, doesn’t seem to care overmuch for Donahure – got them from his office about three this morning.’

  ‘You have been busy.’

  ‘Not me. I just sit here running up phone bills. But I’ve had fourteen stout men and true working for me during the night – had to scrape the southern Californian barrel to get them. Anyway, we’ve got some lovely clear specimens of Donahure’s prints on those notes. More interestingly, we have some lovely clear specimens of LeWinter’s too.’

  ‘The paymaster. And how about the paymaster’s automatic?’

  ‘Nothing there. Not registered. Nothing suspicious in that – judges get threats all the time. Not used recently – film of dust in the barrel. Silencer probably a pointer to the type of man he is, but you can’t hang a man for that.’

  ‘The FBI file on him. Still reluctant to tell me about it?’

  ‘Not now I’m not. Nothing positive. Nothing very good either. Not known to associate with criminals. His open list of telephone numbers would appear to confirm that. From that list he would appear to know every politician and city hall boss in the State.’

  ‘And you said that he was not known to associate with criminals? What else?’

  ‘Both we and the police are dissatisfied with some – more than some – of the sentences he has been handing out over the past years.’ Dunne consulted a sheet before him. ‘Enemies of known cronies getting unduly stiff sentences: criminal associates of cronies – repeat, he himself has no direct criminal associates – getting light, sometimes ludicrously light, sentences.’

  ‘Pay-off?’

  ‘No proof, but what would you think? Anyway, he’s not as naïve as his minion Donahure. No local accounts under false names – none that we know of, anyway. But we monitor – without opening – his correspondence from time to time.’

  ‘You’re as bad as the KGB.’

  Dunne ignored this. ‘He gets occasional letters from Zurich. Never sends any, though. Keeps his tracks pretty well covered, does our judicial friend.’

  ‘Intermediaries feeding pay-offs into a numbered account?’

  ‘What else? No hope there. Swiss banks will only open up in the case of a convicted criminal.’

  ‘This copy of Ivanhoe that LeWinter had in his safe? And the coded notebook?’

  ‘Seems to be a mish-mash of telephone numbers, mainly in this State and Texas and what are beginning to look like meteorological reports. Making progress. At least Washington is. There are no specialized Russian cryptographers in California.’

  ‘Russian?’

  ‘Apparently. A simple variation – well, simple to them, I suppose – of a well-known Russian code. Reds lurking in the undergrowth again? Could mean anything, could mean nothing. Another reason, I suppose, for the keen interest being shown by the CIA. I should imagine, without actually knowing, that the bulk of Washington cryptographers are on the CIA’s payroll, one way or another.’

  ‘And LeWinter’s secretary is Russian. Russian descent, anyway. A cypher clerk?’

  ‘If this were any of a dozen countries in the world I’d have the fair Bettina in here and have the truth out of her in ten minutes. Unfortunately, this is not one of those dozen different countries.’ He paused. ‘And Donahure has – had – Russian rifles.’

  ‘Ah! The Kalashnikovs. Import permit –’

  ‘None. So officially there are none of those rifles in the country. The Pentagon do have some, but they’re not saying where they got them from. The British, I imagine – some captured IRA arms cache in Northern Ireland.’

  ‘And Donahure is, of course, a second generation Irishman.’

  ‘God, as if I haven’t got enough headaches!’ To illustrate just how many he had Dunne laid his forehead briefly on the palms of his hands then looked up. ‘Incidentally, what was Donahure looking for in your house?’

  ‘I’ve figured that out.’ Ryder didn’t seem to derive much satisfaction from the thought. ‘Just give me a lifetime and by the end of it I’ll add up two and two and come pretty close to the right answer. He didn’t come because Jeff and I hadn’t been too nice to his stake-out and deprived him of a lot of his personal property, including his spy-van; he’d never have dared connect himself with that. He didn’t come for the evidence I’d taken from San Ruffino because he didn’t know I’d taken any and, in the first place, he hadn’t even had time to go to San Ruffino. By the same token he didn’t have time to go to LeWinter’s for a search warrant either. He wouldn’t have dared to, anyway, for if he’d told LeWinter the real reason why he wanted the search warrant LeWinter might have considered him such a menace that he’d not only refuse such a warrant but might have had him eliminated altogether.’

  Dunne wasn’t looking quite so brisk and alert as when they had arrived. He said in complaint: ‘I told you I’ve got a headache.’

  ‘My guess is that a proper search of Donahure’s home or office would turn up a stack of warrants already signed and officially stamped by LeWinter. All Donahure had to do was to fill them in himself. I’d told him about the dossier I had on him. He’d come for that. So obvious that I missed it at the time. And I’d told him he was so bone-headed that he just had to be acting on his own. So he was, because it was something that concerned only him personal
ly.’

  ‘Of course it has to be that. The two of them might run for cover.’

  ‘Don’t think so. They don’t know the evidence is in our hands. Donahure, being a crook at heart, will automatically assume that only crooks would have stolen the money and the guns, and they wouldn’t be likely to advertise the fact. And I don’t think that LeWinter will run either. He’ll have been worried sick at first, especially at the thought of the stolen code-book and the fact that his fingerprints have been taken. But when he’s found out – if he hasn’t already found out – that the dreaded picture of himself and his accommodating secretary has not appeared in the Globe, he’ll have discreet enquiries made and find out that the two men who had come to photograph him were not employed on the Globe and he will come to the inevitable conclusion that they were blackmailers, perhaps out to block his appointment as Chief Justice to the State Supreme Court. You’ve said yourself he has powerful friends: by the same token such a man must also have powerful enemies. Whatever their reason, he won’t be scared of blackmailers. Blackmailers wouldn’t know a Russian code. True, fingerprints have been taken, but cops don’t wear hoods and take your prints in bed: they arrest you first. And he can take care of blackmailers. Californian law is ruthless towards that breed – and LeWinter is the law.’

  Jeff said in injured reproach: ‘You might have told me all this.’

  ‘I thought you understood.’

  ‘You’d all this figured in advance? Before you moved in on them?’ Dunne said. Ryder nodded. ‘Smarter than the average cop. Might even make the FBI. Any suggestions?’

  ‘A tap on LeWinter’s phone.’

  ‘Illegal. Congress is very uptight about tapping these days – chiefly, one supposes, because they’re terrified of having their own phones tapped. It’ll take an hour or two.’

  ‘You appreciate, of course, that this will be the second tap on his line.’

  ‘Second?’

  ‘Why do you think Sheriff Hartman’s dead?’

  ‘Because he’d talk? A new recruit, still not deeply involved, wanting to get out from under before it was too late?’

  ‘That, too. But how come he’s dead? Because Morro had LeWinter’s line tapped. I called the night telephone manager from LeWinter’s house to get Hartman’s address – he was unlisted, but that’s probably because he was fairly new to the area. Someone intercepted the call and got to Hartman before Jeff and I did. By the way, there’s no point in recovering the bullet that killed him. It was a dum-dum and would have been distorted out of recognition and further mangled on embedding itself in the brick wall. Ballistic experts are not wizards: you couldn’t hope to match up what’s left of that bullet with any gun barrel.’

  ‘“Someone”, you said?’

  ‘Perhaps Donahure – he was showing signs of coming to when we left him – or, just possibly, one of Donahure’s underworld connections. Raminoff wasn’t the only one.’

  ‘You gave your name over the phone?’

  ‘Had to – to get the information I wanted.’

  ‘So now Donahure knows you were in LeWinter’s house. So now LeWinter knows.’

  ‘No chance. To tell LeWinter that he’d have to tell him that he either had LeWinter’s phone tapped or knew that it was tapped. By the same token if my call to Aaron of the Examiner was tapped Donahure or whoever would still be unable to tell LeWinter. But unlikely that that second call was tapped – our eavesdropping friend would have taken off like a bat after he’d heard mention of Hartman’s name and address.’

  Dunne looked at him curiously – it might almost have been with respect. ‘To coin a phrase, you got all the angles figured.’

  ‘I wish I had. But I haven’t.’

  One of the desk-phones rang. Dunne listened in silence and his lips compressed as all trace of expression left his face. He nodded several times, said, ‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ and replaced the receiver. He looked at Ryder in silence.

  Without any particular inflection in tone, Ryder said: ‘I told you. I didn’t have all the angles figured. They’ve got Peggy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jeff’s chair crashed over backwards. He was on his feet, face almost instantly drained of colour. ‘Peggy! What’s happened to Peggy?’

  ‘They’ve taken her. As hostage.’

  ‘Hostage! But you promised us last night – so much for your damned FBI!’

  Dunne’s voice was quiet. ‘Two of the damned FBI, as you call them, were gunned down and are in hospital. One is on the critical list. Peggy, at least, is unharmed.’

  ‘Sit down, Jeff.’ Still no inflection in the voice. He looked at Dunne. ‘I’ve been told to lay off.’

  ‘Yes. Would you recognize the amethyst she wears on the little finger of her left hand?’ Dunne’s eyes were bitter. ‘Especially, they say, if it’s still attached to her little finger?’

  Jeff had just straightened his chair. He was still standing, both hands holding the back bar as if he intended to crush it. His voice was husky. ‘Good God, Dad! Don’t just sit there. It’s not – it’s not human. It’s Peggy! Peggy! We can’t stay here. Let’s leave now. We can be there in no time.’

  ‘Easy, Jeff, easy. Where in no time?’

  ‘San Diego.’

  Ryder allowed an edge of coolness to creep into his voice. Deliberately, he allowed it. ‘You’ll never make a cop until you learn to think like one. Peggy, San Diego – they’re just tangled up on the outside strand of the spider’s web. We’ve got to find the spider at the heart of the web. Find it and kill it. And it’s not in San Diego.’

  ‘I’ll go myself, then! You can’t stop me. If you want to sit around –’

  ‘Shut up!’ Dunne’s voice was as deliberately harsh as Ryder’s had been cool, but at once he spoke more gently. ‘Look, Jeff, we know she’s your sister. Your only sister, your kid sister. But San Diego’s no village lying out in the sticks – it’s the second biggest city in the State. Hundreds of cops, scores of trained detectives, FBI – all experts in this sort of man-hunt. You’re not an expert, you don’t even know the town. There’s probably upwards of a hundred men trying to find her right now. What could you hope to do that they can’t?’ Dunne’s tone became even more reasonable, more persuasive. ‘Your father’s right. Wouldn’t you rather go kill the spider at the heart of the web?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Jeff sat in his chair but the slight shaking of the hand showed that blind rage and fear for his sister still had him in their grip. ‘I suppose so. But why you, Dad? Why get at you through Peggy?’

  Dunne answered. ‘Because they’re afraid of him. Because they know his reputation, his resolution, the fact that he never gives up. Most of all they’re afraid of the fact that he’s operating outside the law. LeWinter, Donahure, Hartman – three cogs in their machine, four if you count Raminoff – and he gets to them all in a matter of hours. A man operating inside the law would never have got to any of them.’

  ‘Yes, but how did they –’

  ‘Simple with hindsight,’ Ryder said. ‘I said that Donahure would never dare tell I – we – were in LeWinter’s place. But he told whoever ordered him to fix the tap. Now that it’s too late I can see that Donahure is far too dumb to think of fixing a tap himself.’

  ‘Who’s the whoever?’

  ‘Just a voice on the phone, most likely. A link man. A link man to Morro. And I call Donahure dumb. What does that make me?’ He lit a Gauloise and gazed at the drifting smoke. ‘Good old Sergeant Ryder. All the angles figured.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Golden mornings are far from rare in the Golden State and this was one of them, still and clear and beautiful, the sun already hot in a deep-blue sky bereft of cloud. The view from the Sierras across the mist-streaked San Joaquin Valley to the sunlit peaks and valleys of the Coastal Range was quite breath-takingly lovely, a vista to warm the hearts of all but the very sick, the very near-sighted, the irredeemably misanthropical and, in this particular instance, those who were held prisoner behind th
e grim walls of the Adlerheim. In the last case, additionally, it had to be admitted that the view from the western battlement, high above the courtyard, was marred, psychologically if not actually, by the triple-stranded barbed wire fence with its further unseen deterrent of 2000 volts.

  Susan Ryder felt no uplift of the heart whatsoever. Nothing could ever make her anything less than beautiful, but she was pale and tired and the dusky blueness under her lower lids had not come from any bottle of eye-shadow. She had not slept except for a brief fifteen-minute period during the night from which she had woken with the profound conviction that something was far wrong, something more terrible than even their incarceration in that dreadful place. Susan, whose mother had been a Scot, had often, and only half-jokingly, claimed that she had the first sight, as distinct from the legendary second sight, inasmuch as she knew that something, somewhere, was terribly wrong at the moment it was happening and not that it was about to happen at some future time. She had awoken, in fact, at the moment when her daughter’s two FBI guards had been gunned down in San Diego. A heaviness of heart is as much a physical as a mental sensation, and she was at a loss to account for it. So much, she thought morosely, for her reputation as the cheerful, smiling extrovert, the sun who lit up any company in which she happened to find herself. She would have given the world to have a hand touch her arm and find herself looking into the infinitely reassuring face of her husband, to feel his rocklike presence by her side.